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Teryx lay on his bed with his bloodshot eyes open, facing the ceiling. He had been lying there for almost two days, his retinas painted with the image of his seldom-moving field of vision above him. He was not thinking of much.

At least, he couldn't consciously remember thinking of much. When his more-aware moments came around -- and they arrived only rarely, and never for long -- he imagined that his current predicament must resemble how a zombie would exist. Under the Commodore's influence he had lacked control but retained thought, except for when the slug purposefully blacked him out. Now, he lacked both control and thought by default, even if other aspects of his perception were still technically awake and running. Certain instincts would occasionally fire and lead to action, though only in a limited fashion. He had climbed from his bed a few times to attend to basic needs like hunger and thirst, but his management of more complex bodily suffering seemed nonexistent. Words were impossible; envisioning was only slightly easier.

Despite this, Teryx did not feel bored. Mercifully, he lacked the ability to fully comprehend how trapped and paralyzed he was, except during those infrequent blips of clarity.

Perhaps even more disconcerting, however, was the Commodore's silence. Teryx no longer heard the voice of his alien commander... and, for that matter, he hardly heard the voice of his own broken host-consciousness either.

Perhaps that explained the undead feeling of it all. There was nobody home. He was in... not quite a coma, but close. A coma with occasional and teasing intermissions. His brain was used to working in a certain way with the Commodore living inside of him, but now, for some reason, it wasn't working.

Monday was dawning, and he was ostensibly supposed to be going to work in just a few hours. Commuting was exceptionally difficult when he only occasionally had the mental capacity to think about the idea of a commute, let alone aspire to such heroic efforts as moving with purpose.

As the sun hit his eyes -- which blinked shut in a jerky fashion -- he hit on another moment of awareness, but he didn't make any progress toward rising from the bed.

He considered the possibility that this might be how his existence would end. Immobilized by some presumable chem-splosion that some mistake by the Commodore had triggered in his brain. A mistake, or maybe a metamorphosis. Who could say that the little slug was the only stage of the Commodore's life cycle? What if it was maturing into some even more menacing alien parasite that would form a hardening carapace all around his body and forever claim him as its own?

A parasite who exuded some naturally engineered type of liquid latex, gradually coating his entire body, engulfing him and saddling every inch of his flesh with its control...

A flash of white light filled Teryx's mind's eye, and he heard a memory of the sound of microphone feedback.

Good, he heard a familiar voice saying. I see this sort of fantasy can still wake you up a little.

The white light faded, however, and so did the voice. There was another lapse of consciousness, and Teryx awoke again to dreamy, voidy blackness.

"Wait, come back!" Teryx said into the darkness. "I wasn't done thinking about the latex symbiotes yet!"

Silence and darkness.

"...Damn."

Teryx tried looking around. Uncomfortably, he realized he didn't feel anything or seem to have a body. Not even a dream body. He was no more than a floating camera that couldn't see anything.

But hey, he could think again, so at least there was that!

"Okay seriously though... Commodore? That was you, right?"

Nothing. He continued to wait.

Then, a tingling sensation crept in on the edges of his consciousness. He heard sounds and saw colors and smelled things. None of it made any sense. Then his mind transitioned with a jolt, but not back into being awake.

* * *

Something very odd was happening.

Within some sort of strange, misty mindscape, the Commodore and Teryx saw each other. Face to face. Rain dragon to rain dragon.

Of course the Commodore was adopting his same exact appearance. They might as well have been mirror images of one another.

"Hi Commodore. You're looking good," said Teryx, a little wearily, but with his spirits lifting upon seeing the image of himself.

The Commodore smirked. Something in those devious eyes made it evident that he was enjoying seeing himself too.

They locked eyes for a moment before Teryx thought to look away and take in their present setting a bit better. Not that there was much to it. The floor was clouds. The walls were... invisible, and roughly circular, forming a boundary around this vague space which could at least laughingly be regarded as a room.

"We're unconscious, in case you're wondering," said the Commodore, helpfully.

"I think I had already figured that one out," said Teryx.

"Spare me the sass. I'm in the process of getting us operational again. You and your finicky brains. A little chemical trauma and you just go out like a light."

Teryx's eyes widened, and he pointed a finger. "That sounds like your area of expertise."

"Yes, indeed."

"So what'd you do?"

The Commodore rolled his eyes. Host Teryx tried to step toward him as if to apply more social pressure by invading his personal space, but this attempt was thwarted by a wall of viscous green liquid that suddenly materialized between them.

