Basket seastar!hybrid reader who is used to being a little...left out. Too many branching limbs, the standard human-like trunk and shoulders extending at the elbow in not a single arm but multiple splits, a vast fern-like explosion of arm/hand/finger things, constantly shifting and exploring. A nightmare to manage with clothes so you often modify your uniform to be sleeveless, which means everyone gets a direct view of your limbs.
And none of them like it.
Too creepy, too weird and the movement freaks people out, the way the tiniest of phalanges curls and twists. You train yourself to wind the fronds tight together, make a single or double limb, but inevitably you lose control and it all explodes out again.
You learn to stay in the back of the room, to hide when possible, and even the skills that brought you to the 141- the way you can type a code, write a message, and field strip a weapon all simultaneously- are better off in the shadows, where your new team can't get too...upset. Can't snap and sneer, wiping off their arms and hands if they accidentally touch you, shoving you away if your fronds start to reach for them or anything they're holding.
"The fuck're you doin' back here?"
You look up at your lieutenant. Ghost is glaring down at you, dark eyes scowling out of his balaclava. "Um...eating?" Your hand-frond curls around another French fry. Salt, oil, potato, a preservative in the potato. Greasy fingers that prepped it all onto the tray.
"Yeah, and why alone? Team eats together, that's the rule," he says, and jerks his thumb over to the table he and the sergeants are at. He grabs your tray, and you don't have a choice but to follow.
The other men welcome you warmly, and to your astonishment, they don't skitter away as your phalanges spread over the table, touching their trays, an instinct you can't fully reign in. Soap's drink slides across the table towards you, and you wince, fronds peeling away from it. Aluminum, paint, fresh water in the condensation, and your microscopic hooks leave little marks in the logo.
"Sorry! Sorry, I can...get you a new one..." You trail off, because he's shrugging and taking his drink back, touching it easily.
"Eh, if I was that worried about it, I'd get it myself. You're fine, love," he adds, and your throat is tight. Is this really all it takes? One tiny kindness?
Gaz grins. "Look, I know you're worried, but we really do not give a shit about all- this," he gestures to your wide, branching baskets of arms, "outside of what it means for our missions. Do you know how many weird bugs that one has brought home?"
He nods to your left, and you look over to Ghost, where he's examining the delicate phalanges that have spread over his arm with the care and focus of a master watchmaker. He strips off a glove, and your breath catches in your chest as he touches the very tip of a frond with his finger- a tiny burst of taste, salt-skin-oil-cotton, the base building blocks of the man called Ghost- and shakes it solemnly, like he's meeting you for the first time.
Soap pats your shoulder, and doesn't twitch when your arm splits in surprise. "Not that you're a bug! But, y'know, when you get two hours in a transport home being told all about the way this beetle works and lives, you start to see the beauty in the strange. And nothing's stranger than our LT!"
He's grinning, easy and relaxed even as your arms start to steal his spoon. Stainless steel, oils from his skin, cheap plastic handle. Gaz loses a couple of his own French fries, and takes a few of yours in return, and you sit there with your arms wide open, a basket getting bigger with every surprised, delighted thump of your heart.
