Zoombiii

Metamorphosis is promised to the caterpillar, giving them hope to be reborn into something eye-catching. Easterman had always felt he had pulled the short straw, becoming a pale, limp-winged moth rather than a monarch or swallowtail. But as he watched the masked scientists fasten the metal cocoons around the limbs of their newest creation, the Jaeger, new fruits started to blossom in his pregnant mind. Not about her or the facility—but, himself. And in that moment, watching the drugged Henrietta try listlessly to shake doctors off, Easterman realized that you didn’t have to be born a butterfly to become one.

Wings could be painted, and you could be just as beautiful.

Stealing from the labs wasn’t anything new for Hendrick. In fact, everyone was either too stupid to know the wiser or too scared to tell him no. So, it wasn’t even robbery—more like, charity. Once the Jaeger had been screwed into her new adornments and fashioned to his liking, she was carted away and Easterman got to shopping around. 

Stashing it all into a metal wagon, it brought up memories of pushing around a grocery cart for Irene on Sunday afternoons. She’d mumble to herself whilst she scanned rows of produce, double-checking a wrinkled list. He always thought she was prettiest like that: focused on something menial like it was all-too important. Brow scrunched and eyes sharp, Irene would peek back at him occasionally to make sure he was still trailing behind at a reasonable pace. Easterman used to count the seconds between the glances, and if she went too long without, he’d clear his throat or jostle the cart to remind her of his presence. He thought of her now while he pulled a canister of nitrous oxide down from a shelf, of how much more balletic she’d make the action in contrast to his clammy, ever-trembling body. She would hate how fractured he’s become without her—spineless and harebrained.

The bennies he snorted before the examination were already weaning off, making him stare at the now-full wagon with vacillation as he waited for the elevator to his office. This was a stupid idea, and he knew it. But, he couldn’t help himself—the unruly persistence of curiosity leaving him desperate for a conclusion. He improved people for a living. It was his life’s work, to reach new heights and uplift others with him.

Why couldn’t he attempt to fix himself for a change?

The steel of medical equipment juxtaposes the oak furniture in his office, out of place. Easterman paces around the stolen goods for a long moment, planning his attack. Should he do this first? Or was it better to…? No, no, that won’t work. What if he…?

He was too fucking sober to think straight.

His hands are on the canister of gas not before long, finagling the tube to the end with junkie precision. A few huffs through a mask and Hendrick shuts the valve shut with an elated sigh, stepping back. Pushing the wagon towards his couch with a worn dress shoe, he lights a cigarette and sinks down into the leather cushion. He puffs on the cigarette, the gas making his receptors fire happily. Every idea seemed like an amazing one right now, including the bullshit plan he formulated earlier. Easterman knew he would regret this, but it was take the risk or see Irene’s impassive shrug towards his manhood in his mind’s eye forever. 

-

The memory haunted him like the plague, solidifying his inadequacies to him. She’d found him inspecting himself in the bathroom mirror after a shower, flaccid sex scooped into his hand like a baby bird. In her nightgown, reaching for her toothbrush, Irene looked him up and down with a questioning look before caving in to her curiosity.

“What’re you doing?” She asked with a flat tone, really only speaking because she could feel that he was waiting for her to initiate the conversation.

“Does it bother you? How…unimpressive it is.” Hendrick looked at her through the reflection, fingers flexing around the small, flimsy appendage. He watched her work the toothbrush in her mouth, even the basic act inspiring something in his chest—envy of her grace, awe at her nonchalance.

Her silence made his skin feel too tight around his flesh, restricting him from moving away from her out of regret. But, the shrug she gave, shoulders falling with little care, made him feel worse. Irene glances at him with indifference, toothpaste spilling out the side of her mouth as she responded properly.

“It’s fine, honey.”

‘Fine’.

He hates that word.

So passive. So…pernicious, despite its simplicity. 