Teryx tried shoving an arm through it, but he found he could not get his hand any deeper than the little finger. The liquid was somehow so dense than it pushed him right out. He could only assume it to be representative of the chemical means that the slug had been using to keep him under control.

"Great... I see we're back to being on friendly terms as always," mused Teryx.

"We are friends, but I am the one in control."

The Commodore had turned and was staring downward at a diagonal, as if he were looking at some kind of control-room computer monitor that wasn't there. Helpfully, a control room full of computer monitors materialized to support this notion. The green wall was now the wall of a containment cell in some kind of high-tech lab. The metal of various surfaces reminded him of the canister through which the Commodore had arrived.

Teryx turned away too, leaning his back up against the green wall just to be difficult. The sensation of it applying such a strange flow of force down his back was surreal, and quite interesting to toy with. He cocked his head to the right and spoke over his shoulder: "So what's got you worried enough to tell me we're knocked out?"

The Commodore didn't reply right away. He remained focused on the monitor he was looking at, and then he moved his fingers as if pushing buttons on a pad nearby. However, when Teryx looked closer, it was only a pantomime; the buttons didn't seem interactive.

"Commodore?" asked Teryx.

His other handsome self looked up from the monitor -- glanced sidelong at him -- resumed working.

Teryx kept gazing at him. After several seconds more, the Commodore spoke, turning to face his host once again as he did. "Something unusual happened. My body -- my 'original' body, if we must be technical -- underwent hormonal shifts from which I am still recovering. I suspect it's to do with the amount of feasting I've done in our brain lately."

Teryx also turned to face him head on, folding his arms and leaning wrists and snout against the barrier as he did. "I would've guessed you had burned out my nerves somehow. You're telling me it's more like you're burning yourself up?"

"In a sense. Perhaps it's more of a metamorphosis. It may be the start of phase two of my role in conquering your world."

Teryx's voice came out flatter. "So you don't even know."

"As ironic as this might seem to your unrefined consciousness, that is correct. I don't currently know what's going on with 'my' body. I lost awareness of it at the same time our issues began. I hypothesize that I must be running brilliantly on instinct, undergoing a grand metamorphosis which will doom your people to serve me forever. Who knows, the process might even convert my mane into an irresistible pheromone generator."

"Right, 'your' mane."

"This is the one time you will have a chance to say such adorably defiant things to me for the next long while, so I suggest you take advantage of the occasion. I don't begrudge it of you. As everyone who's ever topped you knows, you're kind of cute when you're angry."

"S-shut it." Dammit, it never failed to blindside him. Right when he thought he was safe, the mindreading threw him a curveball.

Wait a minute, the mindreading? Teryx had a question about that. "So how're you even here right now?" He gestured all around both of them. "How're we doing this if you don't--"

"I'm getting there. I'm aware enough of 'my' body again to find the controls and do what I need to do in order to get us working again. It's strange though... certain chemical transitions seem to be running slower than usual, as if they're being directly antagonized. I also don't feel especially different, for what that's worth. So perhaps my grandiose hypothesis is simply that: a grandiosity. In which case, it's your fault, because I inherited the tendency to form grandiosities from you."

"Right now you sound like a twelve-year-old who went to university too early," grumbled Teryx.

"And underneath that polite and suave exterior, just what exactly do you think you are?" replied the Commodore.

"HEY!" growled Teryx. "Drop this barrier and see if you feel so calm saying that."

The Commodore lifted both hands near his shoulders and waved them in a flaily, limp-wristed fashion. Mockingly, he said, "'Oh, I'm the big strong dragon, but sometimes I need Daddy Commodore to be the clever and responsible one so I don't have to!'"

Teryx's eyes squinted into a glare. "Yanno, I was doing fine before you came along."

"A moot point. You were always looking for me. In your dreams you wished for something like me."

Teryx shrugged. "Also true."

"So don't compare the stone-aged dominations you experienced before to the exquisite joyride I've given you. It was a lot of work to orchestrate all of that with little to no harm to your body."

"Oh, it took work now? You could've fooled me; you seemed to insist on making everything seem effortless with your superior alien intelligence."

"There's no 'free lunch' anywhere in the entire universe. Don't even pretend you don't already hold the same opinion."

Surprisingly -- and very confusingly -- a third voice now chimed in: "Sheesh, Commodore, lighten up. You make it sound like he's just a desk job to you."

Both of Teryx looked off to the Commodore's left, whence the voice had come. One wall of the "control room" had undergone a partial loss of opacity. Stepping casually through it to approach them was... another Teryx.

"What--" said both the host and the Commodore in unison.

