Beauty in the Sewer

He closed his eyes, a ragged purr choking itself out. Her touch gave him something to focus on. He concentrated on the warmth of her little hand, the gentleness of her fingers, and the softness of her palm. His skin shuddered and shivered still, the scales rasping as sections of them rose and fell, but he kept his face leaning into her touch.

Time was passing. He could feel the full violence of his change building in his bones. Would she stay? Just a little longer! Another half hour at most. He hoped she stayed even while he feared for her.

His mouth opened slightly as he panted. Air was difficult... why was it so heavy? And so hard to get into his lungs? Another whimper interrupted his sporadic purrs. A few more minutes.
 
Ingrid's eyes wandered to what was going on near his back. It...It looked like there was something under his scales. She'd seen her fair share of gruesome events: she wasn't weak in that department. But anything to do with broken and/or shifting bones especially made her stomach flip. It was hard to watch. It was hard to look away.

It only seemed to get worse as time passed by. How long was this set to last?? Did it go through for the entirety of Friday, and that's why he stayed away? That was so, so cruel. Twisted, even. Ingrid felt her previously dainty grip grow more sure of itself. She wasn't going anywhere. She'd stay for as long as she had to.
...Even if she was wildly unsure of how long that would be.

Was he breathing alright? Ingrid carefully tried to tip his head upwards a bit in hopes of maybe making it easier. Was it messing with his windpipe, like some sort of weird allergy reaction?? It seemed contagious: she was also finding it a bit difficult to breathe right now.
 
Midnight.

He jerked back suddenly, accidentally knocking Ingrid back among the soft bedding of his next. His back arched, bending him double as he hissed in pain. Something creaked, the sound filling the otherwise silent building. The sound continued, rising in pitch to an ear-grating level. Then it stopped.

He slumped, sides heaving. His eyes found Ingrid, and he reached out, gently pushing her back into a corner. There. She'd be safe there.

No sooner had he withdrawn his claw then the pain struck again. He cried out in pain and fell to his side, writhing in agony. Pops, clicks, and cracks reverberated throughout the room. The sound of leather tearing. The skin along his back seemed to be splitting wide open, but there was no blood.
 
"hNK-"
The sudden impact winded her, not being made better by landing on her back and hitting her head against something hard. The edge of the ticket both maybe? Or her bag. She remembered setting that down at some point. Despite her head pounding in pain from both the impact and the noise, she still made an effort to sit up and return to where she was before. She would have, if not pushed away. It was a double-take that send her as far back as her corner would allow: if he was telling her to stay back, she must.

She hoped he was too occupied with what was happening to him, to take offense to what she did next.

Ingrid clasped a hand over her mouth and quickly spun her torso around in the other direction. That was too much for her to watch. The sounds of bones snapping, crackling and popping like branded cereal was something she couldn't take.
No. She didn't vomit. But the dry heaving and heavy hacking suggested it was a very, very close call.
 
He curled into a tight ball, looking like a leathery marble, His spines gleaming in white contrast. But had they always been white? Were they not once black? Not that that mattered now. His whole body shook and shuddered.

What happened next was difficult to describe even if you were watching it happen. The dragon's body seemed to implode like an underwater bubble with a highly inappropriate gloop! sound effect. The area around him seemed strangely unfocused for a minute then cleared. The dragon was gone.

Claudius lay on his stomach, his breathing ragged, barely conscious, his body still trembling. His skin gleamed for a bit then the effect faded. There was nothing more than a malformed male laying there where a dragon had once been, his long, black hair splayed out around him in unruly links, tangling with the spines still emerging from his pale back. He didn't move, his eyes open only a slit.
 
Ingrid didn't dare move from the position she found herself in, until it quietened down. Aside from the occasional meek vocalization, she'd been relatively silent: save for the heavy breathing, but it was practically part of the ambiance now.

