Warnings: Sex between an alien and a human in later chapters. Xenophilia and mild violence. Body horror I suppose? I think that goes with the D9 territory. Um, if you're truly set on avoiding the human/alien relations you can skip down to the 'o' divider in this chapter, though you do miss a couple of important plot points. If you would still like to know what happened, read the note directly under this warning and before the disclaimer.
Spoiler. Wikus and Christopher return to the shuttle and get trapped there overnight by an electrical storm. While Christopher goes to secure the ship, Wikus decides to check his jerry-rigged radio and overhears a partial response to his distress call. During the resultant freak-out, he breaks Christopher's communicator accidently and cuts his hand on it. Christopher returns and cleans his wound. Angsty fail!sex ensues. Spoiler.
Disclaimer: I do not own District 9. All characters are property of their respective copyright holders and I am making no profit from this work of fiction.
o
Wikus' routine stayed much the same, but the changed dynamic between him and Christopher charged their interactions. Wikus had almost forgotten the excitement that came with having a new lover, the novelty of each other's bodies, and the pleasure of stealing a few moments alone. Christopher discovered stimulating the small points of his nipples with slick tentacles could render Wikus incoherent and Wikus found that running his fingers along the alien's antennae had Christopher pinning him to the wall of the storage room, three fingered hands yanking his pants down. It was almost worth the embarrassment of finally asking Christopher to go down on him.
It was both one of the most erotic experiences of his life and profoundly frightening, lying back helpless, watching as his cock slid between mandibles and tentacles; half afraid he might lose it.
But Christopher was gentle and the combination of feelers twining around him, running through the wiry hair at the base, a source of fascination for the alien, stimulating his shaft as more slipped down to feel the sac had him coming fast enough to be a blow to his ego.
Basking in the warmth of Christopher's affection and with plenty of tasks to keep him occupied, it was all too easy to fall into a routine. But the realization that he had not returned to check the radio in over a week nagged at him, tainted by a simultaneous reluctance to do so.
He wasn't sure if he wanted to know if there'd been an answer to his distress call.
Ignoring the guilty feeling in his gut, he finally asked Christopher to escort him out to the ship under the official reason of retrieving more supplies.
The alien agreed and they arrived at the shuttle in the early afternoon. Wikus dawdled over gathering more metal scrap from Ross' room and some of the pale, vitamin-rich paste that served as deep space emergency rations from storage.
He ripped open a tube and sucked out the contents out as he explored the med bay, making a face at the flavor. Millions in research and they still managed to make it taste like wallpaper paste.
He was digging through the med bay cabinets, checking for additional medication and bandages when, under a stack of surgical exam gloves, he discovered some tubes of medical lubricant.
He hesitated before picking one up, feeling the weight of the metal cylinder in his palm.
Should he?
He stuffed the tube into his knapsack, trying not to think about what it represented.
Returning to the main control room, Wikus found Christopher standing at the open door to the shuttle, antennae waving as he watched the sky.
"Something wrong?" Wikus asked, propping his knapsack next to a seat.
"There's an electrical storm coming," Christopher clicked.
"Do we need to leave?"
"Not safe to do so," the alien replied, "we'd never make it across the plains in time."
"What should we do?" Christopher hadn't turned to look at him, but beyond the alien's head Wikus could see the sky was turning dark. There was a tightness in the air.
"I'm going to check and see how well the ship is grounded," Christopher clicked, moving from the hatch to lay down his weapon near the control panel. He set a small communication device on top of the panel before starting to climb down the ladder, "It would be best if we could stay here; there's no shelter nearby."
The alien disappeared from sight.
Wikus followed him to the door and looked out across the plains. A mountain of dark clouds roiled in the distance, cross hatched with streaks of lightning. A low rumble of thunder reached his ears.
An electrical storm of that magnitude might blow out his jerry rigged radio; he should disconnect it before it hit.
Wikus seated himself at the control panel, reaching for the power cell and antennae connections, and hesitated.
He flipped on the switch.
The radio blinked and hissed.
Wikus ran a cursory check of the official command channels. Just a quick scan, probably wasn't anyone out there anyway…
"…ikus?"
He froze.
More static and then, "…calling…three days."
His heart sank.
"…can't…location."
Wikus flipped off the switch and nearly tore the connection cables off the device. In his haste he bumped the communicator left by Christopher. It crashed to the floor. Panicked, he grabbed for it and something sharp sliced into his fingers.
"Fok!" he shouted, his voice hollow in the empty ship.
I can't deal with this, cantdealwiththis…
Groaning, he buried his head in his hands.
Why now?
Blood from his hand trickled down the side of his face.
