Work Text:
Takes place between S1E8 and 9
Fever dreams
Harry begins to see things through human eyes.
By humalien2022.
Asta regarded Harry’s sleeping form on the couch of the small cabin. She had just given him a dose of morphine and he seemed to settle down. Asta checked the dressing on the stump of what remained of his amputated limb. She recalled with horrid fascination as the bone of his thigh had retracted into the stump and the skin and muscle had contracted around the wound, leaving a silver dollar sized oozing defect, just after Dan had used the meat cleaver to sever the poisonous limb. The wound continued to ooze through the dressing.
It had been difficult to get the 8-foot alien form of Harry into the pick-up. Harry had not been able to help much. He had been in a lot of pain, weak from blood loss and unsteady with only one leg. Asta and her father settled on having him sit on the dolly Dan used to unload the restaurant supply truck. They were finally able to get him into the back of the pick-up with Harry balancing between Asta and her father. They sat him on the edge of the truck and he pushed himself into the flat bed. They covered him quickly with the tarp in the back of the truck.
Asta had sent Dan on to the cabin with Harry while she went to the clinic to get supplies. When she arrived back at the cabin, Dan was waiting by the pick-up. As they pulled the tarp off Harry they could see he was already reverting back to human form. He still was a strange mix of human and alien hybrid features, but seemed to be rapidly returning to human. They half carried, half dragged the barely conscious naked Harry to the couch and laid him on it as gently as they could. Harry shivered. Asta covered him with the throw and began a survey of his injuries. When he was in alien form she could not tell what had been injured other than the obvious crushed and bleeding leg. But now … his bruised human skin was an index of his injuries.
When Harry had fallen into the crevasse, several large blocks of ice must have fallen on him and bounced off continuing their journey down the crevasse. The only one Asta could tell hit him was the one that had come to rest on his leg, crushing it. Judging by the other bruises, Harry had been hit several times. Had he been human he would have been killed. With the injured limb, Harry had not been able to break the second fall. The broken bone in his leg had lacerated an artery when he fell the second time, that was why the bleeding had been so difficult to manage. He had tumbled uncontrolled to the bottom of the crevasse in an avalanche of ice boulders. Asta could now see the extensive bruising on his chest, and abdomen. She surmised that had been the cause of the internal bleeding that had nearly choked him to death.
“Dad, help me get him cleaned up”
“Sure, what do you need,” asked Dan.
“See if there is a basin in the bathroom. Fill it with warm water, and bring a washcloth, the soap and a towel. I’ll see if I can find some PJs.”
Harry drew a sharp breath catching Asta’s attention. She watched as his eyes moved rapidly from side to side. Harry was dreaming.
Harry floated in the icy water below. It was a cold night with no wind. The light of the two moons reflected off the water. High above him he could see his mate on the ledge, looking down. Harry could make out the form of the distended belly filled with the hundreds of eggs containing his offspring, the thin abdominal skin stretched taut. He could even make out the movement of the larva in their eggs. His mate, and lifelong friend, suddenly launched off the cliff, arms and legs spread apart to allow for maximum impact against the cold water. Harry watched. He watched as the body struck the water. He watched the abdomen explode, bursting open and releasing their offspring. He watched as the body sank down into the dark cold water. He watched the expressionless eyes of his mate recede into the darkness below. He watched as their ravenous offspring followed his mate down into the depths. They would consume the body when it came to rest at the bottom of their sea.
There was a crushing tightness in his chest, it radiated into his neck and choked him. He remembered the sensation but at the time he had no name for it. Now he knew what it was …grief. Tears sprung to his eyes. His breath caught in a choked sob.
Asta heard him. She had been gently bathing him. Cleaning the scrapes and bruises that covered him . Washing the blood from his stump. She looked at his face and thought she saw a tear running from the comer of his closed lid. She heard a quiet choked sob. Maybe it hurt more than she thought? So much for the “incredibly high pain threshold”. She gave him more morphine. His face grew slack as the morphine did its work. Asta continued to clean him up. Dan watched as his daughter removed the towel covering Harry’s private area. She matter-of-factly continued to bath him trying to avoid overtly looking there.
“Dad, help me roll him on his side so I can get his back.”
“Not a bad looking human for an alien,” said Dan
“Dad!”
“I’m just saying…”
Harry had known his partner a long time before they became a mated pair. They had come through the ice wind desert together as children. They had been educated together. They had worked together. They had gone on missions together. It took a long time for his kind to reach reproductive maturity. Harry had been greatly surprised when his friend chose to mate him after so many years. It was not common for friends to reproduce together since the death of one of them would be inevitable.
