Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was late, but at the same time, way too early. Too early for Osmosis Jones to be woken on a weekend, but too late for anyone to wake him without a proper explanation. And he knew didn’t have one, not one that made logical sense.

Like, if you asked someone who looked like the walking dead why the fuck they woke up at 3 am on the weekend without a wink of sleep, and they just looked you dead in the eye and said:

“You’re asking why I’m so sleepy? Oh, it’s simple, I’m a police officer who caught a major criminal but because my task force doesn’t want to come off as harsh and without reason, so they’ve allowed him to live and I now have to live with the criminal who’s also a serial killer somehow also the head of like a dozen gangs in our city so now I can’t get a wink of sleep because i am shit scared of the man!”

Would you really believe them?

Well, I sure as hell wouldn’t, and I don't think you would either.

So, it’s just Ozzy’s luck that it fUCKING ENDED UP HAPPENING TO HIM.

He, Ozzy’s, thoughts turn consistently more and more bitter as the cell lies on his shitty, rundown couch, glaring at the fucked up plaster and peeling paint covering the the roof of his apartment.

Just my luck, he thinks once again, his translucent blue lips curling back in a moody sneer. Fuck, you’d think Frank himself was out to get me, wouldn’t ya?

Here he was- laid off, sleeping on his own couch, rooming with a violent and killer-instincts-ridden maniac, who also happened to really, really, REALLY want to have him buried six feet underground.

And from what he can hear from where his makeshift kitchen is situated, that nuisance was now scrabbling through his kitchen like a feral dog.

(Ugh, the audacity! I mean, Osmosis provided three meals a day for the virus! Yeah, sure, he wasn’t actually sure what the virus actually ate, and he miiiiiiiiight just have been feeding the thing ((Thrax)) noodles for those three meals, every single day for the last week… But what do you expect of him? A cop in a shitty body like Frank’s gotta pay the rent somehow. Even if it meant living worse than a debt-ridden college student. Fuck, at least college students ate fucking cooked five minute noodles, Ozzy was surviving on dry sachets of noodles as meals. )

Ozzy pushes himself up, nervously brushing his hands down his white wife beater and onto his jeans in a nerve-soothing motion. This isn't forever! He reminds himself, just a month or two, and then Thrax would fuck off to wherever Frank’s body would dispose of the vile motherfucker.

So, with his head held high, Ozzy walks from the couch, rounding the corner into the kitchen (oh, how he wished his apartment was bigger than 17 feet so he would actually be able to avoid Thrax like the parasite he was).

“Stop makin’ so much noise, fuckweed.” Ozzy calls out, crossing his arms over his chest as he leans against the doorframe and glares down at the virus. The red-skinned man grunts back, currently bent over at the waist, scrabbling around in the man’s cupboard looking for random shit to eat.

Thrax snorts under his breath as he shoots Osmosis a glare through his curtain of dreads, the slivers of his yellow eyes peeking through his hair making him look like a cat in the dark of an alley, getting ready to scratch your face off.

And with that talon-claw thing of Thrax’s? Damn, he could fucking annihilate Ozzy. Which Thrax probably would if he had half the chance, if not for the fact that Ozzy might have, maybe, kinda… disintegrated it .

Yeah. You heard me right. Ozzy maaaay have disintegrated the claw of the scariest virus in the history of mankind’s medical discoveries by.. Uh, accident, after sending him hurtling into a vat of disinfectant. Accidently. Kind of.

It was all an accident on Osmosis’s part, honest- Ozzy didn’t realise that most of Thrax would grow back from the shreds of Thrax’s leftover DNA, just without the claw.

(Ozzy thought ((read: hoped.)) that the disinfectant would kill Thrax, but it’s not like he dared to say that aloud.)

But now, because of Ozzy, Thrax was useless. The fated-to-be deadliest virus to exist was now unable to infect his host’s cell bodies because of some nameless white blood cell’s meddling. Thrax was completely without purpose in his miserable existence, and.. Well, Thrax hadn’t taken the news lightly.

To be honest, finding out had ruined Thrax.

Nowadays, he never leaves his bedroom. Never eats the meals provided. Never speaks a word; much less to Osmosis.

Due to this new behaviour, Ozzy’s council had come to a standstill. They couldn’t keep Thrax- even without his claw, the man was manipulative enough to get anyone to do his bidding. But, also, they couldn’t exactly toss the guy into the bladder to be flushed out, as he hadn’t done anything to prove he was still a violent virus or had any kind of malicious intent towards Frank’s body.

So, of course, Frank’s council let Thrax off with barely a slap on the claw- claiming he was no longer acting as a violent cell, instead just a misguided soul who had made mistakes in his past. At least, that’s what they were saying until Thrax’s next trials.

(Ozzy was just sure that they were trying to pull the “Kind and Compassionate Leaders” card after all being found out of accepting handouts from the local organised crime syndicates.)

But as a sort of punishment, Frank’s Council had made it explicit that Thrax and Osmosis were to live together for the next six months as they “unanimously” come to a final decision as to what to do with Thrax.

Osmosis snaps back to reality when he hears the sharp snap of the cupboard being slammed closed, watching silently as Thrax stands in the kitchen.

“Do you…” he says slowly, his hands coming to awkwardly clench and unclench at his sides, betraying his nervousness to have to interact with the other man. “Are you hungry? I can cook you something that isn’t ramen, if you’re feeling up for it-...”

