Variant Strain

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Peter retreated into the first floor bathroom carrying the plastic bag of clothes with him. The scrubs were fine in the car, but now that he was in the Watson home, he felt embarassed wearing just them and the cardboard slippers.

Also the lack of underwear while in the same house as Anna Watson was probably going to cause problems to arise.

Peter locked the door to the cramped downstairs bath. It was done in white tile with blue accents. The mirror dominated most of one wall. There was a mild smell of cleanser and a sour undertone that he didn't recognize, but the dust his expanded sense of smell was picking up told him quite clearly that this particular bathroom was not used very often.

There was a small shower stall, a freestanding sink, a toilet. Other than the metal shelving positioned behind the toilet, a digital scale on the floor and a couple of towel racks that had towels on them, there wasn't much else in the room.

Pete put the full plastic bag on the closed toilet seat and began to undress. He tossed the top to one side and was about to begin rooting through the bag for a shirt when he noticed something odd about his reflection.

He straightened up and stared.

He curled one arm and stared some more.

He flexed, then tilted his head and squinted..

His expanded senses had been strange.

The weird strength that had come over him last night... that had been strange too.

The other thing... had been the height of weirdness.

But this... this was downright bizarre.

Peter raised both hands up, closing them into fists and curling his arms to force his biceps to stand out prominently.

He'd always been skinny and undersized.

His general build hadn't changed, still sparse, with hardly any bulk to him, but now instead of prominent bone and limp muscles, he was cut. Every muscle stood out starkly on his body. He hadn't bulked up at all, but he was now defined in muscular perfection.

He was built like a runner. Whipcord lean and taut. He brought his arms down and brought them across his torso, causing his pectorals to stand out.

Peter gulped nervously. Another thought occurred to him and he stepped on the scale.

Two hundred pounds.

He'd picked up about seventy pounds overnight.

Cletus had been at least one-seventy.

If anything he was about a hundred pounds underweight.

He'd thrown most of that up, he was sure.

He glanced over his shoulder at his back in the mirror and thought.

Seventy pounds heavier and still the same height and build.

That was insane. He did the math in his head and realized that his body's density must've been ridiculous. He doubted he'd even be able to float anymore.

Not that he could swim anyway.

He shook his head. "Alright. Just another detail. Remember it for later." He muttered to himself. "First things first."

He dropped the pants, intent on changing the rest of the way when he found something unexpected, but strangely more bizarre for being so mundane.

He distinctly remembered that he'd had to put the loose, drawstring tightened pants on without underwear.

The ones he'd been wearing last night had been a complete loss and he wasn't about to put on those string underwear monstrosities the nurse had offered.

It had been something that had been bothering him and part of the reason why he'd hurried to the bathroom. He hadn't been looking forward to meeting MJ in the first place, but he was damned if he would do it without a proper pair of underpants.

Except... where had the white boxer briefs he was now wearing come from?

They were unfamiliar.

He didn't own a pair in this particular style. Aunt May had made it a point when shopping to get him loose boxers in bright plaid patterns. He'd never owned a pair like these.

This had gone well past just plain weird to the surreal.

Pete closed his eyes, feeling his heart beginning to race once more. He took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down and shrugged. There would be time enough to contemplate the mystery of the boxers later.

They were another data point to consider.

Just one more item for him to think about once he got himself settled.

He began to tug them down and encountered something else odd.

As he slipped his thumbs into the waistband, he encountered some strange resistance and a disturbing sucking, tearing noise as he tried to push them down.

As though the material were stuck to him. He pushed harder and felt it tugging at him oddly.

He swallowed down another nervous gulp and looked down.

Well... they seemed normal.

He peeled down the elasticized waistband and stared. The underside was like an open wound. Not bloody exactly, but it had a color and consistency of raw, glistening meat. As though someone had very carefully and with great precision, peeled his skin away, leaving nothing there to cover the bare muscle.

He could see where the material of the boxers merged into the flesh of his hips.

One hand brushed lower. They felt like boxers. The material felt like cotton... but it was also part of him. He bit down on an exclamation and pulled his hands away hurriedly. His only just recently calmed heart began to race.

He hurriedly fished around the fly of the boxers to ensure that everything else was still in place and allowed himself to breathe a small sigh of relief as he realized that... yes... everything was accounted for.

That brought up the next question.

How did he get them off? His nerves were rattled and his breathing was speeding up.

His heart just refused to settle itself.

He stared at his reflection, wondering if he would need to use a knife. Was he going to need surgery to get them off now?

And why this particular pair?

His heartbeat spiked suddenly, reaching a crescendo his breath caught in his throat.

Heart palpitations? He'd never really had them before, he told himself, but he'd also never done a great many thing before last night.

His heart thundered and the boxers suddenly began to writhe and shift. He jammed a hand over his mouth to keep himself from screaming as his hips and crotch unfolded once more into those strange fleshy tendrils... they unwove, then settled back and suddenly he was naked.

He stared.

Not since the strange, heady days when he'd first stumbled upon those biology textbooks and understood what the whole puberty thing actually entailed had he stared at his crotch with such intensity.

His heart had settled down once more and he gulped down the rising bile.

