Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sebastian tugs off his gloves. His arm covers, apron, cotton under-gloves, and the third pair of gloves beneath protecting his hands from the wet fabric follow. He bins the single-use pieces and steps to the sinks to rinse slivered carrots from the arm covers; flexes his hands in the warm water. After slogging through the boot wash, he dumps his borrowed gumboots on the racks with the rest and tiptoes, wet socks squeaking on the floor, to his workboots. He pulls them on with a grimace. The loud machinery of the factory now muffled behind a heavy sliding door, he hangs his earmuffs around his neck and revels in the moment of peace. For a second he sits at a bench. Sighs. Closes his eyes, lids so heavy but playing the sight of a conveyor belt endlessly sending past vegetables. He flexes his sore hands again and stands. When he passes the clock-in machine, he's unsurprised to see he's already wasted three minutes of break.

He's too tired to be annoyed.

The white food-safe overcoat is pulled off, balled up, and thrown into one of the many standing cabinets lining the walkway. The hairnet is binned as he walks past and begins the arduous trek upstairs. His legs protest the stuttered jog he forces on them, but the breakroom isn't going to get closer on its own. Navigating the weirdly complicated hallways of his work is just one of the many unpleasant aspects of this place, but he manages, following the arrows marked on the floor in peeling coloured tape. He loses another minute to the halls, passing empty offices and supply closets and changing rooms, before finally making it to the ever-quiet breakroom.

Dragging his overstuffed backpack from the cubbies on the south wall, he sits, and fishes out his phone to replay a lecture he slept through. Until the timer on his phone goes off, he takes notes over a bowl of reheated fried rice, cursing quietly when he loses a forkful, dropping it on the page and smearing hoi sin sauce across a paragraph. Behind him, a coworker drags their friend to the window and points at something outside. Sebastian, headphones in, doesn't notice a thing until he takes them out as he nears the door. He throws a curious look back at the crowd pressing against the glass, but shakes his head when he checks the time. Someone probably backed into the supervisor's car again—or maybe the high winds outside today made another tree fall on the lot. Not his problem. His bike is chained to the fence on the other side of the factory anyway.

The sound of the breakroom door closing behind him drowns out the gunshots from outside.

He jogs back through the unusually empty halls. Can't be late after break again—Prakash will kick his ass. And he always feels terrible that his coworkers have to wait on him to be let out on their own breaks. The squeaking of his shoes on the linoleum floor is getting on his nerves, so he slips his earmuffs back on—which leaves him completely blindsided when the wall to his left suddenly explodes open, and a figure tall enough to brush the ceiling crashes through and narrowly avoids barreling into Seb. He stumbles, slipping and falling on his ass as he tries to spin around to see what just fucking exploded behind him; the figure, huge, dark, covered in bits of crumbled drywall, stares at him with a massive metal face, and makes for one of the supply closets with a staggered gait before Seb can fully process what he just saw.

Sebastian sits there, eyes wide, heart pounding, hearing shouts coming closer through the hallways and the ragged hole in the wall. For the first time in months—maybe years—he feels wide awake. He knows that's due to adrenaline. Understands the hormone's effects, had to sit through another three lectures on it last month, knows that under times of extreme stress he'll have one of the three reactions: fight, flight, or fright.

So when soldiers carrying huge, terrifying guns suddenly crowd the hallway, demanding to know where the creature went, he surprises himself with a fourth option.

With a single thumb over his shoulder, he lies. Or, fibs, maybe. To fit with the theme.

The soldiers head in the direction of the stairs, with one heavily armoured man giving orders and gesturing angrily, sending a few others down more halls. And in just a few moments, things are quiet again. If it wasn't for the hole in the wall and plaster debris blown across the floor, he could almost convince himself this was all a hallucination from lack of sleep. He watches the closed door to the supply closet. 

Almost.

When he stands, his boot slips. Looking down, he drags his foot along the floor and smears a strange, florescent green liquid behind it. He... has no idea what this is. None of the cleaning agents they use here look like this. Still, it's not like it matters.

What matters is the huge thing that he knows is now... probably, in that room.

And he's going to go in there.

Alone.

Why did he send the soldiers in the wrong direction? Could it have been the huge—presumably tranquilizer?—darts he saw sticking from the figure's back? Was it the inherent distrust he had for anyone carrying an automatic weapon? Or his distrust for the military in general? His hatred for this place filling him with a sick joy at the sight of it being physically destroyed? The way the person—though huge, they were clearly just wearing an incredibly detailed costume—had stumbled across the hall and fumbled for the doorhandle, obviously heavily injured? 

