mindcracklove | Fic: Fangs and Fury (Part 1? Chapter 1? IDEK)

theropod posting in

So this is something I've been working on between bouts of my dissertation and since it's finally finished as of today, I decided to post this lil fic. If you've been talking to me on skype recently, I've been mentioning nothing but this AU I've been crafting.

A hybrid AU. I have all the hybrids for the guys planned out, even drawn two ( Nebris here, Etho here) with the rest planned. If you want to catch me drawing them, by all means keep an eye on my tumblr, I'll announce my drawing streams. But naturally, I am a writer first and foremost, so of course I'm going be writing it out. Anyway, I'm not sure if this is going to be a one shot and a multichapter later, or the first chapter detailing how this change happened and how the guys cope with it.

Summary: Guude's been experiencing aches and pains all day, and its not until he passes out at home and wakes up in a bit of a bloodied mess that he realises something's gone horribly wrong. Takes place in a Minecraft type world where the guys still record and the skins act like holograms in some cases, while in others the guys just wear those clothes.

Warnings: Some blood mentioned, could maybe qualify as some kind of body horror since you're really not supposed to grow tails and shit normally.

-0-

It started with an itch.

For no real reason, Guude couldn’t get rid of the itch on the top of his head, finding himself distracted by it at the most inopportune moments. It was not appropriate to stand scratching at his ears and hair while trying to hold a conversation, nor was it good practice to squirm in place while trying to record because his tailbone had decided to become the most irritating thing on the planet.

Heaving a sigh, he paused the recording and dropped the stack of blocks on the floor of the UHC monument, freeing up his hands enough to claw at his head, mussing up the blond locks more than he already had as he attempted to relieve himself of some of the itch. It was growing unbearable to the point where if he didn’t do something, he was going to go insane. The fact that it had spread down his body to his tailbone was a clue something wasn’t right. He gave in, scrapped the recording, and dismissed the camera for the night, collecting his blocked and dropping them into his inventory. If the itch hadn’t cleared up by recording time tomorrow, he was going to go pester Doc or Jeff, see if they didn’t have some kind of advice. He headed for his jungle home, planning to shower and then just sleep it off.

-0-

Well, the good news was it wasn’t itching anymore. The bad news was that it was fucking agony instead.

Guude had suffered more than his fair share of hangovers and mornings after, he knew what the worst of those could feel like. One only had to spend a night with Pause in order to get completely smashed and experience that.

That was nothing compared to the stabbing pains lancing across the sides of his head and down his spine. He rolled out of bed and landed on the floor with a gasp, green eyes wide and watering with the agony. He barely managed to push himself up enough to reach for the headset on the bedside table, panting as he tried to focus. As he reached, his eyes caught sight of where he’d been lying, fear paralyzing him as he saw what looked like blood staining his sheets and pillow. Headset abandoned for the moment, he reached up and touched his aching head, yelping when the brush of his fingers only sent more agony shooting through him. His knees gave out as it shot down his spine and he curled up on the wooden floor, a choked cry escaping him. He wondered if this was how he was going to die, from a fucking brain aneurysm, bleeding out his head and god knows where else? The hell did he do to deserve this?!

The pain in his head increased what seemed like tenfold, as if in response to his thoughts and Guude met the encroaching darkness gratefully, welcoming the escape from the pain.

-0-

He came to with a blissfully itch-free and ache-free body. The first thing he did was moan at the lack of pain and thank his immune system for fighting off whatever it was that had decided to fuck up his day. Guude dragged himself back up onto the bed and winced at the sight before him. His bed was blood stained, dark red over the pillows and bed sheets. Reaching up to his head, he wasn’t surprised to run his fingers through matted, blood encrusted hair. Unexpectedly, they brushed against something else, something somewhat fluffy. He jerked his hand back, swearing when it caught painfully on the tangled mess of hair and blood. Something atop his head moved.

Something moved behind him too.

Guude slowly turned his head, looking over his shoulder. Nothing there, no animals, no mobs. Something twitched at the bottom of his vision and he looked down, expecting to see some kind of wild animal.

