NOVEL NEXT Cocoon
He stirred awake slowly under his bedsheets. He’d never been a morning person, and that hadn’t been one of the things his transformation fixed.
The events of the evening before groggily came back to him. To her? ...With the adrenaline truly gone, he felt like he might’ve been too hasty in just switching up his pronouns like that. But every ‘he’ and every ‘him’ in his thoughts felt like one more pick stabbing him in the heart. As he remembered Ariel’s bluntly offered option to go back to living as a man, the grimace on his face confirmed it to himself once more.
She was a woman.
A butterfly woman with a grumbling stomach (or whatever the insect equivalent was, she supposed), hungry for nectar.
It bore repeating, but this would take getting used to.
After putting on whatever tee was atop the pile in her closet and comfy pajama boxers, she made her way out of her room and into the apartment’s living space. Her roommate was still there. His cramped hand stirred a cup of coffee aimlessly. How many had he drank?
Behind his wandering gaze, he looked in pain. When he turned his eyes towards her, it suddenly turned into something else. It felt like he was drilling right through her.
Oh no. She was at fault for something. She’d done something wrong. He hated her now. He must have searched the internet and discovered all of this was nonsense. Why did she believe it for a single moment herself?
It was so vague, though, his mind replied, lost in a debate with itself. Sure, this image of a masculine, muscular woman resonated with him so much better, but was this really in an ‘I want to be her’ way? Who could disprove this wasn’t simply an ‘I want to date her’? And not to mention the odds, too! What, he just happened to be something similar to his roomie? Last he knew, LGBT people weren’t exactly magically attracted towards finding one another! ...Wait, but what if they were? Between his transgender roomie and his bisexual best friend, now he felt like the odd man out.
He frowned, and heard a sob. His blurry vision refocused on the image of his roomie right in front of him. He hadn’t even noticed she was there. Wait, was it morning already? He looked at the cup of coffee in his hand and headed to the kitchen to dump it in the sink.
It wasn’t like him to be in need of help. He usually gave more than he received. But, right now, he felt lost in his own cycle of thought, and he hoped talking about this to his roomie would knock him out of this funk. He came back out of the kitchen and leaned against the wall, lying his fatigued head against his arm. “Hey, roomie…” Once more, he heard a sob. He lifted his gaze up from the ground and onto her face. Staring at the ground, she seemed on the verge of crying. His own affairs could wait. “What’s wrong?”
She slurred a bunch of words together, breathing erratically. She repeated herself, trying to sound more coherent. “You probably hate me now…”
“What? Why would I…” He paused to let out a yawn. “…do that?”
“Because— because I’m being selfish!” She was shaking like a leaf, making herself as small as possible. “I’m taking this body that’s not mine and I want to keep it, and it’s not okay, because I-I-I’m not a woman, and I should’ve- should’ve- should’ve known better than to just change my mind over a single evening, what’s wrong with me?”
That wasn’t good. He knew he had to be careful with his words, but his fatigued mind refused to cooperate, he was coming up completely blank. “I think you’re a woman,” he replied, approximating what he hoped was the right thing to say. “Like, you can be one if you want, that’s fine by me. If it makes you happy and all that, right? I know you overthink things, so just don’t think. You’re right there in front of me showing me your best version of you. I think that’s brave.”
“Why is it brave?” His roomie asked.
He scratched his neck, holding back another yawn. “Err… I don’t know. You’re afraid and you’re doing it anyway?” Yeah, let’s go with that. “I’m just proud of you.”
She lifted her head, looking up at him. Her jaw shook in rhythm, words stuck in her throat. She flew straight at him and tackled him into a hug, crying loudly, a first for as long as he had known her.
A crackling boom resounded out in the street and through the window. He felt the wind get knocked out of him and fell to one knee. The coffee in his stomach wanted to come back out and he held his hand against his mouth, lurching, but keeping it in. When he detached his hand from his face, a string of sticky silk pushed itself out from between his lips.
She was holding her hands over her ears, her eyes kept tightly shut. Everything was just too much. The noise had been awful. Tentatively she opened an eye, and then both. Still mute, she gasped at the brown filament she saw coming out of her roommate’s mouth.
“Well… That’s no good,” he muttered, attempting to wipe it off on his jeans and just getting more of it stuck on him for his trouble. He looked up at her. “Was that another Wave…?” He asked. She wished she’d had an answer, she didn’t even know what the previous one had been like. “Is everything okay? Are you safe?”
She looked back at herself. She was still very much adorned with antennae and a pair of wings, and of course, a female body. Was she satisfied with this? Should she have hoped for another wave to turn her body back to normal? She struggled to put conviction into that want. Or in other words… No. She didn’t want to turn back. And she hadn’t. She nodded. She didn’t know what to do with her hands. Was she supposed to help her roommate up? She fussed for a bit, almost giving him her hand a few times, but ultimately they always came back right to her face, shaking and balled up.
“That’s alright…” Her roommate wobbled back up. The strange string continued to flow out of his mouth. He pulled on it to try to detach it but all it did was lengthen it.
They stared at it together for a moment, one unable to form words and the other too stunned and tired for them. She wasn’t fully sure what this meant. Was he going to turn into a butterfly like her? But a male one, like normal people? She couldn’t read his face at all, not with her own emotions in the way.
“I think I need some privacy...” Her roommate muttered, apparently having come to a conclusion that seemed similar to hers. He locked eyes with her, and took on a serious look. “Will you be okay without me?”
She didn’t move, only stared back.
“Can you take care of yourself?” He asked.
She considered the question. She wasn’t sure, it sounded daunting. But she could try. She had to, didn’t she? She hoped a nod would be enough to communicate this.
