Four times they were single celled organisms
Note: I wrote four short pieces, only the third of them being somewhat compliant to the 'is the year five billion BC' part of the prompt. The other three pieces are just me playing with the single-celled organism theme.
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The thing that came from Outer Space Style
Wilson paused at the entrance, taking a glance at the disgusting pink dough on the bed before addressing House.
"So, rumors were true?" he asked. "Cameron finally found a way to have your undivided attention?"
House snorted and made a show of keeping his attention glued to the TV screen, the smell of warm butter, popcorns and salt permeating the room and making Wilson think of childhood movies and hot summer evenings.
Looking back at the thing that he had last seen as an Immunologist maybe four hours before, Wilson tried to find irregularities on its surface --veins-like lines, mountains and valleys-- but he found none. The gelatinous surface appeared smooth, like a giant strawberry milkshake drop, one that could be easily destroyed if anything altered its superficial tension.
Curiosity made him reach for it; a cane on his knuckles made him stop.
"Not so fast, wonder boy," House grunted. "This damsel in distress is not as distressed as she seems."
Wilson would have rolled his eyes at House's reference to his supposed chivalry, but he was far more curious about what those words really meant.
"What, defense mechanism?" It would make sense; in the movies, anyway.
House eyes shone, finally showing how interesting this bizarre situation was for him.
"Do you think skinny Dr. Cameron had enough mass to turn into a thing that size?" he asked, pointing at the creature. At least, Wilson thought it was a creature; there was a pulsing movement on it that gave the idea of life.
Taking a second glance at the room, Wilson noticed something apparently out of place: an abandoned shoe, almost hidden under the bed and covered with pink slime. He easily recognized it.
"Chase?" he asked, genuinely awed. It was a shame he hadn't been there to watch the process.
House nodded as an overly-eager boy.
"And Foreman, maybe?" Wilson inquired, looking for more evidence and unfortunately not finding it.
"Sadly, no. He ran to run whatever tests he could think of; as far as possible, of course." Then, when Wilson clicked his tongue in disappointment, House continued with a mischievous smile: "But the nurses have no idea, and someone is supposed to come take its vitals every two hours."
That made it. Wilson's evening wasn't busy, and his next patient always arrived ten or fifteen minutes late. He had more than enough time.
"Gimme," he ordered, sitting on the other chair. House usually didn't share his food, but this time he didn't seem to have a problem when passing the popcorn.
It was for a good cause after all, Wilson reflected, and smiled.
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Men in Black Style
It was a weird sensation, but one that W was now used to. He couldn't call it darkness, because without sensatory systems he wasn't able differentiate between light and lack of it. He shouldn't be able to feel and hear either, but somehow, during the multiple times he had been into The Tank, a new sense had manifested itself.
The first times it had been … an itch, maybe. A prickle he couldn't scratch, not that he wanted to: somehow, he knew it was related to H's presence. With time it evolved into what probably should be called prescience, but it was linked to H only. He had an idea of what H was feeling, and he had known the other agent long enough to interpret it into the man's usual speech patterns.
It didn't work with the rest of the MIB.
Take a break, agent L
On The Tank, W perked up. He knew H would not have used those words, favoring more insulting ones. But being unable to feel agent L reactions made H interactions with others feel weird from his perspective.
A short pause followed, one during which W could picture H hobbling on his direction while eyeing the thick substance into The Tank with clinical eye.
I don't care how much you insist: you obviously enjoybeing turned into mush
Well, that was something they had discussed more than enough. W had thought he had been clear as to how displeasing the whole process was; but H, apparently, seemed to think he knew better.
How would you explain all the time you spend into that jar, otherwise?
W had his own theory, one related to H's tendency to infuriate angry aliens with access to multiple technologies that, weirdly enough, always ended turning one of them into a hard-to-scratch-from-the-floor substance. That the 'one of them' always happened to be W wasn't weird, thought; after all, he was the one whose mobility wasn't compromised.
I've asked Z to discharge you from service.
Wait, what?!
But he said I wouldn't last a day without you. As if.
W felt himself relax, but the startle should have somehow manifested on the reforming substance that passed now as his body, as H did something he had never done before: he touched The Tank. An electric impulse jumped from H's palm to the glass, then to W, making him shudder.
Don't be stupid, W. One of these days we are going to face Alien instead of ET, and being human marmalade will be the last of your worries. And if you get hurt, really hurt, I …
W was uneasy. Of course he was aware of the danger. Every time he jumped between H and a weapon he had half a second to wonder if this would be it, his last stupid decision. Yet he always woke up with his multiple cells painfully combined into a single, giant one, and then spent a couple weeks being painfully reformed into his old self. But it was not a subject they ever talked about.
