#Sorry Hosah you’ve been getting beaten with sticks a lot lately huh

[ravetillyoucry]

PUPARIA

Chapter 9 - Amoeba

WARNING: This chapter goes into topics such as disordered eating, feel free to skip out if you won’t be comfortable reading about such topics.

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Doctor White was someone Hosah had become well acquainted with since his move from nowhere's-ville Colorado to the Big Apple.

His whole adolescence was spent floating around hospitals and offices just like this one, the examination table had become a welcoming sight to the shifter. Most people he knew had irrational fears of doctors, putting off their check-ups for as long as they possibly could, only visiting when they felt there were no other routes to take, but Hosah didn't mind all that much. Besides, being poked and prodded at by some scholar guy was the least he had to be worrying about.

Sitting in the waiting room, slouched so far down he was practically laying in the seat, Hosah distracted himself with his thoughts. Despite how much he wanted to be- in a regrettable way which he felt guilty about- a paranoid wreck about the whole 'being a stalking victim' thing, the shifter actually couldn't get his mind off of his newfound roommate.

His hands. God, his hands. The reception was dead silent, aside from the occasional turn of the page from the gentleman a few seats down from him and the repetitive ticking of the clock, but if he had noise to conceal it, Hosah would've groaned out- in both agony, and in that overwhelming rush of excitement similar to that of which a teenage girl would get after her crush smiled at her in the hallways.

Mentally, Hosah was slapping himself in the face, telling his feelings to 'Stop that, behave', and although he really desperately wanted to get himself under control, the memory of sitting in those warm, steady hands crowded his mind, even when trying to distract himself with something, literally anything else.

Teddy just kept bouncing right back into his thoughts, how he leaned against the surfaces the shifter sat on, the only thing in Hosah's line of sight being his chest, his rolled up sleeves showing his muscular forearms, even when he instinctively grabbed Hosah's wrist the day prior, his hand wrapping all the way around his thin frame with even some to spare...

No, not now, he thought, trying to hide his now blushing face by pretending there was something in his eye. Hosah tried to justify it all in his head, I mean, the guy is drop-dead, Hollywood level gorgeous, even the straightest of men would probably find themselves getting a little flustered if Teddy tried all the stuff he'd been putting the shifter through. His unintentional flirty behaviours drove Hosah insane, despite feeling bad for teasing him just a little the day prior about his sudden urge to grab, it only felt fair to give him the slightest bit of payback.

"Mr Levi?" the familiar voice interrupted his daydream. Doctor White had his head poked around the corner of the reception, giving his patient a warm smile as he looked up.

Getting up out of his seat, the shifter gladly followed the voice that beckoned him, passing about a dozen identical doors that lined the off-white hallway, the overhead light buzzing as loud as ever. There was something oddly comforting about the liminal space to Hosah, his eyes relaxing to the harsh yellow colour that beamed from the bulbs above.

Taking a harsh turn to the right, the two stopped at the first door along the corner. It looked the same as all the others they'd just passed, a muted teal-adjacent tone with the little wired window and all, except this specific door had the doctor's name engraved in a metallic plate. The shifter could probably do this journey with his eyes closed, with the amount of times he'd done it previously.

"So," The doctor began, letting Hosah pass through the door he held open first, gently closing it shut behind him, "Any concerns I should know about?"

Hosah debated telling him about the fact he'd been forgetting to take his medication more and more lately, but ultimately decided that wasn't a big enough deal to warrant a comment about.

"Same old," The shifter shrugged, taking a seat in the corner of the office.

Despite having seeing Doctor White once every two weeks- at the least- for the past five years, he still wasn't on that sort of basis with him where he felt he could air out all of his bodily grievances.

When Hosah looked back up from the off-white tiles beneath him, he was met with a slight raised eyebrow, making him wonder if his little white lie could be seen right through.

"Right," the man in white said in a sigh, "If you could take your coat and shoes off for me and stand on the scale."