Maybe. Probably. Who's to say. Finally standing, Sebastian makes a decision. He goes to the closet, and opens the door.

When he doesn't get immediately jumped, he closes it behind him and flicks on the light. It's a small cramped room filled with boxes of extra aprons and gloves and cleaning supplies, and filled moreso with the huge... person. He gets a better look at it now, under the dim florescent lighting, now motionless and slumped against the wall next to the door.

It... is not human. Very clearly not human. Deep green reptilian skin stretched over intimidating musculature, clawed feet and hands, an easily eight-foot stature. Could be a costume, he tries to reason still. A very, very detailed and realistic costume—and how did they add the height? He used to cosplay, when he had time and money to spare; he knows what goes on inside costumes. He studies the legs, the torso, but they don't seem disproportionate. He leans closer, noticing ragged holes across the chest. That’s another problem. Prosthetic costumes don't tend to leak bright green liquid. Maybe it's coolant? Sebastian risks crouching, moving in hesitant increments—but his foot nudges something that clinks against the floor and he jumps. There's that adrenaline again. His eyes dart to the person, but they're still. That broad chest rises and falls, so at least he's not in here with a corpse.

That mask is something though. Huge, made of textured silver metal, in the shape of a blankly menacing face. And damaged. A heavy indent in the forehead cracks the metal like an asteroid crater. There's some carved symbol in the mask that barely escaped the impact that Sebastian traces with a finger. It's deep, the edges sharp and catching on the dry pads of his hand. He doesn't recognise it. Strange rubbery tubes sprout from the back of the mask, many encircled by rings of metal and... bone? There's a chest plate, realistically weathered and battle-scarred, and a matching skirt piece covered with weapons and collections of organic-looking trinkets like skulls and withered finger bones, and running beneath it all—fishnets? Thick, heavy-duty fishnets.

In another context, Sebastian might have joked that this was the ideal Pride march outfit. Right now? He's just utterly fascinated.

He crouches down, knocking something with his foot again. He finally tears his gaze from the person to look—and sees a small metal box, hinged in the middle and filled with what he recognises as medical equipment. But, like... weird medical equipment. Thick metal syringes and folded steel and unusual tools, almost like antique Victorian surgical instruments but sleeker, heavier. Nothing labelled, naturally. No gloves or obvious sanitising equipment either. Now that he's looking, he spots several of the darts he'd pegged as tranquilizers across the ground. The person must have pulled them out, or knocked them off as they slid down the wall. Still, they didn't get all of them. Should he...? Without thinking, he rolls up his sleeves.

His hand wraps around the oversized dart in their shoulder and he grits his teeth, pulling it out smoothly, anticipating some kind of response. The person twitches, just slightly, as he removes it fully, but doesn't otherwise react. He cringes when he looks at the needle—that must be, what, an 11 gauge? He drops it to the floor and suppresses a shiver. There are a dozen of these things littering the ground... are they really tranqs? Okay, okay. No. He needs to check. He needs to know if this is just someone in a costume, or... something else. His eyes fall on the mask. If there's someone in there, their real face is probably behind it.

He notices another dart in their back as he leans around, looking for any seams or hinges, and takes a moment to remove that one as well. He has to nudge aside one of the rubbery tubes, and notices that it's... warm. Hesitantly, he grasps it, and feels it pulse faintly. Like a heartbeat. Okay. He doesn't dare blink, not wanting to miss a single second of detail. He needs to remove this mask or he's going to lose his mind.

His fingers feel their way around the edges, looking for—anything. Buttons, seams, an overlap. He tugs, but only succeeds in jerking the head forward. It's really fucking heavy for a head, and he's glad he's not strong enough to inadvertently pull the body atop him. If the rest of the body is proportionately weighty, he'd flatten himself. Investigating further, he notices tubing plugged into the sides of the mask. Unless he's dealing with really strong magnets or some kind of airtight seal—or the mask just being built into the costume—maybe they're keeping it attached? He's crouched, kneeling beside the massive thigh of this person with fingers gently feeling around the mask, when one of their massive, clawed hands shoots up and grips his wrists. Both of them. In one fist. Jesus Christ. Sebastian freezes. The hand squeezes for a second, painfully, the brute force in that single grip like a metal vice, before it loosens and falls away.

