Chapter Text
Sebastian paced the entire span of his cell, one hand scratching at his right arm around the injection site as for the past few hours since those doctors stuck that experimental drug in it, a burning itch just under the surface wouldn’t leave him alone and only got stronger as time passed.
“Fucking great… the only thing I’m supposed to test in this damned place and it turns out I might be allergic to it…” The young man muttered to himself, rolling up the sleeve of the jumpsuit the company outfitted him with and wincing at the small rash developing around the injection site.
He tried to call some of the guards over, even shouted for them to get a doctor because something might have been wrong… but they all either scoffed at him or out right ignored him. This… was worse than actual prison for him. At least there Sebastian knew there was at least one guard who had enough pity on him to at least hear him out if something was wrong.
Just deal with it Seb… make it through these tests and you can finally go home… at least if the contract is anything to go by. Sebastian sighed to himself, rolling his sleeve back down before making his way over to the bed Urbanshade provided. A single, flat thing that vaguely reminded him of a really shitty bed he once slept on when he went to a summer camp over a decade ago.
Wait, no… that might have been softer… the young man thought, angling himself on the bed so his itchy arm would be under him to keep the temptation of scratching at bay while he slept. He kept his free hand gripped on the threadbare sheets as he curled up on the wooden plank-like mattress. The cold air and lack of a familiar presence beside him made falling asleep much more difficult… even though he knows that he should have gotten used to it after all these months down in this underwater facility.
Just… just a little longer… then I can be back home with Sam. The 21 year old thought to himself, a usual ritual at this point every time he was trying to get himself to sleep since his false arrest and conviction. Sebastian always would go down a mental list of everything he would look forward to once he got home… and that list had been slowly growing more and more with each passing day. Yet his mind always focused more on his family back on the surface, rather than the mundane things like being able to play his old guitar again, or getting a milkshake from the dinner near his mothers house…
No… Sebastian focused on everything he would do with his family once this drug trial was over, and Urbanshade cleared up his tarnished record over crimes he never committed.
He focused on how he would pull his girlfriend, the woman he proposed to just one month before the arrest, into a tight hug and apologize for leaving her alone for so long. Especially with their daughter… god she would have to have been born sometime in May if his math was right. Or she could have been born earlier for Sam’s own safety… after all the doctors warned both he and Sam about her high blood pressure, and with all the stress from the trial and sentencing…
Sebastian purposely tried not to think about that outcome… instead turning it around to just trying to mentally picture what his kid might look like, and if Sam decided to name her either Isabella, or Marie since those were the names they had been debating on.
When he wasn’t thinking about Sam or their daughter, he would then turn his thoughts to what he would do with the rest of their family when he got out. Sebastian could easily picture the family group hug they would all have… both Faroh and Solace families being big on shows of physical affection after all. Though what came after that, he tried to think of each member of his family individually and what would likely happen… or what he at least wanted to happen with them.
He knew he would want to cook with his mother again. Listening to her hum old songs and lullabies long past, all while he would either gather the ingredients for whatever dish Isadora wanted to make that day, or be asked to help set the table for when the meal would be done. Sebastian… just really wanted to hear his mother’s voice again in general, even if it was to scold him for signing anything without a lawyer present or not asking for a lawyer in general when he was first arrested.
He also wanted to make sure his twin sister Sylvia wouldn’t lose out on her big break in performing an ice dancing show, or hell even becoming a professional dancer in general… all because she decided to fight a cop that handled him roughly during his arrest. Knowing her though… Sebastian knew she would be chewing him out over worrying about her, and slapping at his arm for signing up for this drug trial without even knowing just what they were testing it for. Sebastian tried to pretend that the itchy feeling of his arm was actually just feeling sore after his sister slapped it a little too hard… it didn’t entirely work.
