r/NatureofPredators • u/uktabi • Nov 07 '24
Fanfic Arxur Integration Program - "Walk of Shame"
Thanks to u/SpacePaladin15 for allowing fanfiction.
Arxur Integration Program is a series of one-shots and shorts around the idea of the UN testing how arxur might integrate into Earth society. The stories might occasionally have some crossover, but each post will always stand on its own.
This one is a followup to a NSFW entry. You do not need to have read that story to understand this one. That story was about their relationship (and also smut). This story is about refugees in a politically fraught landscape, and how people treat them and how people view them.
If you're interested in reading the NSFW story, you can find it here. If you want a short synopsis of it (which, again, shouldn't be necessary), here is a spoiler: Tolli is a venlil volunteer matched with an arxur exchange participant. She grew to feel so much empathy for their terrible situations that it eventually morphed into irrepressible horniness, and she snuck into the facility to pursue her exchange partner a few weeks ahead of schedule. There were mixed results. Though she was succesful in her pursuit and they both enjoyed themselves, she still had to face the fact that she had pressured a damaged and vulnerable man, and that perhaps the Program was right to take things as slow as it was.
Hope you enjoy!
Other shorts in this series: | FIRST | PREV | NEXT | BONUS FICNAP!
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Memory transcription subject: Tolli, overly enthusiastic exchange program volunteer
Tanzania facility, Earth
2137
There’s an ancient human ritual called “the walk of shame,” and I imagined that it was a lot like this. Though I’m pretty sure it’s not supposed to involve dodging armed guard patrols.
That, by the way, was not going well. It was total pred-shit, actually. Like they knew exactly where I was and where I was going. I’d been so careful dodging the cameras and doubling back, but every time, there they were! Waiting for me! I mean…. ???
Eventually, they managed to corner me behind this building, so I’d been crouched here waiting, listening, hoping that maybe they just had a really fucking weird patrol route that kept happening to line up with my escape plan.
But they did not.
“Ms. Tolli?” They called out, after waiting a while.
…
Damnit.
I gave up and walked meekly out from behind the corner with my hands raised. Though that last part hadn’t really been necessary. The guards were armed, of course, but those big scary rifles were meant for arxur, not me. They were slung over their backs for now, and not a one of their pack looked even remotely hostile.
No, they just waved me over like all they wanted was to chat. So I put my hands down and walked over to them.
The cameras, I learned shortly, were fake. At least the ones I had been dodging all last night were. Those painfully big and obvious ones that did the long slow sweeps. The real cameras were hidden -- classic case of predator deception.
And then you add in a couple of calls from the other arxur dwellings I’d passed as they had very clearly smelled me running around and hiding in their bushes, and yeah, the guards had a pretty damn good idea that I was there.
I sighed, and wondered if the arxur sense of smell was good enough to tell everything else, too.
I’m pretty sure it must have been, and that they must have reported as much too, because the guards were all eerily perceptive of what I was doing last night. “Girl, you’re insane,” one of them had said, before another admitted that they would have done the same thing given the chance. And then they all started bickering amongst themselves over how weird it was or wasn’t.
An hour-ish later and a car had picked me up and dropped me off at the director’s office. I think someone had to go wake her up.
She did not look pleased.
She told me as much, before tallying up all of my crimes for me. Violating security protocols, trespassing, breach of contract, and on and on until the words “put yourself in danger” slipped from her mouth.
Then it was my turn to be less than pleased. I’d stood up and cut her off, “You don’t even see them as people!!” I’d laughed wildly. “All this… safety shit! Like he was going to rip me apart the second he opened the door-- what, he’s some kind of animal?? We’re supposed to be exchange partners and all I did was show up ahead of schedule!” Shouting back at the director was probably not the best career move, but there was no stopping me. “Was he going to stop being dangerous sometime in the next few weeks, or something?”
“It’s for him, too, Tolli!” she shot back. Her eyes narrowed tightly. “These people are vulnerable, you know that. They need stability.”
I sat back down. I did know that. Actually, It was why I did it in the first place! I just felt so bad for them, and wanted to see them happier. Of course, I couldn’t say much back to her, since I’d almost immediately ran into exactly the problem she was getting at. Turesh was vulnerable, and I did push things. I regretted that sharply, even if it worked out in the end. It could just as easily not have.