He sits there, frozen, as the person's head lifts and wavers. He can feel something staring at him, and fear pooling like ice water deep in his stomach, but all the figure does is turn away to look down. Their hand lifts, shaking, and falls again, landing close to the medical kit. Sebastian hears a slow series of odd clicks from the person as their body twitches. Muscles tense and relax, and Sebastian looks to the darts again. Okay. Definitely tranquilizers. But—hey! They're awake! He mentally slaps himself and turns on his practised bedside manner.

"Uh," he starts, voice breaking and faltering in his throat. Great. Fortunately, the figure ignores him. Their mask is still pointed towards the kit, clearly fighting their sedation to grasp weakly at the metal lid. Sebastian reaches to help, but the thing snarls at him. A deep, scary sound, like a cornered big cat. Seb raises his hands in an attempt to calm them. "It's okay. I... want to help. You're..." He eyes the bullet holes. The empty darts. "You've been shot. And sedated, or paralysed. I'm a, um, medical student," he says. "I recognise some of this, but you're going to have to tell me what to use. Do you..." He hesitates. "Do you understand me?"

The mask watches him blankly for a moment, before dipping into a heavy nod. He sighs in silent relief. "Okay, great. Uh, okay." He looks down at the equipment, mind blank. Okay. Alright. He can do this. He has to do this. He volunteered to do this. Let's go. Alright. Okay. Alrigh—

Another round of clicking startles him back into actual focus. What is that sound? Anyway. Okay, for real this time. Thinking quickly, he gently takes the hand closest to the med kit and lifts it to the box. Jesus that's a heavy arm. The skin is hot, dry. Smoothly scaled, like alligator skin. Ignore it, that's irrelevant, focus on the task. They still haven't spoken. Maybe they can't, in the costume? Or they could be mute, or not fluent in English. "Alright, tap it out for me. One tap for no, two for yes. Understand?" he asks, looking into that cold chrome stare.

Two slow taps. He sighs with relief again.

"Do you need... a syringe?" he begins, starting with the quarter of the kit that houses three large metal syringes. 

Two taps. 

"Are they full?"

Two taps. Good, he won't have to draw anything up.

The second syringe he goes for is apparently the right one. He removes it, surprised by the weight, but hesitates. 

"Do you have anything in here for sterilization? To clean," he amends quickly, in case they're unfamiliar with the language.

One tap. 

Shit. Alright. He swallows. "And this is to be... I'm going to inject you with this?" he asks, to confirm. Informed consent and all.

Two taps.

Okay. "Where? Intramuscular—into your muscle, or into a vein, or artery? Any one of those? One tap if I have to inject this into your spine or... anywhere else."

Two taps.

"Okay. Intravenous? Into a vein?"

Two taps.

Well, alright. Time to pop the question. "So. Are you..." He swallows. Time to be blunt. "Are you human?"

That clicking again. Then one tap.

"Shit." He sits back, mind racing. He lets this realisation simmer for a second before getting back to task. "Okay, because I'm familiar with where to find veins on a human—do... do we have similar vein... placements? Do you know?"

One tap. Fuck.

"Can you, uh, show me at all?"

One of those huge hands twitch, seemingly towards a thigh.

"Here?" Sebastian asks, gently resting his fingertips on the huge limb. 

Two taps.

"Okay." He stares at the wave of unrelenting pebbled scales. "I have no idea how to find a vein under your... skin." He thinks quickly, looking over the syringe. Fortunately, it has a window of glass in one side, so he can see the light blue liquid slosh inside. He carefully touches the edge of a bullet hole in the... person's torso and pulls away a smear of that florescent green. "Is this your blood?" he asks. Just to be sure. Uncharted territory and all.

Two taps.

"Right." He nods. "I can find a vein, but... it's not going to be fun for you. Or me. But you... do seem to be heavily injured already. If it's any consolation," he says, running his fingers over their thigh, trying to find a spot where the scales seem thinner, "I doubt I can hurt you much more than those soldiers already have." He looks up at them like their expression will give something away. Of course, the mask stares back. 

He looks back down, raises his eyebrows, and takes a breath. He doesn't know the depth or strength of these scales, doesn't know how deep he needs to look for veins, doesn't know how big they'll be, or if he's in danger of running into an artery. If only he'd gone into veterinary medicine; maybe he'd have learned how to inject a crocodile. 

