Chapter Text
How annoying. Dr. Jade Cawthorn thought to herself as she crumpled up another of the written requests from the directors asking her to expedite her experiments with Subject Z-13. She had just written a report yesterday as the last part of her shift, after giving the subject his routine check up… and yet here they were demanding that she speed up the process. The threats of defunding, or even demotion were empty on the directors end and Cawthorn knew it… after all finding any scientist with her skills would cost Urbanshade so much more money and time if they wanted proper results.
Does that fool not realize you can’t rush these kinds of tests?
Plopping down on the rolling desk chair in her own personal quarters, she let out an exhausted sigh and pulled her glasses off so she could rub the exhaustion from her eyes. Today was one of her days off, and yet here the jade eyed doctor was, still thinking about and stressing over her own work.
“I need a drink…” pushing her rolling chair from its desk to the little mini-fridge the doctor had set up in her quarters, Cawthorn opened it and pulled out a bottle of what was left of her prized Irish Whiskey. Making a mental reminder to put in a request for more for the next resource shipments come in, she went about getting a nice cup set up with ice and everything.
While nursing her glass of whiskey, the doctor pulled up her files on every iteration of the serum for project “Siren”... a name Cawthorn absolutely refused to acknowledge due to how illinformed it seemed to be on the director’s end… Though her proposal for the name being Merrow taken from the Irish version of a mermaid was shot down in favor of the more common pop cultural name. Regardless of the name, Cawthorn took to looking back over each iteration of the serum and the notes of all the results that came from each variant.
Does Cornelius not share these with the director? Cawthorn couldn’t help but think with a frown on her face, looking over the horribly bloody results of the first few failures. The memories of witnessing the subject’s bodies rapidly melting or violently exploding as their bodies reacted horribly to the rapid mutations made the jade eyed doctor have to take a hard shot from her whiskey glass. Many people, from previous subjects to her own fellow scientists thought of her as cold and emotionless… yet here she was, haunted by the horrific results of her own failures.
They were all criminals and test subjects who agreed to this testing… do not linger on that guilt Jade.
Taking a steadying breath, she flipped through the rest of her files until she got to her current subject, Sebastian Solace, subject Z-13… the youngest criminal to have haunted her examination tables, and perhaps one of the more annoying ones. Personality issues aside, he was currently her best success at the moment, and for that Cawthorn could stifle the guilt much better as she could still fix the more horrible mutations at a later date with Mr. Solace… the others would never even get the chance.
The slow approach is showing much better results then previous results… and it seems physically speaking the subject is able to handle the mutations better. That being said, I just need to adjust the second injection a little more once all the mutations have run their course to hopefully isolate the mutagenic property needed for only the gills and keep Mr. Solace from getting any worse..
“Now if only those greedy vultures at the top could take a moment and learn a thing or two about the value of patience.” Cawthorn sighed out loud, leaning heavily back in her chair while plopping the files she had down on her desk. Though she was the head doctor of the project, she knew that there were still people above her that had more power over her in the labs… but so long as she could maintain a decent enough work relationship with those people, they would easily let her get away with her methods and scientific approaches unimpeded.
The doctor could only frown as she took another sip of her prized whisky while planning out her next moves with Dr. Hampton and the current director for when she would be back on the clock tomorrow. Her old mentor was easy enough for her to work with… keep a professional air with him and keep every bit of venom she wanted to spew locked tightly away while working with the older man, and she was usually golden on that front. Then again if she were to believe his words at face value, Dr. Hampton probably also saw her as a surrogate child due to his own failings as a parent with his own son, and thus gave her special treatment as a result… but Cawthorn learned long ago to never trust the older man’s words at face value.
The director however was another case entirely. In the past 5 years she had been officially working as a leading scientist, the director spot had changed hands every few months… and yet no matter who they had been before there was always something off about each and everyone of them. They would all often be in the control rooms, or their office staring off into space yet somehow always aware of everything going on in the facility without a computer in front of them… A few times Cawthorn even swore she overheard each director talking to someone in their office only for them to be completely alone. It also didn’t help that every time Cawthorn had found herself actually talking to a director, there was a chill on her back as if someone else was in the room with them and listening to their conversations… hell sometimes she even saw the director’s tilting their heads as if someone was whispering in their ears. Still, despite that it was rather difficult at times to keep up with what worked in persuading each director… and it didn’t help that Cawthorn stopped bothering to remember the names of each Director with how fast they rotated through.
