Work Text:
Sometimes Grian looked at the claws on the tips of his fingers and wanted to tear them off.
Not for any particular reason, really; it would just be interesting, is all, to be able to see what happened under all that mess, why his regular nails from before weren’t growing back, whether the blood under his skin was still that same old red, red, red, or if whatever forced him into this half-human half-creature state also replaced the heart that, somehow, still beat in his chest.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Skizz looking upon him, pitying, as he dropped his stylus, picked it up, dropped it again. The sight of sandy-brown feathers in his peripheral were enough to make him sharply turn his head away from the door (open, for whatever reason) and attempt to keep working, keep holding the tool tighter with every slip out of too-stiff fingers formed from too-hollow bones. He didn’t want to be distant, but it was so much easier to detach himself from any reminders that people could live like this, had lived like this, and were completely fine with it. He ignored the bright red and blue and yellow appendages attached to his back, slumped on the floor behind his bench.
Perhaps he could tear those off too. He would, if it would make his hands stop twitching with every breath he took, make his hands stop falling limp as he tried to write up forms, make his claws fall off his fingers and toes and leave smooth keratin behind. He would, if it would stop him from floating in that limbo of not quite human, not quite natural, not quite artificial, not quite creature.
Fuck, he thought, a laugh escaping his chest— choked, nigh-hysterical— I’d do it for less.