"Can you direct me to at least the general area of a vein?" he asks. The more help he receives, the better.

Another two taps.

They play hot and cold across this... person's thigh, fishnets rougher and oddly hot on Sebastian's hands compared to the smooth scales, until he gets a slow double tap. Okay, yep. The inside of the upper thigh. He was glad he didn't have to move much further up the leg—he'd been getting worryingly close to that metal fucking codpiece. The scales are thinner here, flatter, and he finds a softer spot between a row of them. Eugh. At least he isn't that squeamish when it comes to giving other people injections. Those taps have been getting slower—he needs to hurry. Seems like the tranquiliser is taking hold. He breathes out, trying to relax, inverting the syringe and flicking any air out, out of habit. And then in the needle goes. It's a thick gauge, thicker than the dart needles, but it goes in smooth and the person doesn't even twitch. Taps guide it deeper until the needle is completely buried—there have got to be veins closer to the surface than that, right?—and Sebastian aspirates, holding his breath until blood spills into the syringe. At least, he has to hope it's this person's blood, since between the florescent green and the light blue he isn't sure what colour the blood should appear. Could be arterial blood, if this person has arteries.

He looks up into the mask, now unsettlingly close to his face, and hears another two taps. If you say so. He depresses the plunger, going as fast as he dares since it isn't a thick liquid, before—his patient roars. Loud. Deafening. Terrifying.

Sebastian flinches away and covers his ears, leaving the empty syringe in their thigh—but he realises quickly that the inhuman scream wasn't aimed at him. The person seizes briefly, muscles going tight, before relaxing. They gasp for breath in front of him. When the pained roar dies away and he can think again, his mind immediately goes to the soldiers. To that lead guy with steel in his eyes. They definitely heard that. This place echoes like a motherfucker, but it won't be long before they're knocking every door in to find this... what, fugitive? While he's worried for this person's injuries and still has no idea who or what they are, the freaks with guns are his real concern.

Thinking fast, he smears his hand across the person's bullet-ridden torso. They grab his wrist again, movements already faster and grip more controlled. He looks up into the mask again. He doesn't have to say anything. The person lets go. They watch him as he gathers a handful of that green blood—surprisingly difficult given the number of holes they have in their flesh. A human would have bled out by now, but these wounds seem to already be coagulated. 

"Stay here," he says once he has enough. "I'm gonna. I'm—be back." Then, just hoping the person listens, he nips out the door. He sprints down the hall like he's trying to outrun the voice in his head demanding to know why he's risking so much to help this complete stranger. He keeps going, despite the excellent point the voice makes, smearing blood on the wall as he rounds a corner and descends a set of stairs two at a time. He stops to stare at the double doors for just a second—before tugging up his earmuffs with his clean hand and pressing down on the heavy handle with the bloodied one, hard. A piercing siren fills the air as he throws the fire exit open, fogging breath whisked away in the wind. He lets go as soon as he can, trying to avoid his arm being caught in the exterior security cameras; fortunately, the only ones this place has are outside.

Right. Back he goes.

He leaps up the stairs, falling against the wall across from it just in time to turn and look appropriately scared as soldiers run in—easy to seem scared when you, y'know, are. The next few moments are a blur of panic as the soldiers and their mean-looking leader rush past and, seeing the blood trail he left, head down and out through the fire exit. His stress only compounds with every second that shrill siren fills the halls. Time slows as the leader turns to look back up at him, his breath curling into mist, before the door swings closed between them.

Chapter Text

Navigating back through the halls, Sebastian finds himself back outside the closet door. He leans against the wall as a group of panicked workers pass. His still-bloody hand is a fist behind his back.

When they leave and the hall is empty again, with no sign of gun-wielding maniacs or giant reptilian monsters breaking through walls, he finally steps to the door and peeks through.

They're still here. He sighs with relief. They're more active now, looking up at him sharply as they do something he can't see past giant muscled forearms, before they relax and turn back. He steps into the room quickly, shutting it behind him before moving closer to get a better look. The person ignores him. He leans over to watch them pouring one of the vials from the med kit into a... segmented metal bowl with a little Bunsen burner-like flame in the middle. The bowl is... full of charcoal? He doesn't blink as the liquid from the vial melts the charcoal down into a strange chunky blue jelly. He does shuffle back when the person reaches towards him, but they go for the med kit again and select a spoon-like tool. Those huge hands are more dexterous than he would have thought, the long claws hardly an impediment.

