All Inclusive

The sensation of the shift had so abrupt he might’ve compared it to falling, though instead of tipping forward or backward, the whole of him had suddenly downsized into something that was wholly other than what he had been. He’d stared from his new proximity for a good long while at the pants that had slid from his new, slimmer hips to pile up at the floor, at small feet that no longer filled the shoes he’d been wearing. At the hem of a shirt that now reached past his knees and the collar which had dropped down over one newly feminine shoulder.

Luther had been in the hotel long enough to know that this had started happening to others, though he’d never fully considered what might happen were he to transform from male to female with no preparation. It was wholly disorienting, not just the shift in body parts but the sheer shrinking of his size, which had to have been diminished by half in all directions. There was logic still beating about his head somewhere, though for all it told him that he simply had to seek out someone he knew in a request for help for clothes for this new body, he was left to gather up his pants, toss them back in his room, and make his way down to the café in bare feet and the shirt which he supposed covered him well enough to pass as some sort of dress or muumuu.

He wanted a sandwich, so he got one and sat down in a corner table with legs that crossed at the knee far more naturally than he’d ever been able to manage before. Focusing on his food gave him something to do other than marvel at his new breasts, and he very methodically began to wolf it down in a state of borderline but tightly contained panic

The carpet of the halls was plush like a cloud beneath his feet and even the air seemed sweetly scented compared to that place he'd found on the other side of a perfectly harmless looking door upon his arrival. The smell of all that wriggling, oozing dead was burned into his nostrils and baked into his skin, or at least it'd seemed that way to him, which was why after he'd figured out where his room was he'd blown half the money in his wallet on some toiletries and a fresh change of clothes. He'd stayed in the shower until long after the hot water had thrown up a white flag and emerged reddened and shivering, but at least free of any invisible flecks of gore that might've accumulated while watching Joan Watson bust open zombie skulls like rotted fruit. It was going to take him a good, long while to get over that, even he could admit.

Not knowing what else to do, he made his way back down to the lobby with a wary eye on every door he passed, wearing his new, clean clothes and smelling a damn sight better to himself. The bar was an obvious attraction and his first choice, so he made his way inside, finding it casual enough to suit his tastes and taking a seat at one of the empty tables. He wasn't going to be hungry any time soon, so when the waitress made her way over he ordered a whiskey and at least three more after the first one was finished. After the waitress had left him, he found himself looking around at the people in the bar with him. There was no one in his immediate line of sight that would've got a second look on the street for being obviously, physically different than him, but from what he'd gathered there could be people in here that came from a whole other universe entirely different than his own.

It was frightening, but when the waitress returned with his first glass of whiskey, he was pleased to know that at least alcohol was universal. He would have to do thinking, so much thinking, and exploring too, but that could come later. Just then, all John Luther wanted to do was get quietly, thoroughly drunk.