Chapter 68

“Sweetheart,” I murmured, sleepy eyes staring up at the briar-covered monstrosity hanging from the ceiling of the greenhouse by dark, thorn-covered vines, “… Is that a plant-pussy? Plantussy? Victreebel?”

Amy’s tired, red-rimmed glare was as sharp as knives. “I’ve slaved over this Bio Pod for the past twenty-four hours, Jason. Do not call it a ‘plantussy’. How do you even come up with that?”

“My pornhub history.”

“… Fucking ew.”

But even as I warded her half-amused, half-disgusted snort with a crooked smirk, I found myself drifting closer to the bulbous growth; the ‘Bio Pod’, if Amy’s naming chops were to be adhered to. Contrary to my initial observation, it wasn’t as ‘monstrous’ as much as it was fundamentally alien compared to everything else that I’d seen in this world. Smooth outside of the barbed vinery, and eerily reminiscent of an amber goose egg, the pod gently pulsated with a low, near silent thump that resounded through my chest. It was large - easily twice my size if I had to approximate, with discolored veins flowing across its viscous skin.

Oddly enough, the closer I got, the more I smelled the scent of caramel popcorn. Sweet, sticky, and slightly burnt.

“What does it do?” I tilted my head back, glancing over to where my girlfriend was watching me closely from one of the nearby benches. It was obvious that she was borderline exhausted, dark bags under her eyes and the bare minimum amount of makeup applied to her face, and she was practically cocooned in one of my black hoodies. 

She leaned the weight of her upper body against her new black staff, groaning beneath her breath as she forced her body to stand up. Even then, a self-satisfied smile made its way onto her lips, and Amy practically preened with pride. “A better question to ask is ‘What can’t it do’.”

“What can’t it do?”

“Darling, that was rhetorical.”

Amy’s smug smile turned wry, amused, as she drifted closer to me and the sweet-smelling ‘Bio Pod’. Her glimmering, honeypot eyes stared up at the plant-like growth with a proud fondness that almost bordered on motherly, and in that gaze, buried beneath said pride - I could see traces of that fractured, lingering fear. Doubt. Disgust. Vestigial, and clearly pushed to the back of the line now that she was more interested in her biological capabilities, but one didn’t get rid of years of self-disgust and horror in a few evenings of experimentation.

I reached out, softly grasping her small, pale hand in mine, and Amy twitched. Came back into focus.

Her tired gaze was grateful and loving when she turned to look at me.

“Sorry,” she muttered, wrenching her attention back up to the Bio Pod, “Sometimes I catch myself thinking about how… easy it would be to just screw all this up. Things have gotten so much better now. You. Me. Cassie. The team. Even my powers…”

Amy’s hand - the one not doing its utmost to squeeze me free of circulation - tightened around her staff. “It’s so fucking surreal, Jason. And scary. I think I finally understand those horror stories of how so many girls self sabotage when they finally manage to get something good.”

It was… rare for her to speak so much in so little time. But rare wasn’t bad, and I doubt I could ever get tired of my Amy’s voice, so I acknowledged her words with another gentle squeeze. I could’ve reassured her more with verbal affirmation and my limited well of wisdom, but some gut instinct told me that, in this case, simply listening was enough. Not everyone wanted solutions or adages.

Chicks liked it when a man knew how to shut the fuck up.

“Mm,” I murmured, reminding Amy that I was, in fact, paying attention.

Her lips quirked up, sardonic but grateful. “‘Mm.’ How eloquent and thoughtful of you. Not going to explain why I shouldn’t feel like this, or that everything’s gonna be alright?”

“Hn. Hmm. Grrr.”

…

SNORT.

Make your ladies laugh and giggle, gentlemen. Them's the cheat codes for a happy, healthy, and sexually fulfilling love life.

“Idiot,” Amy snickered, gently whacking me on the arm with her staff. “Sometimes the… deja vu just comes and goes. I was working on the Bio Pod, thinking about all of the things I can do with my powers now that I’m not treating them like poison, and my thoughts just drifted to bad places. But seriously, I’m alright. I’m more excited than anything.”

