Chapter Text
A burning-cold rush of iced explosion had Oz blinking shimmering, freezing flakes from his eyes until quite suddenly, with no transition between, all at once he was warm, dry, and laid up somewhere soft and bright - not at all like the neon-dim club he had just sent flesh-high. He must have passed out and been subsequently pulled out, though he didn't hear anyone else around. Maybe he'd been left somewhere to recover. A terrible consideration struck him as his mind meandered for answers, cutting through his ambivalent haziness; if he had survived, then maybe Thrax had too - he had set the grenade at his feet if he remembered right, but had been close to the blast radius himself, and he was-
He was. Uh. He sat up, pulled back sheets from what he had thought was his body. He pulled a hand up to his neck, more to move than anything else, stretch, make sure he was actually in control of this strange form that appeared completely foreign to him. No, it moved exactly as he told it to, brushed over the familiar goatee with the back of a hand - with an extra finger he noted, now that he pulled it back to look at. He blinked again, lifted himself off the bed - actual fabric? Like, textiles and fibers? Couldn't be - onto his feet, and those were toes! He wiggled them, pulled up the cuff of the unfortunate grey pants he'd been stuck in - skin and hair, what in Frank, how was that possible! He contorted wildly to look himself over as much as he could as he slowly ramped up into a kind of elated panic - where was his membrane? His visible cytoplasm within? His threads! He pushed fingers - with nerves, and a dermis! - through hair on top of his head, tugged on individual filaments and they responded, each follicle sending a nervous electric response, he knew this - but always from the inside! Never like- this!
He had no explanation for why he'd be here, like this, piloting a whole human body(??), other than some extreme long-shot of having very unfortunately died during his hunt for his Viral mark and been reincarnated. He hoped that wasn't the case, he wasn't sure he could handle the philosophical or material implications of being elevated from a cell into a cluster-of so mind-bendingly huge his nucleus would split before he calculated it. It would at least put an extra point towards taking Thrax out in the collateral, and maybe also Drix, and who knew who else... But as long as Frank was safe, he'd done his job. Dying in the line of duty and waking up somewhere else was...not? the worst thing? Maybe??
Which was the thought he managed to spiral around for all of about ten seconds before a nurse came to get him, white-scrubs and perky and blustering into the room talking-mile-a-minute to put even himself to shame. He blinked at her, to which she seemed not even a little offended or surprised at his surprise, and she ushered him out into a hallway - a building, an actual with-hard-floors-and-walls kind of deal! - where at least the stream of people moving all one direction felt almost correct. The arteries of a building, all pumping the residents towards the center, that was nearly analogous, kind of, abstractly.
"Where are we going, anyway?" Not particularly caring if he interrupted her ceaseless tirade.
"Oh," in a chiding titter, "it's breakfast time, silly." Silly hit Jones strange, he did not much care for this lady's tone.
"Uh-huh," but sure and soon enough, they landed in a cafeteria. Thank Frank he'd paid enough attention to the visual feeds that this wasn't exactly like being an alien on a foreign planet - more like being suddenly dropped in as a tourist to a different country. Still awkward, but basic principles applied. In theory.
He wasn't exactly thrilled by the food on offer - Shane's constant badgering Frank to eat more healthfully rung in his mind as he eyed the waffles absolutely bursting the line of buffet-style self-serve at the opposite end of the room. There was fruit to supplement the dessert-for-breakfast, and just as he was about to question the nurse for alternatives, she patted his shoulder and was off, right back out the door, presumably to fetch another confused sod like himself. He blinked after her, suddenly feeling rather alone and awkward in this room teeming with food and other humans he didn't know.
It struck him somewhat all at once that he was a human here for some reason, in a body he knew the inner mechanisms of but no experience in the driver's seat. And that apparently it was normal here for humans to be paraded around, given food, and to just - set up at the many, many tables, eating breakfast and conversing like all of this was normal, which it definitely was not! He had approximately a million questions all buzzing around in his head, and basically zero leads! The least ideal situation, really.
No, he could handle this; like Osmosis Jones would shut down at the first bump, no matter how big. Course of action, goal, steps to achieve, same as it ever was. He just had to start by cozying up with someone who looked like they knew anything about anything, and considering that seemed like most people here - he didn't see too many other heads spinning, shrieking, running around, carrying on - he was a bit spoiled for choice. Things could be way, way worse.
