Keep Them Warm Pt. 3

He woke up flat on his back staring up at the ceiling. It was dark, but that was expected when you were living on a space station. Hand to his head, he sat up and rubbed his eyes becoming aware of a now-familiar sensation tugging at the skin of his stomach and sides.


It had been almost a month since he had been stuck with the alien eggs, feeding off him for support, and in that time he had grown a greater appreciation for women and pregnancy, not to say that what he was experiencing was in any way close, but it did have elements that were rather similar.


Testing had concluded a likely series of events, which had lead to this strange ability by the adaptids. It appeared as if the original Adaptids had had the usual binary gender system that you see in many species, a male, and a female, and at that time, their eggs had been primarily parasitic until hatching. It may have been, that, originally, they laid their eggs on other species, and a few of the eggs would survive. However, when they met the original version of the host gender, the situation had turned out to be mutually beneficial for both of them. The more mutually supportive, the more the hosts evolved to help the adaptids. Eventually a line of DNA acquisition allowed the host to pass on its DNA through the parasitic eggs.


Over time, this ability had allowed the adaptids to incorporate other species into their genetic code successfully breeding in desired traits. They probably hadn't been a species that was originally intended for sentience, but their ability to adapt had changed things.


It was concluded that the use of a human for adaptids evolution was an inevitability and not an accident. The queen had probably intended to do what she did the moment she saw them, it was in their nature to do so.


For him, the tradeoff wasn't so bad, he supposed. Granted he had what could best be described as an absolutely MASSIVE tic, but one that allowed him to eat whatever he wanted whenever he wanted.


As far as his newfound appreciation for pregnant women, that came with his inability to sleep on his stomach, strange and sometimes unnerving cravings, random nausea, and, recently, an extreme sensitivity to smell, not to mention the almost compulsive need people felt to touch the eggs whenever they saw them.


The smell though, that was the worst thing. Whatever this was, it wasn't simply a distaste for specific smells, but he swore on his life that he could Smell things he shouldn't have been able to smell.


He stood up, stretched and walked over to the viewing window pressing the button to open the shutters on his way past bathed suddenly in the light of Jupiter's stormy red eye. He paused there looking out at the view. He took a deep breath closing his eyes and smiling to himself. Not many people get to live their dream, not many people become what they wanted to be as a kid.


He was incredibly lucky.


A knock at the door startled him from his musings.


Speaking of incredibly lucky....


"Come in!" He called wandering over to the side of the room to grab a glass of water.


THe door hissed open, and Sunny stepped into the room, ducking under the short door frame before it hissed closed behind her. She glanced towards the window, "WHo the hell decided to give you the executive suite."


He smirked, "pretty suite view, Isn't it."


"Where do you want this." She wondered holding the breakfast trey before her.


"Uh.... just set in on the side table there." He said stepping into the bathroom and closing the door with a sharp hiss.


Sunny heard the water turn on, "Krill wants to see you this morning." She called, a little louder so he could hear it."


"Doesn't surprise me." The man called back as he angrily tried to adjust the water temperature. He swore it only ever got lukewarm especially of those mornings he just wanted to scald the first layer of his skin off.


When that wasn't enough, he turned off the water and got dressed eventually returning to his room where Sunny sat over a large bowl of salad. Luckily, the Drev, as herbivores, were capable of eating certain types of earth food. It was a real monetary plus as thousands of dollars were spent simply trying to keep the humans fed, much less their alien counterparts.


He sat down next to her and sniffed at the air, "Pancakes, syrup butter, and orange juice."


She raised an eyebrow at him, "Am I really that predictable."


He shrugged, "Well there are only so many breakfast options, but I could smell it."


She looked skeptical, "You can smell orange juice."


He sniffed at the air, "You can't? It's pretty strong."


"Not a human, remember."


He gave a rueful smile, "Whoopse, sometimes i forget."


He pulled the lid off the top of the breakfast dish, and was hit in the face with a rather strong smell of breakfast. Luckily it wasn't unpleasant, but it was surprisingly overpowering, and he had to shake himself a few times to dissipate the smell, "Wow, that's strong."


She eyed him again in confusion, "The smell of pancakes is.... Strong?"


"Even YOU should be able to smell it."


When she didn't he finally let it go and ate his breakfast. IT tasted pretty good, more flavorful than usual, but he supposed that was partially due to the strength of the smell.