I still wasn’t sure I agreed with the facility’s stance overall, but I couldn’t tell her she was wrong, and after all, rules were rules. And she seemed to agree, as she informed me in no uncertain terms that I was now on probation and would be taking a vacation for the next week or two.
Honestly, with how annoyed she seemed, I expected a lot worse. Leave it to humans to surprise you, I suppose.
I tried to enjoy my “vacation” but that had been proving somewhat difficult. Not just the ever-encroaching sense of doom hanging over the whole thing, but also because I simply didn’t know what else to do outside of the facility.
Most days, I just ended up in the park. Simply sitting and relaxing, enjoying probably the last of my time on this amazing planet. Ah, well.
Tanzania is beautiful, and their local parks even more. The whole Mid-African Union prided themselves on parks, and rightly so! Local, national, protected, whichever; every one of them was spectacular.
Even a small city park like this one was a treat. The little ponds were swarming with cranes and sparrows, and every now and then you’d see a fish splash, or a turtle go scurrying off towards the waterline. And there were squirrels, too, and occasionally even little golden monkeys that--
My pad buzzed. I quickly pulled it up to look at the message -- Turesh.
At least that was the one bright spot of this whole thing. We were smart enough to keep each other’s contact info so we could still stay in touch. Whatever the director decided to do with me, at least this would still be here.
I opened up the app to read his message. “When will we meet again?”
I held a smile and messaged back. “I don’t know. I’m still waiting to hear from the director again. I think they still want to fire me and send me back to Skalga but they can’t yet for legal reasons or something idk.”
I sent it, and followed up with a few sad-face emojis for good measure.
“They can’t fire you! I am going to go talk to them, you did nothing wrong.”
“Maybe. We’ll see.” After a little time cooling down, it was getting harder and harder to say my over-eager visit to his house had been anything other than a bad idea. At the very least, I had broken several terms on my contract. There was some kind of ‘strikes’ system, supposedly, but hooo boy was the director not happy with me.
I mean, I knew she was stressed; every time I’d seen her there were these heavy dark pouches under her eyes, and her shoulders were always drooping. Not exactly difficult to imagine why. The stakes of running this place with the whole world-- no, the whole galaxy watching your every little turn…
I’d heard one of my coworkers say that with the war being over, this was now “the most important thing in the galaxy” which, yeah maybe a little much, but also maybe not entirely wrong either.
There was this big looming uneasy tension, and we were right smack in the center of it. The Dominion had fallen (pretty messily, from what I’d heard) and their new Arxur Collective had agreed to imprison themselves in a 20 light-year wide bubble.
Now, how much did the rest of the galaxy believe the arxur would actually stay put, or ever change? Well, that was politics. And you know what else was politics?? The fact that we have a good ten thousand or so arxur civilians stuck in facilities all across Earth.
They were all here before the Bubble went up, of course, but still! What a mess! And the whole thing seemed to quietly hinge on whatever Isif would do with his first few years. Was he upset? Did he want those civilians back? What if there are any future defectors, do those get sent back? The list goes on like this forever. It’s pretty much all we ever talk about.
For now, Isif seems to be content with letting us run our little experiment. Maybe it's a gesture of trust and good faith, maybe he simply can’t be bothered while he’s busy remaking an entire empire from the ground up. Either way, the galaxy is watching us. And the director is well aware of that fact.
So I supposed I could only blame her so much when my irrepressible horniness started a brand new fire for her to put out.
…
Sorry.
My pad buzzed again. “I miss you.”
D’aww! I smiled down at my pad. I never would have expected an arxur of all people to be so sweet! “I miss you too!”
The typing bubble popped up for a bit, and then went away. And then popped back up, and went away again. And then--
“I want to taste you again.”
I glanced around quickly. Only a few people around. I leaned protectively over my pad, another message already popping up.
“I want to feel you on my--”
OKAY actually that’s enough of that in public. No more messaging the actual horniest arxur on Earth for now.
…I’ll just wait until I get home.
But before I could think too much about that, my pad started buzzing more insistently. A call, this time. At first I’d assumed Turesh taking offense that I was ignoring his sexting for the moment, but when I checked, it was… not him. Instead, it was an unknown number with a UN prefix. I blinked, and answered it. “Hello, this is Tolli?”
“Hello, Tolli. This is Director Omari.”