Reproduction was usually not a consensual affair. At times it was positively brutal. There usually would be multiple partners over time, each depositing a reproductive packet until fertilization was triggered and the offspring would begin to grow. The one who fertilized and incubated the eggs would not survive the birthing process.
Oddly, in all the years they had been friends no other member of his species had attempted to mate with Harry. This perplexed Harry because by his species standards he was quite attractive, considered elegant, with fine features and a diminutive stature that belied his speed, agility, strength and deadliness. Yet no one had ever chosen to mate with him. It had made him feel both fortunate and inferior. Fortunate in that he did not have to face certain death. Inferior in that no one of his species found him attractive enough to mate with. It kind of bruised his ego when he thought about it.
His mate stood almost 3 feet taller than him and was in every way more massive. Harry’s friend grasped him and held him still. One long slender tentacle clad arm began to emerge from the ventral cloaca on his mate’s thorax.. It wrapped around Harry’s waist and up his back, each tentacle contacting the shallow sensitive areas along his spine paralyzing him. He could not move. Fear… it had been fear he had felt. His friend of so many years was attempting to mate with him. Was this … betrayal? The other arm extended from the cloaca into his own ventral cloaca and made its way to the special reproductive organs, the place where the egg packets would be deposited to await fertilization. Harry waited, but his mate withdrew without depositing the egg packet. Instead his mate began to gently caress Harry’s reproductive organs, stimulating him to produce the egg packet. Harry understood now. His mate wanted to be the one to receive the egg packets. It would take years for them to complete the mating process, longer if the larger of the two was to bear the offspring. His mate was willing to make the sacrifice to give them time to be together. Was this …love? Harry tried to resist, he did not want to cause of the death to his friend. But his partner would not let go.
Asta rolled Harry onto his back once more. She began to work the clean T shirt over his head, and then the drawstring pants over his legs, careful not to dislodge the dressing over the stump of his right leg. He was shivering. She laid her hand on his forehead. She could not tell if he had a fever, she did not know what was normal for him. He felt warm to her touch.
Harry looked out across the ice wind desert. It has been almost a year since he had emerged from the sea of his birth. The ice wind desert stood between him and civilization, between him and his people. Once they were old enough all of the offspring of his people emerged from the sea of their birth to cross the desert. Those that survived were deemed worthy. Those that perished deemed weak. Many of Harry’s siblings had not survived. He had seen some of them die or come across their remains. They would never have names. Neither would he if he did not make it across. A name was only bestowed after you had survived.
Initially he was like the others, just trying to survive using whatever resources were available to him, including the bodies of his dead brethren. But as he witnessed the loss of life around him he began to feel differently. He felt another nameless sensation. It was a bad feeling to see so much waste of life. He could no longer use their flesh to survive. As he huddled in a small cave, sheltered from the cruel wind, a thought came to him…why? Why was it like this? Did it have to be this way?
The next morning, he emerged from the shelter. He would need to move quickly. The wind had died down enough to travel and forage for food, but as the evening grew near, it would resume its cruel pursuit of anyone caught out in it. The tiny knife-like ice crystals driven by the relentless wind, ripping flesh from bone. Harry hurried along searching the ground in front of him for anything edible. He looked at the horizon to check his progress and scan for shelter as he foraged. His diligence was rewarded with some insects and berries. He gathered what he could and put them into a small pouch he had fabricated from the skin of a deceased member of his wave of migrators.
As he scanned ahead of him he noted a small mound on the ground. He approached it cautiously. It was another of his kind. Bigger, but still just a child like him. He nudged it and heard it moan softly. Harry backed up and began to move away from it. He wanted some distance between it and him. His kind had been known to attack each other in desperation to survive. Harry looked back and could see the face and eyes of the one he was attempting to flee. Something made him stop…pity? He carefully approached the lump and reached down to gently touch it. He took some of the berries and insects out of his pouch and moved it toward the mouth of the other. He felt …gratified when the other began to lick at the food, swallowing once it got the food into its mouth.
It was getting toward dusk and Harry knew the winds would start up again. Harry searched the horizon looking for shelter. He could just make out a cluster of rocks not too far ahead. He began to pull and drag the other to the shelter.
Harry saved the other’s life many more times on that journey. Once the other stopped trying to kill and eat Harry, they became inseparable friends.
