a promise softly sung (3)
warnings: severe dehumanization, miscommunication/assumptions, panic, PTSD, angst/whump, unwilling drug use/sedation, remus narration, lmk if i missed any!
-
Despite Logan’s disbelief, the adoption process had undeniably kicked into motion right before his eyes.
It felt as though barely a few moments had passed before another staff member had appeared to join the duo standing in front of his cell, bringing with them a rolling cart with all the odds and ends used for transporting an adopted animal.
Most of it was extraneous in this case, like the foldable protective carrying cases for microfauna or the brightly colored grooming brushes that had never once been anywhere near his matted hair.
Some of it he dearly wished was extraneous, but had always been unwelcome accompaniments to his transfers, regardless.
Watching the pale yellow muzzle get handed over to the maniac who’d entered his cell before, Logan slowly, menacingly shifted his gaze up to meet the alien’s strange, flat eyes. The first impromptu limb amputation had been accidental. With his stare alone, he attempted to convey that any future limb loss incidents would be entirely on purpose.
The alien wagged at him, annoyingly undeterred, and started forward as though to slip right back into the cell again. This time, however, the employee hastened to bodily jump between the green alien and the door, chattering away at a rapid-fire pace.
Logan was distracted from trying to parse out any of the resulting conversation— an argument, by the sound of it— by another unfortunately familiar sound: the gentle hiss of the aerosol tranquilizers activating in all four corners of the room.
A bolt of fear shuddered through him against his will, his mind working against him by pulling up fragments of memories as sharp as shattered glass.
This was one of his least favorite parts of his current existence. It didn’t matter if he knew, rationally, that the present circumstances were far milder than his past trials, and so nothing to get worked up about. His body registered the sound, remembered the past, and reacted accordingly. No amount of scowling self-reprimand would make his limbs stop shaking, or his rapid heartbeat slow. He’d been classically conditioned, another victim of Pavlov’s time-tested methodology, as though he really was nothing more than a drooling animal.
The worst of it was that the tranquilizers were hardly even enough to sedate him. It took several long, shivering moments for his limbs to begin to feel numb and distant, the hiss of the dispensers loud in his ears all the while.
Logan wedged himself back in a bare corner, focusing on nothing but keeping his breathing from becoming too quick or too shallow. (The only thing worse than being sedated was driving himself to unconsciousness.) It would have been smarter to lay down once the tranq gas was dispensed, to keep his head from spinning and prevent any injuries he might gain in the process of collapsing.
Even so, he remained sitting upright, body curled in on itself protectively even as the sensation of touch faded. He had learned to take even the small, pitiful comforts where he could get them.
The effect of the sedation was not unlike experiences Logan had had at the dentist as a child, an almost ‘floaty’ sensation coming over him. The sound of the door must have registered a few moments late, because when he laboriously peeled his eyelids back, the green alien was already right in front of him, like they’d teleported there.
Their tail wasn’t wagging anymore, for some reason.
Logan attempted to follow through on his earlier silent promise, lifting an arm to smack at the alien, but nothing happened. His body was entirely non-responsive, only the rhythmic pulse of his heart in his ears proving that he hadn’t turned into a slowly-stiffening corpse.
Ignorant of their close shave, the alien reached out testingly with one of their remaining hands, proving that they hadn’t learned their lesson. Logan should be instructing them further on why bothering him was an exercise in self-mutilation, but he found himself becoming distracted by the texture of their hand as they cautiously made contact.
It really was similar to those little gelatin puddings. The fingers were capped with a fine, velvety coating that almost reminded him of cashmere, but the majority of the limb was smooth and shiny. Would it be defined as a particle-dispersed matter, a colloid, like gelatin? Or were the similarities only superficial?
Another of those possibly-colloid hands rose into view, this one holding that miserable flaxen muzzle, and Logan felt a protest bubble up in the back of his throat before he could remember why that was a bad idea.
