“I am really unsure how they all talked us into doing this…” Elkay muttered as he closed the door behind him and locked it up, before dumping something on his desk.
“I’m amazed that we agreed too,” Arkay exclaimed, pulling the curtains shut. “But I’m more surprised that Teekay is fine with this. And Retvik is weirdly fine as well.”
“But not Litvir?”
“Litvir keeps on telling both me and Retvik that if we want to sleep with someone else, we should just do it.”
Elkay sighed, then rummaged through a draw in his desk. Arkay realised what Elkay was looking for, opened one of his hammer spaces, then pulled out a loose handful of rubbers. Elkay found his own just afterwards.
“Oh. You have plenty.”
Arkay shrugged. “Yeah, I do. Mostly just in case. I had to empty it a bunch of times because they expire after a year or so. It’s admittedly where I put some other toys.”
“Lewd ones, I assume?” Elkay sat down on the bed, putting the rubbers to one side. Arkay joined him, placing his bunch of rubbers in the same pile.
“Well, I have urges. Kinda. Sometimes. Somewhat recently. Well… I did in the universe I just left. Before then, I just had awful vague memories of what had happened when I existed in the universe I was born in and… well… uh…” Arkay trailed off.
Elkay looked Arkay up and down. “You were hurt. A lot.”
“Yeah. My memories aren’t great, but… Well, you know. Yisini showed you.”
“That is true. She started changing who I was, then Kinisis finished the job. I find it upsetting that I was turned into a monster. But you know exactly how that feels.”
“It sucks. But at least we’re close enough now, so we can at least share experiences. And maybe bodies, if we ever get the courage to do so.”
Elkay frowned, then sighed. “I… I have a little problem with that…”
“What do you mean?”
“I… I am not a Rethan any more.”
Arkay blinked. “Well, you are a Rethan. You have all the characteristics of one. It’s not like me, I’ve had my form forcibly changed a lot.”
“The same applies to me. I was forced to change. But after Kinisis got her hands on me? I… well… If I didn’t have Teekay, I would have drowned in depression, as I was completely cut off from the Secret, and it was starting to get very, very bad until Teekay and I got back together. But now? My base form is not that of a Rethavok.”
Arkay looked Elkay up and down. He knew exactly what Elkay’s problem was.
“You’re still a Rethan. No matter what anyone else says. As long as you believe you’re a Rethan, that’s what you are. We all believe you’re a Rethan too.”
Elkay closed his eyes, snorted, then relaxed somewhat. As he did so, Elkay’s body became thinner and even more lithe, as well as slightly shorter. His wings grew larger, his armour plating smoothed out and Elkay’s tail got excessively long. Elkay’s fangs and claws changed colour, becoming black and metallic, instead of white.
“This is me now.”
Arkay inspected Elkay again. “Well, you do still look mostly like a Rethan. And I suppose I should be slightly more honest too.”
With a click of his black teeth, Arkay changed shape as well, looking almost exactly like Elkay did, except smaller and in different colours, his standard yellow and black.
“Hmph. You look like me.”
“Yeah. I always have done. We look like each other. Although, to be fair, of course we do, because I was a Threan-type Retha and you are a Rethavok and both races are very similar to begin with.”
“I guess…”
Elkay slouched a bit, then leaned back on the bed and stared at the ceiling for a bit. Arkay remained upright,
“It does bring up another thought though…” Arkay eventually muttered.
“What? Us being very similar to each other?”
“Yeah. Because…” Arkay paused, then shifted to the side so he could better look at Elkay. “I’m going to tell you something. I haven’t told anyone about this properly outside of some quick thoughts with Litvir, but I think you should know.”
“Is it something bad?”
Arkay shook his head. “No. Just weird. You know the mimic safe place we go to when we’re in a coma?”
“Yes. I saw you there.”
“Well, I went there a second time. When that Ancient Unending cunt was experimenting on me. I was wriggling around too much so the bastard put me into a brief coma, so he could do his experiments in relative peace.”
“Fucking Light, Arkay, that is horrible!”
Arkay weakly shrugged. “It was. Still get nightmares about it. But when I was in a coma, I saw Panton, the massive guy who always switched between being ghost-like and being vaguely solid. By some sort of miracle, when I was in that coma, Panton was awake. He suggested that I turn into my own strain of Corruption to stop me from becoming part of the Unending Ancient One.
“I’m getting distracted, but… well, it turns out that Panton looks kinda like us. At least, he’s covered in plating the way we are, and he has a head plate. It covers most of his face and his nostrils and eyes, but he’s still kinda armoured like us.”
“That… that is bad.”
“You think?”
“Well…” Elkay hesitated. “It sets some sort of precedent. Makes us more recognisable.”
“Not really. Most people don’t know what Panton looks like, and I’m pretty sure most folks don’t know what we look like either. We’re just two people who look a bit like adolescent forms of the local uplifted godly species, and the only thing the common person knows is that I’m yellow and you’re green. And, like, there’s only one other known Synaisthyn, and, whoever they were, no one ever found them.”
That statement made Elkay calm down a bit. Arkay seemed to calm down a bit as well, as he dismissed his wings then laid back properly. Elkay did the same thing, making his wings disappear, so Arkay wouldn’t lay on them. The pair of them remained silent, mostly just staring at the ceiling some more.
After a good ten minutes, Elkay sat up a little bit, then suddenly realised something.
“We were supposed to make out.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
“We distracted each other.”
“Yeah. Again.”
Elkay laid back down again, then grunted. “Do you want to make out?”
“Not really. Do you?”
“No. But it is nice just lying here with an old friend and just… discussing things about our freakish selves.”
Arkay smiled. “It is. Let’s just do that then.”
Elkay smiled too. “Wonderful. I will just make things up to Teekay later…”