my eyes like butterflies [OPEN + closed prompts]

[landing_lights]

Who: Ade Bennett + various + maybe you?
When: Throughout July
Where: Near ADI headquarters, at Dogtown, and possibly other locations
Summary: Ade deals with an unexpected change to his eyes + various catch-all prompts
Warnings: Freaky alien eyes

[ When Ade first feels it, he thinks it’s allergies.

He is at a pet supply shop after all—there must be all kinds of dander and dust in there—so when he notices the faintly stinging heat in his eyes, he ignores it for the first few minutes... At least, until he remembers that it shouldn’t even be possible for him to have allergies. At that point, he hastily finds a restroom with a mirror to take a look at what exactly is going on—

—and promptly has to suppress a shout of surprise. His eyes are no longer those of a human—they’re those of a wess’har, dominated by a golden iris and alien, four-lobed pupil. When he stares, those pupils abruptly snap shut, forming the cross shape he saw so often in the eyes of particularly inquisitive wess’har back on Bezer’ej. ]

Shit, [ he whispers. Of course this happens when he’s outside of ADI headquarters, with no psychic disguise because he hadn’t thought he’d need one.

He needs to get back. Fast—and without any civilians seeing his eyes.

What follows is a painfully extended trip back to ADI headquarters. Ade keeps his head tucked down, moving as quickly and purposefully as he can while barely being able to see in front of him. Still, he fares surprisingly well for most of the trip, letting his feet retrace his steps. At some point, he even realizes he can make his bowed head look more natural by holding his phone as he walks, pretending to be engrossed in something on the screen. He begins to feel almost hopeful that he might be able to make it back to ADI without incident—

—until he walks headlong into someone in the home stretch.

He jerks back, heart pounding, remembering to close his eyes at the last second. Unfortunately, that leaves him not knowing who is standing in front of him—or how to step around them. ]

Sorry, [ he says. ] I’ll just—

[ Cue him very awkwardly trying to side-step someone he can’t see. ]

Comments

[setthetone]

Maybe it's pissed off? That you haven't.

[Apparently Carter's coming to a similar conclusion. If Bennett's been trying to starve it out like Luka had - or like Carter thought Luka had, but, different story - that might cause a desperate reaction.

Even though he knows a little bit about c'nataat at this point the yellow eyes are freaky and he can't help the small whoa that escapes him when he catches a glance at them. No wonder Ade is stumbling around blind, if anyone sees that...]

We should do a check-up.

[It might help him with Luka, too, getting more data and understanding of how exactly that freaking parasite works. Who knows, maybe they can even trace something of this world that influences it. Something that can be quantified, analyzed.

Neutralized.]

I can take some readings, draw some blood, run a couple of tests and you can tell me if there's anything out of the ordinary.

[And then, albeit reluctantly,]

Off the book.

[landing_lights]

Maybe...

[ Does c'nataat even have the cognitive ability to understand the concept of punishing its host? Ade himself goes back and forth on the issue of the symbiote's intelligence. Sometimes, it seems almost purposeful in its actions, like how it had given Aras human facial features to fit in with the colonists or Ade pheromones to fit in with the wess'har. Were those conscious decisions on c'nataat's part? Or simply unthinking, automatic reactions to changes in its hosts' environments?

Ade hopes it's the latter. He doesn't like the thought of being blackmailed by a microbe.

At Carter's suggestion of a check-up, Ade hesitates. Carter is clearly overestimating how much Ade knows about the symbiote. ]

You can run tests if you'd like, but I won't be able to tell you much. I'm not a doctor like you and Luka, just... [ He shrugs. ] I'm just some bloke who got infected. Everything I know about c'nataat is just what I've lived through and what I've heard from others.

[ He doesn't even think he's ever seen the damn thing through a microscope. ]

[setthetone]

What?

[Carter's voice hitches up an octave before he quickly lowers it again.]

You're telling me you have no data on this thing? No real understanding of how it operates, how it... how it affects your body? Are you kidding me?!

[It rekindles his ire over Ade's and Luka's little operation and lifts it to a new level when he realizes just how much they didn't know what they were doing. What, did this guy just tell Luka this thing heals and he decided to roll with it? Unbelievable.]

Then we have to do it even more. Get a baseline of what's happening. How it's behaving.

[Which might be difficult, given that apparently its behavior has changed. But still. Better late than never.]

[landing_lights]

[ Ade's shoulders hunch at Carter's tone, jaw clenched tight. It's bad enough having to cling to the other man like a lost kid without the extra humiliation of being berated the whole time.]

I wasn't in a position to ask about it, [ Ade responds tersely. ] I handed myself over the wess'har after I was infected. Didn't think anyone would be keen to share classified information with a POW.