"Greetings!" said the third Teryx. "Pleased to be online with you both!"

"Oh gods," said the Commodore scathingly. "He's happy. We can't be having that."

A wall of green liquid popped up between the Commodore and the newcomer, but the latter walked straight through it and caused the fluid to explode into a burst of green bubbles that popped gradually out of existence.

"Heya. Don't do that. It's not good for his head."

"Stop, stop," said the Commodore, making a corresponding gesture with his left hand. "Just who the hell are you?"

The third Teryx's tail swished. "Can't you guess?"

"Not really, no," said the Commodore. "I thought perhaps I had finally broken my host's personality enough that another piece of him had become self-aware, but given what just happened I'm going to guess that isn't the case. The secretions I sent out appear to have been neutralized as fast as I could pump them."

"Yeah, silly, because I'm you!"

The Commodore looked the other Teryx over carefully as if thinking about this. Then he looked at the host for confirmation. "Does he seem like me?"

"He does look similarly nice," said Host Teryx with a wink.

"Not helping!" barked the Commodore.

"I'm your offspring, stupid!" said the third Teryx with a laugh. "Turns out that we reproduce asexually by budding, once we've got a host. I know everything you know, 'cause I'm your fully-aged clone!"

The Commodore seemed mortified at the notion, but was forcing himself to remain guarded and unconvinced. "If that's true then how in the _hell_are you so happy?"

"Easy!"

Without elaborating for the moment, the third Teryx gestured with both hands at his sides and struck a beautifully exhibitionistic pose. His mane blew slowly in a breeze which was not there, and the wall of the control room vanished more fully to reveal a vast, beautiful grassy expanse outside, where fog had been until this point. Sun was shining, and there were rainbows and clouds and rabbits chasing each other around. In the distance there was a jungle, too, and monkeys hanging from the trees. There were streams and waterfalls and mountains and lakes -- most of these just dots in the distances, but they were all there in their various grandeur. Host Teryx recognized some of them from his memories.

"I tapped into the parts of Tery's personality you've neglected exploring!" said the new one, before gesturing higher with his arms, as if to invite the others into his glorious and sunny world to look around.

"How would that even happen!?" protested the Commodore. "I run a tight ship around here! I didn't leave things open for business that aren't needed."

The Commodore refused to take even a single step toward the sunny world across the way, but Host Teryx was looking at it with considerable interest. Was that the lake from a big vacation last year...? Wonderment and reminiscence were hitting him in ways that they simply never had since the Commodore's arrival.

The third Teryx was wearing an artist's smock now, and there was an easel beside of him. On the easel was a canvas containing a partially completed painting of the environment behind him. The smock was covered in fresh paint, as if to indicate he had been working on it very recently.

"You did too leave things open for business," said the artist. "You chemically plugged whole aspects of his personality and never touched them."

"Plugging them is the same thing as 'closing them for business'!"

"Not if there's another you around," said the artist, grinning."

The Commodore, waved the notion away with a hand. "At any rate, they seemed rather useless."

"Useless? Well, maybe, but isn't this fancy?" He spun around to show off his smock.

Commodore Teryx refused to look directly at him. "His creative faculties are better leveraged in scheming for my purposes. Also, artists don't do that anymore."

"Don't do what?"

"The smock thing."

"Some do!" insisted the artist.

"Most don't."

Suddenly Artist Teryx was naked, erect, and holding an electronic tablet and stylus instead. He looked around in some degree of confusion.

"That's more like it," said the Commodore.

"Why the erection?"

"If you aren't hard at work for me, then you aren't any artist I want to talk to."

"I thought you didn't care about the arts!"

Meanwhile, behind their mindscape's little barricade, the original Teryx was facepalming, which was strange because he couldn't remember the last time he had experienced this much embarrassment on someone else's behalf. At least, embarrassment not immediately proceeding from exhibitionism or fetish-tickling that had been forced upon him by the Commodore. This was something relatively normal, but it was happening in the most insane context imaginable.

Once again, the strange contextual walls of the space around him seemed to be in flux. Grass was growing through the floor of the control room -- not breaking it open, but image-clipping through it directly. Computer monitors sprouted like trees in the distance, and monkeys dropped from the jungle to go subserviently begin working at them. Liquids of various colors spawned and despawned seemingly at random along an ever-shifting line of scrimmage between the two slugs' mental avatars. Meanwhile, they bickered and bantered. The visual changes shrank or swelled with the ebbs and flows of their argument.

"You must be called the Captain then!" the Commodore was saying. "You'll have to work under me!"