Alright, I’ll bite. Again. “What does it do, o’ Wicked Green Witch of Mount Invictus?”

And there it was - that look of pride. Eagerness. Amy walked forward to stand a mere foot away from the bulbous pod of plant matter, staff pressed close to her large, pillowy chest, and twisted around on her heels to smirk. “I am happy you asked, apprentice.”

Me? The apprentice?

“Boooo-“

“My powers,” she began to explain, ignoring my heckling with an ease forged from weeks of dealing with our bullshit, “Have two main limitations: I can’t use them on myself, and in order to use them on someone else to make any notable changes to their biology, I have to take biomass from elsewhere in their body - fatty cells. Muscle. Hair. And even still, I don’t have any sort of… manual for the stuff I do. A lot of the time it’s instinctive, but if I wanted to regrow a limb, or heal a disfigured face, or, say- Create a body from nothing…”

Hidden Intuition drew the conclusion before she could finish her sentence.

“You’re freestyling it,” I murmured, walking closer in order to scan the Bio Pod with more scrutiny. “Copying shit over purely from memory and what you think things would look like. Scary, if you get it way off. I’m guessing this Bio Pod, what - automates the process? Allows you to modify yourself?”

Amy’s smirk shifted into a wider grin. Combined with her tired,  black-smudged eyes and lips, she looked distinctly dark in a way that spoke to my baser instincts. 

Focus, Jason.

“It’s alive. Somewhat. Uh, not in a ‘plant army drone Wet Tinker’ kinda way, but I basically created a sack of living plant flesh that secretes and stores a highly nutritious nectar that induces healing and cell revitalization - basic stuff that keeps anyone or anything inside healthy and stable, but that’s just the start!” 

She paused, taking a second to breathe, before continuing in a much less hurried pace. “It’s hard to explain without spouting a bunch of big words that I can only barely understand, but the Bio Pod is basically a… ‘biological blueprint reader’. I touch it, send my powers through it, and ‘tell’ it what to do with whatever life form is inside - and it does it. As long as I inject it with the right stuff and hold its hand through the initial ‘screening’, it does the rest autonomously. Much slower than I can manually, but there’s no fat expenditure or muscle atrophy. The nectar has a fucking kitchen sink of different nutrients, proteins, carbohydrates, and other crap I threw in to cover my bases.

Again, she paused, and her eyes flickered up towards the hanging Pod once more. “And its memory is a lot better than mine.”

And not for the first or last time, I found myself genuinely humbled and in awe of the people around me. My powers had grown to the point where I was confident that I could do practically anything now, given enough time and space to figure it out, but it was still so damned surprising to watch the likes of Cassie, or Amy, or even Trainwreck create things so amazing with almost no cheat codes of their own.

One could call being given their Parahuman abilities a ‘cheat’, sure, but it was so much lower on the totem pole than the Grimoire that it didn’t even count in my eyes. This was Amy’s win, not Shaper’s, though I did not doubt that horny Shard wasn’t salivating over this new organism.

“Whew,” I whistled, shaking my head with a wry grin. “Outdid yourself, didn’t ya? This is fucking incredible, Amy. You try it out on yourself yet?”

Shoulders straightening beneath my praise, Amy tilted her head and frowned at me. “No? Trainwreck’s already inside. And I wanted to talk to you and Cassie about any changes I make to my body…”

…

“Come again?”

Her brow furrowed. “Isn't it obvious? I don’t want to change something about me that you two like-“

“No, princess - I love you no matter what you look like, but I’m talkin’ about Trainy. He’s already in there?” Slowly, I pressed my hand against the side of the Bio Pod, feeling it undulate and breathe beneath the surface of my palm. The plant flesh was warm and pliant to the touch, though now that I was actively looking, I could see a very large silhouette shaded against the side.

But that made no sense. Trainwreck was nothing more than a… headcrab without his armor. He had no body.

