Smiling softly, Okka shook xir head. "You care for the world. You would care for all worlds, if only given the chance. And you're smart enough to know that no matter what body I wear, I am a very different being from you."
It was true. Waverly could see, looking into the eyes he saw in the mirror every morning, an alien looking back. Without gender, without form.
Xe mimicked Waverly's motions expertly, but made them xir own, as if xe were speaking xir own words in a language that spoke directly to Waverly's nerves and slid easily into his brain.
Fascination. Attraction. Despair. Fondness. Hopeless love. An echo of so much Waverly thought, so much he felt, spoken by a second voice.
And Okka flaunted Waverly's body proudly, strutting around in it like it was a new piece of the latest couture.
That skin is so beautiful with Okka in it.
That skin is so beautiful.
It was a relief to see that spoken so clearly. A reprieve from the constant guessing game that was trying to learn how much of what attracted people to him was his money, his fame, his power.
"Please tell me what's okay here," he said.
Okka smiled. "I want to get more comfortable with touch, but I need something else to focus on. Copying you seems to work."
"You need to think about something else to be comfortable with me touching you?" Waverly asked doubtfully. "That doesn't sound good. Don't make yourself do anything you don't want to, not for my sake."
"No, I don't. I wouldn't. It's complicated, but… it's not that I don't want to touch you. It's that I want to touch you too much, and I have to get used to the way that wanting affects me."
Waverly let out a breath. "Okay. Yeah. That sounds a lot better."
"Is it okay?"
"It's really very okay. Just let me know how you want this to go."
Waverly watched the copy of his own lanky shoulders shrug. "I don't want to be tempted to speed things up," Okka said. "But I'm afraid that I will be."
"So you need something that's relaxing," Waverly said, suddenly grinning. "I wonder how exact a copy that body is?"
"What are you planning?"
"May I?" Waverly asked, gesturing to xir hand. Okka offered it wordlessly. Waverly promptly dug his thumb into the meat of Okka's hand, releasing some of the tension he suspected was lurking there.
Okka's eyes fluttered shut, just as he'd predicted.
"That's a damn good copy of me," he commented. "That's not in my genetics, that's all in the way I move, long-term. You've got it down exactly what muscles take the brunt of it and start their little rebellions."
"I have had many humanoid musculatures," Okka said. "I know how they tend to work. I didn't fully register how uncomfortable this one is until you did that."
"So. Good strategy generally speaking?"
"You can teach me how to do this for you. I'll have something to pay attention to. Yes."
"Excellent." Waverly pursed his lips, considering the options available to them. "I mean the bed would be best for this in terms of getting really relaxed, but if you don't want to feel rushed, I get how that might not be the best idea."
Okka shrugged. "Earth cultures aren't alone in associating the place where you sleep with the place where you mate, but it also isn't nearly as much of a constant as you seem to assume."
"Hmm. What about nudity taboos?"
"Why?" Okka asked, seeming more curious than suspicious.
"This'll work better without a shirt. It's not mission critical, though. Either way, I promise to keep to the relaxing stuff."
True to his word, Waverly focused on the arms, shoulders and spine, pulling out every trick he had and turning Okka's facsimile of his body into a pile of goo in the middle of his bed.
*~*~*
Okka blinked awake to find that xe had dozed off in Waverly's bed, and in his body. Xe stretched, finding the body now pleasantly loose and heavy in the soft bed.
"Thank you," xe told Waverly when xe spotted him beside xem.
"Yeah, welcome. That was really cool, you know?" He flopped down so his chin sat on his crossed arms. "So you get to learn what makes me tick. All my tender spots. I'm really looking forward to being able to do the same for you." He raised his eyebrows, gently prodding for some sign that that was going to happen.
Xe sighed. "There are things I may never be able to share with you."
"I get that," he said. "That's fine. Just… share some things with me. You don't have to tell me all your trauma and junk, but I'd at least like to be able to distract you from all of it with devastating efficiency."
Okka looked away. "I can't afford to be distracted."