His nostrils flared with an inhale before the air retreated with an almost wounded quality, ragged as it leaves his mouth. Tearing his eyes from her, he moved his concentration back to his lifeless cock, wrinkles deepening above his brow. He can hear her spit into the sink, the faucet humming to life, but he can’t bring himself to look at her again.

“You don’t want it to be bigger? I know you can’t come from it alone as it is,” Easterman pressed, lips turning downward tightly. “There’re new studies—treatments. I could—”

“Hendrick, it’s fine,” Irene wiped her mouth on a towel with a dismissive laugh before turning to him to press a quaint kiss to his bare shoulder. “Get dressed and come to bed, hm?”

And in a blink, she was walking out to the bedroom, leaving him just as bare and insecure as he had been prior to the conversation. 

-

Easterman reached for the mask once more, inhaling deeply to dispel the memory from his brain, praying it’ll refrain from ruining his high (and his drug-induced courage). Cigarette burning in his other hand, he set aside the mask and moved the hand to palm at the barely hard length behind the shroud of slacks. 

He needed to be hard for this to work.

After a few minutes of fumbling and mumbling, he’s got his hand wrapped around himself, stroking with familiar motions. Lips parted, he panted and caught himself murmuring Irene’s name between sighs, thumb gliding along the swollen head and trying to manifest her tongue instead. Embarrassingly, and surprisingly, he comes before he can prevent it. It’s a flagrant scene: sweat soaking through his dress shirt, white, viscous cum sticking to his fingers and streaking his opened pants. 

He scoots to the edge of the couch and focuses the best he can, getting into a more zoned-in, clinical mindset. Stroking himself to keep himself hard, he manages to fish around the wagon of supplies for the vial of steroids and a packaged needle. The injection was the easy part, pushing the needle right into the underside of his cock with only a wince.

Now, to the hard part.

With one more healthy huff of the nitrous oxide, he gets the pièce de résistance—a spare metal cage much like the ones drilled around Henrietta’s limbs to keep the bones steady as they grew. There had been a handful that were left unused, either unneeded or ill-fitted, and he was just lucky enough to find one that could fit snugly around his pitiful penis. He pumped himself a few more times before he held the brace open to squeeze his cock in, plump head hanging out the end.. 

Maybe this would prove to be victorious, and he could feel more like the man he was told he should be. More unyielding and certain, rather than filled with effeminate insecurity and self-hatred. Maybe he could win Irene back and she’d forgive him for being gone for so long.

He just had to let go, screw it shut and let the steroids work over time—easy enough.

Except, Hendrick forgets his own aversion to pain, how the smallest sting makes his stomach churn and fight-or-flight trigger. As he reaches for something to screw the brace shut, the shake in his hands from the gas and the slick of release makes the hinges on the metal slide out his hold and clamp shut. Metal closes down on the soft skin of his manhood, the brace closing at an angle when his fingers slipped away. 

“Fuck! Fuck! FUCK!”

Hendrick folds over in a scream of pain, equipment clattering to the floor as he follows suit. Curled into a fetal position, he tries to pry off the brace with tears in his eyes, moaning in agony. His hands claw at the metal, blood starting to leak around the sides of the bars. Easterman finally gets enough wits about him to crawl back over to the wagon in hopes of having foresight to bring more medical tools. Digging around with one hand and whimpered sobs, a scalpel manifests. 

It’s good enough.

He uses it to pry the brace open enough to get his mangled member out, the contraption falling unceremoniously to the linoleum. It’s not without injury—the force of prying the cage off making the scalpel go flying away as well, and taking a chunk of him with it. Easterman crumbles to the floor again with a humiliating wail, bloodied hands cupping his injured limb protectively as if scared the brace would spring to life and rush towards him. Through wet, cloudy eyes, he found the piece of his cock on the floor, making him slump over with a gag. His vision goes double for a few breaths as he attempts to steady his quivering form, eyes trying to focus on blurry, repeated shapes.

Such an idiot he was, trying to make his junk bigger and instead, shaving it like a fucking carrot for a pot roast.