Unless-

“He demanded to be put in this morning, after I told him about the ‘Apex Serum’. Rachel wanted in, too, but I told her to ask you. It’s your semen, after all.” Amy’s hand joined mine against the Pod, her thumb caressing my ring finger. Her voice was quiet as she spoke. Introspective. “He’s been inside for six hours now, and- yeah, it’s nearly finished gestating. About twenty minutes. I woke you up so that, if anything went wrong…”

I clicked my teeth. “I get it. Good call.”

“He seemed desperate. Like I’d take the offer back if he hesitated,” she continued in that same quiet tone, breathing a low sigh. “I should’ve waited, I know, but-“

“I’m the leader of the team, Ames, but I’m not anyone’s master. Outside the bedroom, at least.” I shrugged my shoulders, softly nudging the apologetic girl with my elbow.

“Booo.”

Chuckling, I drew Amy into my side and took a step away from the gurating pod of plant matter. Like a gelatinous egg about to hatch, it quivered and pulsated in what felt like synchronization with our very own breaths. The vines cinching it securely to the ceiling shook with each vibration, yet the Bio Pod seemed utterly secured in place regardless, tressed up like a Thanksgiving turkey.

My nose wrinkled as a thought crossed my mind. “Baby?”

“Hm?”

“Never say ‘gestating’ ever again. Shit’s gross.”

“…Pffftt.”

And we settled in to wait.

____________________________________

When Malcolm opened his eyes, the first thing he noticed was just how warm and green everything was. How comforting, and nurturing - like his late grandma’s bosom, back when she was still alive and would hold him in the late Winter evenings.

He hated it. Fuck that sappy shit. And fuck his grandma too, the bitch kicked him out.

But-

“FUCK!”

Pressure. It presses against his skull, threatening to overwhelm his mind. Malcolm felt another snarl build in the back of his throat like phlegm, but some sort of thick, sweet-smelling liquid invaded his mouth before he could scream again, flooding his throat and robbing him of breath that had never been there in the first fucking place. Large, meaty fists clenched at his sides, massive triceps tensing in conjunction with his neck muscles as he prepared himself to smash his way out of whatever fucking pine box he ended up in this time- 

Only…

That wasn’t really right, was it?

His eyelids fluttered. There was no pain, no agony, because this thick, warm liquid made such a thing impossible, but the pressure was beginning to slowly alleviate. With that relief came a cold, fractured clarity that felt wrong with the warmth coalesced around his body, and Malcolm-

No, Trainwreck-

No, Malcolm felt something in his brain click into place.

“Name?”

“Malcolm Combs.”

“Date of Birth?”

“March 5th, 1984.”

“And why are you in my interrogation room today, Marcus? This isn’t a good place to be.” 

“Killed someone. ‘Lotta people. They were throwin’ shit in my yard. Hit Lexi, my old dog, wit’ a brick and hurt her pretty bad. So I peeled their scalps back wit’ a 12 gauge. Taught ‘em some manners.”

“… I see. The report here says that you killed three men, mutilated four, and called the cops while sitting on the edge of your property. The murder weapon, a Remington shotgun, was with you at the scene of the crime. What I don’t understand, Mr. Combs, is why you turned yourself in. You were not at all panicked during the 9-11 call. Nor are you nervous now, knowing life in prison is potentially in the books. Why?”

“Feh. Guess I’m just tired of livin’, pig. Lexi’s dead. Ain’t got no family. No wife. Was hopin’ y’all folks do lethal injection, ‘cause I’m too pussy to kill myself-“

The memories came in fragmented surges. Moments of his childhood as the ‘weird’ kid. Big, too big for his age. Dumb, ‘cause he wasn’t good with letters or speaking. But he’d always been good with numbers. With helping his dad out in the junkyard. Always putting shit together or taking it apart. Holidays with his grandparents, playing with the animals on their farm. And when his dad died, there were visions of him getting into trouble. Getting into fights, and winning most of them. Losing some.

Losing his grandpa. And then his grandma.