The only consistent thing is that if I keep Cornelius pleased with my work the Directors tend to look the other way…
A part of her always wondered how that could be possible and what secrets her old mentor held about Urbanshade in general to be able to hold as much sway as he did for the past 35 years he’d been head of Special Projects… yet from her own personal experiences of working in the labs to her own current project, Cawthorn didn’t want to risk sticking her neck out more than she already was. Hell it was a miracle she was even able to keep Mr. Solace as well taken care of as he was… Though it didn’t make up for the clear violations of human rights Urbanshade pushed onto all of their expendables like Mr. Solace.
Don’t go acting all self righteous now Jade… remember you’re a part of the problem. She mentally reminded herself as she took the final swig of her drink, attempting to numb away the guilt and all her anger towards her employers. As much as she was pissed about the lack of ethics, and clearly a non-existent ethics committee… she still choose to work here and she still chooses to stay.
Some childhood dreams eventually become living nightmares.
Deciding that she had spent more than enough time on one of her only days off for the week overthinking about work, Cawthorn refilled her glass and began walking it over to her personally built reading nook to finally try to wind down and genuinely start relaxing. Tracing a finger over the spines of each book lining one of the bookshelves that framed her cozy little recliner chair, she eventually stopped on one of the older classics of her collection, The King in Yellow.
I’ll read this for about an hour, then head down to the oxygen gardens. I believe it’s about time to give one of the Di Vine a little trimming this week. Their leaves have started to get caught in their own vines.
While most scientists needed special clearances to interact or study the Di Vine, Cawthorn found herself to be lucky enough to interact with them even on her days off. Perhaps it was due to her being one of the few that actually managed to plant one of the first ones grown in the gardens while she was still an assistant working under Dr. Hampton, perhaps it was due to her fondness of gardening, who knows for sure… but she was one of the few people who could interact with the grown instances of the Di Vine without them being hostile. Tending to the living plant creatures was always a rather meditative and relaxing pastime of hers for her days off.
A plan set, Cawthorn began reading her book and the existential horror of the first story began playing out in her mind as she turned each page and slowly sipped at her second glass of whiskey. The introduction of a snippet of the story’s play had the doctor actually pondering just what the full manuscript of the fictional banned play would have actually read or played out… It was easy for Cawthorn to even believe in the slow, consuming madness some of the more curious minded characters of the book would have to be affected by the King in Yellow.
Completely relaxed and distancing herself from her work that she would be picking up again tomorrow… that is until she was 40 pages into the anthology collection when a controlled knock echoed on her Private Quarter’s door.
I’m not expecting anyone to come visit me today… The doctor thought with a frown. Bookmarking the page she was on and adjusting her glasses slightly, the jade eyed woman stood up and made her way to the door.
Once the protective metal doors opened, Cawthorn came face to face with Dr. Hampton, who had his ever present charming smile on his wrinkled old face.
“Cornelius… to what do I owe this visit?” Cawthorn questioned immediately, after all Dr. Hampton never made personal visits unless there was something in it for himself.
“Oh? Dropping the doctor titles now are we Jade?” Hampton chuckled, his hands resting atop one another as he leaned on his cane.
“I’m off the clock, there’s no need to keep a professional image.”
“Ah, that makes sense now.” The older man laughed, his grey eyes filled with mirth but Cawthorn knew to still keep her guard up. Especially since he hadn’t stopped looking directly at her face.
He wants something… best to nip this in the bud. “Would you mind stepping in for a moment if you have something you need to talk about?”
“Always so perceptive Jade.” Without another word, the old doctor shuffled his way into Cawthorn’s private quarters as she had made way to allow him passage. The brown haired doctor couldn’t help but frown over the faint hollow tapping sound that Hampton’s cane made as he made his way in.
Why is he using his storage cane? There shouldn’t be any need for it to be used today…
“A little too early for a stiff drink, don’t you think?” Hampton’s joking tone cut through her thoughts, but caused Cawthorn to narrow her eyes behind her glasses while looking at him.
“I do believe I’m allowed to spend my time off however I wish Cornelius.” The green eyed doctor immediately retorted, crossing her arms as she watched her former mentor take a seat in her rolling chair. “Besides, we both know it doesn’t do anything to me.”