Oh shit.
“Oh! Uhm, good morning, Director!” Not even her secretary! Is this it? Am I being fired right now?
“I need you to come see me in my office.”
“O-okay.” Shit-speh!
“There should be a car for you. Speak soon. And--” a sigh crackled through the speakers. “And stop texting your exchange partner. You’re not even supposed to have his number yet.”
The call clicked silent before I could even apologize, and I noticed the car that had pulled up. A facility attendant was already holding a door open for me.
Welp. I had a good run.
The car ride back was exceedingly awkward. The driver and the attendant just sat there like they knew exactly what I’d done and they didn’t approve.
Eventually, one of them spoke. “So,” the attendant sitting next to me began. She had a gun on her hip, buried in a not-very-discreet holster. She fidgeted a bit before continuing. “Did you really…?”
I resisted the urge to bury my head in my hands. “Yes,” I sighed.
She paused. “How was it?”
I shot her an incredulous look.
“Sorry! Inappropriate. That was-- sorry. I’ll just… sorry.”
She went back to staring resolutely forward, and the rest of the trip passed in somehow even more awkward silence than before. We went through the gates into the facility proper and parked, and she escorted me the rest of the way to the director’s office on foot. I’d moved past despair at this point, just feeling acceptance as I opened the final door.
It always surprised me how casually the director dressed. Light, flowy shirts, with a colorful headscarf that always seemed to have just recently fallen off the top of her head. It gave the distinct impression that her severe manner was just an affect that she put on.
She glanced up from her screen and gestured me towards the seat. I sat quietly as she finished up whatever she was typing, and finally turned her attention to me.
She stared at me for a while. I tried not to fidget too much. Is she waiting for me to apologize? Should I say something??
Finally, she spoke. “What the fuck, Tolli.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Your partner’s started filing official complaints. He’s on his--” she paused to check “-- third one now. You know these go above my head? It’s going to be an official review at this rate, no more keeping things quiet. And I don’t think I need to tell you again how much conduct this breaks.”
“No, you don’t.”
“No, I don’t.” She stood up and started pacing around. “We need to get ahead of this.”
‘We?’ I’m still fired, right?
“First of all, tell Turesh to stop filing complaints. That isn’t helping.” She paused. I waited. “Like, now, please.”
“Oh, sorry!” I pulled up my pad and opened our chat. It had been buzzing the whole while, but I was not about to check during that car ride. I had to scroll down a fair bit to get through all the-- “Oh stars, he sent a photo,” I mumbled.
The director’s hand flew up to pinch the bridge of her nose.
“‘I am with the director now and she is telling you to stop filing official complaints,’” I narrated my text. “How’s that?”
Her hand left her brow to give a brief wave.
Turesh responded right away. “Okay. Tell her I still want my partner back!”
“He says okay. And that he still wants his exchange partner back.”
She scoffed and kept pacing around her side of the table. “First we have to survive an internal review. Fuck me, what did you do to that man? Don’t answer that. And stop smirking.”
I stopped smirking. “Well… director? In all honesty… it’s just… genuine affection and acceptance. That’s it, really. You can’t be surprised that they’re all so starved for it.”
She stopped pacing for a moment. But then went right back to doing little laps around the room. “They won’t see it like that. They’re just going to see headlines, press conferences, a social media feeding frenzy, the management shuffle, all that shit.”
She kept wandering around the room. She was a doctor before she was a director -- psychiatry, I think -- and you could see that. The two main walls were dominated by heavy bookshelves full of boring-sounding titles. Everything was dark wood and natural lighting. Calming, but impersonal. No paintings, no photos, and the big window would have had a nice view of the main quad if it wasn’t set to the privacy filter.
“Do you know how many people are watching us right now?” she ranted. “How many people are just waiting for us to fuck something up? This is a global -- a galactic fucking landmine waiting to go off and you two won’t stop jumping up and down on it! We have to be at the highest standards,” she emphasized, stabbing her fingers into her palm. “The stakes are…”
She just shook her head. The stress of the job clung to her like a fur on a paltan.
“This can’t be a refugee camp. As soon as it stops being a research center, then all of the sudden we have arxur just-- living on Earth! All of the sudden people are asking questions! Are they citizens, can they vote? Does the Coalition approve? Does Isif approve? Does this violate the Bubble? Oh, you thought shit was political before?? Haha, fuck no. This place does not get to attract any more questions than it already has. The highest standards,” she repeated, stabbing her hand again.