He wasn't sure how long he sat there in the strange twilight of the coming storm, meaningless, irritating clicks sounding in his ears.
A hand on his shoulder startled him and he looked up, flinching as the shadow of a monster loomed over him.
"Wikus?" clicked Christopher, "I was calling your name, are you alright?"
Wikus stared dumbly at the alien for a few moments, "I cut my hand," he said finally. He looked down at his injury but in the dim light he could barely see the dark fluid against pale fingers.
"I broke your communicator," his voice sounded strange to him.
"It's not a problem," Christopher clicked, taking his hand, "Let's go clean it up. Do you have any small emergency lights?"
"First storage room, right side," Wikus responded automatically.
The alien drew him to his feet and towards the med bay, stopping to retrieve one of the cylindrical battery lanterns. He turned it over, examining it.
"Twist the top," Wikus said.
The alien did so and pale white light flared into existence, throwing the lines of Christopher's face into sharp relief, grotesque features exaggerated by the deep shadows.
Christopher guided him into the med bay and seated him on Phyllis' bunk, setting the lantern down beside Wikus before digging into the drawers for bandages and disinfectant.
Outside, thunder rumbled, close, sending small buzzing vibrations across the skin of the ship.
Christopher knelt before him and lifted his hand, tipping some disinfectant over his fingers.
The pain shocked him and he tried to snatch his hand back. The alien hung on.
After a few moments the burning eased and he sat back, watching as Christopher bandaged his hand, thick fingers moving with dexterity.
A strange wild ache gripped Wikus' heart.
He laid his free hand on Christopher's head.
The alien paused, releasing his hand, "Wikus?"
He pressed his hand against Christopher's forehead, just above his eyes, easing his head back a little, before leaning down and kissing him at the top of that writhing, foreign mouth.
Christopher sat still and let him.
Wikus groped for the lantern at his side, turning it off before tugging on Christopher, trying to get him up onto the narrow bunk.
The alien went willingly, allowing himself to be pushed down among the sheets. Wikus rose and moved towards the cabinets. He was blind in the sudden dark, but felt his way along.
"Wikus, what are you doing?" Christopher clicked.
Wikus dug into one of the cabinets, his hand closing around a tube of lubricant and didn't answer.
He could hear Christopher start to sit up as he returned to the bunk and he put out his bandaged hand, flinching in pain as he pressed the alien back into the bed. He stripped as best as he could with only one hand and crawled on top of him.
The feel of exoskeleton against bare skin never really registered as pleasurable, small spines poked him, but the warmth and darkness provoked a feeling of safety. A childish assurance; if I close my eyes, no one can see me.
See his transgression.
Neither shalt thou lie with…
He crushed the thought before it could finish.
"It's okay," his voice sounded very far away, "I want to do this."
"Wikus?" Christopher's clicks were tinged with worry, "Are you sure you're alri—"
Wikus slipped a hand between them and stroked the plates covering Christopher's organ. The alien jerked and buzzed, cut off.
He continued to stimulate Christopher until he felt the organ slip free, sliding between his fingers.
Wikus sat up, groping for the tube of lubricant.
The tiny white cap escaped his grasp, falling the ground with a soft click drowned out by another rumble of thunder. The storm was around them now; Wikus could hear the rain sliding down the sides of the shuttle.
Slick gel spilled over his fingers. Bracing against Christopher's chest with his bandaged hand, he reached back between his legs and slid a finger into himself.
It didn't hurt much, but the strange, not quite right sensation gave him pause. He squirmed, trying to stretch himself, recalling the rough jokes of friends and classmates, things he'd never quite had the courage to try with Tania.
He slid another finger in, gasping at the ache and burn. Below him, Christopher shifted, his purring song rising in a low, uneasy rumble.
Thunder roared and the ship swayed slightly in the wind. Wikus could feel the slick press of Christopher's organ against his thigh.
Sliding his fingers out, he gripped the narrow appendage and guided it in.
Christopher jerked, his purr strangled as his organ stabbed deep. Too fast; Wikus gave a choked cry and curled in on himself.
Christopher pushed himself up; "Wikus…" his clicks were colored with distress.
"I'm fine," Wikus gripped the alien's shoulders and tried to breathe, "Just, need a minute, yeah?" God, Christopher hadn't seemed very large, but now he felt as if he'd been skewered. He sucked a breath through his nose and released it slowly.
Bit by bit his body relaxed, eased past the instinctual response. The discomfort lessened, though he was still sharply aware of the strange hard presence inside him.
Wikus labored up on his knees, still grasping Christopher's shoulders and thrust back down.
Christopher chirped and bucked, stabbing up inside him.
