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John gets woken up by one of the Younger Ones. (He calls them that, in his head, the ones who have their own subcomplex and aren’t usually allowed in meetings and don’t seem to have a handle on human forms or human speech, much. He’s not sure how old they actually are; considerably older than him, at any rate.)
He gets woken up because it’s sitting on his chest, something like a mass of tentacles to his sight, that sense of Other Things Beyond dense in the middle and spreading out towards the edges, like vantablack shading into almost grey. It’s grabbed his arms with two of the tentacles, runs a third over his lips. Eyes aren’t part of its physical form, but he can feel its attention, brushing his body, the edge of his mind.
He’s mostly used to waking up like this, by now. Tenses for a moment, muscles, lungs, but doesn’t struggle, parts his lips for the tentacle tip to make its way inside. They don’t hurt today, not the ones on his arms, not this one. More tentacles he can’t see brush down over his body. Wrap his dick, his scrotum, circle at his entrance. Gentle, like the one in his mouth, barely probing. He stays still, moves only his lips, tongue, responding how they seem to like when they’re like this.
There’s a push like a flash grenade. Not at him, he realizes a moment later; he only caught the edge of it, not so much strength (comparatively) as thrown without quite enough precision. One of this One’s fellows, then. In his sense of it, the One on his chest turns, looks to the source direction (he’s stopped trying to figure out how he can sense direction when it’s not in space. He can, like he can sense Them, and wondering why or how is just as useless to the former as the latter). Makes some noise, like a bird cry, like an objection. Affronted. The tentacles retract suddenly, shoot out again to wrap all of him. There’s a feeling like a twist or a sudden sharp turn, and then they’re gone.
~~
It takes him to their compound area. Media room, he judges, while his eyes sting at the light, vertigo rises and settles from travel. He’s on his knees on the carpet. The TV’s on, though he doesn’t think in English. The One that brought him is next to him, points at him but directed at the others. -Yes fine I brought him see here he is-. It doesn’t brush his mind, but he gets impressions, something like reading body language in people, or facial expressions in a picture. The others are on the couch, two of them, same form for now. He can’t identify or distinguish them, never can for longer than one encounter, if that long. Which doesn’t really matter much.
They stay where they are, send tentacles out at him like they want to check that he’s really there. They shock where they touch, though not too hard, run current over his skin. He’s pretty sure they’re giggling when he jumps. The tentacles retract, the Ones focus on each other. Discussing what to do with him, he’d imagine. He can’t catch most of it, not until it gets to the nonhuman version of bouncing up and down. -practice?- -practice, practice!-.
~~
John crawls over to the couch. The One from his room has joined the others by now, and the two at the edges are half-fixed on the One in the middle. If they were humans, he’d say they had hands on its shoulders while it was attempting a task. By the time he makes it over, it’s mostly done - not something you’d take for a person on the street - the denseness is still somewhat there, and the tentacles are, a bit like they’re spreading out behind its back, though not quite. No physical description; not like the Elders, who can fold themselves away and then have photographs taken, if they want. But it has genitals, which presumably is the important part.
John gets between its legs, when it spreads them; it’s chosen a cock, for the moment. The Youngers never talk to him out loud, nudge at his mind when they want something from him. Though in this case he already knows.
He’s really not quite sure why the Elders like this as a greeting ritual. Maybe they read the wrong books, when they arrived on earth. But, for whatever reason, they do, and the Younger Ones seem fairly determined to get the hang of it, at some point.
They haven’t, yet. He feels a hand in his hair, then the One seems to get fed up with trying to make human body parts work and snaps out a pair of tentacles to push his head down. John chokes. Which isn’t dangerous - the work the Elders did on him does its job just fine, even as the Youngers clearly aren’t up to that kind of thing yet. Keeps them from killing him, while they aren’t. It’s still not a particularly good feeling.