"I led the soldiers outside," he says. The mask looks at him. Sebastian keeps his eyes on the bowl. "Used your blood to fake a trail and they followed it, but they could be back any minute. And if they check the exterior security footage, they'll see you didn't actually leave."

They seem to think it over for a second before nodding slowly. He watches them as they turn back to the bowl, taking note of their marked improvement. They seem to still be working on recovering control of their body, but they're faster, movements neat and practised, as they spoon the jelly from the bowl and... press it into their open wounds. Okay. They yell again as their flesh sizzles—at least the fire alarm covers it this time, and this is quieter. Guess the injection hurts more than... cauterizing their bullet wounds? Sebastian is glad he has his earmuffs. The person repeats this process a few times, but eventually the tranquilizers prove their longevity and the spoon clatters to the ground as it slips from their grasp. There's that clicking again as they reach for it, but Sebastian is reaching out to stop their arm before he consciously decides to move. 

They look at him sharply again. His wide-eyed expression is visible in the faintly reflective sections of the mask, and he almost laughs.

"Let me?" he asks without meaning to, as they continue to watch him. "You're still recovering from... whatever they shot you with." He holds up his hands and flexes them as if to say 'see? not tranquilized.'

They're still for a long second, before sitting back. He takes this as permission and reaches over them for the spoon, extremely careful to keep any of the actual jelly stuff well away from his skin. Whatever it is, it's not friendly to organic matter. He doesn't know what it would do to his hands if he was stupid enough to touch it, and he needs his hands. For, you know. Stuff. Like scooping weird blue raspberry chunks into open bullet wounds. He slowly copies the actions he's watched over and over, trying to remember the exact amount they'd been using as he goes, before turning back to them. They're close, now, his reflection looming above him. Even while he's crouched and they're sitting on the floor, they're taller, mask tilted down to watch him as he presses a hand to their chest to steady himself, moving in with the medical-grade acid jelly. Their chest is hot, heart pounding in an unsteady rhythm. He'd say unnaturally fast, but who knows. They tense when he presses it into the wound and once more their noise of pain mixes with the alarm. He holds it there until it stops sizzling, and repeats. He's pretty sure he doesn't blink through the entire process. This medicine, this equipment—it's like nothing he's ever seen before. Certainly, cauterizing agents aren't unheard of, but this gunk seems to be actively binding with the raw flesh it touches, filling bullet holes and sealing them more effectively than anything he'd find in a hospital.

When he reaches for another spoonful and realises the bowl is empty—and all the wounds filled—he blinks in surprise. That whole process was weirdly therapeutic, lulling him into a repetitive exercise of scoop, lift, press, hold, release. The person stopped verbalising their pain at some point too, just tensing or inhaling sharply as their flesh burned and cooled, watching him work silently.

Job done, Sebastian sits back and looks them over—in full, this time. Like he saw before, they're insanely muscled. Ludicrously so. Large plantigrade clawed feet are clad in boxy wooden jandals. Intricately designed metal armour is fixed to their shins, chest, shoulders, forearms, and hanging around their hips. Intricately designed, but surprisingly minimal. He does not think about chainmail bikinis. The fishnets really don't help the kinky look. Long knife-like weapons are built onto their right bracer, and some kind of small cannon is anchored to their shoulder—though he notes that it seems to be hanging in pieces, paper-thin wires spilling out and sections of the cannon blackened or missing. Small skulls, chains, and beaded ropes hang from their belt and those long, loc-like tubes. Beneath the armour and decorations, their hide is deep, deep blue-green with stripes of muted emerald, but their palms, chest, and inner forearms and thighs are marbled with lighter green-cream. Kind of an avocado colour scheme. Scar tissue, old and new, splits the pebbled texture of their skin from head to toe—this is not the first patch-job they've had.

Yeah. Not a costume. Alright.

Time to deal with that.

He looks up from studying their body, and is almost embarrassed when he realises they were definitely watching him do that. They watch him still, but greets his gaze with that rapid trilling click, and he tilts his head curiously. The mask's empty eyes bore into him in a way that feels oddly personal, tilting to mirror him in turn.

"Okay," he starts. "So. You're not human." They dip their head. He gestures at nothing in particular. "So." He can't believe the words he knows will come out of his mouth next, but... what else is there to ask, really. "What are you?"

That trill again.

"Dying to know how you're doing that," he says without thinking, and the person's shoulders shake slightly when they click again. Almost like a laugh.