It wasn't painful any more, but neither did he feel much pleasure. He'd long since lost his erection, but he continued to move, driven by a desperate determination he didn't understand. Trying to get Christopher to come.
One plated arm wound around him, halting his movements, and he fought the alien, writhing and squirming.
"Fok," he whispered hoarsely, "don't make me stop, don't fokking make me—"
"Hush," clicked Christopher "I'm not going to make you stop."
Christopher's hand grasped his limp penis and stroked and Wikus moaned, shaking and open and sensitive and when he tried to raise his body again Christopher let him, stroking his back, supporting some of his weight without trying to guide his movements.
Wikus' knees slipped against the sheets and he shifted to compensate. Weak, electric pleasure shot through him and he moaned.
The storm curled around them, grumbling like an angry dragon. Christopher pressed close and once again he felt those long tentacles dip into his mouth.
Monster.
Creature.
Other.
Lover.
Wikus buried his face against the chitin plates of Christopher's shoulder and shook.
.,.
Kkrokpe lay in the darkness, Wikus tucked against his side, listening to the sounds of the storm. He sang his low song, the one which would lull his son to sleep, trying to soothe the distress in his mate he didn't fully understand.
o
When Wikus woke the storm had passed and the world had the bright washed quality that comes after a long rain. His hand and the area between his legs ached and his eyes were crusted with the salt residue of tears he didn't remember shedding. He let Christopher bundle him back to the city; wanted to curl into the warm hollow of their bed and sleep forever.
Deyi was frantic at their return, chirping too fast for Wikus' tired mind to translate. Christopher reached down and lifted his son, purring to him, and took them back to the bedroom though it was still early. He urged Wikus down into the depression, setting the little alien on his chest and curling his large body around them both.
Deyi eventually dropped off, but Wikus could tell from the rhythm of Christopher's breath that he was not asleep.
He wanted to talk, but the swell of his fear rose in his throat and choked him.
Wikus shut his eyes, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in his hand.
.,.
The following day was unreasonably hot and humid after the rains and the heat and pain made Wikus more short tempered than ever. The lumpy bandage got in the way of menial tasks and meant that any delicate craft work had to be put on hold.
Plus the fokking thing itched.
Left with little to distract himself from the fact that his window of opportunity to return to his own planet was rapidly closing, Wikus grew restless and irritable.
Things came to a head in the sweltering afternoon. Wikus was sorting some of the metal scrap he'd gathered from the shuttle. His hand, swollen and hot, was resting on the table. Wikus was stacking washers in a neat pile when his hand jerked and spasmed in the bandages, scraping across the table. Tiny metal fittings scattered across the floor.
"Fok!" he snarled, clutching his hand "stupid, fokking, useless…"
"Wikus?" Christopher clicked, looking up from his own work, "What's wrong?"
"This!" snapped Wikus, waving his bandaged hand at the alien "The fokking thing hurts! Hell, I think it's getting worse, not better!"
Christopher gave a click of concern, "Let's take a look. There may be a chance of infection."
Wikus' fingers drummed on the tabletop as the alien unwound the bandages, breathing in relief as the pressure on his hand eased. The bandages hadn't felt tight when Christopher had put them on, but now it felt as if the circulation was being cut off.
"Fok, that feels better," he sighed, trying to stretch and separate his fingers as the loose coils fell away. They felt thick and strange, vestigial numbness from the bandages probably, "How's it look?"
Christopher didn't answer. The alien was staring at his hand, frozen.
Confused, Wikus followed his gaze.
His breath strangled in his throat.
Dark thick ridges traversed the back of his hand, and even though his mind didn't quite understand, couldn't quite comprehend, something deep and primal shrieked at Wikus that this was wrong, not supposed to be, not right.
His fingers wouldn't separate under his command, already beginning to fuse together in three thick digits, skin and flesh half melted and merged.
Wikus, faced with the gruesome transformation of his own body, reacted as any ostensibly sane person might.
He screamed.
.,.
"Wikus," clicked Christopher desperately, "please calm down."
"Calm down?" bellowed Wikus, clutching his hand, holding it away from his body like a poisonous serpent, "how can I fokking calm down?"
"I am a bit unsure as to how this could have occurred—"
"No fokking kidding! Shit like this doesn't just happen!"
"The only thing I can think of is that you might have come into contact with the fluid that powers our technology," Christopher appeared disturbed, "I should have checked your injuries from my communicator last night—"
"You did this to me? What kind of fokking technology does something like this?"
Christopher reached for him, "Wikus, I…"
"I'm turning into a fokking monster!"
Silence greeted his statement.
Wikus turned to look at his host.