Euuuuughhhh. This was the shifters least part of the checkups, always had something to say about his rapidly declining weight. Hosah thought back to his last visit, the words 'It's almost like you don't want to get to a healthy weight' having stuck with him.

He did as he was told, nontheless. The numbers that appeared almost had him bracing for impact, as he could already guess what was going to be said next.

The doctor's lips pursed, brows now furrowed, "That's another four pounds. You do understand that's how much I asked you try gain for next time, don't you?" he sounded annoyed, no, he sounded disappointed, which was actually far worse.

"I know, it just falls off of me no matter what I do," Hosah felt bad for lying so blatantly, but he wasn't really in the mood to be lectured on the topic when he had such bigger things to be worrying about.

"I understand when you shift and get stuck, you consume barely any of the required calories you need, but this is going too far." Doctor White was now looking into his patients eyes, causing a slight sense of unease and intense embarrassment over the whole situation. "I know I'm not supposed to, but I worry a lot about my patients in my off time, and I don't know for how much longer I can justify your state."

Hosah just hung his head down, unsure if he could mention anything to make things somewhat better.

The shifter's attention was caught as his doctor reached for a notebook, pulling out a page and writing what looked to be a phone number.

"You call this number when you get home, and ask to speak with Doctor Aronov, I'm gonna call when you go and arrange for you to speak with him, you'll just need to pick a time that suits you." He urged Hosah to take the paper, "He's a uh.. specialist in this area. I'm not all too well versed on the, well, mental health side of these situations."

"..Huh?" The shifter could hardly believe what he was hearing, never mind what the words were insinuating.

"I can't think of any other approaches we can take to fix this. I'm not trying to throw any diagnoses at you, but it won't hurt to at least check."

"I'm not starving myself, I've been getting stuck more often, that's it, I don't.." That might've been a lie too.

The doctor gave him the same kind of pitying look that drove the shifter up the walls. "I'm not saying I think you are, I just think the reason could be more subconscious than you're aware of,"

This was just ridiculous now. There was no one who knew his own brain better than Hosah. He had no words, instead just scoffing at the entire suggestions. It would've been funny if it wasn't so offensive.

Deciding the conversation was going nowhere, Doctor White shifted the focus onto something else, "So you've been shifting and getting stuck more often, yes?"

"Mm, yeah, I only was just able to change back yesterday, and it had almost been a week by then."

"Huh. Well, that's not exactly out of the ordinary for you. What was the longest you mentioned being stuck again?"

Oh, that dreadful time. Hosah almost didn't even want to think back to remember it at all. "Three months."

It certainly was the worst three months of his life. The shifter was only fifteen, although the time spent stuck bled out all the way until his sixteenth birthday had passed. During the period, he was living at what he described to Teddy to be 'boarding school'. If anything, it was more like being inpatient in a psych ward. Hosah had been sent there to get an education outside of the regular schooling system, where he could get the proper attention he needed without having to take extensive periods of time off due to his shifting.

This era of his life was probably why he found the doctor's office so comforting. His entire high-school career was basically spent around doctors, being taught his math and his english by someone he could tell just really wanted to study him instead. Honestly, the shifter didn't really mind it. The attention was actually quite pleasant, being mindlessly fidgeted with in a single, giant hand was unexpectedly enjoyable.

Being touched had always been Hosah's favourite part of being tiny. Although he'd never admit it out loud or even to himself in his mind, it was unarguably one of the best things man could experience. Sitting in a hand, having your entire face brushed by a single fingertip, being held against someone's chest, right above their heart beat, feeling the thumping coarse all through out your body. Okay, maybe he hadn't experienced the latter per se, but the thought was nice either way.

The doctor whistled, snapping the shifter back into reality, "Three months." he repeated. "Most I can do is up your somatotropin dosage, but you're already taking a risky amount. I just don't get it. Usually there's a straightforward cause to irregular, uncontrollable shifting, like stress or diet or environment, but it seems you're just like that by default."

Yeah, that was pretty much right on the nose. Hosah just nodded, not feeling as if there was anything else that needed to be added to the statement.