They lean forward and he moves back to give them space while they set about cleaning up their gear. The bowl's flame blazes, fire flashing around the inside and burning up the remnants of the jelly, leaving it clean for the person to fold it up into a neat little triangle of metal and return it, with the spoon and empty vial, to the med kit. The syringe—they must have removed it from their thigh while he was out distracting the fucking army—goes back too, and the kit snaps shut and vanishes behind them, presumably attached to their belt? Then they stand.

How did he forget just how fucking tall this... this... yeah. Person now feels wholly inaccurate. They have at least two feet on him, easy, and for a second he shrinks back before shaking off the instinctive fear that such a huge figure imposes on his little human brain. They regard him as he forces himself to relax, still on guard but... really, if they suddenly choose to attack him, what's he gonna do? Fight back? Sure. This... individual took over a dozen bullets to the chest and barely seems worse for wear. Sebastian is five foot seven with the same skinny frame he's had his entire life, a few kilos of extra muscle packed on from his T shots and whatever exercise he has to engage in to get to work. He hasn't had more than five hours of sleep a day for the past two weeks, and he hasn't done karate since he was ten.

He doesn't even have his knife on him.

He stands zero chance against this fucking armoured tank of a humanoid.

So he returns their stare with only a little fear. Whatever happens now, happens. They move one hand, slowly, deliberately, to the side of their mask, to the two tubes he noticed earlier. They unplug one with a hiss and a cloud of steam, and then the next. He's vaguely satisfied that he was right about the airtight seal thing.

And then, with both hands, they take their mask off.

The little ooman in front of Ha'rapaki stares. He always enjoys watching oomans the first time they see his face; they never react exactly the same. Some fall back in terror, some scream, some wrinkle their soft little faces up in what he knows to be disgust. But this one? This one goes still. Takes him in, every detail. Then, to his surprise, he steps closer. Ha'rapaki stays where he is. This ooman seems clever, but oddly altruistic, posing no immediate threat. He—short fur, deep voice, flat chest, probably a male—tilts his head this way and that, looking up at his face from every angle. His eyes are wide and unblinking. 

Ha'rapaki takes this time to inspect the ooman back. He's easily two noks shorter, and slight, though it's hard to tell with the thick synthetic clothing he's swaddled in. The fabric bunched around his elbows reveal thin forearms and delicate hands, bones prominent at the wrist. Not a lot of fat or muscle for heat retention. Overall a very breakable ooman. When Ha'rapaki looked him over earlier through one of the more ooman filters in his mask that still work, he noticed that his fur—hair—was almost black, like his eyes, and his skin light brown. He hadn't been able to scan him much more than that thanks to the damage to his mask. 

He hasn't had a moment yet to ascertain the full extent of the damage, but he knows it's gonna be rough to fix. An annoying inconvenience—Kikorat will be long gone by now, and he has no way of finding him. 

The ooman lifts one of those scrawny hands for a second before stopping and closing it into a fist. An abortive movement, as he blinks and shakes his head, before finally speaking.

"What... are you?"

The... humanoid in front of Sebastian plays with that complicated left armband for a moment, pressing buttons and opening compartments before swiping a claw across something.

"-S a motherfucking alien, h-" A sharp human voice, cut from a recording of a longer sentence, and Sebastian freezes.

He takes another look at that face, those tusks, and lets his thoughts percolate. Alright. Aliens are real. He knew they were, in an abstract sense. Didn't know if he believed that any had ever visited Earth, certainly never expected to see one in person, but. Glowing green blood, the inhuman tech, the scales and the tusks and those alert yellow eyes. The army barging in here after them—yeah. He can accept that.

This is an alien.

Aliens are real, and they're on Earth, and he just helped this one, what, escape from the government?

He's... fucked.

The alien looks over him again, eyes boring into him like they're looking for something written on the inside of his skull, before they reach for a knife at their belt. Sebastian tenses, but they use it to lever something out of a port in their armband—a small metal rectangle. They pinch it between their clawed thumb and forefinger—interesting that they have a polydactyl skeletal structure, he thinks absently—and hold it out to him. He looks from their face to the metal and back again, and is startled into taking it when the alien growls.