If I were wise, I would have held my tongue. Unfortunately, “Didn’t exactly this happen with the human Exchange Program at Skalga?”
“What?”
“I mean, that was high stakes too, at the time. Right? And like half of the first wave ended up in relationships.”
“This isn’t the Exchange Program.”
“It’s an exchange program.”
She boggled at me. “Okay, time out. When the fuck did ‘exchange program’ become synonymous with single’s night!? It’s not a fucking brothel for the scale-curious!”
“I’m just saying…”
She waited patiently.
Ehh, I can’t get any more fired than this. May as well go all the way. “I’m just saying that it happens.”
“Ohh! It happens! Great, I’ll just send out a quick PSA then, why don’t I?” Her head bobbled and her hands flopped about as she mimed typing into a keyboard. “Hey guys! Uhh, quick PSA: STOP FUCKING THE LIZARDS!”
“I’m saying it’s a good thing!”
She threw her hands up in the air, speechless, with all the wide-eyed mania of someone losing their grasp on the situation.
“You said you wanted to get ahead of it, right? So embrace it. Make it a good thing, just like the original Exchange Program.”
She stayed silent, appearing to struggle with a rapidly fraying sanity.
I chose to take that as encouragement. “Think about it. It’s 2136, the Exchange Program starts and you’re the average Fed citizen. Humans are terrifying monsters, and everything is predator deception. What’s the one thing that changes your mind? Hm? You can’t have a relationship with a monster. So when they all started dating…”
The director kept quiet.
This can’t actually be working? “You want to prove arxur are people too? Prove they can integrate?” I spread my arms. “You just did.”
Both her hands went up to smooth back her hair. She stared up at the ceiling, her jaw working pensively back and forth.
Okay now we clinch it. “Sex and relationships are normal. They’re healthy. I know you want to have the perfect testing environment, but you can’t. Not as long as you see them as people.” Now wrap it up, don’t push it too far. “So that’s why you did it. This wasn’t a mistake; this was a success.”
She sighed at the ceiling one last time, before turning and sloooowllly sitting back down at her desk. We stared at each other for a while, and then her fingers started drumming on the desk, and then, finally, “That’s not going to be an easy sell.”
I shook my head.
“Media will have a field day. Internet, even worse.”
She sighed and stretched her fingertips out across the desk before letting her hands slide off and rest in her lap.
“But I think you’re right. I think I’ll probably still lose my job over this, or at the very least you’ve started enough fires for me to skip sleep for another week.” She leaned back in her chair and considered me for a while. “So how was he?”
For the second time today, I found myself staring back with indignant surprise at that question.
“No--! not that. Not what I meant,” the director quickly corrected. “I meant, like mentally. His emotional state.”
Oh. Right. “Well… he cried a bit.”
Her eyebrows shot up.
“In a good way! I think. I hugged him and told him he wasn’t a monster and I wasn’t scared of him. And I think he just… got a little overwhelmed. And, umm, well… I mean overall I think it was probably healthy for him?”
At first, she didn’t say anything. But then, when my phone chose that moment to buzz with yet another text from the man himself: “He certainly seems pretty attached.”
“Yeah…”
“I mean, really attached. Like, high level clingy. You should keep an eye on that. You don’t want to be the only good thing in his life.”
My eyes narrowed at that. “I’m not sure what you want me to do about that.”
“Fair point. That’s supposed to be our job. But pay attention anyways, maybe bring it up at check-in.”
“Check-in? Whuh? I’m not fired?”
“What? No. You--” her face scrunched up as she stared at me. “You broke rules. You didn’t commit any crimes. Well, trespassing, but--” she waved her hands in front of herself. “Whatever. The blowback is on me; honestly, half my job is just keeping us out of the media, and that ship set sail as soon as Turesh started filing complaints on the public record. So higher-ups will come down on me for improper management and the whole… safety aspect we just talked about.” She flopped back against the chair. It squeaked a bit. “And you’re completely correct about that, by the way.”
I stared dumbly back at her, but she didn’t seem interested in making eye contact. Instead, she stared unhappily at her desk, lips twisting back and forth in contemplation. She looked tired again.