The vomit comes before he can stop it, much like his orgasm earlier. He keels over and loses his stomach, the mostly clear bile mixing with the spilled blood. He wasn’t sure if the nausea was from the pain, the lingering effects of the drug, or the mere sight of his own flesh on the ground. 

“Oh, Jesus, Mary, Joseph,” Easterman moans lamely, ignoring the vomit to crawl to his severed chunk, scooping it out of the mess on the floor. His thumb brushes it off with an undignified whimper, as if mourning a full body and not just a piece of one. 

firstly i’d like to say i am not in any way shape or form trying to claim this as canon !! i am simply Mentally ill and spend a really absurd amount of time thinking about Dr. Easterman. I choose to see the unused dialogue as not canon, believing it was unused for a reason, so this is solely for fun. a headcanon if you will ! also, slightly Neurotic disclaimer haha but writing is not my strong suit!!! if anything needs clarification or to be expanded upon, please let me know! 🎉

these were manically written at 5am so i fear they might not clearly communicate everything i was trying to say .... here are some bluntly stated facts for your convenience \(^_^)/

- Tallulah has unrecognized BPD in the 20s DEAR GODDD HELL ON EARTH. this of course makes her a reactive emotionally dependent person.

- Samuel is implied to come from money. i haven't yet figured out what it is that he does, but it must require him to be away from home a lot.

- Samuel chases the challenge until he's tamed it, (married and had a kid with her) then she's boring again. He uses work as an excuse to never be home unless absolutely necessary. When he is home, the boys are granted 'harsher discipline' that they couldn't get while he was gone. basically, he'd beat them, and his work as a father would be done and he could screw off. He officially leaves and never comes back sometime when stanley is 16 and hendrick is 10.

- Stanley is implied to be some sort of neurodivergent. i haven't yet fleshed it out, but i imagine he's very spacey and distant. When he's not angry, that is. I imagine he's a lot like his mother when angry. escapism and dissociation are his best friends.

- Tallulah really, really really really wanted a daughter, if you couldn't tell. She is constantly emasculating hendrick and stanley because of this.

- I think Hendrick physically takes after his maternal grandmother the most :) though, the older he gets, the more he starts to look like his father. he doesn't know how to feel about that.

- Tallulah has frequent outbursts of rage and takes it out of the boys. Postage stamp sized patches of scalp by the hair and all that. After his birth, she becomes emotionally reliant on Hendrick, using him as a replacement for his father. emotional incest to a T (q_q) i think that this would tie a lot into Adult Hendricks need for control and stability. it things were out of control or unstable at home, that meant something was wrong with his mother, and then it became Hendricks responsibility to fix it.

(While writing this i thought, "Why not Stanley? What makes Hendrick so special?" and i think it all goes back to Samuel. After Stanley’s birth, Samuel was still somewhat there, even if trying to escape. He completely screws off after Hendrick is born. By this time, Stanley is too old for Tallulah to mold around her needs, so she has Hendrick. Also, taking their temperment into account, i think Hendrick was a lot more eager to please. A byproduct of his mothers abuse, of course, but in my mind Stanley did what he wanted regardless of her feelings towards it. I think they butt heads a lot. Not Hendrick, though. Her sweet baby angel boy Hendrick always listens :) of course she’ll shun him for days at a time if he doesn’t.)

- Tallulah was going to get a degree in psychology. She is very very painfully embarrassed of the fact that she’s the only one of her siblings to not finish college, and that manifests in resentment, as most things with her do.

OKAY I BELIEVE THATS IT. if you’ve read this far you are a beautiful trooper. THANK YOU for listening to me!!! i appreciate your dedication. (^_^) do you agree with my interpretation? is it actually the opposite of what you think? do you have something to add or point out? PLEASE LET ME KNOW !!!! ^.^ this post is not so much a statement as it is an open discussion !!! i hold so much love in my heart for Easterman and i'd like to talk about him with others.... again, thank you for reading, and if this does well expect more haha!!! some easterbunnies for your troubles ⬇️⬇️⬇️🐇