Going back to that old junkyard, making it into a home. The flickering of years. Of women who left because he was too bitter. Too broken. Of pets, cherished, unjudging, and buried as time ravaged their bodies. 

His latest one, Lexi, dying due to brain hemorrhage. Him killing the punks who did it, and turning himself in. He remembered being so tired, and angry, and done with life, but they refused to kill him. Seventy years in prison, basically life, but no electric chair. No lethal injection. So years later, when he was approached by a black woman in a suit, and a younger white bitch in a fedora, and they offered him ‘freedom’ from this miserable existence…

Who wouldn’t say yes?

After that was when the memories became crystal clear. He remembered crawling through the detritus of a different junkyard, more of a glorified scrap heap, as a disgusting blob of flesh and tentacles, his brain wiped of anything and everything except ‘SURVIVE’. Those first few months had been hell, a desperate struggle for survival made worse by his wiped memory and lack of any actual fucking limbs. 

A body-less flesh crab, searching for a shell to cover his shame. And when he did find his ‘shell’, the product of superpowers simply not worth the fucking cost, ‘Trainwreck’ found that he still wasn’t satisfied. Who would be? A mountain of junk was still junk, and. The fact that he was practically an amoeba inside of all that rusted metal didn’t help matters none.

And then he came around. The boy savior himself, Mr. ‘I Piss Liquid Gold’. Jason Black.

Avalon.

And all of a sudden, Trainwreck found that he wasn’t alone anymore. 

Malcom wasn’t alone anymore.

“… second now. Get the drip tray-…“

“… fucking gross. Givin’ birth…-“

Bark! Bark!

Right. The boss’ woman, Amy - she’d told him about a ‘serum’ they’d been working on. The ‘Apex Serum’. Supposedly it would bring back his body and change it to the ‘peak of humanity’, whatever the fuck that meant. Trainwreck hadn’t cared at that moment, and Malcolm couldn’t blame him. Memories of not having a cock to piss out of would traumatize any man, and for all his faults, Malcolm had been a man.

That was probably why he was recovering his memories now. Looks like those Cauldron fucks ain’t ice pick his brain deep enough.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of warbling - like a big ass water balloon being squeezed and jiggled - and instinctively, Malcolm readied himself. The last thing he’d wanted to do was be shoved up some plant anus and submerged in green shit, but that girl said it was necessary, and even though he didn’t really trust her all that much… he trusted Avalon. He trusted Iris. And he trusted that bitch, Sherrel.

And god damn did it pay off.

He was just starting to clench every considerable muscle in his body when a sound akin to paper ripping cut through the warbling, and a flood of light and coolness invaded Malcolm’s senses. Gravity quickly took over as he flopped bonelessly into what looked like one of Sherrel’s oil drip tubs, an avalanche of caramel-smelling green slime falling with his body and submerging his large, brawlic body up to the chest in its sugary sweet embrace. 

Malcolm’s ribcage rattled as he inhaled sharply, swallowing down the slime and filling his lungs with air - only to hack that same green shit up once his body realized it was holding him back from breathing. There were voices around him, and what sounded like dogs whining, but he couldn’t focus on any of that crap. He needed to fucking breathe!

But then a small hand touched his shoulders, and abruptly, his lungs were clear. Fresh, warm air replaced the goop in his chest, and Malcolm collapsed back against the oversized metal tub with a guttural, relieved sigh.

He was alive. And-

His eyes glanced down, slowly, almost fearfully. Tan skin greeted his eyes, wrapped around a large, almost inhumanly muscular frame. Long, bulky arms strapped with thick brown hair laid across the sides of the tub, and similarly hairy and muscular legs dangled out the end, his big feet pressed firmly against cobblestone. His robust chest was the width of two barrels put together, and it led down into a hard, bulky abdomen that was significantly more shredded than the big pot belly he remembered having back in prison.

And below the viscous slime, hidden from sight, he could feel another part of him lying in wait. A critical piece of his anatomy, previously thought to be lost forever. He had a fucking dick again.

