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Change was inevitable, but that didn't mean it had to be scary. Sollux awoke in his hive with a burning pain down the center of his spine, an immaculate pain, the sort of pain that really made you get right up in the morning regardless of how much sopor had been stuffed down into your breathing glands and yell "Ouch" regardless of sedation levels. Sollux did not say ouch, and did not get right up in the morning - he got up the same way he did every day for the past two months when the pain started. Slowly, at first, and then all at once, raising his head above the surface and pulling himself out. His skin was uncomfortable, like it wasn't meant for a being like him, it wasn't a perfect fit for him yet, and he knew his molting was coming.
Molting came for everyone in their life. It was a regular process, but some people had a more painless one than others. Sometimes, it was painless, and you just woke up an inch bigger after a week of soreness. Most people had it like that, actually, it wasn't much of a whole occasion, but Sollux had the poor genetic luck to be saddled with the most painful kind. His soul, as some people on the internet had told him, wasn't meant for his shape, and it was straining to get free. He didn't believe a word of that, of course, and just accepted the medidrone's assessment of him being "particularly tight in his shell" as an acceptable answer. The symptoms weren't that hard to miss if you knew what you were looking for, of course. Constant headaches since pupation, a feeling of wrongness, impending dread, pain, misery, sobbing... you know how it is.
But he also knew enough to know to look forward to it ending. His hands gripped the edges of his recuperacoon and he pulled himself out and rolled onto the floor with a wet, limp thud. He slowly pulled himself off his recycling mat and let out a quiet groan, stumbling into his ablutionblock and not even bothering to remove his clothes, just stepping into the chamber and letting it blast him with warm steam. Eventually, the sopor sluiced off his ragged, haggard form, and he dragged himself like a faded marionette over to his sink. There was a wide array of medications you had to take to prepare for a day like this. Namely, antidepressants, which he had to take to prepare for any day, but painkillers, molt accelerants, appetite suppressants... getting the prescriptions was its own special kind of hell, especially for a lowblood like himself. He had been taking them for weeks and it was only getting more painful. He chugged them with an energy drink, spicy and carbonated, and tossed the can into the garbage.
Then, he slowly walked into his respiteblock, curled down in a ball on the floor, and shuddered. His entire body was paralyzed with fear and doubt, and he knew part of it was the medication, and part of it was his unnatural molting process, and he wasn't sure which one he was scared of more. A lingering thought whispered in the back of his mind - what if, like the flutterbugs with their strange larvae, he was completely disincorporated? What if he became someone else, a worse Sollux, or a better Sollux, or just a Sollux that wasn't him? He knew it was a ridiculous thought to have, that he would always be the him he thought he was, but he wasn't able to keep track of himself while he was asleep - maybe he wasn't the same person from day to day. Maybe the research all lied, and all his guts really were being mixed into his own body into a primordial soup from which he would pupate a second time and emerge, new and without consciousness. After all, it wasn't the first time the government had lied to him.
He took in a deep breath. He sucked in air through his teeth and felt his back begin to split.