Asta checked Harry’s temperature again. He still seemed too warm. She really was at a loss for what to do. Tylenol? Antibiotics? She had no idea how his system would respond to either. Even before Asta knew he was an alien she had already felt somewhat protective of this strange, arrogant, child-like man. It was odd, but after all she had learned about him, she felt MORE protective. She sensed his vulnerability. She had witnessed his confusion at how he felt. Feeling things, he had never felt had been overwhelming to him.
She could have let him die, probably should have let him die, but it did not feel right. He did not take offense when she had called him a “dick”. He had protected her when Jimmy tried to hurt her. If she had not stopped him, he would have killed for her. He had said he was here to help them. To help the earth. When he thought he had failed, he wanted to die. She would not let him give up.
“Asta?”
“Yeah dad?”
“What’s going on?”
“I am not sure, I think he is still running a fever.”
“No, I mean with you. What are you thinking?”
“I just feel confused. I should be afraid of him, but I am not.”
“I just hope you know what you are doing.”
“Me too”. Harry’s breathing began to speed up.
Harry had been called to the cave of the elders. He had been there two other times. The first was when they had bestowed a name on him when he made it through the ice wind desert. The second time was when it was time to receive The Law, to become one of the people. Now he was called once more. He knew why: he had broken The Law..
The most senior of the elders called him forth using his formal name.
Harry stepped forward into the center of the circle of the chamber. Seven elders each put a tentacle clad arm on him. His people communicated in two ways. One was with simple language, another was deeper and occurred in the mind of the other. This intimate communication was reserved for special circumstances.
A long arm extended from the cloaca of each of the 7 elders. The eighth and oldest elder stood back and watched. Each tentacle attached to a prescribed place on Harry’s body, as it had been with his mate. Harry was unable to move. Harry could feel them trying to penetrate his mind. He could feel their surprise at his resistance. He could feel their thoughts rather than hear them.
“It has been 2 years since the birthing death of your mate. You have not taken a new mate nor allowed yourself to be taken. This is not our way. You have actively fought against being mated and have killed or nearly killed several of your suitors.”
Harry responded back,” I have no desire to mate again” Harry could feel the shock of his response as it went through the elders.
Then the Eight Elder stepped forward and extended a thick tentacled arm toward Harry. Harry tried to back away but the others held him still. The Eight Elder began to push the thick long arm into the cloaca on Harry’s thorax penetrating him deeply. He felt the arm pushing upward into his chest toward his brain. Harry’s brain was deep in his chest, a remnant of his Octopus ancestor’s structure. The “head” that stood on his shoulders just housed some advanced nerve endings and much of his digestive tract and his gills. Everything essential to Harry’s being was housed in his chest.
The Eight Elder pushed deeper into Harry, tentacles connecting with that special organ. Suddenly Harry felt…like giggling. In his mind he felt a gentle creature, he felt benevolence, he felt warmth and … confusion. He had expected terror. When the tentacle was withdrawn he felt…loss. He felt … alone. He felt the message from the Elder,” you can be one with many, a part of the whole, or you can be alone”.
The other elders released him and pulled away. Harry thought he would collapse, but strength seemed to be filling him quickly. He looked at his chest to see the Eight Elder’s tentacles resting there.
“Would you agree that it is Natural Law that there must be balance between all living things and their environment or chaos and entropy follow?’ the Eight Elder asked gently.
“Yes, of course,” responded Harry.
“We live according to Natural Law. You have broken The Law” the elder said, not unkindly.
“But there is something wrong with The Law as we live it, I feel it.” Again, Harry felt the surprise of the elder at his response.
“Perhaps you are right, perhaps we need a New Law.” The elder considered Harry for a moment before speaking,” I have a mission for you, if you will accept it.” Said the Eight Elder.
“What is it?” asked Harry.
“There is a planet, Earth, you have heard of it?”
“Yes, we were taught about it. It is filled with many beautiful living things, and one not so beautiful creature that is dangerous, and follows no natural laws”, said Harry.
“The ecosystem there is in grave danger, I am sending you to save that ecosystem. Do you accept?” it was said in a way as to make Harry understand he could not really refuse.
Harry felt there was more to the mission than he was being told, but simply replied,” I accept”.
As Harry turned to leave the chamber he felt an echo of another conversation,
“… do you think he will figure it out?”
“…either that, or he will die…”
Harry felt warm like he was being cuddled by a squishy cloud. He could just make out the shadow of his human friend, “Asta, are you dead too?” he slurred.
“I see the morphine is still working” said Asta as she smiled down at a somewhat stoned alien….
Fini