Christopher was standing motionless, hands still outstretched. The alien looked down at his own hands; the thick, pointed fingers, ridged with overlapping plates. Slowly he lowered his arms to his sides and Wikus was suddenly sick to his stomach because Christopher knows that word, has heard him use it in reference to the hulking creatures that attacked them, knows its meaning and implications.
"Fok, Christopher," Wikus stepped forward, hand momentarily forgotten, but the alien withdrew.
"I was not aware you felt that way," Christopher clicked, the sound low and subdued.
"No, that's not it," Wikus groped for something to say, "I don't think that you, that your people," he amended hastily, "are monsters."
"And yet this is repugnant to you," clicked Christopher, gesturing to his hand.
Wikus looked at his arm and couldn't think of anything to say.
Christopher sighed through his gills, "My leader thinks that it is wrong that I have taken you as a mate. He calls it hgrskufh, unclean. I told him that it did not matter that you were different; that we had courted in the proper way and there was no reason why we could not be mates. I suppose I was mistaken."
"No," Wikus said, suddenly desperate, "you weren't wrong; I do care about you. But this," he held up his arm, "is frightening, and on top of everything, I, I panicked."
"What do you mean?"
"I'll only ever ask one thing of you," Tania murmured "be honest with me."
Wikus took a breath.
"Weeks ago, when I was on the shuttle, I managed to send a partial distress call. Last night I received an incoming transmission. Someone heard me."
Wikus sank down on one of the stools and stared at his hand.
"When I got here, I never expected any of this, not you, the kid, any of it. I didn't know what to do; whether to send a response or not, whether I even wanted to go back. And this," he turned his hand over, unable to stop the shudder at the sight of the thick chitin erupting through his skin, "this feels like the decision got yanked out of my fokking hands."
"There are more of your species in this star system?" Christopher's clicks were terse.
"Yeah, a rescue ship, it sounded like. There was a lot of static."
Christopher made an unintelligible noise he's come to recognize as a curse, "That is not good; the leader will be displeased."
"Why? This might be his chance to fokking get rid of me," said Wikus bitterly.
"No," clicked Christopher darkly, "not after you have spent time among us. He will not allow you to leave with so much information."
"What information?" said Wikus in surprise, "It's not like you guys have been shoving military blueprints in my face. Fok, I can't even read your language."
"You have spent time in our city; you know its location, physical features, its strengths and weaknesses."
"Fok," Wikus spluttered, "You actually think that I—"
"I do not," Christopher clicked, "but the leader will. It is his nature to do so," the alien turned, looking at the glowing image above his data pad, "Right now the Hives are all at peace; it was not always so. It is the leader's responsibility to protect the members of the Hive," Christopher looked back at Wikus, "You are foreign, other. If he learns that you have drawn more of your kind here, he will eliminate you."
The hair on Wikus' neck stood on end, "What can we do?"
Christopher looked down at his hands for a moment, "Nothing," he clicked quietly, "nothing but wait and hope that the ship's presence goes unnoticed."
"What if they manage to land here?"
"I do not think they will. From what I examined of your ship your navigation systems are very different from our own, and would be unable to compensate for the magnetic field fluctuations of our planet. It is likely they will pass by."
"So that's it then?" Wikus said, "Either your leader kills me when he finds out about the ship, or I end up like this?" he held up his hand.
"Not necessarily," Christopher clicked, "This has never happened before, but our healers are very skilled. It is unprecedented but not, I think, irreversible."
Wikus' eyes widened, "So you could fix it?"
"So you can go home?"
The alien's words were a punch in the gut, left Wikus' chest tight and aching with the choking residue of anger, and how dare Christopher just stand there looking strangely vulnerable for a seven foot bug and part of him wanted to say no, no I'll stay with you forever, but a cruel voice that sounds like practicality asks him what the fuck he thinks he's doing here and did he actually believe that this, this transgression of space and species, of gender and genetics had any real future?
"Do you want me to go?" sullen, a challenge and a plea both.
Ask me to stay.
"Do you wish to leave?" the clicked words are quiet and maybe Christopher doesn't mean it this way but it feels manipulative, passive aggressive even.
How dare you, you fokking bug, how dare you make me say it first, say that I…
Wikus looked away, "It doesn't matter what I want," he said, crouching down to the floor to retrieve a small metal fitting, his dark hand half tucked near his belly. An instinctual position, like an animal with a wounded paw, "Like you said, the leader would never let me go."
Coward.
"No," clicked Christopher, "no, he wouldn't."
Wikus didn't respond, dropping the washers and screws in his palm onto the brushed metal of the table. The fittings spun and danced, falling into a pattern more inscrutable than the bone fragments and shells of a wrinkled fortune teller.
The clink of metal sounded like finality.