"Well, anyway," the older of the two sighed, "Call that number. I'll do the rest. You don't have to worry about paying or anything, you have insurance covering all things healthcare."

That was one plus about being a shifter, dozens of organisations looking to cover your medical expenses, hell, one even covered for Hosah to go to his local community college, although he decided to just work about a year in anyway.

"Yeah, I will, thank you." The shifter stood back from his chair, grabbing his coat and exiting the building as fast as his legs could take him.

Pshh, yeah, like hell he will.

Everything in Hosah's life at the moment seemed to be working against him. First it was the voyeuristic killer turned depraved stalker, now it's his doctor desperately trying to make a big deal out of nothing, shoving more labels onto the man than he could even remember himself. He'd gathered a lot of those over the years, actually. Size shifter, generalised anxiety with depressive tendencies, addictive personality, and probably a couple more he was forgetting. They meant nothing to him, of course. He is what he is, and nobody needs to know any of what's going on in his brain except for himself, and Hosah didn't really care to know the rhymes and reasons for the activity that happens inside of it.

Waiting outside with the taxi was Teddy. Beautiful, kind, gentle, patient Teddy. How the tables had turned, it felt like just a second ago the shifter was praying to never have to look at his face ever again, but now, he found himself longing for just a peek of it. He'd gotten through enough of his 'big list of things to do' to purposefully shrink for a little while, receiving the giant's attention was like a reward.

His assistant was stood outside the passenger side door, waving as if Hosah was a few thousand feet away and not a thirty second walking distance from the obnoxiously yellow vehicle. The shifter, although not wanting to be happy in this moment, couldn't help but laugh.

"How'd it go? Did he say anything?" Teddy asked, getting into the car alongside the shifter.

Now came another decision, to tell or not to tell.

".. It's kinda funny actually, you'll laugh." Plugging his seatbelt in, he took a moment to consider whether he thought Teddy would see the humour in it.

As the man next to him stared expectingly, Hosah continued, "Uh. He thinks I have a.. a fucking. He thinks I have an eating disorder."

Silence. Yeah, this is actually what he expected. Filling the awkward air, the shifter spluttered in a fake laugh, "I mean, come on. I'm- I'm a grown man!"

Hosah's hopes of agreement were crushed by the assistants response, "Welllll-"

"Well?"

"You do kind of..." Teddy thought of a nice way to put this, "...Not eat at all. I cook for you and you just kind of move it around the plate and chat the whole time."

"Oh my god." the shifter grabbed for his hair in frustration. Teddy was telling the truth, completely, he just didn't expect him to have taken any notice.

"I mean, he can't just diagnose you, he needs other expert opinion, right?"

"That's what he did, said he's gonna set up an appointment with some specialist guy. I think he's a therapist or something, Doctor.. Something Slavic sounding. It's on here." Hosah practically threw the note at the man.

Teddy barely even glanced at the paper before thinking up some logical, smart-sounding thing to say that would make the shifter feel irrational and unreasonable, "I think you should just go to the sessions, get that specialist to assess you, and when he says there's nothing wrong, you can rub it in that doctors face."

The idea of getting I-told-you-so rights did sound extremely appealing. Teddy was always right about these things, he and Jeanne had that in common.

It was weird how they weren't already good friends, actually, when the detective really thought about it, he'd barely seen them interact at all. Jeanne put in good words about the assistant, but it seemed ever since the body discovery- or, bodies, Jeanne was avoiding the two. Surely it was nothing the shifter had done, since the last time they spoke one-to-one was an apology from Jeanne, right?

The thought of changing the subject was also really nice. "You know, I haven't spoken to Jeanne in days. Usually he'll find me and chat, but he's just been walking straight past me lately." Hosah's face shifted to look out the window, not wanting to really face the person next to him after realising he was painfully aware of his bad habits.

"He's probably just stressed out. We do a shit ton of work and we're not even the leads on the case, that's a lot on his plate." The assistant reached out a hand and patted Hosah's knee reassuringly. Ugh. Physical contact, his biggest weakness.

