Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
--Friedrich Nietzche
***
Things are different now that he's changed.
It isn't just his skin, isn't just his eyes. He's hungry all the time, burning through calories, struggling to heal every scratch and nick and bruise he picks up: trapped and starving in his own skin. He has become something inflexible and empty, something that lives on hate, a creature of need and fury and terrible compulsions.
("Are you sure?" The virus had asked, eyes glowing green in the dark)
He notices people differently. He's never been the kind of guy to pass up a free look, to ignore a smile from a pretty cell (Leah, something inside him grieves), but now he notices everyone, guys, girls, smiling and laughing and holding hands, eating snacks, walking their pets, doing their jobs and it's edged with the same hunger that laces through everything. He thinks, If I could touch her, if I could hold him down, if I could bite, chase, sink my fingers in... and he thinks I can't, I won't.
But oh. He wants to.
(He'd said "Yes," and he had gritted his teeth and bared his wrist and said "Come on, I need this," and the virus had smiled with sharp, sharp teeth.)
Figure One, Two, and Three: he knows how viruses like to reproduce. He knows what will happen to the pretty girl he lets himself smile back at, if he lets himself smile, knows that he'll drag her into the same nightmare. And he knows he can't let himself become the monster that he is chasing. He can only come so close as mirroring the man that has become his life.
He is pursuing Thrax, not becoming him. Justice will be done.
He's in a dive, some crappy blister of a joint, a club, eating. All he ever seems to do anymore is eat, beat up goons and worse scum for information and their pocket change and the brutal thrill of doing something, and then eat again. He doesn't need to sleep. He can't sleep. He can't stop. The hunger is in him like a live thing, burning and driving and infuriating. He needs something he can't name, starving for it. He is eating, and soon he will go out into this newest city (Johnny? Joshua? James? The names blur together, a litany of failure) and find someone to pound into the pavement, and then he will, maybe, be a step closer to finding--
Finding Thrax.
Who walks into the dive, two huge germs flanking him like nightmare bookends, head high and smile oblivious.
"Hey, brother," He drawls, and takes a seat at the bar beside Jones. "What's shaking?"
Jones goes hot with outrage, shocked into a scalding kind of paralysis: he is too angry to move, to speak, to wrap his hands around Thrax's face and squeeze until the man's yellow eyes run out of his head. It gives Thrax enough time to raise an eyebrow, then order a drink from the bar.
He doesn't know, of course. Of course. Osmosis Jones is maybe not dead, maybe just sleeping, but he has a thick red shell and the same dead yellow eyes and the same nasty, hungry mouth as the monster perched on a stool beside him. They could be brothers, or bookends.
("Am I done?" He had asked and the virus had said "Yeah, baby, you're done, pay up," and Jones had said "Here's what you deserve," and planted a big smoking hole between the other virus's eyes.)
He's been staring too long.
"You all there, baby?" Thrax asks, his fingers long and elegant on his glass, a picture of sleek and lovely horror. He's got something that smells caustic and Jones wants it. Wants him. The hunger inside him roils and surges and he looks down at his meal, takes a hasty bite of the long-chain glucose noodles.
"I'm okay," He mumbles through his mouthful, ash-thick and cloying on his tongue. "Just one of those days, man."
"Don't I know it," Thrax says, all good humor, a murderer on his lunch break. "Get you something to drink?"
"I don't really drink," Jones says. He doesn't really know what would kill him.
"Nonsense," Thrax says, and gets him one of whatever he's got.
It smells worse close up, but it burns so nicely going down. "Thanks, man," He says, and he is surprised to find that he means it.
"I love this place," Thrax says conversationally."They treat a body right, here." He strokes the bar gently, almost lingering, and smiles at Jones. "Do I know you?"
Yes, Jones wants to say, wants to scream Yes, yes you bastard You destroyed everything I ever loved, you took away my life, you made me into this, you better know me.
Instead, he finished the last bite of sugar and shrugs. "I dunno," He says. It's not really a lie. "Jones," He says. He can't quite look him in the eyes.
"Thrax," the monster says, and raises his glass. "Charmed, baby."
Jones raises his own glass. The drink burns a little hotter the second time, and it is not entirely unlike meeting someone for the first time.