God he could practically hear Gabriel fretting over him already. No he wouldn’t be making a big deal out of the sentencing or that farce of a trial… Sebastian knew his older brother would just be happy that he was free and safe from that. No… his doctor brother would be fretting over Sebastian, upon learning about how the younger Solace brother signed up for a drug trial and would be practically stammering out medical jargon… and even be more concerned over the possible allergy to the injected drug. Well… unless his fiance (or maybe wife now, Sebastian wasn’t sure if Gabriel and her got hitched since his sentencing) was keeping him from the family again… Sebastian never really liked Vanessa a whole lot but put up with her for his brother's sake. In all honesty, the only good thing about all this was that he didn’t have to see the entitled bitch his brother was dating, or hear her snide comments about his piercings or his scar.
Curtis… was a wild card in Sebastian’s mind. Even more so after his sentencing and Sam being hospitalized after that. While on one hand Sebastian could see Sam’s older brother being his usual laid back, goofy self and making jokes while welcoming him back wholeheartedly. After seeing how exhausted and broken down Curtis looked that day… Sebastian could also see the tattooed man crying, but what he would do after… Sebastian had no idea what the older man would do. The older man would probably make some jokes that would fall completely flat through his tears, or he would be eerily quiet… trapped in his own mind trying to find the right words but not getting them out.
With all these thoughts, Sebastian managed to at least fall into a light, dreamless sleep. At least, until the sound of the flap on his cell door opening up snapped him wide awake.
Did I even sleep? Sebastian couldn’t help but think as he sat up and looked towards his cell door and the tray of food on it. From how tired he still felt, he could easily assume he just closed his eyes for a couple of minutes… but from how tangled up in the thin sheets he was it was obvious he did actually fall asleep at some point.
“Whatever… this all sucks…” Sebastian muttered to himself as he pushed himself off the bed and made his way to the door for his food. While stretching his arms, he could tell that the one where he got injected in, actually felt worse… like the itch had not just spread from the injection site, but there was a dull ache starting up in the area as well.
Deciding to check it out after eating, Sebastian just grabbed the food tray and brought it over to the bed and began eating the bland, cardboard like food that he’d been provided with… and immediately took notice how pale his naturally tanned skin had become over the months he’s been stuck down in this underwater prison.
Never thought I would actually miss the sun…
Though he had finished eating, there was still one last thing on the tray which left him annoyed, but not entirely surprised. It was a to-do list for the maintenance work the damn supervisors kept making him do…
“Guess being a guinea pig isn’t a get out of jail free card for the damn slave labor at this point…”
With a deep sigh, Sebastian decided to put checking on the injection site at the top of the list before starting his tasks. After all with the dull ache that was there now, he really couldn’t afford it affecting his work… especially since he was going to have to work on patching up some of those fucking pipes again.
Rolling up his sleeve, Sebastian immediately winced at the now apparent rash around the injection site and how it looked like it spread to his elbow… while the very spot in the middle of it all was raised, and almost looking more like a bruise at this point.
“That’s… not normal…” Sebastian muttered, the beginnings of a cold sweat on his brow.
When the guards came in to take him out for his job, the raven haired young man tried to show them just what was going on and even tried to ask to see the doctors again… only for the guard to ignore his pleas and harshly pushed the young man out of the cell and into the only slightly warmer hallways. Sebastian knew then that the guards just did not care at all… and would ignore everything he kept trying to say. Or in regards to that one guard, who he swore was named Keith, that would literally just say “Sucks to suck man.” and then make him do his job anyways. Though even then he supposed he was lucky that he wasn’t dealing with the trigger happy guards that mainly stayed around Heavy Containment…
What the hell do they even keep in there anyways?
His question had never been answered anytime he asked either the occasional prisoner… or “Keith” whenever the laid back guy was in charge of him for the day. It definitely wouldn’t be answered today either.
His maintenance tasks went a bit slower than normal thanks to the uncomfortable pain in his arm, and how… tired in general he started to feel throughout the day. At the same time though Sebastian had to bite back some of the curses he wanted to shout at the guards about his situation… but he really didn’t want to deal with any consequences today… and besides he ran out of his cigarettes yesterday. Completing his tasks without any complaints or arguments usually got him a fresh pack of them as a reward, and by god did he need something to take the edge off with the possible allergic reaction he was having.
