Work Text:
Hypno
Who thought I’d miss this ugly fluorescent green apron…?
Hypno considered as he slipped the thing over his head and tied it at the small of his back. Right above where a whipping, eel-like tail was pulled, still and concealed by glamor under a cardigan whose expressed purpose was to be worn around his waist.
Concealment had never come easy for him.
An electric eel hybrid, one of the harder ones to blend in, but Hypno had made it work for years.
Till the initiative.
And what had there been to do?
Sure, he’d had that chaotic day where he’d found out one of his professors at the university was a hidden hybrid, found out another coffee shop owner was another, found out his own boss was secretly running a safe haven as a part of the acclimation program.
But the initiative made all that look like a good time.
See, Hypno had always been something of a drifter. He could be dedicated when he put his mind to it, but he more enjoyed just living for each breath, just lazing around beneath ten blankets and a pillow fort, feeling the warmth, the weight, and knowing he was still going. Being raised in the flooded tunnels of part of the lower mid-levels could do that to you. A yearning for the feeling of true rest, not just treading water.
The initiative had forced him back to that place, back to that state.
Treading, treading, treading water.
Hypno fiddled with the tails of his apron, a bemused smile on his face.
It did force me back…but now…? Here we are again.
With a bright green apron that clashed with his dark clothes, in a coffee shop where the psychedelic style always gave him mild eye strain, and already able to hear Joe chattering away as his dusted his exact replica human skeleton that he’d been excited to see had survived the quakes, now proudly sat in its usual place once more, occupying a spot at a corner booth.
Maybe this could be argued to be some different kind of treading water…? Yeah, probably.
But Hypno didn’t mind that. He could go with the flow.