A Bad Night (For Arthur) and a Worse Morning (For Warren)
Link to the Series on Ao3
Summary: The very first time Warren, a borrower, was swallowed in the Vore-Frame AU where he winds up in the mall, and it was by Arthur on an unexplainable impulse. Also the subsequent freakout and eventually being spat up.
Contains: Brief mention of the Bad Ending hex story, Soft vore, safe vore, oral vore, unintentional dehumanization of a tiny, Warren being in prey animal terror but it's fiiine, Lettie being done with Arthur's shit, and I think that's everything.
"Arthur! I can't - I can't hold it! Arthur!"
"AOI!" Arthur jolted upright, heart pounding, hair plastered to his forehead with sweat.
Blaring alarms in his mind slowly faded to the relative quiet of the generators and the noises of the night. That hadn't actually happened. They had won that fight. The day and the city had been saved. No nuclear explosion. They were all okay. Aoi was alive. Every member of the Hex were all alive and well.
Still… Arthur couldn't calm his racing heart until he went and checked every bunk to assure that every member of his team was still breathing. Eleanor had tossed her blanket on the floor, so he tucked it back around her. Lettie's mice started squeaking at Arthur but thankfully didn't wake her as Arthur checked on Lettie. Amir left a light and radio on, and his glasses were precariously on the edge of his nightstand, so Arthur quickly turned Amir's room off and nudged his glasses farther from the edge before leaving him. Aoi was sleeping soundly, only gently turning when Arthur took her pulse. Quincy had a closed book on his chest and a light on, so Arthur just turned the light off before leaving the room. Only one last person to check on, even if he never appeared in that awful nightmare, Arthur wouldn't be able to sleep if he didn't check in on Warren.
Warren was a borrower, a grown man less than 10 centimeters tall, delicate and timid. His presence had been such a morale boost to the entire team ever since Quincy caught him trying to nick some food a few weeks back, just content to be alive and fed. His bunk, since he was so little, wasn't much more than a well padded shoebox the team had decorated and secured on a low shelf in the hallway between everyone else's bunks. It was on the docket to get Warren a room somewhere more secure and permanent, but the generators and security measures always ended up dominating the top of the pile.
Arthur silently sank to his knees and peered through the cut out door. He couldn't see much, since his shadow was blocking any ambient light from coming in. Carefully, Arthur reached out and lifted the lid off the box.
There he was. Warren was safely curled up asleep on his tiny little bed in the far corner of the box. He'd reorganized the furniture in there since Arthur last took a peek, moving the plump bean bag that was acting as his chair around to be closer to the little itty bitty bookshelf they'd given him, and he'd moved the little battery powered light over there too. A corner of his mouth twitched upwards as he saw more magazine cutouts had decorated that one fabric lined wall, expanding that collage. In the middle of his floor was, for lack of a better description, a skinned Teeny Beanie, a lion one, stretched out like he was some mighty hunter. That was new… and oddly adorable for the little man.
Warren whimpered softly, curling up tighter in his little bed nest. Poor little guy… he must be having a nightmare.
Arthur carefully rolled Warren onto his fingers and lifted him out of his little makeshift room. "Sssshhhh… it's alright. I've got you. You're safe." He cupped his hands close to his chest, folding one hand carefully over Warren to protect him. Somehow, that seemed to help Warren settle down. His tiny little face smoothed out over a minute and he nestled into Arthur's palm instead of curling in on himself so tightly.
Well, Arthur couldn't just go back to sleep now. He needed to hold Warren until he could carefully put the little guy back in his bed without waking him up or putting him right back in that nightmare.
He needed to check the perimeter anyway.
Outside, the night was as quiet as it got. Distant stars twinkled in the inky black, and everywhere had their lights turned out, making the city look as empty as possible. It was a safety measure to not draw attention to any place where there might be living people, and to reserve fuel in generators. The bright side of it was there were so many more stars in the night than usual. Stubborn, hardy bugs were chirping. A stray night bird sounded. For the moment, there was no gunfire, no explosions rocking the outside, no hiss of gas being released on the streets. Maybe on occasion there was the sound of an engine. But for the most part, it was quiet.
The quiet made Arthur's skin crawl.
Satisfied that there wasn't an invasion force about to descend upon the mall, he went back inside. No wonder Warren needed to be in that box to sleep. Even with the city's walls and the mountain range to the North, there were times the outside felt like too much, too exposed. Like any moment now a bullet would go ripping through his body from some unseen sniper. And Warren was a fraction of his size, so the large yawning rooms of the mall must feel like monolithic structures to the little man, and no wonder anytime they took him outside Warren stuck to one of them and wanted to go back in as quickly as possible.
