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“Like I said I’m pretty sure I just got caught with a stray acid needle or something, people leave those at the gas station all the time.” John’s voice was considerably more calm than his body. He’d practically worn a hole in his floor with how many circles he’d made in his studio apartment.
“Ok,” his therapist mulled over the phone. “You called an emergency visit talking like you’d had a psychotic break, I just want to make sure we’ve fully addressed your concerns.”
John’s laugh was practiced and conversational. “Yeah sorry that dream really freaked me out, good thing it was a dream and not something I thought I saw in real life!”
He could just barely hear her sigh over the receiver. “John, do you feel like you are in danger of bringing harm to yourself or others?”
“No I do not.” If anything he was at risk of harm being done to him by a psychotic alien who wanted to use him as a play toy but he was definitely already on a list of some kind with how batshit their conversation had been. “Anyway thank you so much for agreeing to meet with me but I had really better get ready for work.” His customer service voice sounded like bullshit even to him but he was running out of ability-to-pretend-everything’s-ok.
John’s finger hit the end call button before she’d even wished him farewell. The brunette sighed, one horrid interaction down one to go. Now he just had to convince his boss that it was worth it to not fire him even though he’d surely left the store fully unlocked and unattended for hours.
A task easier done than said apparently.
John’s panic had been building the entire drive. Going over a script in his head until he was sure he had it down. That he’d accidentally poked himself with an acid needle while cleaning the bathroom, and misremembered closing the store, that he understood the gravity of his mistake and would take extra precautions from now on to ensure that it didn’t happen again and please don’t fire him please please please he needed this shitty job to pay off his stupid and useless degree.
But the moment he opened his mouth- “Dude I don’t give a fuck, stop apologizing it’s cringe.” John’s boss, a kid named Juan who was closer to his sister's age than his own, was probably the only reason he was still employed despite his rampant anxiety leading to several false alarm 911 calls. The guy was 90% vape by volume, 10% fuck around and find out, and would regularly chase loiterers off the property with a stun gun.
“I’m sorry I just-“ Juan blew vape smoke in John’s face, the curdled cotton candy concoction made his face twist up and was technically an effective method in getting him quiet.
“Shut. Up.” The barely-adult commanded.
“Yes sir.”
Juan laughed and John’s ever present need to be polite. “You wanna make it up to me? Give me your Friday shift so I have an excuse not to go meet my girl's parents. ‘Sides I’ve been wanting to buy her this dumb lil pokemon keychain and I could use the extra cash.”
“Oh! Yeah sure, totally absolutely no problem I can totally do that!” There’s no way it could be that easy could it?
“Bet now get out of here. You and I both know we don’t work in this off-gride shit hole to be social.”
“Right! Right. Thank you so much again for being understanding.” John awkwardly shuffled towards the door, his hands clasped as he bowed repeatedly as if groveling would make this better.
As the door closed behind him his boss shouted, “And no more blowing smoke up my ass. I got enough of it in my lungs.” John took a deep breath, fingers carding through his greasy hair as he plopped back into his car.
“That… wasn’t so bad? That wasn’t so bad! It’s fine. It was a drug trip, not a supernatural experience.” He took another deep breath, closed his eyes and tried to will himself to calm down. What were those affirmations his therapist always wanted him to say? I am safe. I am loved. I am in control of my own life.
When he opened his eyes the vast dusty planes of New Mexico had been replaced with the steel gray of the spaceship from his nightmares.
“Hhhhheeeeeeyyyyy! What’s up~? IT'S ME~!!” Timmy slid down the front of his windshield like a bird turd, grinning and fully upside down.
John felt his heart fall into his ass. “No no NO!!” For lack of anything better to do in this situation he turned on his windshield wipers and honked his horn, like this was just a raccoon he needed to scare off and not an Area 51 reject. Much to his dismay, Timmy just laughed and tried to pounce on the wipers. “You need to put me back on Earth!! Right the fuck now!! I already licked your stupid safe. What more do you want from me?!?!”
Timmy slid off the hood of the car and popped open John’s door. “I wanted to show you something cool.”
John glared at his captor, knuckles turning white on the steering wheel. Did he think they were buddies or something?? Or is the thing he wanted to show him more horrible experiments from that freaky eyeball guy?
When John made no move to get out of the car Timmy took it upon himself to squeeze his insanely large head into the drivers side and unbuckle John to the stilted tunes of whatever the hell he was humming. John went limp. This did jack all to dissuade Timmy who was perfectly content to drag him across the floor by his foot.