He would kick up his complaints and insults again tomorrow, so long as whatever that drug they injected into him doesn’t make things worse before then.
When his day was over and his “payment” was given, Sebastian was wordlessly brought back to his cell to rest until the next day. While in his “room” now… Sebastian couldn’t help but grimace at how aware he became of the itch that basically spread across his whole arm at this point. Though thankfully it seemed like the numbed pain had at least died away at some point, leaving him to only deal with the muscle deep itch. The only reason he didn’t scratch at it now, nor roll up his sleeve to check on it, was from how physically exhausted he ended up being at the end of his job.
I’m normally not this exhausted after just patching stuff up… the young man thought to himself as he collapsed onto the thin mattress of his cell. However, despite his exhaustion, sleep was well out of reach. Every time he closed his eyes, the itch made itself practically became more annoying, or the muscle in his arm would twitch just enough to wake him up mentally again. Though more glaringly was the fact he was deathly aware of how cold everything was… even with the thin blanket, and the thick jumpsuit he had been provided… Sebastian was deathly aware of how cold and alone he was.
“I… wish… I was back home…” he muttered to himself as he curled up on himself under the blanket. The young man wrapped his arms tight around his knees, trying to keep himself warm but only making him miss the comforts he had from his old apartment he shared with his childhood friend, turned girlfriend, Sam. While the AC and the heater sometimes broke down, and the walls could be so thin that you could sometimes hear conversations from the neighbors in their own apartments… Sebastian missed the familiarity. He missed the soft carpeting, the old second hand tv that would sometimes get static for no reason, the annoying ticking of the novelty cat clock Sam convinced him to buy, the queen sized bed he shared with Sam… the way Sam would curl up on his chest when they would sleep…
Tears began to trail down Sebastian’s cheeks as the longing for his old life reared its head once again… and the memories of the day it was all taken away from him flooded his brain the more he focused on everything he missed.
…
It had been cold and gloomy on that horrible, horrible December day. Yet despite the forecast calling for a light snow flurry at some point, Sebastian had still gone out that day with his sister to buy a birthday present for his pregnant fiancé (god even now, Sebastian still had a hard time believing Sam had actually said yes to him).Seeing as it was still two days before that big day… Sebastian had wanted to get something special, and he wanted Sylvia to come and help him out.
“Still don’t know why you need my help.” His twin sister had said at the time, looking a little annoyed as she played with a strand of her curly black hair. “We’ve both known her practically our whole lives, Seb. Shouldn’t you already know what Sam would like at this point?”
“It’s a little more than that Syl and you know it.” Sebastian had sighed, tucking some hair behind one of his pierced ears.
“Yeah, yeah I know.” Sylvia waved off, her mirroring blue-green eyes rolling a little as she did so. “Honestly I think I’m still more surprised you’re the first one having kids in our family. I mean like come on. Gabe’s wedding is just around the corner and Curtis…”
Sebastian’s brow raised as his sister’s voice trailed off when she got to Sam’s older brother. Though a little snort escaped through his nose at the scrunched up face his sister was making.
“Honestly, I don’t think that idiot should be around kids for hours a day. Let alone have any of his own.”
“He’s not that bad Syl.” Sebastian snickered. “An idiot, sure. But he’s been a rock for all of us.”
“I know, I know. Look I can only handle one Curt in the world alright. I don’t need him and a mini him running around. Or hell, knowing him he’s going to just let any kid he’s taking care of basically get away with anything and everything! They’d be a fucking nightmare at that point!” Sylvia ranted, practically throwing her hands up in the air as she did so and getting a loud laugh out of her twin brother.
“Yeah that sounds like a nightmare alright.”