"Why, do you have a top secret mission?" Waverly asked, only partly joking.
"I thought you were going to stop prodding."
"Okay, there's 'not prodding' and there's 'not giving you what you deserve in turn for all that "let me in" nonsense earlier'," Waverly argued.
"This is different." Okka shook xir head. "This is for your own safety."
"And what the hell did you think I was doing, exactly? Trying to back off to keep you from getting hurt the way David got hurt!" Waverly huffed. "Sometimes safety's overrated, you know?"
Xe considered this. "There are things I can't tell you," xe warned.
Waverly reached over to ruffle Okka's hair. "Like I said, that's fine. You don't have to offload all your secrets, that's not what I'm asking. Just give me something. Just let me into a little bit of your life."
Okka wanted to do so much more than that.
Waverly made a thoughtful noise. "Hey, so what did you do that rattled our dear Mr. Mepps so badly?" he asked.
"That wasn't even me," Okka replied with a bit of a teasing smile.
"Yeah right," Waverly scoffed. "Like I'm gonna buy that."
Shrugging, Okka bit xir lip, thinking about how to say this. "You know my dog?" xe said.
"No. I've never seen your dog. Kinda figured it didn't exist after I found out about the whole 'alien shapeshifter' thing."
"Well, it's true enough that I don't have a dog," Okka said. "I do, however, have a pet."
Okka's bag was lying beside the door half-open on its side and not wriggling or anything, and Okka was still half naked and Waverly-shaped. "Okay, I give," said Waverly. "Where?"
Okka stood, shifted back to xir regular form, and grabbed xir bag.
"There's not a little pod in there, like for a Pokemon, right?" Waverly asked.
"No," Okka said, not recognizing the reference. "It's not in my bag." Xe got out the bag of seeds, pouring some into xir hand. Breakfast, xe suggested to the fola, and out it popped.
Feathered, flightless, and with hardly any beak, it was mostly fluff. It hopped across the sheets, making straight for the seeds.
"So you're the Pokemon ball," Waverly corrected himself, impressed. "How many other things are just… floating around in there?"
"The fola is the only thing sharing my form at the moment," Okka answered. "When I left Avla, I saved its life. There, they are considered only vermin. It had been poisoned for trying to eat the palace's store of grain."
"It's a tribble," Waverly said, apparently greatly amused now. "Oh my God, I have to show you Star Trek." Then he paused, blinking. "Oh my God. I bet you could tell me things that are like Star Trek, but better, 'cause they're real."
Okka scattered the remaining seeds from xir hand onto the bed, and let the fola get on with living, now that things were safe for it to do so. Xe reached into xir bag again. The handheld computer that Myrdu had carried with him was so familiar, but strange in this context, with all the native technology xe had been using here.
"Is that a computer?" Waverly said, eyes like saucers.
"It is," Okka agreed. Xe activated it and began going through the work xe had done with this machine since xe'd arrived.
There were still no results to xir searches, still no signs of any non-Earth technology active on Earth except xirs. No signs of evidence that there were Mimica
here undercover, with ships lying ready to carry them away when their missions were over. There would be, since Earth had not yet developed interstellar craft. Xe'd arrived on Avla in an Avlan ship.
"I can't find any other Mimica," xe said to Waverly. "I need to find any others of my kind that I can. I don't know what I'll do if I can't."
"Oh," said Waverly.
It was strange, but Okka felt like Waverly understood, maybe as well as Nifu had, how that isolation felt. The sensation of not knowing where to turn, because home was gone.
"What I want," Okka said slowly, "what I am reminded I can't have, when we're together, is to merge with other Mimica. Share space with them. Share everything. Combine our selves into one Self. On my homeworld, much of the time, every Mimica forms one great Self, and we call that the Collective."
"Yeah," said Waverly. "Okay. I guess that's not something I can do for you?" But then he paused, thinking. "But you can share space with your birdy? You said Mimica could do that with other species, right? Touch minds? Or is it not the same?"