He grabbed a plate, short stack of waffles, large side of berries, and looked around for any familiar faces - it'd be a long shot of course, but better to try and fail and all that yadda yadda. No one jogged his nucleus at a glance, and he didn't much feel like stepping in on some introvert's breakfast, so went straight for the largest group he could find, loud and chatting amongst themselves. Time to make some new friends.
-----
Drix stretched sleepily as he roused and reached for the sides of his head to take his earmuffs off, only to find them missing. Hm. Strange. He decided they must have fallen off while he slept; unusual, but it had happened once or twice. Although, that once or twice may have been from Ozzy stealing them in a misplaced attempt at a prank, or emergency - it was hard to tell with Jones sometimes, he had a tendency for both hyperbole and of never taking anything seriously, so the two ended up conflated an awful lot. Drix stretched again, blinking blearily against bright lights - brighter than his and Oz's flat had ever been before, really, what was he up to-?
His right hand brushed against the sheets. He blinked fully awake in seconds, staring down at his hand-
First of all, it was a rather light peachy colour, not at all the vibrant cherry red of his gun arm, what in Frank or Hector's name! He flexed fingers that responded with maybe a half-second delay, he'd never had fingers to send signals to, and yet!
He forced himself to stare rather than blink through his processing fast enough that whoever was running his optics would have to place a strobe warning over the footage- He looked down himself, wide-eyed, this was a body! A human body! A whole, entire, multicellular organism, with skin and hair and- He pulled back the sheets, couldn't help the gasp that wrenched from his lungs, lungs! Because-
"Legs?!" Thank goodness no one else was in the room with him, the other bed across from the one he was sitting up in empty, not that he had taken the opportunity to notice just yet. Otherwise he might have been a little embarrassed once he came down from the absolutely mind-clearing shock of legs! With thighs and knees and calves and shins and ankles and feet and toes! He wiggled them, wiggled the entire lower half of his body, and it all responded! It was difficult to map exactly where everything was, what was where and when and why and-
He made to stand and immediately toppled straight to the floor. A posh "Oh my," left his lips, his dominant hand already steadying himself against the side of the bed, his other, new hand tingling with a pulse in it as he held it close to his chest, felt the heart beat from within, every fibre of his body alive and jumping with nerves, electrical impulses, he'd never had a body like this! How foreign, how alien, to have known, to have been developed for the relief of a body like this, to all at once be experiencing it! An odd swell of pride shot out from the blank darkness, landed nowhere in particular, as to what a noble profession he'd had, helping bodies like these manage themselves, even in small ways. He shook himself mentally; not the point, self-aggrandizing could be done once he had figured out how to walk.
Legs had no propulsion to them, which really seemed like a design flaw now that he was forced into the method of locomotion. How did cells get around, let alone full human bodies with all these joints and limits, expected to hold themselves up against gravity with only muscles and a sense of balance - something his swimmy head felt quite out of the loop on yet - and, he had to guess, a whole heap of practice. He had never expected to be shunted back to being a baby-strength pill after all his time in-box, -Frank, -Hector, etc., etc., but as he didn't see any way of suddenly reverting to his proper self, or of any other way of dragging himself around, he'd just have to master the trick quickly. Preferably before anyone happened upon him, half-splayed out on the floor.
He very nearly got his way; he made it up onto two very shaky legs, balanced on bare feet - cold! What a strange sensation, actual, real cold, not at all what he'd expected from his label or capsules' contents - with his hand on what appeared to be a desk, before another individual let themselves into the room with very little warning. He hadn't quite gotten a handle on turning just yet, and as much as he would have liked to turn his head, his neck protested the 180 he'd usually be able to do with no issue - how many little things about himself had he taken for granted!
"Oh, dear, are you hurt?" A kindly older voice, and he was just barely able to make out of the corner of his eye what appeared to be a nurse coming up on his right, arms out to catch him if he fell. She was quite a bit shorter than he, not something he was unused to in his large boxy body, but out here where the scale was so infinitely magnified, he was struck with another bout of dizziness just as she put a hand on him. He mumbled an apology, head spinning at the thought of just how many cells were in contact between them - he'd been the size of just one mere moments before he'd woken up here! How impossible! - and he ended up leaning on her maybe a touch more heavily than either of them would have liked.
She huffed under the effort, but held a smile, if a bit strained, and pushed him around to sit on the bed, quietly chattering away at him about how she was sure it must be strange to be in this place he wasn't used to - what an understatement! - but that he'd have to learn to stand by himself soon, she wouldn't always be there to catch him, didn't he know? He nodded along blankly, slowly catching up the longer he stayed seated. In fact, a thought occurred to him rather suddenly, while she was still mid-monologue.