Only the faintest whine escaped, thin and reedy, because despite all his complaining, his body remembered how to protect itself better than his conscious mind ever had. Even so, the hair at the back of his neck prickled uncomfortably in anticipation of pain.
A low buzzing caught his attention, and Logan realized that the background hum had been the alien, talking to him through the past few moments of inspection. It was unusual, a distinct change from other times he’d been dosed and restrained, and he clung to the noise to keep himself in the present as the muzzle slid on over his nose and mouth.
He’d used to find it ironic that they’d go to the trouble of muzzling something that already couldn’t speak a word. Of course, that was before he’d been stripped of all but his last defenses, before being able to bite was an ability he would viciously fight to keep.
Claustrophobia descended the moment the muzzle clicked into place. Logan felt the terror seep into his bones like an old friend, more than familiar with this particular implement. It was one solid piece, almost appearing like a face mask from a distance. There were only pinprick holes in it for air, thin slots on the bottom to vent any liquid that built up, and absolutely no way to eat.
It had been a while since he’d had to worry about starving. He cast an idle glance at the food tray on the door, wishing this adoption visit had happened just a little later. Or not at all. All the resentful muttering he’d done about this place, and yet now he felt as though being evicted from it was the worst thing that could have happened.
Nothing to be done about it now, he thought, his eyes drifting shut to the low tonal hums of his latest captor.
—
Remus didn’t bother trying to hide his irritation as he paged through the thick stack of adoption and liability paperwork, scanning each form for the appropriate place to stamp his biosig stamp while only barely taking in the actual content.
Usually, these sorts of forms were all compiled on an electronic device for signing, but he’d shorted out the first tablet within moments and waved off the second, well aware that he wasn’t going to be able to use them until he’d managed to wrangle his temper back into a manageable state. His involuntary electric pulses weren’t visible, but that didn’t make them any less dangerous.
It seemed to discomfit a few of the staff members, but that wasn’t particularly surprising, nor did he particularly care. He unsettled most of the quadrant’s population even when he was on his best behavior, and he certainly wasn’t putting on any masks of faux politeness now, not after being so blatantly ignored.
What was the point of being a pioneer in your field if people didn’t even listen to what you had to say?!
Remus shifted his weight into his lower legs and tail, taking some of the strain off of his tendons while still letting him loom tall enough to peek through the translucent windowpane between him and the loading bay. It was dragging out the paperwork process, but his sourness over the earlier blunder meant that he was reluctant to let a single moment of the proceedings go unsupervised.
His crewmates were usually the fastidious ones, but despite what one might think, Remus had his moments of stringent, laser-focused attention. His version just came with a blank, haunting stare instead of the more common piercing glare of Virgil or Janus. Sometimes, if he held very still for long enough, he even managed to unnerve people without moving a single tendon. Lucky for them, he wasn’t really one for holding still.
Outside in the loading bay, a few bulkier staff members had been called on to tranfer the limp form of L064-n into the stabilizing mechanism in the center of the biotransport crate. Though it had curled up surprisingly small before, it looked rather ungainly and awkward now– long, stretched out limbs with too many fingers stretching out like something out of an old folktale. No wonder it hadn’t gotten adopted.
Remus already loved it.
Though the staff were, to their credit, taking clear care in their movements, L064-n was long enough that there was a certain comedic element to watching them desperately try to maneuver it into the compact space. The biocrate wasn’t catered to the fauna, not in a volunteer-run facility like this one. It would have taken a ridiculous amount of credits simply to have tailored restraints for the wide variety of known species held in the adoption center, let alone one customized to a creature that they couldn’t even identify the home planet of.
Instead, there was a central stabilizing belt and a built-in antigrav field that would keep the creature aloft and cushioned from any injury throughout the trip. He was more than familiar with these more cost-efficient crates after so long in the business, and hadn’t questioned the choice, though he pointedly hadn’t taken the facility up on its offer to try and find a suitable placeholder set of restraints for the journey.