Having hunched over and dug her knuckles into whatever bedding she could grasp, Ingrid hissed when the ache of movement flared up over her body. She felt a few things click, which almost set her gagging off again. Facing away from him, she could only assume it was over by the cease in shaking and whines of pain. He was breathing again, on the upside! Breathing...Differently. There wasn't the usual growl to it.
Ingrid wobbled onto her feet, wiping a sleeve over her forehead and managing to chuckle a little-- Though it sounded more akin to a wheeze.

"Well, pal, I dunno about you, but I wouldn't be abLEHOLY
HELL--"

She was soon on the ground again. Ingrid shrieked out in shock, and upon staggering backward would find herself falling back straight out of the ticket booth. It cut the shrill noise short. In fact, it cut everything short as she toppled out of view: she fell eerily silent.

Nah. Nah she must've saw it wrong.
She only looked for a few seconds. Her eyes were playing tricks on her. That wasn't-- It wasn't. No. No it wasn't.
 
He flinched at the shriek as it pierced it's way through his skull and drilled into his brain. He rolled onto his side, his mind still swimming and incoherent as he rolled into a ball, instinctively seeking warmth and shelter from the noise. Every atom of his body felt like it was on fire!! Every sound magnified, every feeling an explosion, and the taste of metal dominated his mouth.

After a minute of stillness, the hypersensitivity faded. He sat up, wheezing softly as he oriented himself and his new body. Every week it was the same... He forgot his old body and had to remember all over again. He sat there, numb, and let his body and mind slowly acclimate to one another once more. He'd stand when he felt like the motion wouldn't end with him on his face.

Indrid was gone. He hoped she hadn't gone far. Perhaps she'd at least let him guide her out to ensure she wouldn't get lost. But he wouldn't look for her, not yet. Give her a moment to come to terms with things. Like he was coming to terms with the sight of his fingers spread on the blanket before him.
 
The most appropriate way to describe the following minutes of silence would be along the lines of: Calm before the Storm. Ingrid stared up at the void of a ceiling, pale-faced and paralyzed, as all brain power was going towards one word:
What.

It didn't last. Ingrid needed to look again if she was going to put her panic to rest. She was hoping she was just exaggerating: that her vision was blurry. Said hopes were soon shattered, when she pushed herself upwards and slammed her hands onto the edges of the ticket booth. She wasn't seeing things. That was a person. Not just any person, either. Ingrid knew those spines and horns despite only seeing them once before.

"Claudius????"
Ingrid barked accusingly, her voice cracking in the middle of the name. A lot of words tumbled out, with a grand total of zero being legible sentences. Questions competed to be the first said, with no winners.
"Can-- Do you wanna fuckin' explain???"
Her arms flailed outwards in an emphasizing gesture. Ingrid herself looked and sounded furious-- But that might just be her outlet for too many expressions at a time.
 
He flinched at the torrent of words and garbled sounds and would have cowered, but he had no energy to do so. Instead, he slowly brought his legs around and sat cross-legged, back bowed, head down, staring at his feet and hands alternately as he waited for Ingrid to stop squalling. Not that he blamed her one bit, but it was making his head ache. More than it already was, that is.

She seemed to have run out of steam, or was at least catching her breath before another tirade, and he lifted his head slowly, his eyes meeting hers. She looked flushed, flustered, angry, and scared. Something else, too, he thought, but he could not pin what it was.

"I have no explanation, fucking or otherwise," he said tiredly. "This is... me. Both are me. The beast or dragon, as you called me, and this... humanoid thing. I wish I could tell you more, but there is very little I know." He dropped his gaze. "If you wait a moment until I regain my legs, I will show you the way out."
 
So there it was. Claudius was the dragon, the dragon was Claudius. It was a case where it seemed so damn obvious when confirmed, yet so wild of a fact you would never consider it in the first place. Every week except for Friday. Friday was the day Claudius showed up. Everything fit like a puzzle, except she felt like she was still missing most of the pieces. The what was answered: now it was time for the 'hows' and 'whys'.

