Chapter Text
MacReady really should watch Childs closer. At any point the Thing underneath that fake face and skin could burst forth, teeth and gore and nails and acid burning, ripping, tearing his flesh away. Could force itself within MacReady’s bones and sinew, become anew within his body. It would survive if it did. There would be no warning to the rescue team for just what the body they’re recovering really contains. He should be watching.
But MacReady is so, so tired.
He’s sure the Thing knows that too. Can tell by the way it twists the scotch bottle in its stolen hands, eyes far too focused for a man who should be freezing to death. It must be evaluating, then. Determining if it’s better to play with it’s food when it’s dead, or when it’s alive.
There is something oddly thrilling, MacReady supposes, in being the prey. In being hunted to the very last, only to stare down the very hunter who brought such ruin.
The Thing licks its lips, bringing the bottle to them once again, swallowing. Such a human action. Such inhuman eyes. He wonders why it’s still pretending. Why it watches him with hunger and yet continues to stay away. MacReady rather desperately wishes he had a flamethrower in easy reach, instead of behind the Not Childs.
It isn’t like the surrounding flames are helping much either though, so perhaps this is just how it’ll end. Freezing to death while looking in the face of a predator far worse than anything his own planet could contain.
Huffing, MacReady tilts back, leaning his head against the splintered wall behind him. Closing his eyes, he flexes his numb fingers.
And he laughs.
He hears it startle when he does, some sound jolted out of it that most certainly isn’t something a human would make. MacReady laughs louder, harsh and crackling in the cold dark around them. He continues until his voice breaks, coughs wracking through his chest as he inhales far too much frozen air for them to keep up, wracking and painful against the agony in his body as the adrenaline wears off.
What stops the coughing is a freezing hand curling around his face, snapping his jaw shut with a click of teeth.
It’s MacReady’s turn to startle as he sees Not Childs standing over him, looming in a way that before - when it was a man - would have never scared MacReady. Now it sends an uncomfortable jolt down his spine as he tries to scramble backwards, hands jerking up to try and pry himself free.
It’s stronger than him. Of course it is. MacReady doesn’t even know why he tried.
Mustering up his best glare, MacReady stills, staring up at the Thing above him with all the contempt he can produce. Its fingernails dig into the side of MacReady’s jaw, tightening to an almost painful level. He wonders if it will draw blood. If he’ll feel it as his body is absorbed into it’s whole.
Instead it tilts his head further back, exposing his neck as it settles its bastardized form onto his legs. It hurts, makes MacReady writhe slightly, the burns from the explosion making themselves known. They continue to make eye contact, it’s hold not wavering in the slightest.
”Why are you different, MacReady?”
The voice is Childs’, but the tone is wrong, off in a way that he wouldn’t have been able to notice if he wasn’t desperately searching for any differences between it and his once friend. Its second hand comes up and dances along MacReady’s throat, tracing the artery there. He jerks in its hold. It doesn’t budge.
”They all wanted to survive. They were desperate to stay alive. In the end, each of the were willing. Wanted to become a part of us. Anything for survival. Why are you different?” It asks again, leaning closer to his face.
He doesn’t know how to respond to that, doesn’t know how to feel about the possible revelation it dropped in his lap, so instead he steels himself, and he twists. It moves the whole Thing’s body, moving just quick enough that he manages to squirm out from underneath it, nails scrabbling against the shattered remains of the building they’re in, splinters digging into his skin as he tries to pull himself away.
Fingers dig into his hair before he can get far, yanking him up and off the ground, pulling him backwards into a chest that most certainly isn’t human shaped anymore. They bunch up in there, tugging him until his skull is pressed into a crevice of its body. Tentacles wrap around him, slipping from within the meat of it and slithering between limbs, immobilizing MacReady in seconds.
They kneel there together, for a moment. It is agony, MacReady’s flesh and bone protesting the continued harsh treatment. His lungs feel as if they’re burning, harsh breaths puffing out in front of him in the fading light of the dying fires. His lips feel numb. It’s so cold.
”Are you done?” It asks, and this time the voice isn’t anything like MacReady has heard before, aside from the in scream that had haunted his dreams for nights now.
”What the fuck do you want from me?” He spits, wanting to move away but finding himself quite unable to.
Something slips around his throat, slimy and cold, and tightens threateningly, before it releases his hair. Talons trail down his chest, seemingly making note of where every button to his coat sits, before moving back up and settling upon his chest. Heart leaping into his esophagus, he jerks, only for the thing around his throat to close, forcefully cutting off his oxygen in one movement.
“We cannot recreate you,” It says, like some admission, like a quiet little secret in the night, “Your memories will be ours, and yet we will not be able to make you anew. You are made of flame, and I cannot be fire.”
And then he can breathe again. His limbs are becoming shaky. Shivering, he realizes. Maybe he should be glad of that, he thinks, even as his teeth chatter. It’s when he stops shivering that he’s finally starting to die.
