At first he felt sick. The constant writhing, crawling beneath his skin. Something alive in the pit of his stomach. An agonising urge to throw up coiled haphazardly in his throat. But slowly the discomfort started to bother him less.
It feels… good. So, so so good.
You’re right, it does.
If he let his focus drift a little he could see another human shape within him, sort of like looking through the first layer of his body, only it was an ever-shifting mercurial silver, the light reflected in it moving sluggishly across the rippling surface.
It was inside him, he was made of this supra-human, celestial matter. It made him giddy. It made them touched. He felt the symbiote flood the undersides of his limbs and chest in a torrent, like a million hands running themselves over his body.
You’re truly exceptional, Carlton Drake.
An oddly-placed laugh escaped him. “I should be saying that about you.”
A vicious hunger had overtaken him after the bonding. The lab personnel a few rooms down hadn’t had a chance. He was aware of the nauseating slab half-digested in their shared stomach, but there were more important things going on to care.
Forgive me, Riot spoke, though they didn’t sound very apologetic. I should have realised sooner we have so much in common.
“I have to thank you for giving me this opportunity.” Drake clasped his hands together. “We will show them us.”
And they will be forever indebted to us for it. A silver liquid began to pool forth from the center of his palms, slicking over his arms and coating his shirtsleeves.
Something turned momentarily in his stomach. “We’ll be forever.”
And what’s wrong with that? He’d felt the Life Foundation employee’s fear as he stumbled into that room. Seen the weakness in him, his fragile body, his mere humanity. Moved so fast he was moving before he even thought it. Willed his body to transform into a weapon to attack, and as he tore into the man, the feeling of triumph over the primitive…
“Are you willing to be us forever?”
The voice came from inside his brain. It was laughing at him. Do you despise yourself that much? The silver ooze ran over his clothes and clung with an almost-urge to consume. He wanted to say something, but Riot embraced him, and he let the ooze climb up his neck, wash over his face.
Your kind and my kind deserve to experience the bond that we have, Riot said with a satisfied smile; at the same time, it was also Drake’s smile. I don’t want to stop being us yet.
Chaotic synchronity, a violent melding of the same aspirations and wants. That was what they’d both felt the moment the symbiote chose and claimed its new host. What made it realise that this claim would be wasted if it was temporary, as it fused its mind and body with his within the viscous cocoon that carried them both in the rite of bonding.
Drake held his hands to his face, over the rippling silver. It churned wildly at his touch, and silver tendrils climbed up his forearms to link themselves through his fingers.
He smiled, of his own accord. The mercury covering him began to take shape, and he felt the joining of two to become one he loved it when they were one, not human, not symbiote, something indescribable, undefinable. “I’m staying with you.”