"Well--"
Ingrid looked ready to fire back without mercy. She was ready to unleash words and questions to rival a murder-case interview. Her eyes met his, and she couldn't. Not right now. Prickly stances of startled anger deflated into something of mild annoyance. Ingrid pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes, muttering numbers up to ten.

"That's...Good enough for now. Stay there. Give yourself a break."
Instructing as if this was her expertise, Ingrid paced back and forth in front of the ticket booth, purposefully staring forward and not at him.
"I need a second. Just--- Just hang tight."
 
Claudius focused on breathing, letting her pace herself out. That was alright. He just needed a minute to pull himself together. Then he could face her. At least she wasn't screaming anymore. As much as he hated to think of himself as fragile, he knew he would crumble under her tirade right now.

Slowly, he worked his way to his feet and stood on wobbly knees. Then he looked down. Oh. Right. Clothing. He carefully walked around Ingrid and wobbled his way to the cabinets. He should have grabbed something to wear after the change. He'd forgotten it. An old metal trunk was his destination, and he opened it to reveal a crumpled bunch of old clothing. He found a pair of worn, tattered jeans that covered everything important and pulled them on, not bothering with a shirt just yet. A blanket in decent shape thrown over his shoulders was good enough for now.

He returned to Ingrid and sat down, the blanket bunched up and sticking out oddly thanks to his spines. "Okay," he whispered. "I am ready. Please go slow."
 
Too invested within herself, Ingrid did little more than look over to see where his clothes were kept: for some reason, she figured that would be important later. How could she have not known? She was kicking herself for her stupidity. The existence of this sort of thing had been debated before, in the form of werewolves and shapeshifters-- Yes, they were myths, but so were dragons. Ingrid didn't believe in these fantasies even now: they were just good guidelines. Like using a funhouse mirror for a drawing reference: not what it looks like, but the same core idea. This entire situation was her trying to draw up a good picture of what was going on...
And she wasn't an artist.

Oh. He was back to where he was. She hadn't even noticed him walking past. Finishing the last few 'laps', Ingrid slowed to a halt in front of the ticket booth. Even with time to cool off, she was still shaken. It made her feel...Uncomfortable. That she had talked to Claudius like he was an animal, at some point.
"Right."

Ingrid took a long, deep breath, then exhaled dramatically.
"To clarify. You and the dragon are one in the same, and you always have been, yeah? It's always been just you? No...No others?"
 
"I do not know of any others," Claudius replied. "I have never come across any. I think I am the only one... I hope there are no others for their sake."

He fell silent and looked away, his brows drawn moodily. In his early days, he had wanted to find others like him. He'd searched for them to no avail. Then one day... he'd realized the torment he was living in and the selfishness of his desire. That day had changed his thoughts. Never, ever did he hope to find another like himself, but a part of him feared that there were others.
 
So it probably wasn't a...Species.
Just thinking of it like that made her cringe. It was dehumanizing to look at him like he was anything but human, but...He wasn't. But he was. He was human to her. Even with the scales. That didn't mean she shouldn't try and figure it out though, right?

"Haven't met any others. That's...Both worrying and a relief. If it's just you that just makes you existing all the more crazy."
Ingrid stared at the floor, hands in pockets, and her foot tapping like a rabbit. It was one thing to be a person with spikes: it was another to be a shapeshifter. Or something like that. Pairing this with what she knew about him already: waking up and remembering little about who he was, it drew up some disturbing ideas. Foul play. He might've been drugged and kidnapped for his weird appearance...But then they wouldn't dump him into an ally.

"It's just you. Down here. Able to do...That. Every week."
Ingrid was growing more and more agitated with herself when the questions she had lined up became fuzzy. She couldn't ask for another time out-- But then again. Were they wasting time? Did Claudius have any commitments to attend to?

"..Your bones. Your entire body, even. Are there any, y'know, lasting disabilities in either form because of the change? I heard things snap. You can walk fine, though."
 