Not even to mention if they weren't careful about protecting him, practically anything could carry Warren away, a street cat, lucky bird, some stray dog probably riddled with infestation. In one careless moment outside, Warren could be snuffed out. A broken toy beneath his boot, a crate accidentally smashed because he thought it could hold being stepped on by his enhanced strength, a tossed empty magazine shattering a window, fractions of that strength, microseconds of that carelessness could cost their friend his life by their own hands.
Arthur felt guilty he put Warren through any of that. A civvie didn't have much of a place outside the mall, yet Arthur couldn't leave the tiny man alone. What if something happened to him while they were away? Arthur couldn't cope with that. He held Warren a little closer, a little tighter, but not by much. He felt such delicate movements under his fingers- The rise and fall of Warren's chest, the small twitches as he sought to find that comfortable position, the small whimpers when something disturbed him in his sleep. Somewhere along the lines of staring, Arthur lifted Warren closer to his face, right under his chin. He wished he could just go into his dream and slaughter whatever made him so fitful. Warren only deserved the sweetest dreams possible, surrounded by people who cared and loved him.
Something… urged Arthur. A feeling not unlike when he and the Drifter merged together. In those moments, having the sensation of them under his skin, Arthur felt that surge- if anything came at them he'd rip them limb from limb.
He felt that way about Warren. He wanted the little guy safely tucked away, and if anyone wanted to harm him, they'd had to carve him out of Arthur's form, and he'd go down swinging every step of the way.
Before he could stop himself, he raised his hand to his lips and slid Warren into his mouth. Later he would be horrified by how easy it was, but in the moment it felt like the most natural thing to do, like the satisfying logical conclusion to these urges. His tongue slightly extended to cover his bottom teeth to easily slide his tiny little body into his mouth. Arthur closed his jaws and just held the tiny man safe behind his ring of teeth. A flavor he couldn't quite describe spread across his tongue as Warren remained sleeping, remained curled tight in his mouth. It was like a mandarin orange, sweet and tangy, but also salty and meaty, like a good strip of steak.
For a moment, he was still, just holding Warren in his jaws. Maybe the urge would pass and he would spit Warren out into his bed, but Arthur could feel his head tilting back in that moment.
It felt so normal to swallow. Arthur's throat effortlessly accepted Warren's little body, in one swift moment pulling the soft little warm lump from his mouth and tucking it away deep in his core. By the time his hand reached to his throat and it was already too late, the borrower had been pushed under his collarbone. A moment of stretch in his chest, and Arthur let his hand trail down and rest at his stomach.
No, that didn't feel just right yet. His hand dipped slightly lower, there, below his stomach, above his naval, buried deep inside his core, resting against his spine, only separated by a few layers of flesh, that was where Warren had ended up.
Relief flooded Arthur's mind as he found himself in his own bunk room again. Everyone was safe now. The Hex, and now Warren, was safe. If something wanted to get to their smallest member, their friend, they would need to tear Arthur open first. His hands settled on top of his middle while Arthur settled in his bed.
He could feel Warren alive inside of him. It was so… different from the Drifter's transference. With the Drifter, he was their a suit of armor they had put on to fight. Warren, however, was a treasure, locked away inside of his body where none could get to him, and Arthur was the dragon, miserly keeping his prize where none could reach. Closing his eyes, Arthur could feel the tiny pitter-patter of Warren's heart beating away beneath his own. He was safe. Perfectly safe. Arthur could just feel it.
For the first time in decades, Arthur slept in well past the sunrise.
~
Warren was fairly sure he'd woken up dead. Maybe worse off than dead. And there was evidence for it.
For one, it was darker than any place Warren had ever been. Even inside of a building at night, living in their floors or the most unused of air ducts, there had never been such advanced darkness. He knew that when he had fallen asleep the night before he had been in the shoebox that the Hex put together for him. A little light was always in there from the ambient hallway or the emergency lights, and there was a battery powered little light they'd given him.
Two, he wasn't sure where he was, but it was certainly not in his box or in the mall. The aforementioned darkness being the biggest indicator, but Warren had crawled around his space he'd found himself in and he had no idea what it was. It was too roomy to be those tight, squeezing pockets or beneath the soldier's armor and far too small to be one of the rooms of the mall. The walls weren't made of cloth, or wood, or stone, or metal, and he hated the thought the moment it crossed his mind, but it felt like really soft human skin. Like the most well treated and soft leather Warren could dream of, but not without a strange, inherent dampness to the whole thing that made Warren squirm.