“An anomaly I still wish to study at some point.” The old doctor laughed, leaning back in the chair and rubbing at his right knee. “But that’s not what I’m here for… You have gotten Director Kaden’s memo correct?”
Ah… that’s the current director’s name I guess. “Another paper for the trash heap, my stance hasn’t changed at all Cornelius.”
“Yes, I’m aware of how bull-headed you can be when you truly want to Jade.” Dr. Hampton raised a hand and waved her off as he spoke. “I know you won’t budge at all… so I’m making the executive decision, as your superior, to assign you to a new test subject in the coming weeks.”
A flurry of emotions hit Cawthorn in rapid succession within the span of only a few seconds as she processed what the older doctor just told her. Confusion being first, after all her current test subject was still alive and responding well so there shouldn’t be a need for a new one so soon. Understanding followed shortly after, knowing how close her old mentor always seemed to be to every director that gets assigned down here. Anger hitting almost at the exact same time as her decisions and word on the project she’d been assigned to handle were completely being disregarded and ignored… And finally a dawning horror was the last thing to hit her as she looked dead into Dr. Hampton’s grey eyes.
“... what the hell did you do?”
“What you’ve been putting off doing my dear.” Hampton smiled, his ever present, disarming smile to those who knew nothing about him. “Mr. Shade himself was starting to get rather antsy at the lack of any updates regarding the experiments… We can’t afford to lose our CEO’s funding now can we?”
Cawthorn could only curse under her breath, marching past Hampton and hastily grabbing a pair of sweatpants to throw on over her short pajama pants, and a hair tie. All before rushing to grab her labcoat hanging near the door of her room.
“Oh? Got a little attached to Mr. Solace now have you?” Hampton’s bemused voice called out after her… and she knew better than to respond to him at the moment. Time was of the essence and if she was right about what the old doctor did, she needed to rush to her lab and get the prototype stabilizing agent stat in order to keep Subject Z-13’s heavy mutations from possibly killing the kid… as well as mobilizing the guards to transport whatever is left of the criminal to her lab and whatever scientist she could find in the labs to help her set everything up to properly monitor everything happening to Sebastian.
I am not losing another subject to gross incompetence.
…
Sebastian for once fully remembered being aware of the footsteps of the guards who would come to his cell and sedate him to bring to Dr. Cawthorn’s lab. For once he remembered the tear gas looking grenade that would be tossed in and the knock out gas he would choke on before blacking out for who knows how long. Sure for a couple months he had the privilege of being able to stay fully awake and aware while enroute to Cawthorn’s lab and check ups… but after the second injection that bastard did he’s not even surprised the guards would resort to the drugging methods again.
What Sebastian was surprised by was how… vaguely aware he was for the whole transport. Like he could hear things going on around him, sometimes even feel the not so gentle movements of what he assumed was a gurney of some kind… but he felt like he couldn’t wake up despite the outside stimuli.
There were voices speaking around him, yet he couldn’t understand what was being said. Not in its entirety as his mind only seemed to register every other word said… he didn’t even recognize any of the voices. Worse was the feeling of being prodded at, the prickling sensation of equipment being placed on him and needles being poked under his skin… or maybe it was nothing but those god damned scales now. God how he wanted to lash out at them… haven’t they already done enough shit to him? Now they were injecting him with more shit, and he wasn’t able to be fully conscious for it this time!
Just put me out of my misery at this point….
A voice seemed to bark out some commands… It kind of sounded like Dr. Cawthorn’s voice, and yet despite the months of pissing her off… Sebastian never heard her voice sound so genuinely angry before.
What finally tipped her over the edge? The mutated man thought as his mind slowly blacked out, though not before registering the feeling of small, cold hands on his arm and the sharp prick of a needle.
When Sebastian woke up, he found himself once again in Dr. Cawthorn’s lab, strapped down tight to the examination table and his whole body practically feeling like it was made of jello, while the worst fucking headache pounded behind his eyeballs. Hell when he opened his eyes it felt like the lights were trying to blind him from how bright they seemed, which only made the headache feel all the worse in the moment.