Malcolm felt his lips twitch up into a rare grin, elation and gratefulness nearly sending his head into a tail dive of overwhelming emotion.

He had his fucking body back!

“-ooks like it worked,” Avalon’s warm drawl cut through the haze of Malcolm’s inner freak out, a note of genuine happiness in his voice. He whistled, low and impressed, arms crossed over his chest. “Homie cleans up fucking nicely, too. Takes after his old man. Whaddya think, Rachel?”

Old man?

… Rachel?

Malcolm hated the way his new stomach lurched with nervousness. He wasn’t some simp ass bitch boy who got nervous around girls, god fucking damn it! But somehow, despite his grown ass age, he still found himself instinctively twisting his neck to check for the little spitfire he’d been spending the past couple days with - for her dogs, obviously.

“He’s… big.”

Her face was nearly as red as her hair.

Clad in torn denim jeans and a flannel long-sleeve, Rachel was standing the closest to his tub, one calloused fist holding tight to Angelica’s leash as the dog whined and pawed in his direction. Malcom had gotten much closer to the mutts despite the short amount of time that had passed, and now that he had his memories, he guess he knew why now. He’d always loved animals.

He reached a massive hand out to the worried dog, his jaw muscle twitching with an effort to not react when it immediately began lapping at the sweet-smelling liquid on his skin.

“Fucking- Ange!” Rachel barked angrily, clicking her tongue and yanking the eager dog back by its leash. 

“She’s fine. The Bio Pod nectar is probably the healthiest thing Angelica will ever drink.”

After passing her witchy staff over to an amused-looking Avalon, Amy stepped closer to Malcolm and the tub, narrowing her eyes as she looked over his face and chest. The analysis was purely clinical - he wasn’t the most observant person, or even remotely empathetic, but he knew when a chick was checking him out.

Rachel was checking him out.

Amy looked him over like a particularly interesting experiment. Though, that isn’t to say there was no kindness in her eyes. There was - quite a bit, actually. It kinda made him uncomfortable.

So he scowled, and looked elsewhere. Watching from the sidelines, Avalon snickered.

Asshole.

“How do you feel, Trainwreck? Any nausea, or pain? Does anything feel off?”

Trainwreck. That was his cape name now, right? Or was it just his name? Malcolm Combs no longer existed, as far as anyone else knew. Cauldron made sure of that. But even if they hadn’t turned him into a limbless sack of flesh, it wasn’t like he’d had anyone waiting for him back home anyway. Not anyone who mattered. A dead dog seizing on the ground, a dirty home, and a junkyard that made no money.

His head hurt. Introspection was for fairies and snowflakes.

“Name’s ain’t Trainwreck,” he grunted out, massaging his temple with huge, calloused knuckles. “‘S Malcolm. Always been. But, uhh- thank ye’. No pain.”

…

Someone let out a rush of air.

“You’re welcome… but wait a second,” Amy blinked, her weary calm breaking in the face of his nonchalance, “Are you saying you, what- remember your name? You’ve recovered parts of your memories?”

“Most of ‘em. Ain’t much to remember. My life was shit.”

The witch gaped, looking the most surprised Malcom had ever seen her. “But that’s not possible. I’ve seen your biology. Felt what I think was supposed to be your brain. The serum was made to turn you into the peak of what a Case-53 is capable of becoming, Tr- Malcolm, not bring your memories back! That should’ve been impossible…”

Only the fact that her voice was filled with genuine wonder instead of fear or anger kept Malcolm from getting defensive. He exhaled through new, straight teeth, feeling his brow wrinkle from all the fancy smancy talk. “This gonna be a problem?”

“What? No, of course not,” Amy responded bemusedly, nibbling at her dark bottom lip. “I’m just confused. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that I could help you get your memories back, shitty or good, but this was my first time experimenting like this. Do you want to wake up in the morning with your ballsack falling off like play-doh? Because that’s what surprises look like when you’re messing with someone’s biological makeup.”