“No fuckin’ way.” He breathed, eyes widening in horror. He grabbed the blood matted tail poking out the back of the tattered remains of his boxers and jerked when he felt the grip on it. The things atop his head twitched again and with growing apprehension, Guude took a lucky guess at what they were. A ginger pat with his free hand at the top of his head and his suspicions were confirmed. Ears.

“Jesus Christ I’m a fuckin’ furry.”

He scrambled to his feet and hurried to the bathroom, trying desperately to ignore the feeling of the tail moving behind him as he ran. In front of the bathroom mirror, he almost screamed. Pointed ears atop his head that flattened back as he stared in horror, the tail pressing down against his leg as though reacting to his emotions.

Of course it’s fucking reacting to my emotions, it’s my fucking tail. Jesus Christ I never thought I’d think that.

It was hard to tell the colour of the matted fur under all that blood and Guude found himself mechanically reaching for the taps, turning the hot on and reaching for a face cloth. He dropped it in the sink to soak, unable to quite tear his eyes away from the ears atop his reflection’s head. It wasn’t until he wrung out the cloth and started wiping at them gently that he really got to see what they looked like.

The fur was clumped together with the water and bits of dried blood he was slowly getting to but it was easy enough to see the almost black fur around the tops of the ears, the lighter grey covering the inside less covered in blood. He shuddered as he rinsed the rapidly reddening cloth in the sink before continuing to remove the mess. A few swipes of the cloth later he groaned and tossed it in the bottom of the shower. He had the tail to do as well, why not just do it all at once? He turned it on and while it heated up, tried to carefully peel off the bloodied boxers, wincing as the crusted blood clung to his skin and the new furry thing poking out the base of his spine.

Come on guy, like ripping off a band aid.

He yanked them down and had resist the urge to howl as he felt some of the fur on the tail get yanked away with the boxers. “Fuck-” was about all he allowed out of his mouth before he was climbing into the shower in a worse mood than before. If looks could kill, the shower tile would be a goner. He grabbed the shampoo, figuring that’d work better than soap on fur and squirted some into his hand, rapidly applying it to hair and furry ears. It felt unsurprisingly strange and maybe a little nice to have the hot water and soapy suds on the new ears. It was only when his tail slapped wetly against the shower tiles that Guude realised he’d been wagging it.

“Oh for cryin’ out loud.”

-0-

Out the shower and successfully de-bloodied, Guude found himself attacking one of his pairs of jeans with a knife. He’d already tried to pull on a pair over the top of his tail but that had only resulted in him hurting himself when the tail just wouldn’t fit pressed down against the back of a leg. So here he was, pantsless in his living room, missing out on recording time as he tried to cut a hole into the ass of his trousers for a goddamn tail.

“Fuck my life man, fuck my life.” He muttered darkly, dropping the knife to one side and trying to wriggle into the trousers again. With a bit of work tugging at the now rather fluffy grey tail through the new hole, he got the pants on. Pleased with the meagre victory over his new appendage, he grabbed the baseball cap he’d rooted out earlier and jammed it on to his the ears. It was uncomfortable but nothing he couldn’t handle. He just had to hope no one asked where his ears had gone…hell, hopefully no one noticed the damn tail sticking out his ass.

That done, he headed outside and hopped into the portal. Doc or Jeff would know about this. They had to. Maybe they could do something about it.

-0-

“Guude!”

Guude almost had a heart attack, slamming himself back against the wall behind him to pin his stupid tail between it and himself. Hopefully it hadn’t been spotted by Avidya. “Didn’t expect to see you here guy,” he said casually, glancing curiously at the other. His usually loose and open coat was tied shut and…Avidya was wearing a baseball cap too. Hm.

“Yeah, thought I’d pay Jeff a visit.” Avidya drawled, glancing over him just as curiously. “What’s with the hat?”

“Felt like a hat, what about you?” He sniffed, catching the scent of something odd. Oh god, he hadn’t gotten a dog’s sense of smell as well had he? Fantastic. That explained why the nether smelt so strongly of sulphur and burnt things. This was something else though and it was getting his hackles up, figuratively speaking.

“Felt like a hat too. Must just be a hat day.”