As Sebastian laughed, Sylvia had taken a deep breath and calmed herself down a little. Running a hand through her hair and adjusting the collar of her fluffy winter jacket a little as she did so. She tilted her head slightly to avoid looking her brother in the eyes.
“… anyways as I was trying to say… I’m just surprised you and Sam are gonna be the first ones having kids. I mean, the two of you always danced around each other trying to even ask each other out, I thought you two would be annoyingly awkward for everything else as well.”
Sebastian hummed in response, debating for all of a second if he wanted to mess with his younger twin or not.
“What can I say? Once that ball got rolling we started going bold on everything together. And boy do I mean everything. ” A mischievous grin spread across his face, as he watched Sylvia make an exaggerated gagging motion.
“Seb what the fuck?”
“You brought it up first, Syl.” Seb snickered with a wink, only to laugh a little louder as she lightly smacked him on the arm in response while calling him a dumbass. His sister was always just so easy to rile up.
Once Sylvia calmed down just enough to get serious again and Sebastian decided to stop teasing her for a bit, the younger of the twins finally spoke up.
“Seriously though… Why do you need me to help pick something out for Sam’s birthday? You usually got an idea locked down like months in advance… and hell even with the pregnancy it can’t be that hard to figure something out.”
Sebastian could only sigh, brushing some of his own shorter curly hair behind one of his pierced ears. “I… ended up jumping the gun and gave the gift to her earlier than I expected…”
Seeing Sylvia’s raised brow and skeptical look, Sebastian could only sigh and run a finger over his own ring finger in hopes she understood what he was trying to say. Her mirroring blue green eyes widened, before she let out a snort of laughter while trying to cover her mouth.
“Oh my god.”
“Sylvia… it’s not funny.” Sebastian murmured, feeling his cheeks flush as his sister was trying to hold her laughter in.
“No, no but it is so fucking adorable.” She snickered, shooting her brother a mischievous little grin. “Who knew my dork of a twin could have such a cute side to him.”
“Syl…”
“Alright, alright.” Sylvia waved him off, getting her little giggles under control with a clearing of her throat. “I know exactly what you should get for Sam now.”
His sister stopped in front of a store window and motioned for him to come over. To which Sebastian did, and even looked down when she pointed… only to get a light whack on the back of his head.
“Ah what the fu-“
“Do something special for her for god’s sake you absolute dumbass!” Sylvia interrupted, her usual annoyed look crossed on her face as she glared at her older twin. “I mean seriously! Sam always goes on about how much she loves spending time with you in general! So just, I don’t know. Take her somewhere special, or make her favorite dish or something! You don’t need to waste your money stressing over getting her something when you’ve already given her so much already! Save that money for when your kid gets here and just make her feel special on her birthday! It’s not rocket science my fucking god!”
“Ah…” was all Sebastian could say in immediate response as he felt absolutely embarrassed… In truth the idea did cross his mind but with how sick Sam had been getting so early on in this unplanned pregnancy of hers, Sebastian had felt guilty. He thought that as a way to make up for having her deal with it all, he would try to buy something that Sam would love… something probably better than the restored engagement ring from his late grandmother.
“Thanks for… really putting it into perspective sis.”
“Anytime bro.” Sylvia grinned while patting his arm. “Now then! You owe me lunch for wasting my time over something so stupid today.”
“Wait, hold on. Who said I owe you anything?” Sebastian laughed, playfully shoving her arm off of him.
“Me, obviously. Who knows maybe I had a date with Jennifer today and decided to drop it to help you?” Sylvia snickered, crossing her arms and practically leaning in towards her brother as if challenging him.
“Well I-“
“Sebastian Solace?” An unfamiliar voice interrupted him, and out of pure confusion the mentioned man turned… and saw a police officer standing behind him with a cop car not too far away.