The Elders are usually pretty quick about this. They have things to do, and the human problem of bodies with their own needs doesn’t exactly apply. The Younger Ones either haven’t gotten the hang of that either, or don’t really want to. Now and then they’re quick; mostly they really aren’t. John has a sniper’s patience, and a lot of incentive. The Others don’t. About twelve minutes in, there’s more tentacles on him, trying to drag him up and away. The One already using him bats at them with its own. -Wait for your turn!-
-Hurry up then-
-I’m trying!- It chokes him again, lets him go. -What do I do now?!-
-The finishing thing!-
Really? John almost thinks, but for all that they can’t actually read his mind when he’s not aiming it at them even to the extent the Elders can, rudeness is still generally a bad idea. Instead, in case it’s helpful, John pictures an orgasm in his mind. How it would feel to a receiver (he’s only got himself for reference, which for all he knows is completely wrong, but what else is there). How it’ll feel to him, taking it in. Either that works, or the One remembers on its own. Reality follows his imagination.
~~
Sometimes, when things go wrong they do it immediately. Today it takes about a second. The One pulses into his mouth, once, then again. The first time is fine - tastes different, but that’s normal, even the Elders vary it up sometimes. The second time -
John spits on reflex, jerks back enough to avoid his own body with it. Remembers quickly enough not to raise his hands to his mouth. His lips blister, the inside of his mouth burns, like chemicals that don’t belong on skin. The One above him loses its hold on its form, springs back. The other two hover. -Not right not right not right!-
That’s a mercy. Sometimes they’re just confused, or think he’s defying them. John puts a hand on his mark, tries to keep coherence, frame the situation in his mind. The Younger Ones, possibly currently yelling at each other. That this wasn’t on purpose, isn’t how they want him. Please , he sends, to it, or through it. Tries to be ready for a refusal. He has accelerated healing all the time, but accelerated is from human pace. If he wants more, that’s at their discretion. Even for an accident, it’s not a guarantee.
He gets a mercy, again. The mark responds, like stinging up his arm, but when it reaches his face he can feel the damage drawing back, closing up. When he can again, he moves his tongue around the inside of his mouth, swallows. Settles back down, waits for the Younger Ones and whatever they’re going to do, and their next idea.
~~
They may not be up to this kind of power use themselves, but they notice it pretty quickly. Settle back down on the couch as well. -Let me try again, I can get it this time-
-You’re not trying again-
-I can get it this time-
-It’s not your turn-
The Younger Ones switch places. The one in the middle now decides on a vulva. Seems to have a better handle on it, because events proceed without mishap this time. Actually holds him in place with hands for maybe five minutes before also getting fed up and deploying tentacles instead. Orgasms twice in quick succession. The Younger Ones switch places again.
John loses track of their turn-taking pretty quickly. It’s not important. Important is concentrating, is coordinating his lips and his tongue, when the hinge of his jaw goes from aching to spasms of pain and he’d consider begging for water if he thought that was likely to do any good. At any rate, at some point they’ve had enough. He sits back and tentacles brush across his lips, stroke his hair briefly, flick at the come on his face (the Elders don’t do that often, prefer to be inside him, but apparently it’s been enough to be noticed). That doesn’t last long; the Younger Ones aren’t patient.
-More practice?-
-Practice!-
They nudge him to get up (he stumbles - he’s been on his knees a while - but stabilizes), bend over their couch. Show up behind him - he’s not quite sure if he saw them move or not. Feels tentacles holding his hips - not even trying with hands, this time, it seems - and a cock at his entrance.
The Elders just make his body open for them, when they want, unless they want to hurt him in that extra way. He’s pretty sure the Younger Ones just forget. On the bright side of it, whichever of them is going first this time seems to have a handle on the physical limitations of human form. Instead of forcing into him, the cock just presses against him and stays stubbornly out. The Younger Ones get agitated again, the tentacles at his hips pull. John tries to go for helpfulness again. Pictures preparation - he could do it, or they could, tentacles seem to have special properties in that regard-
This time, he knows they saw it, because they seize the image, pass it back and forth.
