Wrote a ficlet for the Symbiote Ford AU that I proposed a little while ago because I have no self-control. Warning for body horror and parasitism (well, mutualism, technically, but that’s not the term people usually block).

…

At first, Ford doesn’t recognise the room he wakes up in.

He flares his fronds, testing the space around him without having to get out of the very soft and comfortable bed he’s found himself in, but there’s nothing but the low-level chatter of small minds. Insects, or maybe rodents, busy in the walls and the corners. No other sapient thoughts. He’s alone.

Wait. Fronds? He doesn’t have -

A throb of pain pulses through Ford’s head, starting at the base of his skull, and his memories fracture. He remembers the oracle, Jheselbraum, remembers her taking him in.

He remembers the vat.

…

“You - you can really make it so that Bill can’t access my mind anymore?”



The seven-eyed oracle smiles, enigmatically. “I can’t. But I can introduce you to someone who can.”

He follows her down a twisting corridor, out into a smaller chamber that contains a large, soft, comfortable-looking bed, a desk covered in weird detritus that makes his heart clench with nostalgia, and, stretching from the floor almost to the ceiling, a clear glass vat.

Inside the vat, suspended, floats a pale, pink, eyeless, wormlike thing. It’s about as long as his torso and as thick around as his wrist. Its long, segmented tail is lined on either side with evenly-spaced spines, and at the very top of its tail, protruding from the rough oblong of featureless flesh that might, in another creature, have been a head, is a vicious-looking spike nearly three inches long. On either side of the oblong, three pale pink fronds wave gently in whatever viscous liquid the creature hangs suspended in.

As he steps up to the vat, the fronds flick towards him.

There’s a new mind in front of him, whirling, tangled, practically spitting sparks. The tenor of it tastes a little like the last mind he bonded with. Perhaps younger, less experienced, but simmering with the same determination and boiling with intellect. They will make a good match, and he projects as much in the mind’s direction.

He steps back, reeling. “Did that thing just -”

Jheselbraum is beaming. “Oh, good! If he reached out to you, that’s an excellent sign.”

He steps up to the vat again, reaching out to press a six-fingered hand against the glass. The worm-creature’s fronds flick towards him again, and again, his brain is bathed in that feeling of - warmth. Trust. “What is…he?”

“A Solovmachian. They’re symbiotic lifeforms that feed on brainwaves.” Jheselbraum clasps her hands in front of her, watching him carefully. “They need a host to be able to live outside of this kind of suspension. But as a result of how they process their diet, most compatible hosts become very strongly psychic.”



He presses his other hand against the glass as well. “And you think I should become his…host.”

“The psychic abilities you’d gain would be enough to keep Bill at bay. And this Solovmachian was previously bonded to a freedom fighter who dedicated his life to destroying Bill Cipher. The knowledge you could share -”



He doesn’t wait for the oracle to finish speaking. “I’ll do it.”

…

Ford pushes himself up to sit on the bed, running a hand through his hair. There’s a dull ache running all the way up his spine, and a muffled throb at the base of his skull, but he feels well-rested and -fed in a way he hasn’t in - years. Probably since before he fell through the portal. He owes Jheselbraum a debt of gratitude.

He gives his fronds another, experimental flick, scanning the room around him one more time even though he can see now that there’s no one else there. It’s strange, mostly because it isn’t strange - he has six brand new, inhuman appendages, attached to an equally brand new sixth sense, and yet, they feel as easy and natural to use as the fingers on his hands. He couldn’t begin to explain to anyone else how they work. They simply do.

Ford pushes himself to his feet, and then has to sit back down again immediately, head spinning. His balance is shot, and he hopes it’s not permanent. His head feels muffled, fuzzy, as though the inside of his skull has been lined in felt. Even remembering how quickly the bond had resolved and the host body had recovered its equilibrium last time isn’t particularly reassuring when the room won’t stop whirling around him.

“Shared memories,” Ford says, aloud, and tries not to be startled at the sound of his own voice. “Right.”



He shuts his eyes and rests his head in his hands until the spinning slows.

…

He’s lying facedown on something like a narrow, padded table, naked from the waist up, his face pressed into the cushioned ring affixed to one end of the table and his arms dangling over the sides. Trying to breathe normally. Trying not to think too hard about what he’s about to do.

“Just hold still,” Jheselbraum says, from somewhere behind him. “And try to relax. It’ll hurt less.”



He takes a deep breath in, and lets it out slowly, relaxing his shoulders. A wave of calm washes over him, and he recognises it as the same kind of feeling the - symbiote - had projected at him earlier. He tries to relax, to let it calm him, but the knot of dread at the pit of his stomach still winds and unwinds.