Claudius drew the blanket around him more securely, trying not to tear it as he did so. Her agitation was starting to make him anxious, but he did his best to push it aside. She had every right to be agitated. This was a lot to come to terms with. She was actually taking it a lot better than he'd anticipated, and better than he probably would have if the roles were reversed.

"No, I can function just fine once the change has fully taken place. It... hurts... and I need to remember how to stand on two legs as opposed to four, but everything seems to be fine," he answered quietly. "I can feel it coming on, and I try to get down here where it's safe when it happens. That is what happened that one Thursday night when you became lost. I am sorry about that, by the way, and I appreciated your concern."
 
Maybe she should ease off for tonight. Ingrid was only working herself up pushing herself to ask, and Claudius...Looked uncomfortable. Of course he was. He'd shown her something he'd likely never shown to another person, and she ripped him to shreds with questions. Ingrid had to remember that Claudius- The person- Wasn't technically a stranger. This wasn't a lecture, this was an attempt at reason.

"You don't gotta apologize. I would've done the same if I was you. Probably would have done worse."
Ingrid admitted with a shrug of her shoulders, itching the side of her neck and looking down at her feet.
"I don't mean to bombard you with so many questions I just-- You know this is really, really weird. Stuff like this is...Stuff I read about, and try to convince myself it's real, but I never ACTUALLY expect it to be real, y'know?"

Leaning an arm against the ticket booth, Ingrid sighed.
"...Can I sit back down in there? My head hurts."
 
Claudius instantly moved to the back so Ingrid had the entire front two-thirds to herself. That way, she wouldn't feel trapped, he reasoned, and she had room to fidget if she needed to.

"I do not mind the questions," he assured her. "I expected them. You are doing better than I feared you might. Thank you for being willing to consider me and not... leave." He looked down, playing with the rags. "I think I left someone. I think I abandoned them. A long time ago. Or maybe I just hurt people?" He sighed softly. "I do not remember. Sometimes I wish I could, and sometimes I am glad I cannot. But I do not think i was a good person before... this. Perhaps this is my punishment."
 
"Hey."
Ingrid snapped her fingers to get Claudius's attention. She sat cross-legged directly in front of him, somehow putting herself in a place taking all the room she'd been given despite being so small.
"Don't think like that. If you can't remember who you were before this, then that person is dead. For better or for worse."

"Even if you did do that stuff, you don't do it now. That's gotta count towards something."
Ingrid hoped she was right. Assuming bad things happened for a reason was unhealthy. She hated karma: she believed in it, and she hated it. Knowing Claudius as anything other than what she'd seen was something she wasn't willing to consider.
"It's alright to not remember. Lucky for you: you've got the most obnoxiously nosey person on your side. I'd be able to find SOMETHING, for sure!"
 
Claudius stared at her, his eyes wide. Then he smiled, his expression softening. "You are unique in the best way," he said quietly. "I cannot imagine a better friend than you. I feel I could always count on you to be by my side or at my back. I hope I may someday return the favor."

He stretched a little. "It is late. Do you wish for me to show you the way up? I do not mind if you stay longer, but you should probably rest."

He felt he should say more. Make a speech? Think some dramatic thoughts? But all he could think about right now was how his bones ached and his head hurt and he wanted a drink.
 
Ingrid felt like she wanted to cry. It would be impossible to guess, since nothing about her outward expression changed, but being recognized with sincerity meant a lot to her. It meant too much to her. It shouldn't be treated as such a rarity.
"Hell yeah I do. As long as you don't take on a seven-hundred person army, I'll be there."
Ingrid humored herself at the idea she'd take on anything less than seven-hundred. And being unable to be sure made it all the more funnier.

"As cheap as I feel for leaving: I probably should. You need your rest just as much as I do. On the bright side: don't need to worry about only seeing you once a week now. I'd say that's a win!"
 
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