While he was eating, Sunny leaned over and pulled up the side of his shirt to examine the eggs. He let her. When other people did it, it was kind of annoying, but he was generally ok with sunny doing what she wanted, they were friends enough for that.


"Do they.... Look bigger or is it just me."


He shook his head, "Eggs don't grow, Sunny. They are a little bit heavier though, which is a bitch on my back."


Sunny grunted and sat back in her chair, "Have you shown the admiral."


He snorted, "You should have seen the look on her face. I think I may have just given her nightmares for a few weeks."


The Commander finished up his breakfast, and together He and Sunny stepped out of the room and made their way down the hall. It took them longer than they intended to reach their desired destination, as everyone in their dog had to stop and take a look. Despite the supposed "privacy" he was entitled to based on medical procedure, his condition had spread around the station like wildfire. He was no longer "the commander" but the guy "with the eggs" or (erroneously) "The guy who hooked up with an alien spider.


The amount of times he had to explain was starting to get a little old, but whatever. Those who didn't want to touch, wanted to ask a million questions, and vise versa. Occasionally there were those who fit into both camps.


As he was doing this, he began to notice something strange. Sometimes less strange and more disgusting.


He sniffed at the air after one of the guys finally left to be on his way wrinkling his nose, "That guy did NOT shower today."


Sunny glanced over at him, "I thought some humans only showered every-other day."


"Well they SHOULD be doing it every day."


The more people they met the more issues he began to have. Floods of aftershave, perfume and flowery deodorant. When they didn't smell like soap, they smelled like body odor, and when they didn't smell like that, they smelled like the last thing they had eaten. He rubbed at his temples as the headache began throbbing slowly at the back of his skull.


"Are you ok?" Sunny wondered


They had finally made it down the hall and into the docking bay.


Stepping through the doors into the massive room, The commander was hit by an absolutely stifling wave of ol, grease, solvant, BO, and paint. He grew lightheaded and had to reach out and steady himself against Sunny's arm as they walked down the length of the room. She glanced over at him nervously, but he only shook his head at her covering his nose with one hand as they made their way across the deck and to their ship, docked at the other end.


The station was an absolutely massive piece of engineering, probably the size of a large city, and being added onto every day. While it wasn't likely to ever reach anything near the size of something like, say, the Death Star, it would still probably end up very large.


The Harbinger looked almost tiny compared to the room that surrounded it.


Adam was relieved when they were finally inside, and the outside smells had all but dissipated. Walking next to him, Sunny escorted him up to the medical bay where Dr. Katie and Krill were already hard at work.


Stepping through the doors, Adam was suddenly assaulted by the pungent smell of disinfectant and isopropyl (Rubbing Alcohol). The smell was so strong that it made him momentarily light headed. He swayed on his feet hand to his head, and Sunny was forced to steady him. "Adam, Adam, are you ok."


The room spun around him as the smell intensified. He leaned heavily against Sunny as the room echoed, the headache intensified.


Voices rose and fell around him, and it seemed as if he tilted sideways in slow motion. Something stopped him from falling to the floor, and he vaguely recognized Sunny's armored arms holding him up.


"Get him to one of the beds." Krill ordered.


"No... no I think he said something about the smell." Sunny protested


Dr. Katie interjected, "Then let's get him into the other room,"\


He momentarily blacked out here, but woke a few minutes later with the smell, mostly, absent and a pounding headache.
"Commander, Commander are you ok." A light flashed from one eye to the other, and he tried to wave them off.


"I, I'm ok.... Just got a bit dizzy there for a second."


"Your blood pressure is normal." Commented Dr. Katie


"Yeah, but did you bleach the entire building this morning," he moaned. "I feel like my eyes are going to singe out of my head."


The two looked back and fourth between each other and him, "What do you mean Commander," Katie asked, "It smells just like it normally does."


He shook his head, "Guess again.... Can we just to the exam here. I can't go back in there."


They were clearly worried, but they agreed to humor him, allowing him to lay back and rest his head. He could smell Dr. Katie's perfume. He would have said that it smelled like cinnamon accept for the chemical aftertaste that it left lingering. Her breath was sharp with mint, but even under that he could tell she had a chocolate chip muffin for breakfast.


He decided against mentioning it seeing as it might sound a bit creepy.


He tried focusing on something other than the smells while the two of them took a look at the eggs, and where they had adhered to the skin.