Hmph. When she put it like that, Malcolm could understand her worry a little bit more. He didn’t flinch away when the healer touched his shoulder and went silent.

Rachel looked between the two of them, blatant confusion spilling across her features, but it was the boss man himself who stepped forward. Clad in nothing but a black tank top, gray sweatpants, and pink bunny slippers, he looked like he’d only just rolled out of bed. The fact that he’d been mostly silent this whole time was already out of character, but the bright, gleaming grin on his face was discomforting. 

Malcolm knew what that sort of smile meant.

“Eh. Boss, don-“

Too slow.

“Abrakadabra!”

Instinctively, he went to guard his face and chest with his new, fleshy forearms. Avalon was a fan of ‘spontaneous conditioning’, and despite his old body being incapable of physical exercise, the insane mage often ambushed him with random attacks designed to test his reflexes and skill. It actually helped his hand-to-eye coordination and response timing, surprisingly, but fuck if it wasn’t annoying-

Only, there was no sudden pain. 

A flash of gold light lit up the space between his arms, Amy’s hand withdrew from his shoulder, and Angelica barked nervously as something metal rattled against the marble floor. Malcolm’s new heart beat a harsh, adrenaline-charged rhythm in his chest.

Because that was new, too. His heart. It was a weird fucking sensation.

“Lower your arms, homie. I’m not gonna hit you,” Avalon snorted. “Just look.”

Slowly, Malcolm did, and his eyes widened at what he saw in the tall, ornate golden clawed mirror looming in front of his tub.

Was-… was that him?

Dark, piercing black eyes stared back from a tan, handsome face that seemed as if it had been cut from the very bedrock itself. His jaw was strong and wide, the chiseled type that looked as if it could both take a punch and bite through steel, and his lips were well-formed and hydrated - a far cry from the dry, cracked mess they had been before. His full, dark brown beard was trimmed close to his face, perfectly connected to the cropped, spiky buzz cut on top of his head. 

He hadn’t looked this good as Trainwreck. Fuck, he’d been a balding, potbellied criminal during his last few months as Malcolm Combs. But here and now, because of these fucking people…

His heart ached. A wave of heat flowed through his body, up through his stomach and settling in his face. In the mirror, Malcolm watched his stoic, scowling face redden as, in the corner of his eyes, a crystal-like bead of liquid formed on his eyelash. His new nose itches, his new cheeks turning even more splotchy, and his new throat began to close.

 Malcolm remembered this sensation. Fuck.

There was no way he was about to cry. He would not cry, not in front of the dog. He refused to, purely by fucking principle. This wouldn’t break him. This wouldn’t-

“Alright, enough staring - give the new man some privacy, eh? He and I got a few things to talk about dealin’ with his recovered memories, so the peep show’s over. Time to head out.” 

Avalon’s wide back filled his blurring vision, cutting line of sight between Malcolm and the other two young women. He wasted no time in hunching forward and sucking those salty little droplets back into his sockets, gratefulness coalescing around his heart as his boss, once again, proved himself to be the right man to follow. Malcolm didn’t give two shits about his nudity, mainly because his dick was already hidden beneath the ‘nectar’ and it was not tiny in the slightest, but females watching him cry? Angelica seeing his tears?

Rachel, the hard-headed runt that she was, gaining ammunition to rag on him for being a bitch? 

He’d rather fucking die.

“Yeah. I’ll leave. But- I needa go into that plant’s asshole to get shredded like that, right?” Her deep, gruff voice sounded cautious, hesitant - probably because she was going against direct orders by staying and asking questions. “... Yesterday you mentioned ‘fangs and claws’. This serum a part of it?”

“It worked well this time around. The recovered memories aren’t necessarily a bad thing, and from what my powers can tell with a biometric scan, everything else is working fine. Unnaturally dense muscle tissue, ridiculously strong bone structure, and all the bells and whistles are optimized to the point of perfection. Just normal Jason things,” Amy responded drolly, and Malcom saw her long, messy brown hair shake left and right over Avalon’s broad shoulder. 