“So Dealer got hired to get a big fish for this guy who said he had some cool weapons to trade for it. Specifically the guy said he had Klykolian weapons which is like, me-weapons. Weapons from the me-place of me-people. Which doesn’t sound right cause klykol is very ‘uh-uh don’t touch my stuff!’ But then again if I were me I would be leaving my me-weapons all over the place so maybe it’s actually mine and I forgot about it.” In the midst of his rant Timmy paused to consider if it actually was his weapon.
“Anyway-“ apparently it didn’t matter enough for him to devote much brain power to. “The fish is cool and you’re cool so you two should meet.”
“I’m not cool!” John grumbled, his cheek sliding along the hopefully clean floor. “I am, in fact, the opposite of cool! My only friend is my mom and the only reason I’ve ever been kissed is cause someone lost a bet!”
“I don’t know what kissed or my-mom is but look at this thing!” John’s limp body was bowling balled across the floor until the back of his head collided with a low thud against the back of a glass wall. He whipped around, scared that he might have cracked it, only to come face to face with what looked like a giant cuttlefish drawn from memory. “I think imma name him George.”
Other than the fact that it was large, John failed to see what could make this thing so interesting it warranted him being abducted. “Ok great, George the fish is super cool. Can I go home now?”
“Actually no,” the distorted voice of The Dealer bounced off the metal walls around them as the owl masked man stepped into the room. “Your presence is beneficial to me.” From behind his back he produced a dead rodent of some kind and turned to Timmy. “This is diseased,” and threw it out into the hallway.
Timmy gasped excitedly and darted after the corpse, loudly announcing, “Bark or some shit!”
The moment he was in the hallway the dealer hit a button on a remote to slam the door closed. “Do not say I am not a gracious man.” His voice was low and sent shivers up John’s spine like no matter what he did he was in trouble. “You are going to distract Timmy from eating the fish,” he said plainly. “Timmy is easily distractible and finds you slightly more entertaining than this creature. Keep it that way and you will be rewarded.”
John’s tongue felt sticky and dry. Why the hell was he being tasked with something this important? Didn’t a guy like this have guards or something?? “And if I fail?”
The Dealer leaned forward. “You will be indebted to me for the rest of your life and I will drain you for every penny you’re worth.”
“Don’t you have people better qualified for this?”
“Yes I do, but said people are currently on a deadline and must not break away from their current task. Your presence means I get to save money on the bullets I would need to sow repeatedly into Timmy’s brain to keep him at bay. Understand this, do not look at the fish. It stuns its prey with a kind of hallucinative hypnosis.”
Suddenly the presence behind John seemed exponentially more intimidating.
“Do I get a choice?”
“Of course I could always open the door and let Timmy play with you like a dog toy.”
“Fair enough.”
And with that The Dealer slipped out of a side door leaving John sitting under the eerie blue light of the tank and the ominous sounds of the creature swimming within.
~~
For being abducted into space by a psychopath this actually wasn’t so bad. The room was empty save for the audaciously large tank that barely held the alien sea creature and the long cord winding across the floor to god knows where, pumping air into it. The creature held relatively still; only occasionally jostling the water enough to make a sound, a pleasant and rhythmic addition to the constant low drone of the air pump. John’s back rested against the cool glass, his cheek resting against his knees as he listened for any sound that might signal him to move.
The desire to look at the fish was … pressing. However, a ten year long escapade with the malevolent supernatural forces of New Mexico cryptids had trained John well. When someone told you not to look at something, you did not look at it.
However, the tapping sound behind him was making that significantly more difficult. The eerie tip-tap almost like the ticking of a clock, begging him to turn and look at the harsh and pointed clicking of claws on glass.
“You know they make you hallucinate?” Lisped a voice from behind him.
John spun around fast enough to get whiplash, sucking air through his teeth in a hiss of pain as he saw Timmy through the glass. How had he-? John had been watching the door the whole- right… portals. The brunette scrambled to his feet. Just be more distracting than a fish. He could do that. Probably.
He made his way around the tank, stopping what he hoped was out of arm's reach of the giant. “No I uh, I didn’t know that, but did you know that um, uh,” conversation had never been his strong suit, especially not when he was under pressure. He looked around the empty room, desperate for anything that might spark a thought, his eyes finally landing on the still tapping claws. “Uh, humans don’t have claws! N-not like you do anyway, we have nails but they’re not very strong.”
One arrow ticked in his direction before the rest of Timmy’s head followed to look at him. John shoved his hands as far out in front of him as he could, still liking to keep the impulsive lunatic away from his torso.
“Hmm. You used to.” Timmy was cold, John realized as the alien turned human hands over and around in his much larger gray palms.
“Huh? Me?” John was not used to being looked at this intently, his whole life he’d had a sort of wall flower ability, people tended not to notice him unless they actively wanted to see him and even then people rarely wanted to see him.