Three, the temperature. It was far too hot to be any of the giant rooms of the mall, and… well, it was just really warm in here. It couldn't be an oven or some kind of cooking device, but it was just so warm in there Warren had to struggle to keep his bearings and not succumb to the sleep that his soft, warm, dark environment called him to.
And finally, the noises. The noises were a dead giveaway that something was wrong. At first, Warren couldn't pick out any individual noise that was happening in the symphony of something horribly wrong happening around him, but the longer he sat there and listened in the darkness, the more things he could pick out individually. There was some kind of steady thumping, like the most distant of humans walking along the ground, and the rush of air in and then out in a manner that couldn't be like a broken window, but instead a really odd wind pattern. It reminded Warren eerily of being beneath the Hex's armor, pinned against their chests and listening to their breathing and hearts pounding in a firefight. An occasional gurgle, liquid rushing, something bubbling around somewhere beneath him… something alive was really close to him and Warren hated everything about it.
"H-hello?" Warren called out after what had to be hours of this uncertainty in the dark. "Is anyone there? Guys?"
No response. Whatever was… breathing out there hitched for just a moment before settling back into that rhythm.
Warren crawled around the space again this time, carefully patting every inch of the place for some kind of clue about what had happened, where he had ended up. This time, he also patted himself over. He felt alright… a little warm, a little damp, but otherwise he couldn't feel any signs of injuries or whatever might have happened to him to stick him in this dark, hot hole. Sack? Container?
With a much more thorough exploration of his surroundings, the only thing Warren turned up was what he had already discovered. That horrible nagging combination of the noises of something alive so close by and the flesh around him started to swirl around his mind in such terrible ways.
If he was imprisoned by something alive…
A chill ran down Warren's back. The techrot. He'd seen it. He knew what it could do. Its giant fleshy bulbs all across buildings, infesting people, turning technology that was supposed to help people into these awful killing machines that would hurt everything around it.
Somehow, someway, the techrot got him. Warren had been gotten. From his shoebox. In a supposedly safe part of the mall, around their bunks. If it got him, then it definitely managed to get to the members of the Hex. But they were immune to techrot, since they'd been turned into those metal super soldiers. It's why they were able to fight them all the time without getting hurt or really getting sick. It was, somehow, the tiniest comfort to know Warren was probably the only casualty of the attack that had happened in the night and he just… never woke up during it. And now he was awake, trapped in some horrible bubble of techrot that was going to melt him down and use his corpse to fill with tech and use him as a weapon. Probably a fate shared with so many other borrowers in the city.
That at least his surroundings made some sense now.
It didn't mean Warren would go out without a fight. He might not have his gear, his tools- Anything that could remotely be a weapon, but he had his fingers, his teeth, his voice. Something from Quincy popped into his mind- from a book maybe?
'Do not go gentle into that goodnight....Rage...'
Oh, Warren could rage alright.
So what if he couldn't fight meaningfully? He wasn't going to just lay down and take it! Just because he couldn't kill what had him didn't mean he'd just let it take him easy! The spongy floor and walls demanded he stay down, but Warren shoved their damp embrace off. He struggled, feet lacking grip a few times but eventually, Warren stood, defiant.
His voice tore from his throat until it burned.
~
Arthur had never felt more lazy in his life as he finally started opening his eyes in the mid-morning sun that flooded his room. He couldn't even remember the last time he hadn't been awake before dawn without a horrible hangover or dealing with some sort of mission. He was laying on his arm, tucked under his belly, face smushed down into his pillow, blanket on the ground.
Like a lazy kavat, he rolled onto his back, letting the sun kiss his stomach as he rubbed small circles into his altered flesh. Warren seemed to be awake, he could feel the little fluttering movement, like an internal massage. Some part of his brain demanded this be Warren's new quarters permanently. Sure, it didn't have his bed or magazine collage, but here he was safe, with Arthur's watchful eye playing sentinel. The longer the thought the more tempting it was- keeping his littlest family member safe from all harm. By Sol…he really was a dragon.
Nothing wrong with protecting what's yours, the voice-His own voice- cooed at him.
"Mmmnn." Arthur softly grunted as he stretched and rolled his arm that he'd laid on all night, trying to shake out the pins and needles. A good, deep sigh brought about the taste of oranges on his lips. "Good morning, little guy."