“You’re finally awake.” Dr. Cawthorn’s monotone voice hit his ear drums, a low tone he was thankful for as it didn’t cause a lot of pain… yet it brought Sebastian no comfort in the moment. When he turned his head ever so slightly to at least get a good look at the brown haired doctor he’d been dealing with for long periods of time… The first thing that came to Sebastian’s attention was how… less put together she seemed to be from usual. Her shirt wasn’t one of her usual turtlenecked sweaters and actually made Sebastian think of all the sleep shirts Sam loved to wear though lacking any band logo or any identifiable design at all, the Doctor’s usual nice and neat bun she would wear in her hair now looked much more sloppy and rushed with strands of her wavy hair hanging loose… and her green eyes behind her oval glasses looked more exhausted then he’s ever seen them.
When Sebastian opened his mouth wanting to tell the doctor how she almost sounded relieved that he wasn’t actually dead… yet the words never came as the dryness of his throat blocked out whatever attempts to speak he made.
“Speaking may be an issue… you’ve been unconscious for the last 36 hours.” Sebastian’s eyes widened at the Doctor’s words as the coughing fit had ended while she spoke. “I’ve already called for one of the guards to bring a pitcher of water… you may need it for the conversation ahead.”
What the fuck is there to talk about? The fact that bastard succeeded in fucking me over more then you already have? Sebastian thought, glaring at the green eyed doctor as she pulled her glasses off and began wiping at them.
“Hey doc I got the water you asked for!” The voice of the guard Sheldon called out from the direction of the door, and it made Sebastian almost want to completely recoil away if the bindings on his person didn’t prevent that. The guard seemed to have bleached his hair recently with how bright blonde it seemed to be… and the man was looking at Sebastian with a pitying look. “So uh… Sebby’s gonna be okay right doc? Like he’s not gonna be wanting like human flesh or to like murder everyone right? Cuz-”
“That will be all Guardsman Castello.” Cawthorn interrupted, adjusting her glasses and taking the water pitcher from the guard’s hands. “You may return to your regular patrol duties now.”
“But-”
“Now, before I report you to your superiors for not following orders.”
“... Can I at least know my buddy’s going to be okay?”
I’M NOT YOUR FUCKING BUDDY! Sebastian wanted to shout, but only managed a disturbing, inhuman hiss that made him almost want to break down again from the horrible sound that rang behind his ear fins. Hell the look of actual surprise on Sheldon’s stupid face made it clear just how fucked up it sounded… while Doctor Cawthorn on the other hand remained as unimpressed and unfazed as usual.
“From that response alone, I can assure you that Subject… That Mr. Solace is going to be fine.” Sebastian felt his fins twitch in surprise at hearing the doctor call him by his name… well last name, but still surprising considering how the mutated man was convinced that Dr. Cawthorn was allergic to calling him anything but “Subject Z-13” or anything similar.
“... Alright if you say so Doc.” Sheldon looked a little dejected as he avoided looking at either Cawthorn or Sebastian.
“You are Dismissed.” The freckle faced doctor ordered, watching the young guardsman make his way to the exit before speaking again. “Oh and Guardsman Castello… do remember your training and refrain from getting attached to any expendable or test subject going forward.”
Sebastian couldn’t see what kind of reaction the annoying guard was making, and he couldn’t even fathom a guess from the doctor’s expressionless face. The only thing Sebastian could pick up was that the guard finally left and the door to the lab closed as soon as he did, leaving the mutated man and the doctor who started this whole damn nightmare alone together again.
“... I suppose I should begin the conversation with how I’m no longer going to be the primary doctor working with you going forward.”
Sebastian’s fins twitched at the doctor’s words, a raspy “What” managed to croak it’s way out of his dry throat.
“Dr. Hampton has seen fit to assign me to another subject after he… blatantly sped up the date of your second injection.” There was a small twitch in the doctor’s brow when she paused for a moment… it actually surprised Sebastian a little as he could almost swear she wanted to say something else but held back. “As such, I will no longer be in charge nor have any say of whatever tests or experiments they see fit to put you through going forward.”
Sebastian swore his heart stopped. As much as he hated Dr. Cawthorn… from his brief instance in dealing with the old bastard doctor, and Cawthorn’s comments about other scientists she would make here and there from his past check ups, he knew that she was probably the most reasonable out of all the scientists down here… and in a twisted sense was the only one he probably trusted most in this hell hole.