“No, not you,” Timmy laughed like this was obvious. “I can’t see your used-to only everyone else’s. Can’t see your will-be either, s’too blurry. It’s kinda cool being only able to see a now for once.” John had no idea what that meant. Granted he was a bit distracted with his own observation of alien hands. Timmy didn’t have claws like a cat or a dog, his fingers came to very obvious pointed tips but they almost looked more like skinny lobster claws than anything else. Could he feel with those? Did he lack the tactile grip of human finger pads? Did he have a grip strength like a lobster?
Nope! John shook his head and brought all his questions to a screeching halt. Curiosity killed the cat and he’d had more than enough risky encounters with the wacky shit earth had to offer, he didn’t need to go sticking his nose in alien bullshit.
When he looked back at Timmy, the alien had dunked their hands in the water.
John shrieked, for fucks same he’d only looked away for half a second. Timmy’s body was completely slack against the glass, the only thing keeping him upright was his armpit hooked over the top of the tank, his wild Salvador Dahli eyes completely still. Jerking his hand away was made an obviously stupid idea in record time. Water soaked up his sleeve as he kicked and shouted at Timmy to let him go. The soft blue light of the tank gradually mixed with the hypnotic waves of the cuttlefish’s hypnosis. Animals only did flashy shit like this if they were about to fight, feed or fuck and John didn’t want his arm to be a part of any of those options.
“Timmy! Timmy-Timmy! Come on, don't you want to lick Elns eyeball or something?!” Nothing was working. Oh god nothing was working! Timmy was regenerative right? John’s hands trembled as he reached into his pants for his pistol, and at the risk of jumping out of the frying pan into the fire- shot Timmy in the foot.
Suddenly Timmy’s body came alive again. His grip on John listening just enough to yank his hand free as a splash of water hit both of them in the face.
Timmy pulled back to look at his bloody stump of an arm, dark teal pooling on the floor at a disturbing rate. “Huh,” he noted before glancing at his foot. “Oh~cool.” His voice no more interested than someone who found out it would rain later. Suddenly his attention was back on John, bright and excited. “Dude you gotta try this thing! It made me see Agnes! I haven’t seen her since the genocide.”
John’s mouth hung open, he still wasn’t over the fact that the fish had managed to bite off an entire arm with one foul swoop, and yet despite his flabbergasted blabberings Timmy and his slowly regrowing arm scooped him up anyway.
“WAIT! Wait wait wait no nO NO!! Timmy I can’t regrow limbs like you can! TIMMY STOP!”
Bubbles rushed past his head as cold water swallowed him whole. He had to get out of here! Which way was up again? Had he been dunked in head first or feet first? The moment John opened his eyes to get his wits about him, he had lost.
The cuttlefish flared its facial fins like warm and inviting hands, dazzling displays danced down its limbs and slipped into John’s mind as pungent as poison.
“John?” Whose voice was that? It wasn’t Timmy’s. “John, come here.” Oh it was his sisters. Slowly the blurry vision of Daphne bloomed in front of his eyes. “Come on dude what are you waiting for? Join us.” Her hand extended to him as the world around her became more detailed revealing a few of the crossroads spirits John had thought he’d befriended as a teen. They looked so much more peaceful than the last time he’d seen them. They looked like they actually wanted to be friends.
John’s body was suspended in the water, weighted down just enough by his clothes to not float to the top, the jaws of the creature slowly creeping around him. Slow enough to not break the trance until it was too late.
A harsh snap filled John’s ears as he was roughly yanked out of the water.
“Jesus kid!” The low fidelity voice of Rasz -the ship's resident tech guy- barked over John’s coughing fit. His chords unwound from John, shaking off a bit of water as they retracted back to his head. “Fuck dude, I told Monroe we should put a lid on this thing but no ‘it’ll be funny this way’,” he flapped his hands about in a mockery of the body guards sign language. “Now my cords are all wet! Man I gotta go soak ‘em in rice. Not cool.”
John gasped for breath trying to think of a way to thank the other man that actually sounded coherent when the doors swished open and The Dealer returned, this time with Monroe and a client in tow.
“Awe is my little baby already causing problems,” the client cooed, and despite the near death experience John still found the brain power to wonder why his translator was giving the man an accent. “That’s fantastic, I’m glad to see she’s being given the proper environmental enrichment. You know, if they go too long without something to hunt these beauties will lose their sparkle. Mr. Dealer you truly are as good as they come.”
The Dealer would have rolled his eyes if he could. “Flattery will not get you a discount.”