In that warm, reassuring voice, Jheselbraum says, “Now, this might pinch a bit,” and he shuts his eyes.

The symbiote is cold as Jheselbraum drapes it along his spine, cold and a little slick with whatever the vat had been filled with. He can’t help the shiver, or the ones that follow as the symbiote’s spines skitter over his bare back, sliding its wormlike body upwards towards his skull. Seeking a place to - attach.

Another wave of calm, of reassurance, bathes his brain, and he settles into it, focusing on the rhythm of his breathing. There’s a sharp pinch at the small of his back, which quickly resolves into an ache, and he struggles to keep breathing deeply and evenly. Not to think about the thing’s spines sinking into his flesh, digging into his vertebrae, working themselves into the delicate and irreplaceable bundle of nerves that controls all of his motor functions -

There’s another pinch, and another ache, a little higher up his spine, and then another, a little higher yet. He tries to keep focused on his breathing, not to worry about whether the numbness crawling up his back is a sign that he’s going to be paralysed. Not to think about the three-inch spike lying, waiting, pressed against the nape of his neck. It’s too late to turn back now.

He barely feels the pinch between his shoulders, the ones that climb his neck, as anything other than pressure. The feeling of calm is all around him, now, an ocean of stillness and easy tranquility in which he finds himself drifting. Any pain he might have felt, any fear, seems insignificant next to its immensity. He wonders, briefly, if Jheselbraum has drugged him somehow.

He’s expecting a sudden, sharp stab to the base of his skull. And there is one, only…not nearly as hard or as swift or as painful as he’d expected. Instead, there’s a quick piercing pain like a needle sinking into skin, and then that dull aching pressure that must be the spike working its way into his brain, into the one thing he has left, into the very heart of what makes him who he is…

For just an instant, he’s seized by an abrupt, frantic terror of what’s happening to him, of what he’s stupidly chosen to do, to trust, has he learned nothing, when this turns out to be another trick he will never be able to escape, this is the end -

And then the symbiote’s fleshy body settles flush against the back of his neck, and the final two spines slip neatly under his skin, anchoring themselves in the vertebra at the base of his skull.

He opens his eyes.

He can see, again. Can hear and smell and taste and Jheselbraum’s worry is fading into excitement and the world is loud and bright and overwhelming after so long in the dark and the silence of the vat and the walls around him are alight somehow with dull sparks of consciousness and he’s not dead even though he remembers dying remembers the last host dying under him remembers -

It’s somewhere about here that his poor, abused mind, trying to protect itself from the deluge of information flooding it, shuts down.

…

When Ford opens his eyes again, the first thing they land on is a glass of water sitting on the cluttered desk across the room. He braves the few steps over to the desk, leans heavily against it as he grabs the glass. There are two purple pills sitting beside the glass, as well, and he swallows them both, chasing them with a long gulp of water. The throbbing at the base of his skull eases, just slightly.

There’s nothing like a mirror in the room, but the glass wall and dim liquid of the now-empty vat gives it a passably reflective surface. Ford’s image is distorted by the curvature of the glass, of course, but he can make out his own face. On either side of it, three pale pink fronds flare, a little like the frills on each side of an axolotl’s head. The highest two are just about level with the base of his skull, peeking out from behind his ears; the lowest about level with his chin.

Ford raises a hand, gingerly reaches up to touch one and immediately snatches his hand away. Apparently they’re still very sensitive to touch. Thankfully, that should fade before long.

He turns his head, watching parts of his face balloon and shrink in the funhouse mirror of the vat’s glass wall. His new appendages are still attached to the oblong lump of flesh that served the symbiote as a head, anchored at the back of his neck. The symbiote’s body is still visible, stretching down along his spine and disappearing into the light robe that Jheselbraum must have given him. The skin around where each of its spines went in looks puckered, like it’s already starting to heal.

The sight of something latched onto his spine like this should, Ford knows, be strange, horrifying, viscerally upsetting. Somehow it isn’t.

No wonder it still aches, though.

He knows Jheselbraum’s coming before she reaches the door, hurries over and pulls it open for her before she can knock. She beams, and crosses the room to the desk. Ford follows, pushes aside a jar of what look like human ears and a sheaf of notes to clear a space for her to set down the tray she’s carrying. Whatever’s on it smells amazing, and suddenly Ford feels like he hasn’t eaten for a month.

“You’re up and on your feet,” Jheselbraum says, impressed, and Ford knows she hadn’t expected him to be walking around for another day or two at least. “The bonding’s going well, then?”



“I’m still a little dizzy,” Ford admits.



“That’s only to be expected,” Jheselbraum reassures him, with an understanding smile. “Come, sit down and have something to eat. When you’re finished, I need to talk with you about Bill Cipher.”