"Nothing appears abnormal." Krill commented, "Skin color is fine,"


"Are you having any other strange symptomes?" Dr. Katie wondered


"Hungry...... been craving for red meat ... Probably protein or iron.... And then there is the smell..... Oh and ive been unusually cold lately."


Checking his temperature, they didn't find anything abnormal and drew some blood to make sure there weren't any problems hiding under the surface they just couldn't see.


***


As for the smell, that was only getting worse. He had gone onto the bridge to finish off his work, and was bombarded on all sides by perfume aftershave toothpaste, deodorant, body odor and breakfast hours old.


His head throbbed.


He stood, "Alright, everyone get the hell out." The crew turned to look at him with confusion.


"Commander?"


"You heard what I said, get the hell out, and take a shower, all of you."


They looked between each other confused, "I don't understand-"


"What part of go take a damned shower don't you understand/"


The crew stood, not entirely sure what was going on, "Is everything ok commander?" Someone asked


He groaned a bit, "You all stink to high heaven."


It was to Sunny's amusement that almost the entire rooms turned to sniff at themselves discreetly appearing puzzled.


"The perfume and aftershave and the lotion. It has to go. I have the biggest headache you wouldn't believe."


"You can smell my deodorant from here?" One of the men wondered skeptically.


"Yeah I can tell it stopped working about an hour ago." That left the guy frowning as he turned to the other crew members, "Vanilla, leather and musk, poder, strawberry, chlorine from the station pool, and you, you had onions in your breakfast.


"You can't seriously smell that from here." One of the crewmember pointed out.


"Let me break this down to you. I can smell EVERYTHING."\


A few of the crew-members began to look a little nervous, "Everything, sir. The lieutenant wondered."


He looked at her, expression a little softer, and a tad more long suffering, "yes crewman.... everything ."


She exited the room rather judiciously as did a few other members of the crew still sniffing at themselves, less discreetly now than before, "No perfume, no aftershave, only odorless deodorant, please." When they were all gone, Commander Vir slumped down in his seat with a groan and a shiver, "Why does it always have to be so cold in here."|
Sunny glanced at the internal ship readings on her console, "Adam, its like 75 degrees in here, and may I remind you that you have specifically told everyone that if they touch the thermostat you are going to make them sleep next to the engine room."


He spun in his seat rubbing his arms with the chill, "Hmm, the engine room. Doesn't sound half bad.


Sunny frowned, "Adam, its like 120 degrees just off the engine room.


"Perfect." he muttered


***


When the crew finally returned from their ministrations, they found the commander missing. Sunny, who had stepped out for a few moments, only to find the Commander gone when she got back had no idea where he had gone.


He was finally located about three hours later curled up on the floor of one of the auxiliary engine hallways. Heat directly around the core could reach dangerous levels, so he had chosen one of the outlying hallways. Even so, it was about 123 degrees, and dehydration had started to set in. He was eventually brought back to the medical bay where Krill acquired some heating blankets.


Over the next few weeks, his symptoms only got worse and even more strange. He was hungry all the time, and always cold. He was often seen seeking out warm areas to curl up and bask like some sort of lizard. Krill was forced to implement a makeshift heating room near the infirmary to avoid allowing him to wander off into more dangerous areas. His ability to smell at this time became uncanny and seemingly impossible for a human. He could smell the very chemicals used to make certain types of perfume. Usually he knew what a person had for their last meal, and even the one before that. He even claimed to be able to smell hormone levels on the other humans, and, as far as they were concerned, he hadn't been wrong.


It became such an issue that he was practically forced into a smelless sterile environment for his own health.


If that wasn't enough, he was practically taken out by the back pain caused by the weight of the eggs supported by the most unstable part of the spine, especially in men, who did not have the anatomical assistance in carrying weight on that part of their bodies, like women do. It probably didn't help that ever doctor aboard the ship wanted a look at him for scientific purposes.


As far as his personal life went, one of his brothers had caught wind of the situation, and he dared not guess what was going to happen when he called them up next. He could really only share these worries with Sunny seeing as she was the only creature on the ship, aside form Krill, who didn't carry any noticeable sent, unless you counted spinach and some fruit to be overpowering smells.


If Krill was right, the creatures were due to hatch almost any day now.


And no one was entirely sure what was going to come out when they did. 

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