Prompt: Feeling Mentally Claw-ful (TF Generator)

Summary: Inspired by a TF Generator prompt: "Your friend sends you a link to some shady website, considering you have an antivirus you decide to just click it. The moment you do your hands painfully transform into crab claws.  The changes are temporary and you'll return to normal after going to a therapist!"

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[Story Listing]

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Late one night, John was doing the usual crawl of mindless clicking through social media posts.

"Baaaabe, come to beeeed..." His girlfriend, Daisy, called from the other room.

"Yeah yeah, in a bit," John replied, yawning to himself. "Just closing out now."

John had gotten into a bit of a rut and developed a habit of staying up later than merited to try and steal some free time back from work. This did affect his sleep, and in a mental fog so close to bedtime, he didn't always make the best decisions.

John's interest was piqued by a sudden notification. He had received a DM. He clicked over to examine it, fully expecting for it to be spam. And it sure looked like spam, but... not in the usual way. It wasn't advertising hot singles in his area, nor was it offering an epic time in a sensuous role playing quest promising mediocre soft core T&A, but...

"FREE CRAB CLAWS." John squinted, reading the blown up text. "FREESHLY MADE. PLEASE CLICK AND YOUR ENJOY." The slapdash Engrish and the two-frame animation of the crab definitely grabbed his attention.

"What the hell, it'll be good for a laugh." John moved the mouse to click on the attention-grabbing link.

Zzzt!

"Yeow!" John winced as his hand clutching the mouse sustained a nasty electric shock. The sharp sound of the electrocution echoed across the wall, and a pungeant stench of smoke filled his nostrils as he examined his hand.

"Haha, what was that?" Daisy chuckled from the other room. "You scream like a girl, y'know?"

"Static shock zapped me..." John murmured, wincing in pain. His hand ached badly from the shock. And his hand was turning red. "Hope the computer didn't fry my hand..."

He could feel his fingers tingling as the achy redness spread across his hands, up to his wrists. And all of a sudden, they flared up. He grunted, waving his hands as if they had caught on fire! Through winced eyes, he could feel the cracking of bones; he wasn't shaking them that hard!

He looked at his hands again, gawking as his fingers twisted in hooks before elongating before his very eyes. His skin painfully stretched to accommodate the growing bone... before the bone melted away, his fingers fusing painful together under a shiny red carapace! As his hands swelled in front of his eyes, he looked in sheer terror as his heavy hands clattered onto the keyboard, his thumbs forming an adjustable pince for his now immobile fingers... he was developing CRAB CLAWS!

"W-WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS!?" He exclaimed. He tried to move his fingers, but only produced a frantic clicking sound.

"Babe, what's wrong!?" Daisy picked up on the panic in John's voice, hurrying out of bed to find him. She gasped at the sight of his big meaty claws!

"DAISY, I CAN'T FEEL MY FINGERS!" He shouted, his claws snipping away.

"AAAAAAAAAA!!!" Daisy covered her mouth, letting out a piercing shriek.

"AAAAAAAAA!!!" John screamed back, collapsing to his knees.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!" Okay now they were playing it up a bit...

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"This is a safe space where we can be honest with each other. Now, Daisy, is there anything you'd like to tell John?"

A month later, John and Daisy ended up seeing a couple's therapist. They sat, forelorn on the same sofa, John's massive crab-hands settled in his lap.

"John, this... I know it's been a trying time for you, what with you not having hands anymore... um..." Daisy struggled to find the words to describe her emotions in this dizzying situation. "And I've been trying to accommodate as best as I can, but... it's been hard for me too..."

"Daisy..." John hunched over. He could barely make eye contact. "I... I didn't realize it had gotten this bad..."

"Let's verbalize our feelings," The therapist suggested. "John, you mentioned earlier about your difficulties with mundane tasks with your new disorder... how does that make you feel?"

"...Mmhn..." John raised his head slowly. "...I... I can't do the things I used to love doing, I... I feel like less of a man, a... a damn cripple. And I can't... I hate feeling like this..."

"I know, honey..." Daisy tried to take John's crab claw hand, forgetting that he had lost feeling in it entirely. "I want to help you, but when you take these feelings out on me, I feel... trapped, John."

"I just... I hate seeing you work so hard, for my sake." John sighed. "I want to do more, for you, but I realize I can't, and it hurts more than anything else... that I can't be good enough for you."

"But John! You are good enough!" Daisy pleaded. "You always have been! I just... want to make this work."

"...You... don't resent me...?" John raised his head. "For being a... a crab-clawed invalid...?"

"H-hey, don't say things like that. They're... strikingly coloured." Daisy joked. "I... I'll always love you, I just... it's hard when you... try to bottle up these feelings..."

"...I-I'm sorry, I... I'll be better. I'll be the best crab man I can be. For you, babe..."

They leaned forward, exchanging a tender kiss. All of a sudden, John's claws flared up, sparkling with an otherworldly magic. Daisy covered her mouth, gawking as John raised his stark red claws before him.

"W-what's happening??" He wondered allowed, the hard carapace rippling and shifting before him. HE could feel his hands tingling... he could feel his hands! The pinces began to split into scarlet fingers, the hard shell softening into flesh, bone and sinew shifting back into place.

"My... my hands!" John cheered. "They're back! My fingers, my fingernails, the little callouses on my palms, it's all back!!"

"Oh, honey!!" Daisy leaned forward for a tight side hug, and, for the first time, John held her back, no longer terrifies of slicing off a piece of hair or flesh.

The counsillor, watching all of this happened, raised his clipboard over his mouth, so he could politely obscure himself mouthing the words "what the actual fuck" silently. He briefly considered a career on public access television as a faith healer...