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Nathan had been acting weird all day. Not necessarily “weird” per say, but he’d drunk nearly a gallon of water in the past hour. Everyone was noticing it, and once he left to go get more, they all turned to each other.
“Wha’ the fook’s wrong wit’ ‘im?” Kelly asked as if one of the others would know. Curtis shrugged.
“Maybe he’s sick or something, ya know?”
“Maybe he wanks so much he gets dehydrated.” Alisha put in.
“Maybe there’s something really wrong with him...” Simon whispered worriedly. He looked over to where Nathan had left to get more water. “He seemed fine yesterday. Maybe he annoyed someone with the ability to dehydrate people.” He offered.
“Then maybe we should just let him drink. If he pissed someone off, I doubt he even remembers doing it. If he’s thirsty because of it, he probably deserves to be anyway.” Curtis reasoned.
Nathan returned and everyone continued their graffiti cleaning as if the conversation never happened. Nathan downed another three gallons of water before their community service was over, and no one mentioned anything about it until it was time for them to leave.
“I’m so thirsty I think the Atlantic is in danger!” He exclaimed while filling his water bottle again.
“The Atlantic is salt water. It’d make you thirstier.” Simon commented under his breath. Of course, however, Nathan heard it.
“You think you’re funny, Barry? I’ll have you know that I’m so thirsty I don’t care what kind of water it is!” He retorted before marching from the locker room in a fake tantrum. Simon stared at the door a few seconds before his mouth formed words.
“That doesn’t even make sense..” He whispered to no one in particular. Alisha chuckled and Curtis patted his back.
“That’s Nathan.” Curtis chuckled. He and Alisha left together in a happy little prance. Kelly walked over to Simon a little worried.
“You wanna see if he’s alrigh’? Watch ‘im tonigh’ or somethin’?” She requested. Simon sighed.
“Yeah, I’ll make sure he’s alright.” he confirmed before going invisible. Kelly smiled.
“Than’ ya for this, Simon.” She thanked before leaving the locker room. Simon walked over to where Nathan’s little cove was and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Nathan eventually came from wherever he’d been, which could have been anything from a party to just drinking in the community center’s bar, and sat down on his makeshift bed, piss drunk. It took him all of ten minutes to curl up in his bed and pass out.
Simon sighed and opened a book he’d taken with him for the walk home. He’d been reading for a couple hours before Nathan made a sound, and the sound was a groan of pain. Simon looked up from his book and saw Nathan turning over and over, his face contorted in pain.He turned to lay on his stomach and arched into the air. That, however, wasn’t the part that scared Simon. The part that scared Simon was the movement underneath Nathan’s shirt. It looked like snakes were slithering across his back.
Simon wasted no time and ran over to Nathan, turning visible again and uncovering his shirt to reveal the atrocity underneath. It looked like snakes were growing out of his back, or at least their tails were. The eight snake tail things wiggled around until they were the length of his lanky arms, and then they fell flat, along with his body. Simon uncovered Nathan’s face from his own sweat-slicked hair to see his barely conscious face.
“B-Barry?” He said through pants.
“What can I do to help?” Simon asked seriously. Nathan looked up at him, still obviously not knowing what had happened.
“Water.” He said bluntly, not having the energy to make a roundabout joke. Simon ran and filled a pitcher in the kitchen with water before running back, trying not to spill anything.
When he returned, Nathan was trying to push himself up, not used to the extra weight on his back. He still hadn’t seemed to notice they were even there, though.
“What are you doing here, Barry? And what’s going on?” He asked from under half-lidded eyes.
“I brought the water.” Simon responded, handing him the pitcher. Instead of a hand that grabbed the pitcher, however, one of the snake things reached out and seemed to attach to it using suckers, like a tentacle from an octopus or squid. When had those appeared on them?
The tentacle pulled the pitcher to his mouth and he gulped all the water down in a few seconds, not even realizing how he was holding it up. He opened his eyes and looked at Simon, who was now staring wide eyed at the tentacle, and slowly looked down at the extra limb before him.
Nathan screamed and the pitcher dropped to the ground.
“What the fuck!” He yelled, his voice now an octave higher. “What the bloody hell is that?!?” He looked over his shoulder to get a better view of the new limbs.
“They look like tentacles.” Simon offered, still fairly calm despite the situation. Nathan glared at him.
“Why are they coming from my back?” He cried, the tentacles moving around frantically. “And why can I control them?!?”
“It’s probably somebody’s ability that did that to you.” Simon explained, but Nathan didn’t seem to be listening very well. One of the tentacles shot up near Simon’s face.