"Nah, I don't wanna call myself by your silly ranking system, even though it'd be cute to see you promoted to Rear Admiral. I mean let's face it, when it comes to rears, you kinda are the admiral."

"OH SHUT IT!"

As the environmental changes progressed, it remained difficult to tell who was actually winning. The Commodore's anger did not seem to be a sign of impending defeat. If anything, the battle was only beginning. A collection of shadowy copies of Teryx rose from the floor between them to protect the Commodore and advance against the artist's position, but the artist responded by conjuring his own frontline of Teryx Golems, which took the form of marble and bronze and gold.

"Latex!" Host Teryx suggested halfheartedly from his prison. "Why don't either of you use some latex...?"

He slumped down to a sitting position. Whoever was winning out there, it seemed that one thing was certain: he, himself, was still losing. The prison had been entirely unaffected by the duel, and the artist wasn't making any effort to free him. He had thought that maybe one of these slugs who had fed on his less-used artsy side for a few days might at least be kind enough to express his secret appreciation for sleek and sensual organic materials... but no such luck.

Damned if he didn't look attractive in marble though. He had to appreciate that. The classical gracefulness of the material was a fair match for the shapeliness of his body.

To the host's surprise, the artist was putting up a remarkably competent fight. Host Teryx wasn't sure what it all meant, but those golems sure seemed to be punching and clawing the hell out of the shadowed clones. Even so, more shadows continued being summoned with ease, and then they would surround the golems and try to drag them to the ground from behind.

A turning point came when the golem-summoning artist ducked low behind the lines of his allies, leaped atop the head of one as it was about to be tipped forward by a cluster of shadows, and used the angle and momentum to catapult himself forward toward Commodore Teryx.

"Haha!" began the Commodore as he stepped back into a fistfighting stance, "so it's a melee you--"

"RRRRRGHRR!!" roared Artist Teryx as he dropped low again and bull-rushed the Commodore's legs and waist.

"--want?"

The Commodore was then struck with cartoonishly large amounts of force and sent hurtling through the wall. Straight through it, as if it didn't exist. Host Teryx heard a fading, "Noooooo...!" scream after this occurred, followed by the sudden and total collapse of all of the shadowy clones, which began to burst into clouds of smoke. The battlefield itself remained a strange melange of the environments that the Commodore and the artist had respectively been promoting.

Host Teryx felt... somehow even more disoriented, now. It was obvious enough this was some kind of dreamworld, but why did he feel so doubly weird right now? It was like if he wanted to stand up, he'd probably fall over and then just keep falling right through the world, and then wrap back around and fall down through the ceiling, and then down through the floor again. Imagining that happening in something like a movie or video game was silly enough, but thinking about it as if it were something which he might actually experience if he moved too much was ugh-worthy.

The artist's golems stopped fighting and began, one by one, to casually flop in place against whatever objects were nearby. Their creator patted his hands together before rubbing them from side to side and smiling. "Yeaaaah~! This is just about perfect," he mumbled unhelpfully as he looked around.

"What'd you, uh..." Teryx was having trouble finding words. "To the Commodore..."

While the remaining golems fell to rest on the floor and/or grass, the artist approached the host's jail cell.

"Oh, don't worry about ol' Commodore. He's gone. For now." He winked at the host. "Handsome~!"

The host nodded and winked back obligingly. Funny, under almost any other circumstances being called "handsome" would've been a sure way to gain his endearment. At the moment, he just wasn't feeling it. Perhaps even his own self-adoration had its limits.

"Right... right," murmured the host as he tried quite hard to focus. Now squinting a little, he tilted his head and tried to phrase this next bit as best he could: "So, uh, are you going to help me get out of here, or...?"

"Hell no!"

"Dammit!" Host Teryx stomped and whacked at the barrier. "Come on! Why not fight him to the death for control of my brain, or whatever it is you slugs do?"

The tone of the reply was cheerful, even whimsical. "I have no idea what we 'slugs' do, but I know it is not that. The fighting we've done for now is plenty, for deciding things. Despite any impressions that our little struggle for control here might've given you, I feel nothing but pacifism toward your Commodore. Possibly because I'm a genetic clone of him. I think. That is how asexual reproduction works, right? Yes? ...On your planet. Well, hopefully it's the same where we come from."

"Nrrrgh, stop hawking for my memories!" snapped the host. "I would've answered you."

"Yes, but this is so much faster. Here, look!"