Well... this was what he wanted right? Strange underpants gone.

He frowned and concentrated on the image of those underpants. His heartbeat roared and strange red things blurred and flailed at his hips and he was wearing them once more.

He blinked and willed them away.

Again the disturbingly biological unweaving and rebuilding presented itself and he was naked once more.

That was definitely going to need thinking about.

He looked down and wondered. He pictured a different pair of underpants. One of his regular ones. Something plaid... his heart raced and he was beginning to associate that with the strange changes that he was undergoing.

It looked... off. He'd visualized them as clearly as he could. He'd imagined a pair he'd owned for over a year and wore on a fairly regular basis. They were very familiar to him... so why did the results look so strange?

The material was wrong. Not the soft, thin polyester that it should have been. It felt almost like woven hair under his fingertips. The colors were worse. Red like blood, mottled blue and black like bruises.

He winced at how horrible it looked and wondered what went wrong?

Observe.

Learn.

What was different?

Why was it different?

The white underpants hadn't been his. Where had they come from? Why were they being so perfectly duplicated while something that should have been easier for him to visualize, being so familiar, weren't?

Maybe he could try a more direct model to copy.

He fished around in the bag and pulled out a pair of boxers.

He held them out in front of himself. Green and orange checkered patterns on black.

He didn't know why he still let Aunt May buy his underwear for him.

Peter concentrated on its appearance... the feel of it under his fingers... even the scent of new cloth filling his nose.

His eyes narrowed as his flesh blurred into tendrils and his heart spiked. The more he tried it, the faster it seemed to be, but it was turning out to be similar to his other poor attempt, with the biluous green and blood red rather than what he was trying for.

He gave a frustrated snort and his hand unfolded. Fleshy red tendrils split away from his fingers and engulfed his freshly purchased boxers.

This time he wasn't able to stop the startled exclamation from escaping.

He slapped his hands over his mouth in surprise. This was followed by quiet cursing as he heard heavy steps outside the bathroom door followed by hurried knocking. "Peter, are you alright in there?"

He winced and opened the door just a tiny crack, "I'm fine, Aunt May!" He said, trying to smile, but all he could manage was a sickly grimace. "I stubbed my toe while I was changing. Sorry. Didn't mean to worry you."

She eyed him with concern, but his answer had deflated her somewhat. "Oh. Well, be more careful, alright?"

"Yes, ma'am." He said with a nod and hurriedly shut the door, leaning against it to heave a sigh of relief.

He glanced at the mirror and found that now he was wearing the underwear he'd been holding. They even still had the price tag dangling off one pant leg by some string.

He grabbed the tag and tugged if free sharply. He winced... that had felt like pulling hair out from his leg. It wasn't quite the tag. It looked almost right, but the writing was blurry and indistinct and now that it was separated from him the material seemed to be falling apart into wriggling reddish black tendrils.

He winced and tried to toss what was left into the sink, but his hand had absorbed the material.

He glanced down, willing the new underwear away. They vanished in a red haze and roaring heartbeats. He stared and the white boxers appeared. Then they vanished entirely. The new underwear returned.

"I can eat clothes." He said flatly, disbelieving.

He stepped to the bag of clothes and shoved both hands in, tangling and grabbing the material into his closed fists. For the first time he actively willed the process of consumption. His heartbeat spiked hard, a sharp sudden crescendo of beats that threatened to explode out of his chest and it was done.

The bag was empty.

Peter faced the mirror and spread his arms out. His entire body shifted... red and black tendrils flailed briefly and settled into new positions, new colors. He had khakis on now and a plain white T-shirt and a button down denim work-shirt over that and sneakers. Or at least it was an extremely good emulation.

He concentrated and the white t-shirt was replaced in a red blur by black shirt with a prominent smiley face. The work-shirt had vanished as well.

Well... this was going to make things easy come laundry day, he thought. So I can take the appearance of anything I've consumed.

He frowned as another though occurred to him.

Anything he'd consumed.

He looked at his image in the mirror, his face expressionless.

His heart rate spiked and his body seemed to unfold itself and red tendrils obscured everything as his body rebuilt itself. He gained an extra six inches of height. His shoulders broadened, compact muscles filling out his frame. His clothes shifted... black jeans, work boots and the hoodie.

He stared into the mirror at the man he'd eaten.

He pulled the hoodie back, revealing Cletus Kassidy's blank tumorous face. Peter met his own faintly glowing eyes, not sure why he couldn't look away.

This was the life he'd taken.

Eaten.

He leaned heavily on the sink and the face shifted once more, red unfolding into new configurations as the tumors melted back... nose and chin grew into place and red hair began to sprout on the bald head and a spray of freckles dusted his nose and cheeks, until the results were unrecognizable.

Peter blinked.

Now there's the face of a winner, the little voice in the back of his head drawled and an image rose of mug shots with that face, memories of shaving it. His own... Cletus' original face before... whatever it was in that vial had turned him into what he'd become.

He shuddered and stepped back, his body folding back in on itself, shedding the appearance of Cletus Kassidy until all that was left was Peter in the checkered shirt, khakis and sneakers.

More questions. He sighed.

He also really hoped that Aunt May didn't think to ask where the rest of his clothes were.

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