"How did you know I'm unused to this place, ma'am?" A polite title would have to do in place of her name for now. She paused her speech, looking a bit perturbed to be interrupted, but quickly recovered, her face breaking out into that same patient smile as before.
"Because you're new here, Andrew." He quirked his head, to which she gave no mind, picking up his right hand - tingled! - and patted it sympathetically. "That's quite alright dear, for you to take a bit to acclimate." While her words were kind, he couldn't help but feel like a child being admonished; her tone clearly expected better of him already, somehow. He blinked up at her helplessly, to which she gave a short, polite laugh. "You take as much time as you need."
Drix did not feel as though he were being encouraged to take his time in the slightest, but he kept his mouth shut about that particular sentiment.
She offered him a wheelchair, with the barely-veiled implication that he ought not to need it, yet also that it might be on limited offer and he may not get another opportunity to utilize the accommodation - torn, he opted to use it, just this once, just until he got a little more practice under him, so to say. How embarrassing it would be to fall on his kindly aide! And how unfortunate for her to be crushed under him for such an avoidable reason.
Being wheeled around had its definite upsides, as he quickly found - she nattered away at him, and he opted to stay as politely disinterested as possible, to not incite her further, just allowed her to speak as she turned corners and dodged other humans - all wearing the same grey uniform he woke up in, now that he had the brainspace to notice. He wouldn't have been able to move nearly as fast, and she clearly knew where she intended to drop him, as they finally stopped in what appeared to be a cafeteria, lined back-to-front with tables, and presumably some kind of serving area at the very far side, if the queue Drix could just barely make out above everything blocking him at eye level indicated anything. She drove him right up to the end of the line, sat a tray in his lap, and slowly pushed him along as he picked food from the buffet. Undigested food, completely free of stomach acid! What a delicacy.
Finally she deposited him at the end of one of the tables, around which several other humans were eating and conversing, mostly engrossed in their own affairs. As much as he was horribly curious about what kind of situation he now found himself in, the shock still hadn't entirely worn off and he wasn't quite up for an interrogation. And, really, for as fascinating an experience as it was to be in a human body, he felt rather ineffectual, small, which was a bit preposterous given his scale - if not literally then figuratively. He was without any of his weapons, his tools, capsules - and worse, he was missing his allies. No Dander, no Maria, no Ozzy!
Ozzy... He toyed with his food, glad the nurse had left him to his own devices, sure that she would have commented on his lack of table manners. Of anyone, he really could use Oz's quick wit here. He loved Dander! And- and also Maria, of course - an itching heat crawled up his neck, which he automatically scratched all, all foreign and a bit startling in their own right. He cleared his throat quietly to no one but himself, hoped he wouldn't draw attention from any of the conversations going on nearby. He didn't consider himself shy, but when Ozzy had claimed Drix had no street cred, well. He wasn't exactly exaggerating.
Jones would know what to do in a situation like this. He was streetwise and kept a surprisingly cool head in a crisis, things that Drix could only claim half of the time. Inflammation and cold-like symptoms were his bread and butter! Everything else...
Well, even if Ozzy weren't here now, Drix was - abducted by aliens for a second time? The first time had already seemed impossible! Lightning and striking twice, perhaps - so perhaps he could gather some intel himself, even just through observation if not direct interaction. There was more than enough to make note of! Yes, he decided resolutely - if Ozzy turned up, Drix would have plenty to tell him about the confusing inner workings of this strange new place that he had masterfully decoded while waiting for his partner to arrive.
He pushed a waffle around his plate, not quite as confident as he hoped he'd be.
He hoped Ozzy would show up soon.
-----
Thrax gasped awake, pulled a breath into lungs that felt like fire; oh if only, he knew the hot embrace of fire, was familiar with its heated caress. He blinked rapidly, half-sitting up in a bed - not dissolved in acid, not melted or dried to dust in pure alcohol. He scrubbed hands across his chest, his stomach - pliable fingers, and haptic feedback in places he wasn't familiar with, coils and sparks of nervous signals spread through his semi-permeable membrane but-
No, hang on. Something was different here. He looked down, focused on his hands, flipped them over - no claws. Or, pitifully small ones, if they could even be called such. He wouldn't. Light palms, dark...skin? Wh-
Hair fell into his face, hair, not tendrils, proteinous, keratin in thick locs, some ringed in cool-silver bands, most dark but some a blinding pop of red. Thrax blinked again, shifted the hair aside with hands that each hosted an extra finger, dulled soft compared to the sharp points he was used to.