“I… yeah that’s me…”
Everything became rather fuzzy in Sebastian’s mind after that… He remembered the pain of the cop pushing him into a wall to handcuff him, Sylvia’s shouting… Apparently she had punched the cop that handcuffed him at some point and gotten arrested kicking and screaming along with him… but what really shut him down mentally from then was the fact the cop had said he was under arrest for the murder of 9 people…
8 of those people he had never seen before in his entire life yet the last one… he remembered the last victim as the older sister of his friend Felix, Olivia. Sebastian… he didn’t know that she was dead till after he was arrested, he knew Felix had been quiet and stopped going to classes about a month before then… though the worst part was that apparently they had his DNA evidence on the scene of Olivia’s murder. None of the cops or the jury believed in his innocence all because of one discarded cigarette butt that had his DNA and partial fingerprints on it right near the body… and because of that one tiny thing Sebastian had taken the fall for some crazed murderer and sentenced to death for it.
He would have fucking died for crimes he didn’t commit if Urbanshade didn’t sign a deal with him. Sebastian at the time didn’t even think twice about signing the papers on the promise he wouldn’t die, and that if he just worked for them for a while they could clear his records and send him home…
Fast Forward to now, Sebastian was fully regretting not reading over the contracts he signed as sleep kept evading him.
“Fuck it…”
Pushing himself up out of bed with an exhausted groan, Sebastian found his balance when standing up felt a little… off, but chalked that up to being tired as he walked to the provided bathroom to splash some water on his face. He had no idea how much time passed since he was brought back to his cell… for all he knew it was probably going to be meal time again soon and they’d have another god damned list of things for Sebastian to work on again.
Cupping his hands under the running water, the young maintenance worker couldn’t help but frown seeing how long his nails seem to have gotten. Making a mental note to try to file them down before being made to work, or be brought in for a check up… the doctors said something about keeping a close eye on him after the shot. Honestly he zoned out when the doctor was talking to him… their voice was just so boring and monotone Sebastian genuinely couldn’t focus on it for long… then again the guards also manhandled him into the room immediately after he signed the papers so he wasn’t in the best mood either.
“I really should have paid attention…” the young man sighed to himself after splashing the water on his tired face. Glancing up into the mirror he grimaced at the sight of the dark lines under his blue-green eyes, and how his face had a sickly pallour to it. His curly raven black hair was a mess from his attempts to fall asleep, some of it seemed to have curled around one of his more spiked ear piercings that he must have forgotten to take out.
As he was moving to brush through the mess he called hair he paused immediately as he realized something was very wrong. His tired mind was shocked into full awareness as his eyes locked onto the “piercing” that poked through his hair… After all they had taken all his piercings during his processing in jail and the holes in his ears and lips had long healed over.
In the low lighting of the bathroom the “piercing” looked grey like his original metal ones… but it didn’t reflect the light like it should have. The color was also a little more… off but he couldn’t exactly place why just by looking at it as it was… so with a slightly shaky hand Sebastian brushed his hair behind his ear, only to stare in horror that it wasn’t a piercing at all… it was his own ear.
“Wha… what the fuck?!” Leaning over the sink to get a much closer look he saw how his ear seemed to deform, making three distinct points along the curve from the very top, to the middle and finally at the lobe where his skin seemed to discolor itself from his natural tan tones into the bluish grey points.
Hell looking as closely as he was, Sebastian immediately noticed something off with his fingertips as well when he pulled his hand back from his hair. What he thought were just longer nails wasn’t entirely far off… if by longer nails it meant that the tips of his fingers seemed to have hardened and curved into dark claws, while the skin connecting them to the rest of the finger seemed to look a little cracked and raw going down to his knuckles. Checking his other hand and ear he saw the exact same thing happening on the other side as well.
“I… I’m dreaming.” Sebastian muttered to himself as he backed away from the mirror, wrapping his arms around himself and gripping his upper arms tightly in his apparently now clawed hands. “This is… this has to be a fucked up dream right?”
