I'm thinking about turning into a parasite.
Something's gone wrong. The experiment wasn't supposed to go this way. Your legs are collapsing. You can barely move. You can feel yourself dissolving-- if you don't find someone, you're going to fall away into nothing.
What remains of you is bundled into place at the base of their skill, hidden beneath their hair. On instinct, you bite and attach.
Your fangs nestle into their spinal column, your legs digging in like needles into their skin. You must be hurting them, tiny, prickling points of pain. But their hand it gentle as keeps you in place.
Over the course of days, you integrate with them. Your sense of your own body is limited. Their body is yours, of a sort. There's no control. But gradually, you start to get dim, shapeless images of the world through their eyes. You hear snippets of things they hear, snatches of conversation. The taste of things they eat.
Sometimes, even, you'll catch the trail of their thoughts. A flicker of their emotions.
Within a week, you can see through their eyes, hear what they hear, even regularly catch the drift of their emotions. Most of the time, their thoughts are indistinct to you, like the murmur of a crowd. But sometimes, their thoughts are sharp, clear, directed to you.
Most of the time, they ask you if you're comfortable. You have no real sense of comfort. The only time you're aware of your body (it barely feels like yours, it barely feels real) is when your partner reaches back to run their finger down your back, and even then, the physical contact is less important than the swell of affection they feel toward you.
Even after two weeks, when you can tune into any of their senses with ease, there's still no control. Perhaps because you haven't tried to exercise it the same as your connection to their senses. It feels like a violation, even more than the intrusion on their thoughts.
And yet, your partner encourages you. You can try. If you want. And, at their urging, you start practicing with twitching their fingers.
Your first action is to hold hands. One that you control, one that they do. Then a hug. It's a strange sensation, to control the hands but not the torso you're wrapping them around. But you feel your partner's heart speed up.
Your partner cooks your favorite meals. They don't taste quite the same anymore, but your partner adjusts the seasonings and the flavor is new and delicious. You whisper commentary into your partner's mind as they try to get through a work meeting and delight when they have to slip off to the bathroom to laugh.
On the worst days, you can only think about how small, how pathetic you are. You cannot truly assist your partner anymore. You can't hug them after a bad day, or run a bath for them, or cook their favorite meal. Still, you wrap their arms around themself and squeeze their hands, left, then right, then left, like you always used to. You push your love out into them, focused on making them feel everything you do.
And your partner reaches back and cradles what remains of your body in their hand and you are reminded of being protected. There is a vast universe and you are terribly small, but you are shielded and shepherded by a creature who trusts you with their body and you trust with your helplessness.
You nestle deeper into their neck and their skin grows around you and the borders shift and fuse until you run into each other in blurring boundaries of love.