But maybe that’s what MacReady actually wants.
The Thing seems to notice too, because it’s hold shifts, pulling him even closer, his knees lifting off the ground. Panic trying to flare again, MacReady tries to kick. He barely twitches.
”Hush. You will not die, and you will not become us either. Relax, and see what happens.”
Despite its best efforts, MacReady doesn’t find those words reassuring. He tries once more to thrash, and once again his air flow is cut off. His head swims. The panic officially settles within his bones, all rational thought dissolving into blind instincts to not survive, but to get away. To flee as far as he can get.
Too bad for MacReady, though, as the Thing that holds him has no intentions of ever letting that happen. It holds him tightly, painfully, until the rushing sounds in his ears fade away, black spots in his eyes slowly taking over until it’s all dark.
He wakes somewhere warm. It’s an odd enough juxtaposition that it’s the only sensation his body registers for a long moment.
But then something within his legs shift, and the warmth is quickly driven away by red hot pain.
Eyes flying open, MacReady tries to scream, only to find the sound trapped in his throat, stuffed down by a long slimy limb that has seemingly made its home in his esophagus. MacReady gags, trying instinctively to pull away, only to find his head cradled against a shoulder, torso alone vaguely human. He cannot move, and as if in response to his attempt, the tentacle in his mouth slithers a little further within.
Vision blurred by tears that unwittingly start flowing down his face as he chokes, he watches in silent horror what the Thing is doing to his limbs.
Teeth pull at the burns in his flesh, half detached mouths ripping away the dead bits, swallowing it down as it moves on to the next piece. In their wake, small feelers crawl into his veins, burrowing within him, squirming their way into places of him that have never - should never - know the touch of anything.
A taloned hand brushes through his hair, gentler than anything else that touches him at the moment, and tucks him further into its chest. He feels enveloped, consumed. The tentacle in his throat moves impossibly deeper. He’s not quite sure how he’s breathing anymore.
Brain finally registering that he has other limbs to use, his hands fly up as he tries to push himself away. They shake. He’s weak. In moments they are caught, held halfway aloft as another mouth parts from within it’s flesh, nipping softly at his fingertips.
”Awake? Good. We were worried we had been too late to save you.”
MacReady doesn’t feel saved, he feels impossibly trapped. He wishes they were having their stare down still, at least then he almost felt on equal footing with the Thing. He wouldn’t feel like a piece of meat about to be chewed to bits.
Something large slithers down his thigh, away from the gaping, writhing wounds a little further down, and it makes MacReady shudder as it curls inwards, tucking down, down, and settling at the curve of his ass. If his breath didn’t feel so desperately restricted already, he’s sure he would be hyperventilating.
More limbs join that one (and oh god, how many does this Thing have), sliding up and down the exposed skin of his body. Only now does it register that his clothing is gone, and he’s exposed completely to the monster. He tries to swallow, nausea building, and he only manages to allow the piece of it in his mouth further access.
A few tentacles split off from the rest - quite literally - and settle upon his chest, teasing at his nipples. The agony in his legs drown out any pleasure that spawns at the stroking motions, but the feeling alone makes MacReady’s head spin.
Surely it wasn’t? Surely it isn’t? There’s no way this thing wants to do that to him. No way for it to fuck him in the first place. It isn’t human, doesn’t have anything that should fit within him, or around him. Hell, he doubts it even reproduces sexually at all. He wonders for a moment how it even knows what a human having sex is supposed to be like, but then remembers the set of magazines Palmer kept, and decides to drop that line of thinking.
Slowly the grip around him shifts, lifting him up and around. It’s pure agony, moving his legs in ways that tear at his invaded flesh, making him feel like a fish on a hook. Still, it continues despite the choked sounds that escape from around the tentacle within his throat.
He finds himself once again on his knees, arms keeping him aloft as all the strength in his legs seems to have disappeared. His head lays sideways upon a misshapen clavicle, his only view the disgusting, slimy mess of an arm that eventually tapers off into taloned hands.
The tentacle on his ass moves.
Breath catching in his chest, MacReady stiffens up as best he can as the cold limb presses against his hole. Desperation seems to allow one last surge of adrenaline as he hopelessly tries to pull his limbs free, legs finally responding enough to scrabble against the blanket laid out beneath him.
In response, it holds his limbs still, not from the outside, but from within, veins freezing up, muscles suddenly wrapped by something foreign, and it burns. MacReady screams, properly this time, never mind the intruder within his throat. Back arching, head pressing into the Thing holding him, his vision blacks out completely, nothing but the lightning agony in his brain.
By the time he’s next aware, he can feel it buried deep inside him, far too full, far too much. He starts actually choking on the tentacle in his throat as he tries his best to shake his head, tears he desperately wishes would remain hidden falling down his cheeks.
