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Language:
English
Series:
Part 14 of Rockin' It
Stats:
Published:
2022-07-25
Updated:
2025-03-08
Words:
12,628
Chapters:
17/?
Comments:
76
Kudos:
183
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11
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3,578

Metamorphic

Summary:

It's a fucking experience to have your flesh slowly turn into a stoney version of itself.
aka: Ashton as they physically become the Punk Rock we know and love

Notes:

This is probably going to be the only multi-chapter fic in my Rockin' It series. Mostly because it's all mildly interconnected, and practically guaranteed to be jossed by canon at some point. But the concepts wouldn't stop pestering me, so here we are. I might come back with revised editions once canon clarifies some shit. Or throw the revisions up as proper one-shots in the series.

The two big things that have every chance of being jossed that I'll be consistently using here are that Ashton's original race was human and that his shift was from the feet up.
I'm guessing they were human just because I feel that most any other race should have had some physical holdover for a made-genasi, like tusks or short stature or fine elvish features. None of which Ashton has by their official art (I give possibly pointed ears a pass as a possible/probable genasi trait).
And I chose a feet up shift for shenanigans and my own sanity. Because the shift was either an all over all at once phasing, or working it's way progressively through the body. The safest method for a progressive change would be feet up, because most any other starting point leads to the possibility of stone internal organs sitting on top of flesh internal organs and things going uncomfortably squish from the roughly tripled weight because of stone density. I'm not a horror writer.
EDIT: So E34 revealed that Ashton's dad was an elf, mom's race is still unknown.
EDIT 2:E8 of Four-Sided Dive had Taliesin confirm from Marisha's question that Ashton was an aasimar, but that it was complicated. Possibly because he was the child of an aasimar (unconfirmed, but their mother was considered saintly) and an elf. To be honest, I'm not clear on the dynamic of aasimar cross-breeding, but would assume it's the same as tieflings, as they are the same deal in opposite directions. Given Jester picked up cold-resistance as a nod to her water genasi father, I'd give Ashton the points of half-elf ears since aasimar tend to run towards human in body shape and that's how humans and elves mix. So a couple of minor details (mostly switching what was originally "human", then "half-elf," to "aasimar") have been changed in chapters 2, 3, 5, 6, and 7.

Also, also, the chapters are not in chronological order.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1: Taste on My Tongue

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Ashton silently fumes at Jeto’s hand over his mouth. He’s not a fucking baby, he knows not to make a sound while they’re hiding.

But he can’t do anything about it until those Paragon pricks they’d pissed off are gone. 

Paragon’s Call might be a fucking joke of a Crawler gang, but the fuckers that make it up are still adults with weapons. More than a pair of orphans from Greymoore can reasonably handle, even if most of Ashton is now hardy stone and Jeto has a pilfered knife.

So they quietly wait for things to calm, thinking about ways to get back at Jeto for this indignity. 

After what feels like forever, they sense Jeto’s presence against their back relax. 

They take action.

“What the fuck?!” Jeto screeches and hisses, shaking out the hand that had covered Ashton’s mouth. “Was that your fucking tongue?”

“No, it was my liver. That’s moved up to my mouth now,” Ashton says in his best deadpan, skinny arms crossed over a skinny chest. The green rock has been creeping up his form for months now, and currently sits just under his eyes, but as best anyone can tell, it’s just a change in what he’s made of, not how he’s built.

“Smart ass,” Jeto says, giving the kid’s green shoulder a shove. They barely rock Ashton with that push, even though the kid is a good head and shoulders shorter than them. They can’t say they expected to push him too far in the first place though. The kid weighs about as much as an adult despite being half the size.

Ashton just sticks out their offending tongue in response.

“Seriously, that felt fucking weird,” Jeto complains, slinging an arm around the smaller kid’s shoulder, surreptitiously wiping their hand off on his sleeve, and guiding them both from the alleyway they’d hidden in. “Like getting rubbed with itty-bitty slicked marbles all clumped together. That was gross and terrifying, short stuff.”

“Fuck off. I wouldn’t have had to do it if you didn’t treat me like a baby who doesn’t know when to shut up,” Ashton retorts, driving an elbow into Jeto’s side. 

They have to hide a wheeze from the impact. The kid’s got boney little elbows made of fucking rock. And he doesn’t always remember to be gentle. Secretly, Jeto can’t wait for when Ashton is full-sized. He’ll be fucking magnificent in a fight by then, they’re sure. It’s part of why they want to take Ashton with them when they get out of this fucking hell hole. Extra muscle never hurts.

“Well excuse me for making extra sure we were hidden,” Jeto lightly taunts.

Ashton huffs. “Next time I’ll lick your hand the moment it’s over my mouth,” they grumble.

And well, Jeto can’t help the slight shiver down their spine. It really was a fucking gross feeling, would not recommend.

“Consider me warned, short stuff. Consider me warned.”

Notes:

Yeah, it probably feels really weird to get licked by Ashton. Their tongue has less give than a normal person's hand, because it's rock, so you'd get to really feel the bumps of their tastebuds. Like a super miniaturized version of one of those decorative things of glass balls/marbles embedded in concrete. And it's wet and wriggly.

Also, I'm kind of assuming here that Jeto is a) older than Ashton, and b) not a small race. Whether I'm right or not remains to be seen.
However, I'm pretty sure Ashton would have been a short and skinny kid, if only because during his shift I would think that the energy that normally goes into growing and filling out would be redirected into the racial change and increasing stone density. Which is about triple a normal human's density, thus turning a 50-60lb kid into a 150-180lb kid.