That wonderfully lazy and comfortable mood he'd woken up in shattered as a teeny, little muffled wail came from his middle. "Arthur! Arth- Arthur! Help me! I don't know- something got me! I don't wanna die! I don't- I can't-!"
"Sssshhh." Arthur pressed his hands into his middle, massaging his fingertips into that little fluttering lump, trying to soothe him. "Sh, sh, sh. You're safe. It's okay."
"It's not okay!" That little broken sob reached his ears. The sweet taste of oranges felt bitter in his mouth now. "The- the tech rot! I don't know how- please, Arthur- it got me and I can't- I don't know where- where are you?!"
"No, it didn't." Arthur shifted to sit up, pressing his palm firmly over his belly. "Techrot can't touch you in there. Nothing can get you without having to go through me first. I made sure of it."
"But I don't… where… where am I?"
Now that Arthur was really focusing on him, he could feel Warren's whole chest heaving with terror, the way his tiny little heart was pounding. Fuck, did he really not even think about how Warren might feel to wake up in his guts? He'd confided in Arthur about the time he'd been almost fed to a snake, that being eaten alive was one of his worst fears and that didn't even cross his mind in the slightest before he'd just gulped Warren down. How could he be so stupid!?
"Arthur? Are you still there?" The tinies whimper came from his middle.
"I'm here." Arthur couldn't just sit in silence. He should just rip the stitches out. "The techrot didn't get you… I did. You're inside of me. Last night, you were having a pretty bad nightmare, and I just felt like I should protect you. It felt right."
"You ate me?" He almost missed the tiny whine.
"No, not exactly." Arthur stroked his stomach, trying to pet Warren's back, to help him. "You're definitely not in my stomach. It's something… different. You're safe, you've been in there all night. If you could have been digested, I think it would have happened by now. You're perfectly safe inside of me."
Silence. Even as Arthur softly rubbed where that tiny little lump was in his middle.
"Warren, I swear on my life, you're safe. I'd never hurt you." Arthur's actual stomach decided now was the time to announce Arthur usually had eaten by now, and he winched as he could feel Warren flinch inside of him.
The silence was unbearable. Warren was alive, Arthur could feel his tiny heart's frantic dance deep within.
Just as Arthur was going to say something else, he heard Warren's tiny voice. "Let me out."
You don't have to. He can't get away on his own. His own thoughts mocked him. What would be the harm in keeping him safe forever?
"Please, Arthur? Please let me out!" Warren began to cry again. "I'll be good! Whatever you want- I won't complain, just let me out!"
"Alright, ssshhh, it's okay. I'll get you out. Just hang on." His entire chest squeezed as he got up out of bed, looking for something to spit up in. "You'll come out in just a minute. Just breathe. You're safe, please, remember you're safe. I'd never hurt you."
~
Lettie hadn't even managed to get started on her second cup of coffee when Arthur came walking out of his bunk, hair all mussed, one arm wrapped around his middle, and made a beeline straight for her. As he got close, she could see that he was a little sweaty, and she could smell a hint of bile.
Something must have really messed up his stomach to be throwing up like that. Ever since they had their transformations, they were barely sick from normal diseases, and food poisoning had been something they were quite lucky with so far. With him not being around in the morning, she thought he might have been out checking the perimeter or working out, not sick in bed. Though, it was probably just a matter of time before they actually came down with something.
"Qué onda?" Lettie asked as Arthur carefully pulled her off to the side, out of the sight of where the others were still getting their own breakfasts. "Are you okay? Did you throw up?"
"No. That's the problem." Arthur gestured to his stomach before covering it back up with his arm. "Warren's inside me and he's stuck. I've shoved my fingers down my throat and he's not come out, nothing's come out."
The silence dragged on for many heavy seconds as Lettie stared at Arthur. Finally, she managed to get a sentence together. "It's very early to be drunk right now, Arthur."
"I'm not drunk!" Arthur hissed. He grabbed her hand and pressed it against his stomach. "Just feel. That's Warren in there. He's been stuck in there since last night."
She wanted to snatch her hand away, but she did take a moment to palpate his middle, pressing her fingers deeply in, and after a moment of searching, there was a little movement inside of Arthur's middle. It was a little fluttering movement, and it was not in the same place as the stomach should be. Lettie's eyes widened as she pressed against the tiny, fluttering lump in Arthur's stomach.
A long time ago, when she had managed to get a few good scans on their transformed and augmented bodies, she discovered that there had been a lot of shifting in their internal organs, with some ones she hadn't yet been able to really put a name or use to other than just knowing that there had been some major shifts within.