Guude wasn’t sure if he should buy it or not but Avidya wasn’t demanding he lose his hat so Guude was gonna offer him the same courtesy. “Right, hat day. Should be a holiday.”

Avidya gave a short laugh, glancing along the tunnel. “Well, guess I’ll catch you around. See you Guude.”

“Bye.”

The moment Avidya was out of sight, Guude found himself relaxing. There had been something off about Avidya and it’d made him all tense. He tried not to think what it might mean, what the hat might have been about, and started making his way back up the tunnel. If Avidya was going to see Jeff then he’d have to go and see Doc instead.

-0-

This time he wasn’t stopped on the way, hurrying through the massive hub to get to Doc’s tunnel and hurrying along the length of that. He dove through the portal, nerves mounting as he considered how he was going to explain this. He could feel his new ears lying flat against his head under the cap, tail tucked low. Damnit this was going to be hard to get used to, though if Doc could do something about it then maybe he wouldn’t have to.

“Doc! You got a sec?” he called, stepping out the portal and looking around.

“…Guude?” the German-accented voice called back warily. “What are you doing here?”

Guude frowned, looking around. He sounded close, where was the guy? “I could use your help with somethin’ guy, where you at?” And why was this getting his hackles up just as much if not more so than Avidya had?

“I’m…around. Can’t this wait?”

“Not really guy, it’s kind of…” Guude looked down at his tail, somewhat alarmed by the way the fur was all sticking out. “…a medical emergency.”

There was a frustrated sound from above him and Guude bit back the urge to let out a growl in response.

“Can’t you go see Jeff?” Doc tried, sounding almost desperate to Guude’s new and improved ears. It was followed by the scratch of something sharp on the wood above him. He couldn’t not look up. A dim red eye caught his attention, peeking over the edge of one of the wooden beams.

“Are you in the rafters, guy? What are you doin’?”

“…You have to promise not to laugh or freak out okay? Don’t hit me with a sword or something.”

Guude raised his eyebrows. Oh god, what if he was part animal too? “I ain’t even got a sword on me. Besides, pretty sure I could say the same for you, there’s a reason I’m here.”

Doc sighed and dragged himself over the edge of the rafter, flipping forwards to land on his feet with a grace Guude found himself envying. The German straightened up and with an air of reluctance, dismissed the cyborg-creeper skin. Across the backs of his arms, thick black lines stood out against the tanned skin, the pattern echoed across the sides of Doc’s neck and up around his eyes. Atop his head and nestled between the dark locks of hair, two round ears of black and orange fur rested. And there, lashing back and forth nervously behind Doc, was a black, white and orange tail.

Guude immediately found himself on edge. It might have been the way he could feel the tenseness coming off the other man in a way that made him want to bare his teeth and snarl, or it might have been the way that Doc was focusing on his tail with narrowed eyes. He swallowed and took a step back without really realising what he was doing, escape quite suddenly on his mind. Guude froze up when Doc’s eyes snapped to his. Doc’s ears went flat and he bared his sharper-than-usual teeth, hissing angrily. Guude felt his ears drop flat against his scalp, already baring his own teeth in response and growling back.

For all he’d wanted to get here in a hurry earlier, now he wanted nothing more than to turn tail and run. Guude took another step back, teeth still bared as Doc advanced again. If he could get to the portal, he could escape and everything would be fine.

Or that was his thought process until Doc broke into a run at him. Guude really did turn tail and diver back through the portal, hitting the ground with a curse and scrabbling to get back up. He didn’t know if Doc was behind him or not as he ran through the hub, not stopping until he reached the main Spawn portal and collapsed against the warm quartz there, panting hard as he sank to sit on the floor.

No sign of Doc…but what the hell had that been? Guude didn’t have any more clues as to what exactly was going, but he knew two things he hadn’t before. One, he was not alone. Two, whatever this was, it was affecting more than just how they looked, changing how they behaved now too.

Guude groaned, running his hands through his hair. The cap had been lost somewhere in the run from Doc’s portal and he couldn’t bring himself to care. “Jesus Christ…how could this day get any worse?”