It’s not pleasant, being fucked by it. The slime all over its body seems to have eased the way enough to not tear him, but only just. The stretch is too much, and his whole lower half is one moment of agony.
What surprises him, though, is when everything stills for a moment. Nothing moves as he shakily sobs around the intrusion in his mouth, before it slowly starts to slip past his teeth, up and out of his throat. He coughs the moment he’s free of it, barely even noticing as fingers grip his hair.
He does notice the teeth, and the gaping mouth that greets him as his head is tilted up. Gasping, he tries to twist away again, only to find there’s nowhere to go.
”Relax, MacReady,” It says, but not from the mouth in front of his face, this one slowly extending what he can only hope is a tongue, “Enjoy it.”
Without any warning, the tentacle inside him thrusts, and MacReady cries out, giving the tongue ample time to shove into his mouth in some fucked up parody of a kiss. It’s hot, and wet, and his stomach twists as unpleasantly as it continues thrusting inside him from behind, over and over. Everything aches.
Until it doesn’t. The tentacle in his ass twists just wrong, and a jolt goes through his gut. MacReady groans, suddenly jerking his head down in shock, breaking the “kiss”.
The Thing instantly takes note.
It pushes against that spot again, pressing hard against it, and the sound MacReady makes is unholy. He isn’t sure if it’s from pain anymore, but the Thing seems to enjoy it, because it continues to grind into him endlessly.
That’s when it finally starts touching his cock. Stroking, teasing touches. Just barely enough that it starts cutting through the pain in his legs, the feelers in his veins gone still for the moment. MacReady gasps, twisting his arms slightly in the monster’s grip, before falling limp once more as it grinds partially hard into his prostate once more.
He isn’t sure how long things continue like that, how much time it takes for it to start slowly wrenching more and more helpless little sounds from MacReady’s throat. For any and all fight to fall to the side as the pleasure slowly overwhelms him. By the end of it he’s hot, sweaty, and his cock is hard and dripping.
Then the Thing shifts, and all at once everything sinks into him. From one moment to the next MacReady suddenly loses where his body ends, and the Thing starts. It is within him, sliding into his skin and bones, twisting between organs and nerves, setting his body alight with sensation he is unable to properly name anymore.
His vision whites out as he comes, and he once again knows no more.
The sound of a spoon scraping against a pot rouses him from where he lays, aching and sore. His jacket is draped over top of him, haphazardly falling off his side, barely even covering up his bare skin. He’s not warm anymore.
Groaning, he twists onto his side, slowly propping himself up onto his elbows as he takes in his surroundings.
It’s a cave of some sort. The wind echoes down the cavern, howling angrily as it cannot penetrate far enough inside to kill them both. And it certainly is them both, as he can spot the Thing sitting at a fire a few feet away, stirring something, back turned to MacReady.
He feels like he’s been hollowed out. Scraped clean with a knife, leaving only his skin behind to be left out on a tanning rack. Shifting some more, attempting to get his feet underneath himself, MacReady’s hands find his legs.
His wounds are gone. Nothing but smooth skin greets him.
He stares. His brain cannot comprehend the two realities that he knows to be true right now. He rubs his thumb down his thigh, digging it in like the muscle and skin will peel back like play dough. Nothing. It feels perfectly normal.
His internal crisis is interrupted by a plate being put on the floor next to him, the sound of it clanking oddly as half of it lands on hard stone, and the other half on the blanket splayed out beneath him.
Jerking his head up, MacReady makes eye contact with it, his heart already starting to race.
The Thing is in a human skin again, though not one that MacReady is able to identify. Likely one of the Norwegians, then. It reaches down, and MacReady unconsciously flinches back, but all it does is nudge the plate towards him. Canned ravioli, heated over the fire.
”You need to eat. You have lost too much energy,” It says, tilting its head as it stares at him, unblinking, not needing to keep up a perfect face for him anymore. Not when MacReady knows what it is.
”And you expect me to trust that you didn’t fucking contaminate it?” MacReady snaps, face twisting into a snarl. The Thing tilts its head, before grinning. The expression is wrong, too predatory, too sharp.
”If we wanted you infected, we would have done it last night. We haven’t found how to perfect you yet, so you must survive until we do,” It says, taking the opportunity to reach out and tangle a stand if MacReady’s hair in the fingers it’s faking.
”Yet?”
”Yes,” It confirms, “Yet. But you know what Garry said. No one will come get us until the spring. So we think we’ll have plenty of time to get to know you. If not, we’re perfectly prepared to bring you with us until we do.”
And with that, it lets go of his hair, turning back to the fire to pull the pot fully off it, scraping the remnants of the ravioli into another plate. MacReady stares, stomach sinking as he realizes just what kind of hell he’s just been trapped in.
Digging his fingers into his now uninjured thighs, he wonders just how long it really is willing to keep him alive, and if he’ll even be able to escape it in death.