He'd lived hopping from human body to body his entire lifecycle as a virus. Had studied their inner workings enough to melt them down, make them kneel to his every whim - he practically ran them, right into the ground, repeatedly. He loved it, the power, the control, the effect, so this-
Being a human? Embodying a human?
"Oh, baby," sultry; he ran a hand across himself - he noticed the left index was darker and scarred, skin rougher; a far cry from his heated claw, but clearly his, his own human body - and shivered, reveling at the thoughts filtering in, slow at first then ramping up in intensity, cranking up the heat. A record of this degree, oh. Not just petty theft of a hypothalamus, not just one human body at any given moment, oh, the damage he could do, with hands big enough to fit around a human neck, big enough that he could crush Jones without the slightest bit of effort-
He snapped to total attention at that thought, silken tone crashing into a growl as fingers clenched the grey fabric laid over his stomach.
"Jones," a snarl that tore against the silence, ripped pain into nerves - the delight of physicality was almost enough to eclipse the terrible rage that stoked in his chest. When he found that white blood cell, he would personally hold him over the fire just to watch him crumble to ash, invent new ways to desecrate molecular material so whatever ghost Jones left behind would find no peace. Yes, that was the least he deserved for what that accursed immunity cop did to him.
Thrax flipped the sheets off himself, stood and tested the new digs he found himself in. Not bad, not bad at all - definitely something he could find some use for. He eyed the sheets, first the ones on the bed he'd just vacated, then the other across the room - this place would look better with a bit of radical redecorating. Far too plain grey and white, what a pop of colour would do in here-
He was pulled out of his musings by the handle turning in the door behind him; he hadn't noticed it, it was too grey in here! It blended into the damn wall. He quickly rounded on the door, backing up in a defensive stance and as far against the back wall as possible, stumbled only by the dresser slotted between the beds. Yeah, that'd be the first thing to succumb to his little arson renovation, he decided just now.
A head, followed by a body, a nonchalant expression on a...nurse. Thrax's eyes narrowed. Medical professionals really were one of the biggest banes of his existence. He was a big deal, and yet he wasn't worthy of being studied with any level of care or scrutiny, considered a real, major threat, given his proper spotlight in the medical history books? He rolled back his shoulders, looked down contemptuously at the little aide. It wasn't hard; this body was tall. While she was well-clear of the ceiling, he was sure he could reach up and touch it with minimal stretching, no issue. He let a smile come to his lips, felt no need to hide how the thought pleased him.
"Hey, baby," head cocked as he looked her over, watched her face shift from a kind of tired blankness to tired irritation. Yeah, well, him too; as much as he was in favour of how things had shaken out so far, he also hadn't asked.
"Mr. Bell, please treat the staff here respectfully," as she indicated herself. His brows slowly slotted downwards as his eyes darkened; she went on, continued like he wasn't glaring a hole through her head about knowing he was new here but didn't he know better and other bull he didn't care about, couldn't hear over how she had addressed him.
"What," a step forward, and her eyes actually widened for a change - good, "did you call me?" She stammered a moment, and his eyes narrowed. His peripherals gave away her hand jerking towards something on her hip, but he didn't indicate that he knew. Yet.
"Mr. Bell," returning his expression to him, she seemed quite awake now. Oohh, to have such an effect, he liked this body more and more, but no smirk came to his lips - why was she calling him that. "I have to warn you, if you act out-" Her hand closed around a walkie, and her other hand started to move towards a pocket on her crisp white coat.
He stepped forward, so ready to start it up with her, until all of a sudden he felt woozy and went down like a stone. He blinked up at her, confused as to how he'd gotten here so quickly, what had happened, why, what-
"I'll have to sedate you." She looked down at him, returned the sneer he wasn't able to shift his face into but felt with his entire being, burned in him through hazy, muddled senses, his tongue heavy in his mouth. "You are expected to behave here, both towards staff and your fellow patients alike."
"F'lo p'tnts," because what the hell, he wasn't a damn patient - a jail cell was one thing, but a hospital truly was the worst place he could end up. Just his luck.
"Yes, your fellow patients," her tone already working back to tired and exasperated as she started to gather him up, wheeled in a chair to pour him into and set the course out of the room. What the hell, what the hell. There were humans all over, milling slowly, most walking, all of them had their faculties in order, hadn't been stuck by some stiff with a goddamn needle; he could feel the sting in his leg now, ugh, ow.
Thrax really, really hated nurses.