Okka closed xir eyes, unable to speak of it with Waverly's earnest gaze before xem. Instead, xe scooped up the fola, absorbing it again so as not to feel so alone while xe spoke of this. The seeds were gone, anyway.
"With the fola, it isn't the same. It isn't sapient. It has no mind to touch. I am what it is and I feel what it feels, but that is so much smaller than what I am."
"Are humans… smaller?" Waverly asked, voice hesitant.
"No," Okka assured him. "Touching your mind… I want that. I want that so much. But it would be dangerous for us both."
Waverly didn't show any evidence of having heard that last bit. "Tell me about it. Tell me what it's like. Please," he said.
How could xe describe this in English? "We would become dissolved in each other," Okka tried.
"Sounds sexy."
"It can be. But it's not primarily a sex thing. It is about intimacy. Intimacy more profound than I've known in any species but Mimica. It's powerful. It would change you. It would change me."
Waverly's brows drew together. "What kind of intimacy, what would that look like? Not like sex, but…"
"If we took it as far as Mimica do with each other?" Okka said. "We would become literally one being, in body and mind, for the time that we shared. Afterwards we would become two beings again, but always an echo of each of us would remain in the other."
Waverly was clearly turning that information over in his mind.
"You can shift into me, but not with me?" Waverly asked curiously.
"In emergencies, assuming another known identity within the target species is a standard survival technique. I'm in emergency mode."
He frowned. "Why? This isn't an emergency."
"Will you trust me when I say that it is?"
Waverly looked torn. "Please tell me why it's an emergency, at least?"
Okka's humanoid form reacted to xir distress by tightening xir chest, making it difficult for xem to breathe. But xe managed to at least begin to answer.
"The volatility that's resulted from what happened to my homeworld, my people," xe said, stopping and starting, trying to push the words out. "It's like nothing that's ever happened to us before, and I can't be sure of its limits."
Waverly made a moue. "So you don't know anything will go wrong."
"I know myself," Okka insisted. "I'm in emergency mode to keep myself from doing very dangerous things without thinking, just because I want them."
Waverly made a noise, distressed and uncomfortable. "Sounds familiar, honestly," he said. "Give yourself a break. You need a break sometimes. You need a chance to do what you want."
"I will think about it," Okka said.
Xe meant it to be a dismissal. It came out more truthful than xe had intended.
*~*~*
Okka thought about it a great deal, actually. And xe thought about other things.
Going up to Waverly's apartment in the evenings quickly became a common occurrence, and Okka was sure that people made assumptions about that that weren't fair at all to Waverly. Okka reminded xemself that none of that was xir responsibility, but still, something felt unbalanced.
One evening, xe found xemself saying, "You're right. I know this isn't going to work until I can show you my true self. I just don't understand how to do that with only the tools I have access to now."
Waverly eyed xem contemplatively. "I know it's probably a complicated question, but how much is that body really you?"
"It's me a lot. I chose it to represent myself, as much as a humanoid body ever could."
"Then can I touch it too? Not just the version of you that looks like me, but the one that looks like you in some ways. I feel like if it's you, then that's important."
Okka knew he was right. Okka was learning every day xe spent on Earth about the fragility of breath and the preciousness of longing.
"Okay, yes. I want this, I want you to touch me."
"Yeah. Any idea how, this time?"
"I want to do the human sex thing with you."
Waverly's mouth danced with suppressed laughter at xir awkward phrasing. "You sure?"
"I am, and I will tell you if I stop being sure." Xe stepped up to Waverly and kissed him, pulling him down for a deeper kiss than they'd yet shared. In response, Waverly held xem so gently, barely breathing, so that when they broke apart, he took a deep, shuddering breath.
"I'm sure," xe repeated.
"Okay," Waverly said, smiling. "It doesn't have to be now, or any particular way."
"Now is good. Simple is good." Xe entwined xir fingers with his, pulling him towards the bed. They kissed again, in between undressing themselves and occasionally each other, and Okka found that perhaps xe was nervous and unsure, but xe was becoming more comfortable with nervous and unsure.