“Can you…” He stopped himself. He stared at the bundle of silk accumulating in his palm, then back at her. “Can I ask you to take care of me?”
It wasn’t even a question. She vigorously nodded, intent on giving it her best.
He smiled. It was a small smile, that didn’t quite reach his cheeks. He wrapped his free arm around her and hugged her back. “You’re a good girl.”
Aaaaaaa
Badump badump badump
Did he say
Aaaaa?
Does it mean
But
Did she want that
...
Overwhelmed
First Waves Day +14
She had gone right back to bed after this encounter, her mind lying awake but unconscious. After a couple hours, she had moved from her bed to her gaming console, and after a few more, she had gotten up and snuck a peek into her roommate’s bedroom.
And from there, that’s all the rest of her day had consisted of. Go back to her game, zone out for fifty minutes, check in on the bedroom, sip some nectar, repeat ad aeternam. It was already past midnight by now, and she would have to head to work this morning.
She worried that sleep wouldn’t come easy. She did feel tired, true, extremely so in fact, but… She just couldn’t keep her mind off her roommate. Ever dependable, ever trustworthy, ever… handsome? These weren’t feelings she was accustomed to. But his parting words had caused a chain reaction in her synapses the likes of which she had never experienced.
She felt silly for crushing on her best friend. Over something as simple as this, on top of that. She felt… utterly useless (in a lovey-dovey way).
Why couldn’t these feelings have sprung up before this whole thing happened? What kind of rotten luck had caused this timing?
And that wasn’t even approaching what that meant about her sexuality. This was a whole can of worms well buried in a stack of other worm-containing cans. She could only handle so many at a time! And she was already so busy with her gender, add on top of that… falling for her roommate. Oh, this was too complicated.
Her mind was as much of a broken record as her day had been. Gaah! Gender. Gaah! Love. Gaah! Having to handle all this alone!
By luck, she had found an old stuffed toy of hers, accidentally brought in from a box she had never opened since moving in. The poor bunny in question suffered the threat of its head popping off each time she hugged it too tight, which happened at every loading screen and every cutscene.
Finally, she did feel sleep starting to take hold whether she would let it or not. She paused the game and turned off the TV. Lifting the bunny by the hand, she headed one last time to her roommate’s room. She cracked open the door. Unlike her own cramped little nest, there was a lot of breathing room and it was easy to move around. To the left was a wide window which at day time shone light on a well used desk covered in uni notebooks and papers. In the corner furthest from it was her roommate’s wardrobe and exercising at home equipment. And, just to the right of the door, his bed, and the gigantic, caramel-colored silk cocoon glued atop it.
She stared at it from afar. She wondered if her roommate was conscious in there the same way she had been in hers. Well, she had been mostly asleep, really. But her point still stood.
What metamorphosis was happening in there, she wondered. She wanted to come touch the shell, like she remembered her roommate doing with hers, but she couldn’t muster the courage. To her mind it’d be like hugging her roommate himself, and she just… Her cheeks flared just thinking about it. And the big idiot probably had no idea about the effect he had left upon her…
With petulance finally skewing the decision in one direction, she closed the door and headed to her own bed.
This must’ve been some kind of intentional retribution. Staying still was torture. He had no idea how much time it had already been, and he utterly dreaded how much more he would have to wait. If only he could just… reach for a dumbbell to occupy his hands with! Or anything! Even a TV! This was like that time he broke his leg in high school and had to stay at the hospital, but at least then he hadn’t been in a glorified sarcophagus!
And as for why this was retribution, specifically…
God he really is an idiot when he’s sleep deprived.
Where had it even come from? ‘Good girl’?? That was so ridiculously dorky!! He would never live this down. Every time he would see his roomie from then on, he would just be reminded… He could already see the scene play out in his mind again. The way her arms tensed against his chest before her whole body mellowed out, the meek little noise that escaped her lips, how blue her face was when he let her go… He would’ve bet she was so embarrassed, if he hadn’t known better that embarrassment usually meant tearing up when it came to her.
Well, he had nothing else to do than to fall back asleep. His roomie must’ve been basically hibernating through this process, he bet, there’s no way she would’ve survived it otherwise. He was hoping it’d be the same for him.
…
If she hadn’t been embarrassed, then the only reason she would have blushed so much…
Hahaha no that was much too scary to think about. That was going in the same box as gender.
Yep, just him, emotions to bottle, and literally nothing to do.
That would totally end well.
First Waves Day +17
After so long staying perfectly still he would’ve expected his muscles to atrophy somewhat, but he was happy that didn’t feel like the case. All in all, he felt pretty good.
Very well, listing the positives of his situation had ended up shorter than he’d hoped, and definitely just as long as he’d expected.
As for the… Well, he didn’t want to call them negatives. They weren’t, really. They were complicated and weird, but not bad. Just confusing and, if such a word existed, whelming.
He didn’t know which to tackle first, but he had to start somewhere.
His roomie was kind of cute now.
Well. ‘He’ had always kind of been, but… He wasn’t into boys, and she was simply glowing now. Just… the way she’d melted when he’d called her a good girl was now playing on loop in his mind for a completely different reason. Maybe he should ask her out. They were already living together, so it’s not like there’d be a lot of complicated logistics. That time he’d had to break up with one of his exes because they literally never managed to get their schedules to line up had been so disappointing. Point was… she was a pretty wonderful woman, now that she seemed happier. Of course, if it went tits up that’d be saying goodbye to a wonderful friendship, and staying roommates might be hard…
Not to mention the wrench in the plan that she hadn’t seemed attracted to men back when she was one herself, and he doubted that would’ve changed.
But it was questionable how much that would be a problem.
Gender sure was happening.