Refusing to look back towards him due to his now blushing face, the shifter sighed, "Yeah. Probably.. So!" Hosah tried his best to conjure up the most carefree and convincing expression he could, "What's on Felix's agenda for today?"

The rest of the ride home was more awkward if anything. Despite numerous attempts to keep up with conversation, Hosah ended up fading back into his own head, lost in thought as his eyes lingered out the window. The doctor's office was quite out of the city centre, meaning they got to drive through some less urban parts of town on the way there and back. It about as nice as old abandoned stores and dead yellow grass could get. Teddy's apartment wasn't actually all that far from the shifter's own, and passing by the general area put a foul taste in his mouth.

He wondered if the person who'd sent the parcel had dropped by again. Ugh. The heavy feeling of dread landed straight onto the shifter's back and shoulders, the tension of his own mind causing them to stiffen and rise.

Oh well. If they had, Hosah wasn't there to deal with it. It seemed as of late, the world just wanted to push every problem it could think of onto his back, causing him to bend and break just slightly more with each passing day, adding new unforeseen boulders onto the forever growing pile of hard rock that sit atop of him.

As the pair entered the cluttered apartment, Hosah realised just how truly exhausted he was. Physically sure, but especially mentally.

The shifter collapsed head first into the couch, groaning loudly as his face smushed against one of the decorative throw pillows.

"Shit day, huh?" Teddy brushed a hand over the back of the faux-blonde hair, laughing all the while.

Although Hosah desperately wanted to protest the viewpoint of this all being a funny joke, he really didn't have the energy. Instead, he raised his head slightly, leaning into the brief touch.

"I wanna curl up and die."

He didn't budge as his legs were lifted, Teddy now sitting beside him, the calves on his lap.

"You can do the former, just not the latter."

Perfect. With his assistant's permission, the shifter morphed down into his smallest form. By now, he accepted that this was probably his default, his normal, how he was supposed to be. Although being five seven was his socially acceptable height, it definitely felt unnatural for the shifter to be such a size.

The much, much taller man besides him inched closer, getting a better view of Hosah's newfound smallness.

"I didn't know you could... You know, shift by choice." He whispered, careful to not be too loud or harsh against the tiny, fragile ears.

Hosah turned onto his back, wistfully staring up at the giant before him. "Yeah, sometimes. It's risky, end up getting stuck a lot, but it's better this way."

"Really?"

"Mmm. Being regular sized is exhausting. This nice, feels like I can breathe properly now."

Teddy just laughed, his face almost uncomfortably close now, so close that his breath brushed against the shrunken figure's skin like the gentle, late summer breeze outside.

It wasn’t fair. How the giant could be so infuriatingly perfect, his smile barely fading despite the pressure of their current situation. I mean, he willingly invited a current victim of stalking to live with him, putting himself in direct line of danger, without even thinking twice.

If Hosah was a few years younger and didn’t know any better, this would’ve made him hate his assistant. Now, understanding it isn’t fair to judge someone based off of his own insecurities, he could only watch in silent admiration. Jealousy was probably the more accurate word to describe it, but the more positive term sounded a lot better.

“It’s weird.. No- no you, you’re not weird, I,” The seemingly flawless man’s poor word choices and messy execution actually helped Hosah feel a little better about his envy, “I’m.. What I’m trying to say, aha, I’ve never been this.. up close and personal, with a shifter before, really. It’s really-“

“Weird, right?” The shifter cut him off to tease a little, after all, it wasn’t often he got to be the bigger person, especially when he was a fraction of the other’s height.

“No, more like, surreal. Ethereal, maybe,” The warmth radiating from the giant’s skin enclosed in on him as the hand that once held the tiny individual edged closer and closer, enclosing the shifter in his place on the pillow.