They fell to the bed in a tangle, Okka landing on xir back and taking full advantage of it by sprawling out across the bed. Waverly looked down at xem, the glint in his eyes both hungry and speculative.
"So this is something I like, do you?" He nibbled on xir upper arm, little gentle bites, moving up towards xir shoulder slowly.
It was odd but interesting, then it tickled, then Okka pushed him away, laughing. "Apparently not in this body!"
"Yeah, new approach, then." Waverly nuzzled xir neck. "Something simpler?"
Okka shivered in a mix of pleasure and other feelings. "I want more of this, like when you kiss me. When you run your fingers through my hair. Anything that gets you closer to my throat is exhilarating. It's so exposed and delicate in these bodies." Xe ran a finger down the line of skin over Waverly's carotid pulse, as an illustration, and he shivered.
Waverly obliged, focusing in on Okka's neck like a tracking hound homing in on a scent. Okka took in the sensations thirstily, tilting xir neck up to give him more space to play. Xe was so conscious of xir breath, so close to the work of his mouth, as it sped and shallowed with the racing of xir heart.
Xe whimpered, hips rolling up to meet Waverly's. This was what it all meant, doing this to each other.
"This has been driving me crazy, you know?" Waverly said, panting into xir mouth between kisses. "Having you so close. Not knowing if things are going to fall apart before we could get here."
"I know, I feel it, too." Xe pushed against Waverly again, unable to help xemself. "I won't last long," xe admitted.
"Good, me neither." The sound of his voice was deep and harsh and hungry, and Okka couldn't get enough of it.
Everything was so vivid, so much more than xe could have imagined. Every breath, every touch, down to the movement of Waverly's eyelashes as he got distracted tracing the planes of xir belly with his lips, neglecting the places Okka needed most to be touched.
"Please," Okka wailed.
Waverly hummed in agreement, the sound seeming to jolt him into action, intensify the movement of his hips where he'd been slowly rutting against the bed. "Can I suck you?" he asked.
"Yes!" xe answered, nudging
his head in the generally right direction, making him chuckle in between gasping breaths as he squirmed backwards against the bed. His tongue pressed against xir cock first, then his mouth closed around xem, sucking softly. "Oh, yes, please, just like that."
He moaned long and low, squirming a little between xir legs, and then sucked harder.
Okka was utterly lost. Xe pushed up into Waverly's mouth, feeling warmth and softness and friction and pressure all colliding and rising like a tide until xe could hold it no longer, and spilled it all into him with a cut-off cry.
Waverly swallowed, then gasped and reached down to work himself urgently, head pillowed sideways on Okka's belly. Okka watched as that wave of sensations hit him, too, and he rode through them with an unfocused look of awe on his face.
The sense of contentment was palpable, and even though it wasn't everything that Okka wanted, it was still beautiful. It was still good. It didn't tear at all Okka's careful control the way it might once have done. The way a stray touch had once threatened to do.
Okka squirmed down the bed until xe was a little more level with Waverly and could wrap xir arms around him. Xe sighed, and held on tight.
"How are you?" Waverly asked xem. "What are you thinking about?"
"I'm wonderful," Okka answered. "I think this could work."
Waverly smirked sleepily. "See, you can learn to handle these things," he murmured. "I bet you can figure out the merging thing, too. Whatever obstacles are in your way."
Okka settled into the bed, considering that. Maybe he was right. Maybe merging with Waverly was inevitable. Maybe it was something xe needed.
This could be love, or something enough like it. But for one who knew what it was to be part of the Collective, it would always be lonely.
Chapter Eight
"Waverly," said Toto, early the next morning, "there's a guy in the lobby claiming to be an alien."
Waverly's eyebrows popped up. "Coincidence?" he asked.
"He's got some interesting tech on him, if so."
"Huh." Waverly turned to his screen, flicking the surveillance footage up.
The man on the screen wore armor in blue-scaled leather, and a crown that appeared to be made of teeth. The fangs of something significantly larger than he was, which was saying something. He had a mane of wavy red-brown hair that looked like it was glinting purple in the light.
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