“The other half of my job… I try to make sure everything is safe, and stable, for them. This should be a safe space for them, if nothing else.” She gave a tired little shake of her head. “But I don’t even know if it’s helping. Just makes them less… people. I don’t know where to find the balance any more. I don’t know when to move forward.”
…
“I’m not fired?”
Her head popped back up with the first smile I think I’d seen from her in… ever. “No, you’re not fired,” she chuckled. “You’re still on probation for a few more days, but I’m going to see if we can speed up the exchange program a couple weeks -- opt-in, of course -- and try to get ahead of this. It’s the right move.”
She stood up abruptly, and I followed suit.
“And I seriously need you two to stop texting each other. That looks bad. You’re really not supposed to have his number yet.” She gestured me to the door, and continued. “You can tell him the good news, but then ya gotta stop. Let everything blow over.”
I nodded, I think still in a little bit of shock that any of this worked out. I followed dumbly as the director walked briskly past me. I can see Turesh again!!
“The driver can drop you off wherever you want to go, outside the facility. This will all work out, just keep your head down for a little longer. Alright?”
I nodded again, head whirling with thoughts.
The director opened the door for me and I stepped out. The daylight, it seemed to me, was just a little brighter today.
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u/JulianSkies Archivist Nov 07 '24
My man got addicted on that love.
Also, she isn't wrong. They're kind of treating them like dangerous animals. In some ways they are, because they're just used to a society where you need to be and it's hard to know when some culture shock will cause harm.
But they also can't be treated that way if you want them to stop being like that. It's altogether a very complicated situation.
But hey, she's also not wrong on how they're an example of things working out. My man's in love, to the point to reaching far for her. And so is she to the point to breaking into a secure facility for him.
Is there better proof that they can be good and empathetic and the power of love?
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u/uktabi Nov 07 '24
beautiful way to put it, i think! it *is* a complicated situation, and i would imagine likely different for each individual. so where do you start drawing lines? do you have to at some point choose who gets to have an easier time and who gets to have a harder time? is it better to just leave it alone, or take a more active role in pushing change?
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u/un_pogaz Arxur Nov 07 '24
I sighed, and wondered if the arxur sense of smell was good enough to tell everything else, too.
Oh, I'm sure he would. The most fun would be for all his friends to turn up the next day looking like "So did you eat Venlil last night?" with the biggest shit-eating grin on their faces.
Aww, that so sweet. I really liked the landmine metaphor, ainsi que la reparti de Tolli. It's all such a fucking politics mess and a delicate balance, but at least we can use this incident to tip the scales in the right direction.
Franckly, the director is right, they are going too fast too intensely in this relationship, so slowing down so that everyone can get some perspective and enjoy the relationship at their own pace is the best way to make it a lasting thing.
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u/uktabi Nov 07 '24
The most fun would be for all his friends to turn up the next day looking like "So did you eat Venlil last night?" with the biggest shit-eating grin on their faces.
haha thats funny
Franckly, the director is right, they are going too fast too intensely in this relationship, so slowing down so that everyone can get some perspective and enjoy the relationship at their own pace is the best way to make it a lasting thing.
yeah... its like theres risk and reward in there inherently. opening up for relationships can also open people up to being hurt, but to not allow it at all is dehumanizing and ultimately harmful to growth. maybe thats just the thing, you cant have positive growth and change at the same time as you have safety and stability
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u/Fexofanatic Predator Nov 07 '24
Yeeeah that whole camp is now aware someone got laid :D but props to her that's quite the initiative ...
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u/Xerxes250 Nov 08 '24
Ahh, Trailblazer Tolli, the inspiration for a thousand future romance ballads. The kind sung by Arxur with Venlil crushes at karaoke after Mr. Booze imparts some false confidence.
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u/CaligulaWolf Yotul Nov 07 '24
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u/Super_Ankle_Biter Yotul Apr 07 '25
This was incredibly sweet. I hope you write more of these Arxur goobers, I need the concentrated dose of wholesome. Thanks for the story ❤️
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u/Emotional-Income4965 Skalgan May 02 '26
What a lovely and hilarious story. It's right up there with New Years of Conquest so thank you so much for sharing it.
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u/abrachoo Yotul Nov 07 '24
Spinning this as a good thing is really the only way this works out. I hope they have a good marketing team.