I'm not worth it.
H left after that, leaving W alone in that darkness-quite-not-like darkness. He hoped H didn't do something stupid until he was ready to return.
---
LJ Strikethrough Style
Everybody … can we have your attention, please? Please, we need more silence. We know you are not comfortable, but if you allow us to explain …
That's much better, thanks.
First, I'd like to apologize, because of what happened and because of our poor response to the chaos that followed. I'd especially want to apologize for the fact that the information didn't flow immediately; we understand it was an error from our part not to explain the situation directly to you, too. We are sorry that you had to hear of it from a third party.
Now, as to what happened. I know it has been rumored we were responding to outside pressure. It is not true. What happened is that we tried to enact our Terms of Service, but evidently we didn't think about it long enough. Let me assure you that the members of the Abuse Team, the ones who were entrusted to do the dirty work, were not happy about it. They thought it was a stupid idea. They were, evidently, right.
To make things worse, most of us were not around to face the resulting confusion. It was, I assure you, nothing more than bad timing. We live to serve and, it could be said, we serve to live, as you are the first and foremost reason of our existence.
But a fact remains: some of our customers were not complying with our Terms of Service. Not as many as we erased, but still we found ourselves in the need to analyze each one of the situations, in order to restore those that were mistakenly removed. As you can imagine, doing such a thing takes longer than we would have liked, thus the remaining incommodity you've been experiencing.
It will come to an end soon, though, as I'm pleased to announce that your community, Planet Earth from the Solar System, has been found to be TOS compliant. We greatly apologize, and will continue to for eons to come, for the mistakes that lead us to this situation.
As to what we are doing to solve the current state of affairs: as I'm sure you already noticed, your previous identities have been restored. Your surroundings are not ready yet, so we'll ask you to remain on these facilities until the Development Team reconstructs your planet's conditions. I fear it will take some time, sadly, as it should move through all of its previous stages before reaching the one you were living in.
And because we know some of you will feel uneasy while waiting here, we have a proposition. Research tells me we have found a way to faux-duplicate the living forms existing on every stage of you planet's development. Nonetheless, it has been discovered that real living forms' interaction helps hurry the process. Thus, we are asking those of you willing to help to join our reconstruction effort. The inscription forms are being handled on windows one to three thousand nine hundred and ninety seven. Complains will be received on the last three windows.
Once again, sorry for the problems; we promise it'll not happen again.
-
"What were you?" Robert Chase asked once they were settled.
Cuddy still couldn't understand why House's people insisted on sticking together even if they weren't being obliged to, at least not under the current circumstances. Maybe they didn't have a life outside of the hospital, just as Cuddy herself.
"Which time?" House appeared out of nowhere, startling them both with his voice and by noisily dropping his full plate on the table.
"You were given more than one assignment?" Foreman asked, sounded as surprised as Chase looked.
Cameron seemed surprised as well, but for different reasons. "You didn't?" she asked, gesturing with what looked to Cuddy's eyes like a spork on amphetamines. "I think my average life span was five minutes, ten most."
"Well, I managed to evolve, although it wasn't nice," Chase commented in a 'don't ask' tone, looking shaken and ready to puke.
Cuddy was surprised when House, indeed, didn't ask. Instead, he mumbled "boring, boring, boring" and started poking at his food without actually eating it.
"Was I the only one who could kill others before being off-ed?" Cuddy asked, and House and Chase's hands immediately went up.
Cameron and Foreman stared at them.
"Well, how do you think evolution starts?" Chase provided with a shrug.
"It became old after the fiftieth time," said House then, looking around at the incredibly enormous cafeteria-like room.
Foreman shook his head in disapproving fashion.
"I didn't do anything," he said. "My colony just … remained there."
"You were part of a colony?" Cameron asked, but Cuddy noticed also House and Chase seemed curious.
"Me too," she said. "I think we established the beginnings of a multi-cellular organism. We had the rudiments of specialization, I mean."
"And you were pushing for queen bee, surely," House stated, but Cuddy could see he wasn't putting effort on it. Instead, he pushed Foreman's plate to the corner. "Move," he ordered, giving no explanation.
As Cuddy had expected, Wilson appeared almost immediately.
"Why does your food look like real food?" House asked when the other man sit by his side, taking from Wilson's tray a goblet with something that Cuddy would have swore was a smoothie, if smoothies were to be produced by alien races that obviously had no idea as to what humans ate.
Wilson rolled his eyes but didn't complain for the stealing act.
"I heard you had a problem with the kitchen," he provided.
"They have no idea of what a hamburger is," House protested. Cuddy noticed the other three doctors watching while their boss kept pilfering random pieces from Wilson's plate. "Hey! It almost tastes like real food, too!"