“Ah yes, astute as always. Well I suppose I won’t keep you in suspense any longer.” The client -who looked like a trust fund Star Wars Ewok- pulled a bundle of wrappings from off his back and presented it to the other two. As Monroe took the bundle and The Dealer unwrapped it, John’s attention swiveled to Rasz crudely trying to hog tie Timmy into submission before he shoved his hands back in the tank.
Well versed in ignoring his craziest employee, The Dealer ran his gloved fingers along the weapon. “Mg. Hollow-Stone, you understand I am not a moron correct?”
The client sputtered. “Well of course sir, your reputation precedes you as a-“
“And yet you’ve decided to present me with a fake?”
Hollow-Stone gave a clam smile, extending his hands out and up in a gesture of good faith. “I understand your skepticism sir, it’s certainly a well honed defense you’ve created. Given the rarity of anything from Klykol many people have presented false articles as genuine, leaving people confused as to what is true authenticity, but I can assure you this is as real as it gets.”
Uninterested in the man’s ramblings, The Dealer signaled for Rasz to release Timmy, a task the tired cyborg was glad to comply with. “Timmy, why don’t you tell us if this is authentic or not.” Once untangled, Timmy happily trotted over to the man who supplied him with an endless source of entertainment. Listening to people was not Timmy’s strong suit but listening to The Dealer usually meant something fun was about to happen, so he put a tad more effort into listening to him than anyone else.
The ship's resident Klykolian scooped the weapon out of Monroe’s arms and bounced it around like it was made of paper maché. “Nope. S’too light.”
Hollow-Stone’s grin tightened. “My goodness, having a Klykolian under your command is quite the status symbol isn’t it. He seems quite young though and this weapon is an antique.”
“Nu-uh!” Timmy retorted. “I’m like… one third…” he squinted, seemingly confused by the concept of his own age. “And anyway my brother Mark had one of these. It’s clearly modeled after a JXG-24 the most common arm cannon used by the klykolian military during the reign of the fourth king -who’s still around by the way, wrinkly as he is- the one who closed the planet after the assasination of the previous ruler.” He tossed the gun back to Monroe who lumbered under its weight.
“If you were to put an actual bomb shell in this thing it would explode in your face.” Timmy’s tongue came out to lick at his eyeball before wriggling its way up his nostril. “Actually, Dealer can we do that? I wanna blow up my face.”
Hollow-Stone was visibly sweating now. John could only imagine his terror being caught red handed like that.
“So-“ The Dealer snapped his attention to the client, as Rasz popped out of nowhere and snapped some cuffs on his wrists. “Here’s what’s going to happen. I am going to keep your product. Perhaps sell it to the next highest bidder, perhaps enjoy a lovely dinner. I am going to keep your cheap replica and let my employee destroy it.” Timmy fist pumped behind The Dealer. “And you have two choices. You can either become a lab rat for my biologist to dissect as he pleases, or you and your ship will be strip searched and picked clean down to the last bolt and finger nail. Your pick.”
John watched the scene unfold from his puddle on the floor, happy to be un-included. Between The Dealers crisp clean posture and an even crisper suit, the way blood dripped from Monroe’s deer skull as he leaned against the cannon cracking his knuckles full ready to strip, and Rasz antenna sparking excitedly as he kept the small man pinned in place, the group made for quite an intimidating team. Timmy might have also been intimidating were he not chasing an imaginary tail.
“Alright.” Hollow-Stone swallowed his pride, eyes cast to the floor. “You may strip search me, just-“ he blushed. “Be gentle.”
~~
Several hours later Hollow-Stone was fully shaven and was being sent home in a tin-can of a spaceship, with nothing more than a handkerchief with Monroe’s phone number scribbled on it.
John watched from his safe place next to the only sane member of the crew -who kept pushing him away as he was still slightly damp- as the once client now victim shamefully shuffled into his ship and the airlock closed behind him.
“You guys are ruthless,” he muttered.
Rasz laughed. “Yeah well you’d better get used to it.”
John felt his heart fall out of his ass. “Huh?”
Raz pointed behind them where The Dealer was bargaining with Timmy over which shells he could use vs absolutely could not. “Timmy thinks you’re interesting and The Dealer found you useful. All I’m saying is, even if Timmy does send you home from time to time, you’ll be back.”
“Bhu… nyugh?” John sputtered intelligently, flailing his arms about, inadvertently flinging water on the cyborg. “C-c-can’t you just like, wipe their memory of me or something?”
“If it was anyone else in the universe, sure. But those two? No way, no how. Between The Dealers' meticulous logs of everything that happens on the ship and Timmy’s brain spawning knowledge at random, memory wiping wouldn’t be worth shit.” Rasz patted him on the shoulder as he walked away from the slack jawed human. “See ya’round!”