Osmosis once again cuts himself off, sucking on his teeth for a moment as he allows Thrax to decide for himself.

The words hang awkwardly in the air for what almost feels like minutes, until Thrax turns around calmly and walks past Osmosis, his strides calm and reserved.

But it’s Thrax’s words that actually make Osmosis take a step back, allowing the virus to pass by.

“I would rather starve then eat anything touched by someone like you.”

Chapter Text

“Wh-w- huh.. wh-what?!” Ozzy flounders for a moment, cheeks flushing pink as his head whips around, face contorting in utter offence - and maybe a little more than a normal reaction, as when did Osmosis ever not take advantage of his elastic nature?

The outline of his eyebrows furrow to the point of making his eyes squish, mouth falling open so far that his chin nearly touches the groove in between his collarbones, neck twisting to keep his face aimed at Thrax even as the Virus literally circles around him and takes a seat on the couch, neck stretched up at least twice it’s usual length.

“Well, ec-fucking-scuse you!” He huffs, body turning to Thrax and arms raising to cross over the blue man’s chest as his head snaps back to its usual position, face remaining pretty annoyed as he stands there like an upset mother. “I was trying to be civil, you know?! No need to be all- all moody and shit!”

Thrax scoffs, rolling his eyes at Ozzy’s annoyed squeaking (honestly how it sounded in Thrax’s head - maybe more like a shrew’s?) as he uses his remaining claws to peel the old, rubbery mandarin he had found stashed in Ozzy’s cupboard from a week or two ago. He tears skin away in thin strips, setting them aside as he repeats the motion Ozzy imagines he’s used on plenty of cells long before he was captured-

Ozzy shakes his head vigorously, banishing the thought from his head as Thrax’s deep huff of a reply finally reaches his ears.

“Civil?” The virus scoffs, sulphur coloured eyes focused on a portion of mandarin as he pinches it between sharp points of his claws, lifting it before lowering it into his mouth like a lion taunting a mouse before finally sinking yellowed teeth into the juicy orange fruit. He chews, mood slowly souring even further as he glares at Ozzy.

“ Civil? ” He sneers once finished, one corner of his lips curling into a sneer as he raises an eyebrow at the other man, mandarin slice paused halfway through its trajectory towards his mouth as he instead lets his face curl into a sneer so bad you’d’ve thought you just cursed his ol’ Mama out right in front of him.

“You think this is civil?” Thrax lividly snarls, seeming to take way too much offence out of a simple phrase of Ozzy’s as he whips up to full height, looming over Ozzy.

Ozzy, of course, when confronted with the equivalent of seven-ish pure feet of red, angry muscle, takes a step back instinctively - then going right back against his instincts and drawing himself up, stretching his legs out a little to gain height and shifting some of the cytoplasm up to his chest to try and puff it out - much like a rooster fighting for females.

But instead of fighting over females, the two men were instead fighting for Ozzy’s life - or death. Just terrific.

“Well, yeah, I’m pretty sure I was being goddamn civil!” Ozzy fights back, teeth grinding together as he gets right back in Thrax’s face- as much as a man of his astounding height, a whopping foot shorter than Thrax.

The moment Thrax hears those words, his face contorts further into rage, teeth baring like a feral dog getting ready to attack; Ozzy knew from his own experiences, Thrax’s bite was far worse than his bark.

Ozzy dies a little inside when he realises just how easily he can be squished beneath Thrax’s shoe.

Chapter Text

Thrax bristles like an angry cat as Ozzy gets right up and in his face, clearly angry at the sudden confidence of the cell. He jerks backwards a little, first with surprise, but that quickly turns to fury, dreads slipping from the loose bun the virus had done up to keep himself looking civilised.

“If you really believe you’re being civil, you’re a fuckin’ liar. ” Thrax snarls, the way his sharp canines jut a little further out then the rest of his uneven teeth becoming way more obvious as Ozzy is right in his face, causing his growl to be just that little bit more terrifying. “You think- you’re a fuckin’ moron!”

“Oh, oh ho ho, I’m the moron!?” Ozzy snaps back, kicking himself in his head for every second that goes by with him refusing to back down. “Well, I’m not the egotistical bastard who came into a body, waving a big red claw and screaming ‘I’m gonna kill you!’ and then acted fucking surprised when the body actually fuckin’ fought back and beat you!”

Thrax flounders for a bit, mouth opening and closing before he spits out his next words with the force of a man desperately trying to salvage his dignity: "You- you didn't beat me!"

Ozzy laughs loudly at that. Very, very loudly.

"Damn, you really are a crazy bastard, ain'tchya?!" He says loudly, heightening his volume to make up for the way his mitochondria screams at him in terror, the last of his old organelles thumping against his membrane like it wanted to escape and run away screaming.

His grin curls into a furious sneer, a bare of teeth that even animals knew meant danger. "You didn't win shit, you fucking moron! If you were a winner, that winner would still have his big ol' death claw, wouldn't he now?!" He shouts, teeth baring in a equally defensive and offensive gesture.

The silence in the next moments was loud.

It was almost like Frank himself had heard Ozzy's jab, as well as the rest of the city. No car horns were honked. No sirens shouted down the streets. Not even Frank's organs made their usual weird, really-really-really gross, squishy and squelchy noises.

Just. Silence. 

Even Frank knew that Osmosis Jones had gone too far with that insult.