“However, after pointing out many flaws in the higher ups' reasoning and arguing, it has been decided that I will remain your primary physician in a sense. Seeing as I’ve been keeping track of every physical change and a close eye on your baseline vitals, I will be giving physical examinations after every test going forward… and should any other mutations occur. Though much less frequently than what we’ve had over these last few months.”
Cawthorn’s words didn’t soothe the mutated man’s fears at all. Then again she was never much of a soothing presence in general for Sebastian to begin with. Her matter of fact way of speaking only hammered in every horrible change he went through… and sometimes he wondered if she was some kind of robot with how little her face emoted.
“... You will also be moved to a different cell as your current one is too small to house you now.”
Sebastian could only remain quiet, his throat still dry and sore that talking felt more like a chore than anything else, as Cawthorn explained to him some new security measures being put into place to deal with him… and at some point she did offer him some water but he almost swore she was trying to drown him with the pitcher as she just poured it over his face instead of releasing the restraints on one arm to do it himself.
“THE FUCK WAS THAT?!” Sebastian shouted the moment Cawthorn stopped pouring the water over him. “ARE YOU TRYING TO FUCKING KILL ME?!”
“You’re mostly fish now, a little water isn’t going to kill you.”
Sebastian snarled glaring at the brown haired doctor as she didn’t even flinch to his threat display… then again her gaze didn’t seem to be focused on his face at the moment.
“... It seems the muscles in your new tail have at least developed enough for you to move it now.”
Even if Sebastian was able to sit up out of the restraints he was in… he really didn’t want to look. He remembered the lump of flesh and scales his legs had become… and hearing Dr. Cawthorn call it a tail made him think he’d been turned into some fucked up mermaid… and he wanted to keep it like that in his mind rather then see the actual process he’s been subjected to.
“... For what little it’s worth at this point… I am sorry.”
Sebastian’s attention immediately snapped back to the doctor in that moment, a laugh filled with disbelief and a bubbling anger made itself known the very moment his eyes, his fucked up, mutated eyes focused on the ever impassive looking doctor. Still stone faced and looking down at him through her glasses.
“You’re fucking sorry?! SORRY?!” the sound of something swishing and the feel of something moving around where he would have felt his feet if his body was still normal was wholly ignored in the mutated man’s anger.
“You were never meant to get mutated this far…”
“Well whoopdy fucking do here we are! All fucked up and ready for a god damned monster movie!”
“A horrible miscalculation and gross negligence on my end that it’s gotten this far.”
Sebastian laughed, a hysterical sounding thing, as he felt his vision begin to blur as he continued to laugh. This was all just some sick, twisted joke at this point. How could he not laugh?
“Dr. Cawthorn are you alright?” an unknown voice called from the direction of the door… probably a guard, probably a fellow scientist, Sebastian didn’t care.
“... Quite alright…” Cawthorn’s voice sounded quieter than usual, or perhaps his own laughter just dampened the sounds. Who knew? Sebastian certainly didn’t, he was too busy breaking down.
Whoever it was at the door seemed to say something, but the mutated man didn’t care to pay attention as at some point his laughter turned into nearly hiccuping sobs.
He wasn’t even fully aware when he was once again knocked out, but only realized it when he heard a door slam and through bleary eyes he found himself not in his old cell… but in a brand new one that he woke up on the floor of.
From Sebastian’s perspective it was about the same size as his old cell… yet remembering the growth he went through and Cawthorn’s own words he knew everything was actually bigger then his old one… though it seemed like the bed wasn’t completely sized up like the rest of the room. It might have been a bit bigger than his old cell’s bed for all he knew, but from the feeling of his… his tail he had to guess, being on the floor while his torso rested uncomfortably on the plank like bed, it was pretty evident he no longer fully fit on the damned thing.
Shifting to sit up, Sebastian immediately had to stop as the feeling of nausea hit him and he could feel the bile at the back of his throat. The lure that had grown out of his head soon invaded his vision as he leaned himself over the side of his new bed. Breathing hard and trying to keep from puking his guts up again and slapping one of his clawed hands over his mouth, as if that alone could keep the bile back.
Fuck everything…
Once the feeling passed, the mutated man hesitantly took a glance towards his… his tail, needing to take stock of just what he was working with at this point instead of his legs… and honestly it was worse then what he was expecting.