The only true restraint in place was the muzzle. The sight of it alone made Remus feel even more sour, and he could tell his mane was writhing unpleasantly in response to his agitation.
It wasn’t even about the restraint itself. Despite his advantage when it came to injury and blunt force trauma, he would have gotten himself chomped to bits ages ago if he hadn’t known when to take precautions, and the transit process was one of the most dangerous parts of this job.
It was that the transit process was also one of the most stressful parts on the animals, and mucking it up by intensifying the fear with tranqs was probably going to make the trust-building process much more difficult for him.
Remus had seen a lot of tormented beasts in unfortunate circumstances, but that didn’t make it any easier to see how the creature had begun to shudder with panic the moment the tranqs were set off. His good mood had immediately plummeted to its swift death as he’d watched his newest project stiffen and curl in on itself, like an uncanny echo of a dead arthropod. He didn’t share many of the more mammalian body language habits, but between his hobby and his twitchier crewmate, he had plenty of experience reading the little tells and signals.
From the shivering to the rapid, rolling eyes and visibly racing pulse, L064-n’s response to the undoubtedly familiar noise of the sedation system was severely negative and entirely predictable by anyone with more than half a brain. Animals, much like people, were hardwired to fear the unknown in order to survive, so of course the hiss of the tranqs would frighten it. It couldn’t possibly grasp why or where it was being moved.
On the bright side, he had learned that hearing was a primary sense for it. The response to the sound of the aerosol alone might not have been entirely compelling, but it had shown a surprising awareness of Remus’s voice as well, even with the translator muted to prevent further stress triggers. He had taken the chance to hum graphic threats to himself, already vexed by the situation, when L064-n had started making a horrible, thin whine of distress, its head wobbling the slightest amount in an attempt to jerk away.
Remus had immediately switched over to the nonsensical rambling he used while working with most of his projects, and the tonal language had elicited a distinct shift in attention; the whine tapered off, the muted movements stilling. It hadn’t relaxed, but the stimulus had certainly caught its attention.
Maybe the noise had caught at some instinct, and the creature had gained a predatory focus, Remus mused with glee. Those cases were always fun, since it was far more exciting to puzzle out a solution amidst attempts on his life. It hadn’t been overtly aggressive in the cell, but many predators focused on avoiding injury over hunting when in unfamiliar territory.
Either way, with any luck, this would be the last time it saw these dreary cell walls and heard those miserable dispensers. After Remus got them both safely home, there would be the time and space to undo whatever damage had been done by the stint in an unsuitable environment.
Below, the biocrate had sealed and lit up with steady vitals. Stamping another form with a satisfied flourish, Remus allowed his mind to begin bouncing between ideas for just how he would restructure the environment room once he got back. Prehensile digits meant it might enjoy a more arboreal setting, which would double to provide a canopy if it was unsettled or agitated by wide-open spaces. It seemed a little large to be prey to any airbourne creatures, but then, every planet’s natural order was different...
Eager to return to the ship and start working, Remus rushed through the last few forms with far less care than they likely required, ignoring the fact that Janus would be furious if it ever came back to bite him. He could note down traits and guess about origins all he wanted, but the most reliable way to uncover more about the creature’s home was to provide a multitude of options and observe its behavior. It was a challenge that Remus always looked forward to, and he had no doubt that he would soon throw his all into creating the best possible habitat for their ship’s newest and most volatile resident.
Well, perhaps not the most volatile. There was still Virgil onboard, after all.
Remus’s tail paused in its idle wagging, his brain doubling back to re-examine that last thought. Oh yeah, now that he was really thinking about it, it was probably about time to let his poor, unsuspecting crewmates know about the dangerous wild animal Remus was bringing onboard.
…Eh. He was sure there would be plenty of time to draft a suitably ominous and concerning comm message on the way back.
For now, he had fauna enrichment to plan.
