Casper learns about the semi-immortality of lobsters. He is somewhat distressed by this. He has questions.
Word Count: 996
Fluff
TW/CW: possibly incorrect lobster and biology facts. Not beta read, tf do you think this is ao3
The apartment was quieter than normal. By the time Nora got home from work, Casper was at least watching TV or playing a video game, but today it was a foreboding silence. The sound of Nora’s bag hitting the shelf near the door nearly echoed in the room. She hung her sweater quietly on a hook and began to make her way through the space, careful not to disturb the silence in case Casper had fallen asleep on the couch.
The kitchen was empty, but had definitely been cooked in, a good sign that Casper had at least been out of bed at some point, but his breakfast plate was still on the small table that divided the space into kitchen and living room. Concerned, Nora walked over to check the plate and saw a full slice of toast and some eggs left behind. Nora’s concern grew at this, knowing Casper was not often one to leave food behind. Not because he was particularly hungry, being a grim reaper meant he didn’t have to eat the same way humans do, but because he appreciated food. Especially bread.
Nora made her way into the living room area and shifted the blankets around cautiously on the couch. No luck in finding the white haired reaper there. As Nora turned toward the short hallway, she noted the open door of the bathroom, likely meaning that the reaper was not in there either. A short glance into the room as she passed confirmed this, and she set her hand on the barely open bedroom door.
“Cas? You in there?” she called gently. A shifting of blankets and small thud on the floor surprised her for just a moment, until Sootspot, her black cat, came slinking out of the door. Steeling herself for something terrible, Nora pushed open the door only to come face to face with Casper staring at her computer in confusion. She approached gently and set a hand on his shoulder, causing him to nearly fall out of the chair as he jumped.
“Casper, are you alright?”
“Lobsters…” he rasped, staring up at her now with wide red eyes.
“What about lobsters?” Nora asked tenderly.
“They’re immortal!” Casper cried out, jumping from the chair and grabbing her shoulders. Nora relaxed and chuckled slightly, glad that Casper wasn’t having some sort of lobster induced reaper-death. “Why are you laughing? Those weird…things in the tanks at the fish market, they can’t die!”
“Relax, Casper. They absolutely can die, we wouldn’t be able to eat them if they couldn’t.” She gently explained. “Now, I have heard about them being immortal in the wild, but I’m not sure about the specifics.”
Nora slid into the now empty chair before Sootsprite could take it over and went to pick up where Casper had left off. The search term “immortal sea bug” stared at her from the bar, causing her to burst into laughter again.
“What are you laughing about now!” Casper cried, slumping onto the edge of the nearby bed. Nora calmed herself to gentle giggles as she turned.
“Sea bugs?”
“I couldn’t remember what they were called.” Casper grabbed his stuffed axolotl and frowned and he hugged it to his chest. The action made Nora want to giggle again at his childlike pouting, but she suppressed the urge.
“You got close enough to find out what they were called, I’ll give you that.” She smiled, turning back to the computer screen and clearing the search bar. “Let’s try this…”
Casper peeked over her shoulder to see her type in ‘are lobsters immortal’ to the search bar. Lots of results popped up, and Nora began to skim through some of the pages.
“The Natural History Museum is a good source. Let’s see what they have to say.”
~~~~
“So, biological immortality is incredibly rare, however, lobsters do not show signs of aging like other creatures, so they appear to be immortal. They do age and die though.” Casper looked to Nora to confirm his understanding.
“Yes, and they have a high amount of telomerase, which is the enzyme that allows cells to split. This lets them regenerate limbs, which can allow them to survive longer than they would have if they hadn’t regenerated.” Nora nodded, double checking on the various webpages open on her laptop.
“And this, plus their lack of senescence makes them appear to be immortal.”
“With lobsters being observed as living past 100 years old in some cases, and into their 70’s in the wild, that seems to be what happened here. But after a while, the energy needed to molt and grow a new shell becomes too much and causes them to die of exhaustion.”
“Okay, can we go over immortal cells thing again? I…I keep getting stuck on that one.” Casper clicked back to the Wikipedia page on biological immortality.
Nora read through parts of the article before settling on a section and beginning to read aloud.
“Biologists chose the word ‘immortal’ to designate cells that are not subject to the Hayflick limit, the point at which cells can no longer divide due to DNA damage or shortened telomeres. The Hayflick limit is how many times a normal human cell will divide before it stops.” she hovered the cursor over the highlighter term as she defined it before moving on. “It started with cancer cells that could avoid death by intracellular mechanisms. They were able to use those cells to research vaccines, hormones, and metabolism, which is cool. And it seems like they figured out how to introduce immortal cells into different organisms through the simian virus number 40!”
Casper leaned back and sighed, seeming to relax now that his curiosity had been satiated.
“So just because I haven’t reaped a lobster, doesn’t mean that they can’t be reaped?”
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