"Do you have an idea of how busy they are?" Wilson asked, pushing a second plate far from House and close to the rest of the table occupants. "They were more than happy to accept help."
"You were working in the kitchens?" Cameron asked, her voice sounding slightly judgmental.
"Only for the last hour," Wilson explained.
"If you don't like, don't eat," House declared, growling at her.
Sure enough, Cameron didn't say another word. Cuddy didn't think less of her, though: Wilson's food, even if cooked with alien ingredients, was far more delectable than the blue and green pottage they had been downing before he arrived.
Chit-chat returned to the table from Chase's mouth.
"So, Dr. Wilson, did you kill something?"
Wilson frowned and smiled at the same time, and looked at each one of their faces before obviously deciding it was safe to answer.
"Only a T. Rex, but I eventually died of the resulting injuries."
Silence fell on the table as a heavy boulder.
"A Tyrannosaurus Rex? The -- the dinosaur?" Chase asked as if clarification were needed.
"No, the musical group," House almost barked before turning to Wilson. "You were a fucking dinosaur," he stated, at the same time accusing and incredulous. "I worked my ass to move from RNA molecule to DNA molecule to chemoautotroph to prokaryote to eukaryote to chronoflagellate … and you were a fucking dinosaur?"
"It was a small one," Wilson informed, unfazed, and Cuddy had to admire his calmness.
"It wasn't a brachiosaurus, then?" she asked, curious. "I thought only those could kill a T. Rex."
"Oh, nothing that big; just a gallimimus."
House exploded after that, again.
"You were a fucking carnivore!" he stressed, almost livid. "And how in hell does a chicken-like thing kill the king of all dinosaurs?"
Foreman, Cuddy decided, seemed about to excuse himself from the table.
"They worked in packs, House, remember?" Wilson explained. "And the gigantosaurus were bigger than the tyrannosaurus, by the way."
"You were A. Fucking. Dinosaur!" House repeated, as if it hadn't been clear from the first time.
Wilson's face finally changed, but instead of appearing worried, he looked stern.
"I told you it was not a good idea to enrage Mmyzee."
"Missy who?" Cameron asked.
"The one handling the assignments in our window," Wilson provided.
Foreman groaned, "Oh, I can't believe this," but no one paid attention to him.
"All of the alien attendants had three pairs of arms and two pairs of eyes, besides being silver orange colored," Chase declared, in awe. "And it was almost impossible to say if they were male or female."
"Mmyzee is male," Wilson declared matter-of-factly, and rolled his eyes at the astounded looks his words conjured. "Oh for god's sake, I simply asked."
"So, about this being a dinosaur thing …" Cuddy started, an idea taking residence on her head.
House grinned at her.
"I think I can be nice to this Mmyzee guy."
Wilson sighed but didn't seem really bothered by the plan. He, in fact, smiled. Maybe, Cuddy reflected, the following weeks were not to be as bad as expected.
---
'Terminator III' Style
It would have remained a secret for the end of times, were not for the fact that once, when nobody else was watching, House witnessed Cuddy's left arm being cut off and joining her body again. He also noticed the silver liquid consistency of the severed extremity, which kind of explained why she didn't seem to suffer pain at all.
"And the worst thing is that I slept with her, once upon a time," House complained to Wilson, but then reconsidered, and added, "Best sex ever."
Nothing should have changed then. After all, House already respected her more than he respected any other authority figure. But for some reason she acted suspicious. She seemed to analyze everything he said, even more than before. Every place he moved to she was there; every thing he did or think she seemed to know.
"I think she's trying to seduce me," he ventured one night, over homemade Moo-goo-gai-pan with Wilson. "Either that, or she is getting ready to off me."
He could have run away then, he could have tried to hide as far away as possible. Instead, he started talking about sex with aliens, and wouldn't it be cool to try this or that position with a creature of such nature? Wilson, always-willing-to-listen Wilson, finally seemed to reach his limit, and House found himself suddenly deserted whenever the topic was mentioned.
"Do you know what else I noticed about her?" he asked two Fridays later, and kept Wilson on the couch by holding his wrist with the hardest grip he could summon. "That she was supposed to be in a different part of the building that day she lost her arm." Then Wilson's hand slipped like liquid between his fingers.
A creature like it could have taken any possible appearance, but House asked him not to. They didn't try most of the positions he had suggested earlier, either. He had more than enough with the old, reliable Wilson, and wasn't that much curious about the silver liquid version of him.
And there was this one time when he almost admitted the truth, but even if Wilson was sleeping and couldn't hear him, the words didn't come out. "Best sex ever," he whispered instead.