"So what brings you to town?" Thrax asks him, leaning into his space. "Business or pleasure?"
His breath is hot and smells of the acid drink, of something burning. Jones keeps his eyes on his empty plate, holding himself barely in check. Balancing. If he looks up he'll come apart, and the big bruisers on either side of Thrax look ready for a fight. He isn't so good at brawling these days, now that he has become what he is: off-balanced and starving, the goons would take him apart.
("You'll feel some initial disorientation," the virus had said.)
Thrax is still watching him. Jones draws his finger across the residue on his plate, licks it. He says, "Just passing through, man. Just trying to get by."
Thrax laughs. The sound is shocking, a warm friendly rumble, and he takes hold of Jones' hand. Jones goes stiff with shock, and Thrax brings his captive finger up as if he is demonstrating a piece of evidence.
"You're new at this, aren't you?" Thrax says. His voice is soft, amused. "You'll never get by if you keep trying to metabolize sugars. That shit's for cells, you're going to poison yourself."
Jones laughs, his own voice a hoarse rasp. He spreads his fingers wide in Thrax's grasp, meets his eyes, one poison-yellow set to another. "Like I'm fine already?" he asks, "Like this isn't poisoned enough?" His free hand gouging the counter, he demands, "What am I supposed to eat, then?"
Thrax, of all things, looks genuinely sympathetic. He leans back against the counter, takes a drink. "You aren't, baby," he says. "Just a little plasma cocktail now and again to keep you sharp. You'll get used to it."
He hasn't let go of Jones' hand.
"I'm so hungry," Jones says, and it's something like a confession. He says, whispers, "All the time, I'm so hungry all the time and it's driving me crazy."
Thrax chuckles into his glass. "We can do something about that, baby."
His hand is still around Jones', and when he squeezes it Jones can feel heat shoot up through his arm.
Jones feels hot and relieved and trapped all at once. "Why are you doing this?" he demands.
Thrax makes an absent sort of thoughtful noise, scanning the room as if looking for someone. "I hate seeing wasted potential," he says. "If you're going to do something, do it right, you know? Look at you." He lets go of Jones' hand, trails one finger up along his arm, his throat. "You're a wreck, doll. Who made you? Why are they letting you bang around like this?" He gives the room another scan. "Where are they?"
He's looking for Jones' parent virus.
"There isn't anyone else," Jones says. "I can take care of myself." He raises his chin challengingly. He expects Thrax to look amused, or angry. He doesn't expect Thrax to grab both his wrists, his eyes wide and his mouth a little slack. He's-- shocked?
"You're alone?" Thrax asks, and there's something disbelieving and more than a little horrified in his voice. "Your daddy just left you?"
This would not be the time to mention that Jones had killed the virus in question and left him to rot in a dank alley.
"Yeah," Jones says, and tries a smile. Some kind of strange, fierce sympathy comes over Thrax, and he draws Jones in, under his arm, holding him tight like a kid with a teddy bear. It's unnerving, but it feels safe on a weird core level that Jones has never felt before. He's almost completely wrapped up and the heat is so comforting.
"How did he just make you and leave you? We don't-- we never just..." Thrax sounds lost, almost plaintive. "We gotta take care of..." his hands are nearly painful around Jones, his sharp face digging into Jones' neck.
"He's dead," Jones says, and the sob that wrenches up from his throat is terrible and surprising and he isn't crying for that stupid unnamed unmourned virus, he's crying for Frank and Drix and Lea, for his old chief and the guys back at the station, for himself, for being so alone.
He's all alone, he thinks, and then Thrax presses a hot kiss into his shoulder and he realizes he's said it out loud.
"I got you, baby," Thrax rumbles in his ear, "You don't have to be alone no more, it's gonna be okay. I got you, and I'm gonna take care of you and set you up and you'll be just fine, baby, everything's gonna be fine."
Thrax's arms around him, he's so hot and he feels so safe. He's coming apart, crying in a crowded bar and the monster that took away his world is petting him and whispering in his ear. Telling him that everything's going to be fine.
Everything is going to be just fine.