[ Maybe that will shut Carter up. Ade doesn't care if it's too much information he's tired of the man's assumptions. Better that Carter knows the truth rather than whatever lurid story he's been spinning about Ade in his own head. ]

[setthetone]

[That does shut him up for a moment, if only to process all this new information. Maybe he should have done that from the beginning. Take a history. That's where he starts with any new patient, right?]

What are the wess'har? More... aliens?

[Sorry, he's just really bad at this sci-fi stuff. He'll do the Vulcan salute and say I am your father, that's how bad it is. Maybe he needs his own baseline.]

How did you get infected?

[landing_lights]

Yeah. Aliens. [ He laughs under his breath, a small, cynical sound. It wasn't so long ago he was living among the wess'har. They had treated him kindly, more kindly than any POW on Earth ever was. And now they're just aliens again. Ade gestures to his face. ] They're the ones c'nataat got the eyes from—and a few other bells and whistles.

[ Ade wonders if Carter has caught on to the way he smells yet, especially with how closely they're standing. Probably not—everyone always just assumes Ade is wearing cologne.

The question brings a grimace to his face. That's not a pleasant story. Certainly, it's not one he's proud of. ]

I was ordered to detain a c'nataat host, [ he says, voice suddenly distant. ] She headbutted me in the face. Bloodied me up pretty good. And then a few minutes later, I felt the wound... close up.

[ He still remembers that moment—the confusion followed by slowly dawning horror. He shakes his head. ]

That's when I handed myself over.

[setthetone]

So they made it? Collaborated with it? Or... how did it get the eyes?

[That's just what he assumes. Or maybe it had bonded with their species before? He tries to come from it from a medical perspective, understand the connections, even if it's difficult.

In his defense, he's taking it in stride, listening without commentary or sounds of disbelief. He's heard pretty crazy stories in his life. In some way, this is just another. It's not unlike being in the ER and hearing the most outlandish story - except maybe this one is a bit more outlandish. Or, out... Earth... ish?

There's a longer pause after he finished his story. When he continues his voice is surprisingly soft.]

That must have been scary.

[landing_lights]

Collaborated, you could say, [ Ade says with a sigh. ] The wess'har fought a war centuries ago against a species called the isenj. The isenj became infected with c'nataat, so the only way the wess'har could stand a chance was to infect their soldiers as well.

[ This one isn't a particularly edifying story either. Ade grimaces as he tells it and yet, it's almost a relief. He hasn't told anyone this much since he arrived here, not even ADI. Keeping the memories to himself makes him feel mad, sometimes, like they never even happened. Saying them aloud makes them feel real again.

He nods at Carter's assessment. Scary is right. ]

Worst part was not being able to let anyone know, [ he says quietly. ] If my detachment had found out I was a host, I'd have gone from being their sergeant to being a strategic asset. I don't know if they would've been able to handle that.

[ Either they would've devastated themselves following orders or there would've been a mutiny right there in the shuttle. Ade has done very, very little right in his life, but managing to extract himself into the hands of the wess'har so soon after his infection may be one of the few exceptions to the rule. He'd done what a sergeant should have done—protected his detachment.

His tone sours. ]

Shan—the other c'nataat host—she spaced herself rather than let us take her alive. Don't think I would've been brave enough for that.

[setthetone]

So you handed yourself over to protect them.

[He tries to imagine it. Any part of that story, really. Being in space, fighting a war among the stars, getting infected by a space parasite - handing himself over to the enemy, to aliens. It's impossible. It's like thinking about the plot of a movie, its narrative moving but completely detached from any experience he's ever had.]

And the wess'har - they never explained anything to you? About what's happening in your body, how the symbiosis works?

[He rubs his head, his headache increasing. And Luka had that thing in him. Maybe still has. Unless it was replaced with something worse now.]

... Did they treat you well?

[landing_lights]

Not just them. If they'd managed to get c'naaat to Earth, the whole world would've gone to hell.

[ The irony of saying that to Carter, someone whose friend had been infected by him, isn't lost on Ade. He'd just really thought things would be different here—that, unable to survive long-term in a host, c'nataat was now something that could be controlled and used for the greater good.

Evidently, he was wrong. ]

One of them did: Aras. [ There's a softness in Ade's voice when he says the name. ] He was one of the first of their soldiers to be infected—and the last one still alive by the time we humans arrived on the scene a few centuries later. He's the one who told me what I was in for after I was infected.

[ Christ, Ade misses him. Aras and Shan—it's better for everyone that they aren't here with Ade, but there are times Ade catches himself wishing one of them were, despite everything. He's never been good at operating alone.

The next question gets a soft huff of laughter. ]

Yeah. Treated me a hell of a lot better than we treat POWs on Earth. The wess'har aren't usually the type to take prisoners, so I guess they never got the memo about keeping us good and demoralized. Felt less like being a POW and more like being a permanent guest.

[ He wasn't allowed to leave, sure, but the wess'har did what they could to accommodate his needs. Certainly none of them had ever treated him with cruelty. ]