-No more practice-
-Yes, enough-
-Fun!-
~~
Tentacles wrap him again, twist him out of space. Reappear with him in the middle of the carpet, which John thinks is a ridiculous distance to translocate, but no one exactly asked him. The tentacles change places again while he’s still trying to settle, pick him up off the ground and hold him. He sees more tentacles twining together, the Younger Ones going for collaboration/sharing over turn-taking, apparently. Twined tentacles make their way into his mouth - not shallow this time, they slide over his tongue and keep going. More twined tentacles press at his entrance, then push inside as well, not minding the barrier. Strands the thickness of his fingers return to his cock and scrotum. Thinner strands touch the tip of his cock, crawl into the opening and down.
This time it isn’t painless. They sting his skin where they touch it, where they touch inside him. John braces as he can as they explore. Over his ribs one of the still-external tentacles pulses, shocks him. Not quite like a stun gun, but not the gentler shocks of before. He jumps, harder, not entirely reflex. The Younger Ones giggle again. More tentacles spread out over his skin.
Internal shocks are worse than external. He’s pretty sure the Younger Ones don’t agree, like the way he clenches around them. The tentacles in his mouth are sturdy enough to not care about his teeth (the Younger Ones learned that one early on. He still remembers the shriek that wasn’t entirely sound, scrambling for his mark in blank somewhat-panic. The Elder had arrived before he’d had time to touch it. Its aura sent him to the ground, curling up like his body still thought he could get away. It’s muscular response, it’s not conscious, I’m sorry. He can’t remember, can’t tell, if he actually said it outloud. It didn’t help, not enough, but they must have believed him; he’s not stupid enough to think there isn’t worse they could do to him, if they’d thought he’d done it by decision. He can’t learn a lesson from it, because ‘avoid nonvoluntary muscular contraction’ isn’t an available lesson. The Younger Ones, at the least, seem to have).
Some of the shocks are quick, fleeting like a spark against metal, if stronger. Some last, like a live wire pressed against him. The tentacles twine inside him, inside his throat and his cock, finding new places to pulse into him.
~~
He’s not sure how he manages to hear the TV when the song start playing. Familiarity, maybe. Classical conditioning. The tentacles retract in an instant, drop him to the ground. Return after a moment to push at him, sending him at the wall. The Younger Ones reappear on their couch, radiate impressions of bouncing and impatient waving. John drags himself the rest of the way to the wall. He has no idea what program they’re so excited for; never gets to look, and it’s not in any language he knows or even recognizes. Maybe the Elders messed with his senses over it, or the Younger Ones tried and couldn’t get it quite right. He only knows that this won’t be much of a break, that he should take it while it’s given.
He gets maybe ten minutes, maybe fifteen - his time tracking is usually better than this, but something about being around Them seems to throw it off. Then the Younger Ones remember they can multitask. Tentacles twine together again, creep across the floor and across nothingness towards him. John tries to unwind, to open himself. Manages it maybe halfway. Slower now, the tentacles find their way into him again. It’s not without variation. Once they’ve settled about how they were, a new set probes at his rim, testing. John shivers at the feeling. Up and around the ones already inside him, the new ones push in as well, thickening the column. Then more arrive at the edges again. Different strand poke at his perineum, lift his scrotum to touch beneath it.
The shocks come farther apart, now. The Younger Ones are busy, after all, can’t spare him all their attention. In between, they move, leave stinging trails across his skin, the walls of their occupied orifices. The ones in his throat keep him from making a sound; that’s good, the Younger Ones don’t like interruptions. He tries to remember the schedule - hour? two hours? are these the commercials they like or the ones they’ll take advantage of - but in the moment it’s beyond him, slips away.
Tears gather at the corners of his eyes to slide quietly down, and one of the tentacles touches them. Where his ribs end below it brushes the salt water over his skin and sends sparks shooting through him.