***
By the time the poor kid stops crying Thrax has managed to bundle him up on his lap, enfolding him in a tight embrace and the thick (if somewhat smelly) coat of Echo, one of his temporary lackeys.
It's been a while since he's had any kids of his own, and he feels shaken by the rush of tenderness for this little guy, the rush of rage against a cruel world that would leave someone all helpless and cold and hungry and alone. New viruses are terrible at taking care of themselves (They shouldn't have to be taking care of themselves, he thinks furiously) while they learn the ropes and Jones calms down almost as soon as he's warmed up properly. He looks like he might be meningitis, looks actually like he could be Thrax's own particular strain, one of his own boys, and it's kind of funny but mostly sad that Jones thought a thin white shirt and some tattered pants were going to cut it. Viruses that kill with heat don't do so well with cold-- it's no wonder the little guy is in such rough shape.
Echo and his twin are muttering and staring and maybe thinking about asking for the coat back, but Echo has terrible hygiene and his brother chews with his mouth open and really, he had been meaning to kill them soon anyway.
Jones makes a shaky little noise and rubs at his eyes, scanning the room, looking embarrassed and distrustful. He's a fighter, a trooper, and the hateful, wary suspicion glittering in his eyes is deeply tragic. The world isn't kind to viruses: a certain level of generalized belligerence is healthy. But he's so young, so small, and he shouldn't be this screwed up and paranoid. He shouldn't look confused at simple kindness. A new kid needs his daddy, needs to know that he is safe and special and adored, that he has a place in the world. Thrax probes for information, gently, keeping his tone light and gets the story piece by horrible piece.
It had been dark. He hadn't seen the virus's face. Didn't know his name. He'd been attacked, forced against the wall and infected. It had hurt, he had been scared. Then the virus had been gone.
Gone? Wasn't he dead?
Jones bites his lip, and his eyes dart all around the room. He's scared again. He must have been dead, he explains slowly, because otherwise wouldn't he be taking care of Jones? Why would he have left? Why would he have left Jones all alone, to make it on his own, if he hadn't been?
The hot rush of rage and protectiveness boils all through Thrax, and he curls up tighter around Jones. Thrax wants to find that virus and kill him all over again.
A virus couldn't go back to who they were before the change, and it can be hard to adjust (the rules are so different afterwards) and they're supposed to have help, supposed to have someone. And then it was supposed to be that that someone was more than happy to stick around: a virus couldn't help it, they just took one look at their new boy or girl, lying there all adorable and helpless, and they fell in love. It just wasn't natural for a virus to sire some kid and then waltz off.
Witness exhibit A, here, a broken wreck on Thrax's lap, clinging and frightened and angry, abandoned to sink or swim, abandoned to drown.
You heard about predators like this, now and then, shifty deadbeats who got their kicks infecting cells and then leaving them to die or go mad, moving on without a blink or a backwards glance. Not caring.
Not taking care, just taking.
What's so much worse is how much Jones looks like Thrax, how close his daddy must have been related, how maybe it was even one of Thrax's boys that turned him and then abandoned him. He'd thought he'd raised his kids proper. He thought-- he doesn't know what to think.
Thrax thinks, knows, if he ever finds the bastard that did this to his Jones, this poor precious little guy, he is going to take them apart piece by piece by piece, even if it is one of his own boys, he's gonna make them wish they'd died in that alley with Jones. It is going to be slow and horrible, and medical students are going to whisper about it in hushed, reverent tones.
He's going to enjoy it.
In the meantime, he's going to take this Jones in and treat him right. He's started to drift off to sleep on Thrax's lap, lulled by the warmth and probably the first feeling of safety he's ever had, and Thrax strokes his hair until he's out, letting him know it'll be okay, letting him know that he was going to be his new daddy, that he's going to be there when he wakes up.
Then he bundles Jones up and carries him out of the bar, heading for his nearest safehouse, leaving Echo and his brother and the bar in sweet, lovely flames behind him.
He's already thinking of lessons to teach, warm coats to buy, nucleic coding to alter, people to murder. Jones' face is tucked against his shoulder, his face sweet and relaxed in sleep, as fragile and precious and corruptible as a helix of DNA.
Thrax is going to do this right.