Looking at Teddy like this was probably more ethereal than whatever point of view he had of the shrunken man beneath him. From this angle, Hosah could almost count every single one of his beauty marks and freckles. Joining up all of the little dots on his left side, he made the constellation Libra, which seemed so stupidly perfect given the alignment with his zodiac. The shifter didn’t believe the stars and the moon or whatever the zodiac sign even correlated to could determine how one turned out as a person, but he liked to hear Teddy talk about it anyway.

“You have Libra on your cheek.” Hosah reached up, his fingers just barely able to graze where he meant.

“Sorry?”

“The constellation.” He now sat up, entire hand pressed against the soft skin. Feeling it heat up beneath the palm was very satisfying, as Teddy’s face flushed a red similar to that of his hair colour.

The giant’s face scrunched up as he smiled, “That’s very.. I don’t know, serendipitous, for lack of a better word,”

It was better to pretend to know what these things meant, rather than making himself look stupid.

“Did you bring the records I asked you to get?” It had been a while since Hosah had gotten to sit and listen to music, he came to miss the scratching and crackling of the poor quality vinyls he’d accumulated over the years.

Instead of responding, Teddy got up and decided to put one on, as the shifter was intending to ask of him anyway. It was good luck that the giant even had his own record player, given the only escalating popularity of the modern MP3 player. Sometimes Hosah felt like he was the last person on earth who used a walkman and cassettes rather than an ipod, but it was something he wore proudly, made him feel all unique and mysterious and such.

The soft, rhythmically intricate, distorted sounds from the player were ones Hosah could only describe as nostalgic, or maybe blissful. Chet Baker, I Fall In Love Too Easily. It was a track the shifter himself found himself relating to deeply, especially in situations like this.

There was something so special and beautiful about jazz, the instrumentals all coming together so perfectly, not a single person out of tune or off beat, it made Hosah feel as if his soul was ascending out of his body whenever he listened.

“Since it’s Saturday tomorrow and stuff, I was thinking, we should go out to a restaurant or somethi-“

“Shhh, this is the best part,” Not wanting to hear whatever the giant had to say, the shifter lay, hand raised to silence the man much, much larger than himself. He needed silence to take in the soft trumpet solo for all it was worth, and it was definitely the pause in conversation, even though he’d heard it a million times before.

Teddy obeyed, standing over the couch, deciding to focus on the tiny person that lay so casually on his pillow beneath him, with his eyes shut and an involuntary smile spread across his impossibly small face.

As the sound faded out and the next track began to play, Hosah was ready to chat again, “…You were saying?”

Just for a moment, his assistant paused to reassess what he was going to repeat, “We should eat out tomorrow. You know, start to get a start on..” The word he wanted to use was ‘recovery’ , but he worried that would be to accusatory of the shifter having any kind of disorder at all, “.. Proving your doctor wrong. Sound good?”

Eugh. Restaurants were something Hosah had a large distaste for, although admitting that to himself caused a slight reconsideration in his certainty of not having anything wrong with his relationship with food.

“Yeah, sounds great. I love restaurants.” Maybe a little too on the nose, the shifter thought, as he noticed his tone came off much more sarcastic than he’d implied it to, his smile turning into more of a grimace if anything.

Taking a seat beside the pillow Hosah lay on, his assistant clarified, “We don’t have to do anything you’re gonna be uncomfortable with. Just tell me if you’re second guessing, we can start off with smaller steps…” the giant paused, remembering something, “..On that note, I’ll make us dinner tonight. I’d ask you if there’s anything in particular you’d want but, I get you don’t really, like food.”

Oh, yeah, Hosah said that, didn’t he? Suddenly shifter regretted his choice of words, with the realisation he was not as slick as he thought he was about his whole fear of food thing. No, he wasn’t scared of food, just of how he was perceived whilst eating it. That’s all, not the actual thing itself, it’s just an anxiety thing. He took a mental note of that explanation for his upcoming appointment with Doctor Aronov.

-~-

As Hosah faced his nonexistent, totally far fetched fear of food, he realised maybe Mr White was more correct with his theory than he was initially thought to be.

