Chapter Text
"You think Dead Boy knows what's better for your family than you do?" Temrash taunted Rachel. It was the third day of this, and I was getting really fucking tired of listening to him berate my friends and toss through memories like he was putting together a slideshow for Junior Prom.
"Shut up!" Rachel demanded, stamping her foot.
"Don't let him get to you," Tobias said, reaching out to comfort her again.
Rachel pulled away angrily. "Don't tell me what to do! You all think you can tell me what to do! You haven't been here! You don't care! It'd be easier on you without me and Jake, wouldn't it?"
"Rachel, that's not true!"
"He can't get rid of you," said Temrash. "Not before knowing about Visser One."
If I survived this, Marco was going to murder me.
Rachel just looked confused, but Tobias rounded on her. "You're in on it, too? Am I the only one not in on Marco's secrets?"
"I don't know what you're talking about!"
"Yeah, sure you don't!"
"Imaginary friends are for convenience," said Temrash, laughing. "No one cares about their feelings."
"You can shut up," Rachel snapped.
"Why? Afraid I might say something inconvenient?" Temrash pouted.
"You know what?" Rachel threw the remote at Tobias, and I guess --as much as I hate to admit it-- both me and the Yeerk jerked. Tobias caught it easily without setting it off, though.
"HEY!" Temrash snapped. "Careful with that! We're both fond of this head, y'know."
Rachel spun toward me and stormed up. "Don't you ever dare speak for him, you fucking filthyass slug!" she screamed. And I mean screamed. She was definitely mad. It was odd to see her so emotional in human face. "I don't care what you've pried out in your brief stay, it's not your right! Don't you ever fucking say words with his mouth and fucking dare to call them his! You are on your last legs, and you goddamn know it! So shut your goddamn mouth!"
And then she stormed off. Just left Tobias alone there.
As soon as she was gone, Temrash started struggling against the ropes again. Tobias angrily aimed the remote at him. "Stop that! I have the button!"
"And?" Temrash asked blandly, continuing to pull at the ropes, which easily began fraying and working lose under the force of my strength.
"And I can use it."
"Yeah, can," said Temrash, laughing again. "But you won't. You don't do anything but blow wind. That's all you've ever done. Even in life. That's why no one ever noticed you around, and no one has noticed you gone. Useless. Unneeded. Put up with out of pity and obligation. Sure, we can perceive you, but what does that really mean? It doesn't tie you to the world any more than it did before. You're as noticed as a small fart and equivalently threatening."
The ropes fell loose, and Temrash stood up, stretching my severely cramped legs and rubbing my friction-burned wrists. Looking around, he found that Tobias was absent and the remote was sitting on the old leaves making up the forest floor. Temrash smirked in satisfaction and unbuckled the collar from my neck.
He looked around and gaged where the barn was, based on where everyone had approached from, then searched my memories of the layout of Cassie's property and its location in the town.
It took six hours to walk far enough into town. Temrash was jumpy at every flutter of movement, but not a single morph was sighted. I wanted to resist. To throw a wrench in his plans, but I had nothing left. I had already used so much mental energy the past three days, and I'd barely succeeded in creating even a flinch in my own body. What could that do when no one was looking? When there was no one around to see that I needed saving?
I've woken up in a pile of dead bodies and not felt this lost and morose and confused.
Temrash walked around the back of a Wendy's and knocked on an outer door in a specific rhythm.
Immediately, I was pulled aside around the side of the building into the bushes! A hand clamped over my mouth! Not just any hand! A massive, muscular gorilla hand! How? When?
<Dude, you looked directly at us at least seven times on the way over here,> Marco mocked. <It's an animal clinic. We can get new morphs. And hi, Jake.>
Someone, presumably a Controller, came out of the door and looked around, confused. "Hey! Hello? Doesn't someone need in?"
<And now we have a new Yeerk pool entrance,> Marco explained. <Thanks buddy.>
The Controller closed the door behind them and stepped further out. "Hello?"