"Med bay. Now." Lettie grabbed Arthur by his arm and dragged him to the medical bay. "He better still be alive in there."
"He is! I'd never hurt him!"
Thankfully they still had that ultrasound machine they'd scavenged from a hospital. It'd been largely considered useless, but now it definitely would see some use. A few minutes later to make the machine function and a little gel smeared over Arthur's belly to try and make sure they could get a clear picture, Lettie was moving the wand of the ultrasound over his stomach, trying to locate exactly where Warren was in his body. Finally, the monitor had a tiny little body appear, nestled deep in Arthur's own body, shifting and moving around. It certainly wasn't his stomach, and as she referenced a few charts, it was one of the organs she hadn't been able to really figure out what they were. From the little bit of investigation she'd been able to do with it, it was connected oddly to the esophagus and was not connected to the rest of the digestive tract.
"Warren? Can you hear me?" Lettie softly called. She could see Warren squirm around, but she couldn't hear him back. Even as Lettie wiped some gel off Arthur's middle and pressed her ear to his stomach, she couldn't hear anything, just the gurgling of Arthur's guts working to keep him alive. "Stay calm, hombrecito. I'm going to get you out of there. Even if I have to cut this pinche perra open and pull you out myself."
"Please don't cut me open."
Lettie shot Arthur a glare that made him shut up immediately.
She started looking through some of the medicine she had stashed away, hoping she could find something that would induce vomiting, but the longer she looked, the more apparent it became she couldn't just tip a spoon of medicine down Arthur's gullet to get Warren out.
"Shit." Lettie hissed. After a moment of consideration, she turned on her heel and started to stride out of the medical bay.
"Where are you going?"
"To get some help. Sit your ass on that bed and don't move." Lettie made it all the way down the hallway, and just as she was about to turn the corner, she almost ran straight into Eleanor. "Just who I was looking for. Come with me."
"What did Arthur do now?" Eleanor scoffed in Lettie's mind as she followed Lettie back to the medical bay.
"He ate Warren. And I need you to help us communicate. I don't know if he can hear me, but I certainly can't hear him."
"He what?!"
"You'll see."
Back in the medical bay, Arthur spluttered seeing Eleanor enter behind Lettie. "Why is she here?"
Eleanor silently placed her hands on Arthur's stomach, and he saw her eyes widen ever so slightly before narrowing into a glare set on his face. "He's terrified." Her voice echoed in their minds. "I've not felt him be this scared since we first found him." She traced a finger along Arthur's stomach in a small pattern, and then all in the medical bay could clearly hear Warren.
"Please, please. I'm s- I'm sorry. I'll be good, I'll be- I won't- Eleanor?!" Arthur squirmed as Warren continued to paw at the wall of his stomach. "Can you hear me? I won't- I promise I'll behave! Just help me!"
"You're safe, Warren." Eleanor pressed firmly on Arthur's stomach. "Lettie is going to get you out of there. Just relax."
"You're not in Arthur's stomach, Warren." Lettie said as she was continuing to rifle around through a few papers, pinning the charts she'd made of their shifted internals up on the cork board. "It's one of the extra organs our bodies developed during our transformation. As far as I can tell it doesn't do anything, but apparently it can hold small objects we swallow that we don't want to digest."
"Just keep breathing, Warren." Eleanor finally pulled her hand from Arthur's stomach. "What made you think this was a good idea?"
"I obviously wasn't thinking!" Arthur hissed. "He just… it felt… it felt right. He was so small, and there was a nightmare, and I couldn't let anything bad happen to him and so I just-"
"Hid him away?" Eleanor finished his sentence. "You felt like you were protecting him."
Arthur put both his hands over his stomach. "You know I'd never hurt him."
"Nobody wants to see Warren hurt… but his heart can't take this shit." Lettie triple checked her charts before turning to face the others. "Elanor, get a soft towel. Arthur, stand up. I think I can make you spit him out."
Essentially, it was a very inelegant Heimlich maneuver. A different set of muscles to squeeze to force a different organ to contract to force something that wasn't a stomach to expel its contents. Apparently, it felt like doing a sit up more than trying to vomit, a note that had very interesting implications over the control of this particular organ, but Lettie couldn't think too much about that now. Warren was trembling, curled up tight in a towel between Eleanor's palms, and Arthur was stewing in his own angst.
She carefully took the borrower from Eleanor and dismissed them both. She had to make sure Warren wasn't having a heart attack from all the stress.
The poor thing.
Too small for his own good.