As he gripped his arms tighter, trying to deny just what was happening, the young maintenance man felt a sting of pain in his upper right arm and something warm and wet just under his palm beneath the fabric of his jumpsuit. Sebastian really didn’t want to look… he knew looking at whatever was happening under the long sleeves of his jumpsuit would only make it real, make the denial harder to accept right now.
“If… if I just lay down and… and go to sleep… would it all go away?” Sebastian muttered to himself, turning his head to look out towards the bed and the open space of his nearly barren cell. The young man thought sleep had eluded him… but if this was just a nightmare then surely that wasn’t the case. Surely going to “sleep” in this dream would end it… even though his mind was still freaking out over the feeling of pain in his arm and the thought that what he saw in the mirror was real…
His legs felt shaky, slightly unstable as he turned away from the bathroom mirror and marched his way back to the uncomfortably thin bed of his cell. His mind continuously chanting “Don’t look” over and over as he shuddered. He nearly sat down on the bed only to flinch back at the sight of his now clawed hand… and the blood that was on the palm of it. Blue-green eyes glanced over to his arm, seeing the blood stains where his hand had been gripping, yet there were no signs of the claws on his fingers ripping through the sleeve to even suggest the blood might have come from accidentally cutting himself. Not that he wanted to accept that he somehow grew claws anyways, nor did he want to keep acknowledging whatever was happening to him… yet he couldn’t even follow his own advice to ignore it as he began to roll up the sleeve to see the damage done to his arm.
To his relief the majority of his forearm still looked normal, the same tanned skin he’s always had… though there was one strange bruise on his forearm just above his wrist, but Sebastian choose to ignore it for now as he rolled the sleeve up as far as it could go… and then he saw exactly what had caused the pain.
The bruise around where the doctor injected him had split open, the soft tissue around the injection point turned ripped and jagged across the space where the bruise had formed to what should have been muscle underneath from the amount of blood there was around the point. Yet… underneath the opened skin lay not muscle, nor bone… but a patch of bluish grey looking scales with some blood still staining around the edges. Hesitantly, Sebastian carefully prodded at the spot, only to hiss at the tender feeling the scales gave off… less like an injury and more like a fresh sun burn. The actual skin around the point was a bit more sore… making Sebastian remember how the scar on his face felt during the healing process whenever he would touch the healed over skin after all the bandages had been removed.
“Fuck…” Sebastian cursed to himself, attempting to roll his sleeve back down his arm to cover up the scales, only for the fabric to brush against the sensitive skin around them and make the young man wince from the pain that followed. Sebastian soon found himself looking at the bruise that somehow formed on his forearm… and with a great hesitance he found himself poking at it, trying to be as careful with the claws on his finger tips as possible while inspecting the injury. Though he didn’t seem to be careful enough as the single poke broke the skin with the tip of the claw… yet somehow he didn’t feel it. Even with the small bead of blood dribbling out of the little hole, Sebastian found that he didn’t feel it anywhere on the bruised area. He didn’t feel anything on the bruise itself… yet the skin around it had the same sensitive pain as the skin that surrounded the scales on the upper part of his arm…
“This… what the hell did they inject me with?!” Sebastian shouted in disgust and horror, pulling his hand away from the “bruise” as he quickly realized that scales must have been growing underneath it as well… and most likely when his grip on his upper arms must have ripped the fragile skin off of the scales that grew in up there.
Disgusted with that realization he unzipped the top of his jumpsuit and pulled his arms out of the sleeves as quickly as possible. Once the top of the suit he had to wear was hanging off of his hips due to the belt, Sebastian quickly noticed the bruise on his other arm and how some of the skin on it had already split, yet still clung on to cover possibly more scales underneath. Looking at it made Sebastian think about Sam’s brother, Curtis’s pet ball python and the one time he saw the patterned snake shed its scales… yet for Sebastian it was his own skin shedding to make way for the scales and it was being done in an uneven patchy way.
It made Sebastian sick to his stomach just thinking about it… with a lingering sense of dread that this was only the beginning of his newest nightmare.