An empty can wriggled in place, tapping against the door in the exact same rhythm. I could just barely see the outline of Tobias. That faker! Those brilliant assholes!
The Controller snapped around, then saw the can. Rolling their eyes, they kicked the can aside, mumbling about rats, and reentered the backdoor with a set of keys. Tobias started to snatch the keys but must have been privately told not to, because he just reappeared next to us instead.
My body went lax. Temrash just stared at the closed door in utter broken-hearted disbelief. <You're going to kill me,> he finally realized.
<Welcome to the human condition,> I snarled.
<Come on, sweetie, let's get you back home,> said Marco. <You've had a big day.>
Temrash thrashed and bit and strained, but I'd been weakened by three days of sun exposure, and Marco had the upper hand with his bear hug.
I was quickly knocked out again.
"Jake?"
My eyes slowly blinked open again.
"Jake, are you okay?"
"Cassie, help me…"
She frowned. "I know that's not Jake speaking. I was never actually that stupid. That game's over now."
I frowned, too. "I know." I was shaking.
The look on her face changed immediately. She was actually concerned for the Yeerk. And then she looked away, at the ground, not wanting the others to see her bothered.
They surrounded me. Marco. Tobias. Ax. Rachel. I wasn't tied up. I didn't have the control collar on. It wasn't necessary now.
<The fugue is beginning,> Ax decided. <The Yeerk will be dead soon.>
And then I was surrounded by water! Vague shapes surrounded me. I didn't see them in the usual way, but I sensed them all. My brothers and sisters.
Hands on my body. "Ax, man, that is a lot of shaking…"
A strange, lop-sided, ape-like creature. So that was what a Gedd looked like. I looked down at my own hands. Gedd hands. My hands. My body. Mine.
<You're enjoying this aren't you?>
<You certainly enjoyed him.>
<Can you say you've never felt the same? Remember, I've been in your head, parasite.>
"Whoa! Hold him down!"
"Jake? Jake, just hold out! It's not long now."
<I don't want to see this.>
<Tough nuggets,> said Temrash. <No one dies with dignity. Humans shit themselves. Vampires collapse into ember and ash. Werewolves go out screaming. Yeerks overshare.>
<Thank you for that insight, Miss Congeniality.>
And then the dam broke. Memories flooded in. Good times. Bad times. Alien emotions that I didn't recognize. Not a single memory of love, but there was affection. Pride. Fear. Regret. Other things I could understand.
Along with his memories, I started to get the memories of his hosts. The Gedd who had a name I could never hope to pronounce. The Hork-Bajir warrior who had fought the Yeerk in his head every day of his life. The Hork-Bajir who had been forced to attack his own kind, to destroy his own friends and family, as an unwilling slave of the Yeerks. But it was more than just memories. It was more. The Yeerk had carried with him some small part of that Hork-Bajir warrior's being.
I sensed the part I feared most coming. After what I'd already been shown, I knew how much he hated and feared me, how much time he'd dedicated to preparing my undoing. I saw memories from Tom's childhood and preteen years. I saw our meeting from his perspective. And then, suddenly, Temrash managed to hold back somehow. I got some of the bad stuff. But it was filtered and glitchy and messed up and hard to decipher.
<Thank you.>
Temrash didn't answer.
The pain ebbed. The memories filtered away as we blended into shared experience. I felt control return to me. I blinked open my eyes and saw Cassie's staring back at me, pleading. I smiled weakly. I smiled.
Finally, Temrash spoke. <So… you win… SubHuman Type One…>
The Yeerk shuddered. I could feel it. A physical spasm. My vision changed. I felt... it's hard to describe. I felt as if I were seeing through things, into things. Like I could see the front and back and top and bottom and inside of every thing all at once.
And then I saw it.
My face.
No, not my face. A face very similar to mine. As similar to me as Tom was to Gideon, I suppose. But his eyes were huge, wide with fury, and glowing red like a hot iron. It opened its mouth, and it raged,
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