He looks at it, now in his hand. It looks like a piece of motherboard, but steely grey instead of green, and etched with angular lines so small he can't feel them when he brushes it with a finger. The alien surprises him by grabbing his hand, their own clad in some kind of minimalist leather glove, and folding his fingers over the chip until it's held snugly in his fist. Sebastian looks up at them. Silence, then, as the alarm ends. His ears ring. The alien's hand around his is hot and unyielding, and their claws rest lightly on his skin.

Abruptly, in a move that makes Sebastian flinch back in surprise, the alien pulls away and replaces their mask. They tap away at their armband again, and suddenly they... vanish. He blinks. There's a blurry outline and a strange shimmer where the alien was standing, like he's looking through a twisting sheet of water, and it hurts his eyes as they try to make sense of the image. 

Jesus. Alright. The aliens have invisibility. Well.

He's suddenly nudged gently out of the way—well, gently for something that just walked through a solid wall like it was a beaded curtain—by the invisible alien as it goes for the door. He tries to talk, tries to say anything, but the words catch in his throat and all he can do is watch as the most incredible thing he's ever seen leaves him behind in a storage closet.

He tries to follow, but they've already vanished when he scrambles out to look for them. He searches for that shimmer down one hall, then the other, but it's in vain. They're gone.

Later, much later, a company meeting in the parking lot and a bike ride and a hot shower and a bowl of chilli later, he's curled up in bed. He opens his eyes to look over the microchip again. Enough light from a streetlamp spills in from between the curtains for him to see the detail; strange angular ridges in increasingly small relief. The detail is well beyond what he can see with the naked eye. Truly, truly tiny. He thinks about the research he read about carbon nanotubes being the future of computer chips, and wonders what the hell an IT major would think of the thing he's holding.

Not that he's going to show this to anyone. It's alien tech, and it was gifted to him. Entrusted to him. He carefully slides it into an empty pill box and sets it in his bedside drawer, closing it and rolling over with a deep sigh. At least he has physical proof that he met an alien—more for his own peace of mind than anything. He also filled his lunchbox with the tranq darts he carefully collected from the closet, but they aren't quite as explicitly extra-terrestrial as the chip. He resolves to dig out his sharps container from the bathroom tomorrow to dispose of them properly.

Tomorrow.

He can deal with it tomorrow.

He checks his phone—he has a lecture in... four hours. He groans and buries his head in the pillow. Fortunately sleep comes easy tonight, and he falls deep. His dreams are a roiling battlefield of gunfire and florescent green, and when he wakes to sunlight burning a hole through his curtains, it takes a few seconds for that clicking trill to stop echoing in his ears.

Another day, another lecture he has to record while he snores into a textbook. Another hour-long bike ride down a muddy, twisting path through the woods and another eight hours of standing in place trying (and frequently failing) to keep up with the processing line. He fails more than usual today, mind elsewhere. The shift passes in a blur of stress and cold, wet hands, and he finds himself standing before the giant hole in the wall during break. They covered it over with plastic sheeting.

He watches people pass by like it isn’t there. Like the factory hadn’t been besieged by the army twenty-four hours ago. He wants to scream, wants to step outside of himself and shake his own shoulders until… something. Until he acknowledges, in some way, what happened yesterday. He met an alien. Aliens are real. And they’re on Earth, and the government knows. And if he made one single slip-up when he was trying to erase the evidence of his involvement yesterday, he’s in deep shit.

And he let the alien leave.

He met an alien, and then let them leave. They’re gone, and he may never see them again.

What the hell is he supposed to do now? He knows aliens are real, touched one, helped them—what does he do with this? This world-shattering knowledge, this discovery that no one but the government and army know about? Aliens exist. That changes everything. There’s at least one other sapient society of extremely technologically advanced beings out there, and they’ve come to Earth. Why? And what was the army doing with one of them? Were they going to start a war by abducting an alien? They weren’t dangerous; they didn’t hurt Sebastian despite having more than ample opportunity to do so. They even gave him something—why? Was that why the army had them? They wanted the chip? Would the alien be back for it? Is he supposed to keep it safe?

How is he supposed to go back to work and school like nothing happened? Like he didn’t have to wash alien blood off his hands last night? This changes everything. Humans aren’t alone in the universe, there’s a whole other civilisation out there! At least one that he knows of! And if he proved nothing else yesterday, he proved that he truly knows jack shit about fuck all. A whole new sapient species with their own culture and history and science. His fingers itch with the memory of that alien medicine. A new world to study and learn from. He stands in the hallway between the hole in the wall and the closet he had to scrub green blood from yesterday.

Then break ends.

He goes back to work.