After a moment of contemplative silence, she slowly continued, tired voice growing more sardonic the longer she talked. “If you’re fine with being comatose in a distended ‘plantussy’ for several hours as your body is forcefully evolved to the peak of the human species, sure. We can make a day of it. ‘You get a low Brute package, and you get a low Brute package’! It’ll be like the ‘Amy Black Show’.”

…

Rachel cleared her throat - a noise that vaguely sounded like the chuffing of a dog. “... That a no?”

“It’s a ‘yes’ - after my little bio witch gets her snackies and a nap. She gets a lil’ snippy when she’s tired, and she’s been working on the serum all night,” Avalon chuckled, and there was a rustling of clothing and a huff as Amy shuffled forward and leaned her forehead against his chest, enticing him to wrap his arms around her body and hug her close.

“...Jus’ an hour.”

“Sure.”

“And I want brownies. Weed brownies.”

“Scrumptious. I’ll get it done.”

Even left out of the loop, watching his boss’ back, Malcolm could feel the sugary sweet atmosphere from his goopy green tub. 

Fucking yuck. He’d prefer to get his ass beat.

“Ech.” Rachel half-gagged half-grunted, and the clomping of her combat boots taking several slow steps backwards echoed through the Garden. “... I’ll be outside - gonna feed the fleabags. Call me when you’re ready.”

Amy withdrew her head from Avalon’s tank top, glancing over her shoulder. “You can bring them too, if you want. My brain’s been working overtime these past couple days, and I can enhance your dogs while you’re under. … Up to you.”

The clonking of boots paused.

“... I’ll think about it. Thanks.” Rachel’s voice was terse, but hesitant.

Amy merely hummed in understanding. “Mhm.”

And then there were three. Malcolm shifted in the tub, idly wondering how easy it would be to slip out, butt ass naked as he was, and make a bee-line for the exit whilst Avalon was distracted with his mushy gushy bullshit. Maybe he could make it outside before Rachel, and get a headstart on feeding Brutus and Judas. He knew where she kept their feed…-

“-gonna talk to Malcolm for a lil’ bit. Go get some rest, alright? I’ll make some brownies for you when I finish up here.” Avalon was murmuring, voice low and head tilted down.

“Alright-” The witch paused as a loud, jaw-cracking yawn wracked her body. “Haaaa. Fuck. Gonna go take a nap in the lounge. Don’t want to disturb whatever Cass has been working on all night. She gets scary during fugues.”

“Smart girl. Love ya.”

“Love you too, Jason.” She leaned up on the tips of her toes, placing a gentle kiss against his cheek before her tired, darkly-smudged stare flicked towards Malcolm from over Avalon’s shoulder. For some reason, the look seemed both pitying and warm. “Good luck, Malcolm. And it was nice meeting you. The, um, real you. Seriously.”

He grunted, feeling the tips of his ear burn. “... Yeah. Thanks, Amy. Uhh- seriously.”

There was a crackle of blue as she was given her staff, and within moments-

It was just the two of them.

And Malcolm felt a familiar pressure begin to settle against the air around him, like oil pressing against the surface of water.

“Right,” Avalon turned, a small, wicked smile on his face, “New year, new you. Buff new body, too. Let’s get those big muscles all pumped up, yeah? Refamiliarize you with being fully human.”

He knew it. He fucking knew it.

Shit.

But, unbidden, Malcolm felt a hesitant grin begin to form as he gripped the sides of the tub and began pushing himself fully to his new, shaky feet.

Because god fucking damn did it feel good to move his own body again.

_______________________________________

A/N:

Trainwreck face and -somewhat- backstory reveal, ooooh. Been waiting on this since homie was fucking introduced! Hope you enjoyed a look into his mind a little bit more, because I felt it was necessary to continue. Anyways, we're on a timer to the party - it's happening on a 'Friday', in-universe. I believe this chapter took place Tuesday afternoon.

Next chapter, we get to see if Cassie managed to actually help Dragon or not! Will she pull up to the party? Who knows??? I'm excited.