It wasn’t anything totally unfamiliar or weird, a plate of spaghetti and a little slice of garlic bread. Actually, it both looked and smelt pretty good, but there was something totally unnerving about the way Teddy expectantly looked over at him, now back to his ‘regular’ size, waiting for his critic to give it a taste.

The fact his assistant caught on to his way of getting out of eating in front of others was deeply embarrassing, so there was no way Hosah could play the good old ‘move food around the plate whilst talking lots to avoid actually really eating anything’ trick. Hm.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but I will be deeply offended,” Teddy commented, clearly trying to make his roommate feel better, but it had the opposite effect.

“That makes everything so much worse,” Although the shifter was laughing, there was a level of pain in his voice, one that made it so his assistant was able to tell he didn’t find the situation funny in the slightest.

Thinking back to his time in college and what he got his psychology degree for, Teddy took a moment to consider his next words, trying to string them in a way that would both come off as gentle and supportive without being condescending or offensive,

“Do you know what it is specifically you don’t like about.. Uh,” Hm, how to put it, “These types of.. situations?”

“I don’t-“ Hosah’s positioning shifted, no longer twirling the long strings of pasta around his fork, head in his hands, “I don’t fucking know, man. I- I hadn’t even thought twice about something being wrong with me even when it comes down to fucking… Eating til today.” Honestly, it was a miracle the shifter hadn’t burst out into tears at this point, partially from the pressure of being asked to eat whilst being monitored, and also partly due to just everything in his life at the moment.

Before letting Teddy go on another smart and helpful spiel of what he should be doing and how he should be looking at the whole ordeal, the shifter rushed off away from the dining table, out onto the little balcony overlooking the general area.

The view wasn’t anything particularly nice, but the breeze certainly was, and Hosah hadn’t had the chance to light up a cigarette in days. Still clutching his hair in one hand, he shuffled around his pockets for the little branded box and his lighter.

“You know,” Teddy closed the glass door behind him, having followed his roommate outside, “Cigarettes are appetite suppressants. Maybe that’s just it,” A blatant lie in the latter half of the statement, but at least the good intention to put Hosah’s mind at ease was there.

It took a second for the smaller of the pair to exhale before responding, “Let me have this one thing, please. It’s all I have left.” Despite smiling like it was a joke, it was very much true.

If Hosah couldn’t have the satisfaction of going to bed with an empty stomach, then at least he could have his nicotine addiction.

“It’s okay. It’ll work out in the end. You’ll see that specialist, you’ll get better, and we can have spaghetti together another time.” A hand larger than his own cupped Hosah’s shoulder, the thumb adding pressure to all of the areas of tension. He hadn’t realised it up until this point, but the shifter had been straining his upper body the entire day. Despite emotionally being in the trenches, this one little thing felt quite nice.

“I can’t catch a fucking break. I’m sorry, Teddy.” He wasn’t quite sure what he was apologising for, but the urge to say something along those lines was too strong to bare. “I feel like I’m dragging you down this… I don’t know. I don’t want to be a burden on you, I- we haven’t really been associated for long, and I feel like I’ve already brought all of my problems onto your table,”

At this point, Hosah was just rambling, these were the kinds of statements that were to be kept in his head, but they just kept pouring out of his mouth like a broken tap.

Teddy scoffed in disbelief, and despite wanting to take offence, the shifter understood the reaction. “Don’t apologise to me. Seriously, if I didn’t want to help you, I could’ve just said ‘Damn, that sucks’ , and left the topic alone completely. It’s been like, two weeks, so what, I like you, you’re my friend, I’m gonna be there for you.. whether you like it or not.”

Right, friend. Because friends tell eachother when their freckles join up to make star constellations, and friends get all flustered when the other one does something even slightly physically intimate with them.

“.. Thanks. I don’t know how to repay you. This is a very take-take relationship.”

That same mischievous smile spread across Teddy’s face upon hearing the sentence, “You can paint something for me.”

Oh, what had Hosah gotten himself into now.