“See, Barry? Full motor control! It’s like they’re supposed to be there or somethin’!” Nathan yelled, still not exactly calm about the situation. Simon sighed and grabbed the end of the tentacle to help calm him down. It had the opposite effect. Nathan make a sort of squeaking noise and the tentacle pulled back faster than Simon thought possible.
“Don’t touch it!” he yelled, suddenly holding the tentacle almost defensively.
“What’s wrong? Did I hurt you?” Simon asked, genuinely worried. Nathan looked like he was going to laugh.
“No! You just taste horrible! Barry, you need a shower every once in awhile.”
Simon couldn’t help but stare blankly at him for a couple seconds.
“You can taste with the suckers?” he asked in near shock. Nathan stuck out his tongue in disgust.
“Yeah. No offense, Barry, but you taste like spunk.”
Simon rolled his eyes.
“You got over this really quickly.” He stated. A tentacle was soon found pointing at him inches from his face.
“So have you, you sick pervert. I bet you’d love to see some kinky things happen using these.” Nathan said, staring straight into Simon’s eyes and pressing the tip of the tentacle to the tip of his nose. “But I’ve already told you, Barry. I am not your whore!”
Simon blinked. Nathan pulled back as if just noticing something.
“Ah, Fuck! How am I supposed to have sex like this?!?” he turned to Simon desperately. “I’ll have to look for someone into bestiality or something! Someone as perverted as you will be so hard to come by!”
“I’m not a perver-”
“I’m thirsty!” Nathan interrupted the whisper. and stood up, wrapping the tentacles around his torso like he was hugging himself.It was an effective way to hid them underneath the shirt. He made a face of disgust for a second.
“What?”
“I taste even worse than you, Barry.” He pretended to throw up for a second before shrugging and walking to the kitchen to get more water. Simon followed close behind.
“At least it makes sense that you need a lot of water now.” He commented as Nathan drank glass after glass from the tap.
“How?”
“You’re obviously somewhat aquatic now, I wouldn’t be surprised if you needed to actually breathe through water every once in awhile.” He explained. Nathan looked at Simon and the back at the glass about three times before filling it again and drinking again. He stared forward blankly for a moment before turning to Simon.
“You’re right!” He said with a little gurgle in his voice. “It felt weird, but I can breathe in water!” Nathan took a deep breath and his face changed to slight confusion.
“What is it?” Simon asked.
“Breathing through water was better.” He said before grabbing another glass and breathing in the water again.
“You’re not worried about this?” Simon asked, wondering Nathan’s sanity for taking this so well. Nathan rolled his eyes melodramatically.
“Please, Barry. All we gotta do is find out who did this to me, beat ‘im up, and zip, zam, zoom, I’m good as new!” He said before taking another gulp of water.
“Do you have any idea who it actually was that did this to you?”
Nathan paused for a moment to think.
“No...” He said with a sigh. Simon groaned.
“Okay. We’ll assume it happened two days ago. Where did you go two days ago?”
Nathan thought for another moment.
“Nowhere. I went to the zoo three days ago, though.”
“Then we’ll start there. We should go there at dawn, if possible. I’m sure you want this fixed as soon as possible.” Simon instructed. Nathan laughed a little.
“Naw, I want these hypersensitive freak mutations!” He yelled sarcastically. “They’re sure to help with my sex life!”
“We’ll leave at dawn then.” Simon sighed. “Other than the obvious, how do you feel? Any pain?”
“Everything!” Nathan exclaimed. “I feel everything! These things are more sensitive than my enormous penis during sex! It’s too much! And at least I can’t taste with my penis!” The tentacles seemed to pull tighter around him underneath the shirt to avoid touching anything. Simon walked a little closer.
“Is it really that bad?” He asked worriedly. “Is that why you freaked out when I touched you?”
Nathan didn’t answer, he just filled another glass and downed it like a shot.
“We should get ready to go to the zoo.” he said after a few moments. With that he walked back to his little alcove and took off his shirt, allowing the tentacles to stretch momentarily, being careful not to touch anything.
“I should go to the bathroom while you get dressed.” Simon offered. Nathan chuckled.
“I thought you’d want to stay and imagine kinky tentacle sex while I was naked.”
Simon rolled his eyes and left to get some breakfast from the vending machines. He put the quid in and selected some chips for his snack before promptly returning to a fully clothed Nathan.
“Ready to go?” Simon asked. Nathan smiled up at him, the tentacles so tightly packed around him that he barely looked any different. You’d have to be looking for a difference to see it.
“Course, Barry. Let’s go already!” he cheered, on his way to the exit already. “We’ve gotta get this done ASAP.”
Simon followed with a sigh.