The lump of flesh, or rather his new tail was long, really long and seemed to now be almost completely covered in scales, with only the smallest hints of his old tanned flesh around where his hips were supposed to be and speckled very lightly across the expanse. His feet now made the beginnings of a fin… though the shape made the mental image of a whale he once saw at an aquarium pop into Sebastian’s mind. There were more thick looking scales growing in and up along the underside of his tail and up to his stomach… oh and from the looks of things no one bothered to try and get him at least a shirt that would fit to replace his long destroyed jumpsuit. Practically forcing him to see every little thing that had been changed about him… and also noticing a large, uncomfortable lump that seemed to have developed just under his left arm.
“Oh look, another fucking thing growing out of me… Like this isn’t enough already.” Sebastian hissed, his fins flattening against his head as he reached up and rubbed around the base of where the lure grew out of his head… only to immediately flinch and feel like he just closed one of his eyes when his smallest finger’s knuckle practically brushed around the skin above his right eye.
Oh… oh fuck no!
Practically whipping his head around the room to look for a reflective surface, or at least the bathroom proved to be a horrible mistake, as his quick movements made the muscles in his lure move and feel uncomfortable… and the nausea from before decided to spike back up, making the mutated man have to choke down the bile once again.
With how sick he was feeling and everything physically wrong with him right now, Sebastian hesitantly decided he needed to wait till his heavily mutated body was settled enough for him to try dragging himself off the bed to where the bathroom most likely was in the room. Then he could finally take stock of what the hell is going on with his face… even though now he’s pretty sure he’s now got another eye grown in just above his right one.
“Fuck my life…”
….
Weeks or maybe months had passed, and Sebastian had already begun missing the monotonous hell he lived when he was under Dr. Cawthorn’s care. The structure and routine that the freckle-faced doctor had set up, while boring, was seeming to be much more humane then the one that had been quickly set up by Dr. Hampton and the other scientists under his orders.
Tissue samples had been taken while Sebastian was still conscious as well as blood samples, and at least one of his teeth being literally ripped out for “testing” and the mutated man barely had time to recover before he was dragged into the next set of invasive tests that the fish man swore were actually torture in disguise. It didn’t help that apparently his own organs were literally rearranging themselves within his elongated body and causing intense amounts of nausea and pain… the tests only made the feeling worse especially as Sebastian could still barely move with his new tail.
Dr. Hampton was also there at every single test, smiling away and laughing at every result he got from Sebastian’s misery. Yet the old man hadn’t spoken to Sebastian since he injected the younger man however long ago now. Sebastian genuinely wanted to kill that man… yet Hampton was always behind a glass viewing wall, looking down at him while the doctor’s lackeys had cut into Sebastian and did all the man’s dirty work.
Dr. Cawthorn herself was a more scarce sight, to the point Sebastian could barely remember the last time he would see the brown haired doctor… yet at the same time he found himself almost wishing he was back under her care in a way he could only feel was potentially a symptom of some kind of Stockholm Syndrome. She was the lesser of the two evils at this point, and was the only scientist that didn’t make Sebastian’s pain any worse… yet her uncaring, detached nature kept him from truly feeling comfortable or relaxed in her presence.
Even within the confines of his cell, Sebastian couldn’t find any peace anymore as the pain from his body was practically ever present. He had long since broke the mirror in the bathroom after seeing that yeah he had a third fucking eye now. Small and glowing like his left one and right above his right eye… which was starting to go bloodshot the last time he saw it and made him sure it too would become a glowing blueish-green just like his other eyes now.
The lump that had been growing out of his left side turned out to be the starting point of another arm judging by the claw-like nubs it had been painfully developing after a while… oh and from what Sebastian could see he was now completely covered in scales, and his nose had pretty much flattened making his face look that much more alien to him in the now long broken mirror.
There’s nothing left of me… Sebastian thought to himself, his fangs clenched uncomfortably in his jaw as he curled up as much as he could on the cold hard floor of his cell… since he had recently outgrown being able to even lay the top part of his body comfortably on the shitty bed in his cell. His body still in pain from today’s tests and making it worse with how he bent himself into where his knees were supposed to be.
His eyes closed with tears as he slowly fell asleep once again… waiting to awaken once more in the ever twisting nightmare his life had become.