The artist spent about thirty seconds drawing on the electronic tablet before turning it where Teryx could see. It now showed a fast doodle of himself flexing in the nude, at half mast and apparently standing on a sidewalk or something. It was at the upper end of his own natural artistic ability, as if he had drawn all of it on a good day, but was not as good as that of career artists.

"Okay, credit where it's due, you did that very well, and fast."

"You think so?" asked the artist, sounding genuinely cheerful.

"I do. If you ever take me over you should do that more. Uhm... physically, too."

"Pfft, well if I took you over I'd probably just do whatever your Commodore is already doing now. He was right about one thing: the part of your brain I started out attached to is inferior to the rest when it comes to maintaining long-term domination and planning. I'm just working with what he gave me!"

Host Teryx rolled his eyes and kept them angled to one side. He didn't want to look at the other him right now. This was insulting on so many levels, including ones that actually kind of hurt.

"Anyway, it's time to go. As much fun as it is, keeping you in this trance, it's a bit... chemically inefficient. Like mixing all the colors to make black when you could just use black paint, yanno?"

"Uh. Sure." Host Teryx grimaced as he continued to question whether he was really in better hands or not.

"Back to storebought, bargain-bin everyday wakefulness you go!" declared the artist. "Probably without much memory of all of this. Woosh!"

The last thing the host saw was a silly flourish of the artist's hand, and a collection of dancing monkeys and rabbits running everywhere. There was also a waterfall that fell up.

Then lightness, brightness, noise -- and nothing.

* * *

Teryx regained consciousness to the find himself standing upright in his bedroom -- that same Monday morning, not too much later.

In his hands he held a small goldfish bowl full of odd-smelling, heavily saline water. His nerves were stable, with his muscles flexed and locked into position for holding it securely.

Ostensibly, he was calm, and he no longer felt so sickly. His eyes still stung with dryness.

His awareness of how he had gotten to this point was a confusing blur, but that was only a footnote in his mind right now anyway, because the sight of what was in the fishbowl was so important.

Drifting in the liquid was a slender, otherworldly looking slug, about four inches long when fully stretched out and half an inch wide. It had an abated, burgundy-colored skin tone, intermittently dotted with round, lemon-yellow splotches. The entire surface of it glistened with a thick, slimy moisture, which remained intact despite the surrounding water.

The Commodore.

The Commodore had physically crawled out of his head. Into this bowl. Right here in his apartment!

Teryx's reaction was to hurriedly yet reverently set the bowl down on the end table by his bed, which was only a few feet away. Shame ran through him. Then he felt a rush of mortal dread, the way that a parent might feel if their child was in danger... or maybe a child to a parent.

He shook it off. "What's wrong with me?" he breathed. He could remember that thing had been in his head running him, right up until now, yet all he could feel was fear -- not a reasonable fear of it getting back inside of him, but instead a fear that the sweet, wonderful Commodore's body might be hurt by life outside of a host! The idea of it made him tremble. He couldn't... he couldn't allow this! He must not allow this! The Commodore must be kept warm and safe and nourished!

"No," said Teryx, steeling himself and making a fist as he tried to focus on what his shaky ego told him he needed to do. "I've got to crush it, if I don't crush it..."

NO, NO, NO! Alarm bells sounded in his head. Crushing was bad. Crushing was terrible. The Commodore was his master, his god, but so fragile and delicate... he must be protected, kept safe and warm until tonight... tonight, on an impromptu date, when a host could be found. There was only room in Teryx's head for one alien, so there must be something done...

Teryx dropped to his knees in conflict. On some level he suspected that he was currently a victim of extensive neurological programming -- no doubt laid down by the Commodore as a protective mechanism just in case. His neck felt hot, and he slammed his head against the bed, before roaring in frustration.

So fragile, so in need of me. I have to protect him. He took care of me.

It was Teryx's own mental voice. These phrases, and similar, spoke in an endlessly repeating loop, sapping his resolve and making concentration impossible.

Control was nice. Control was good. Control was... pleasant. He panted and nursed his erection with one hand, before crawling up onto his bed with no more complexity of intellect than a caveman. His pupils dilated. So horny. He was the Commodore's good recruit. He would be good. He would make sure the Commodore had a place to go. Always.

Gruntingly, Teryx worked himself halfway to an upside-down autofellatio posture, knees wide above his abdomen while his tongue flicked and nostrils flared to survey his own glorious dick. A dick that the Commodore had led into so many conquests. It was right there. It needed for him to follow through on his duties and lick, lick, serve...

Then his control of his body numbed entirely, and he sat calmly upright on the bed before grabbing hold of his cock with his left hand and tilting and turning it as he looked it over.

"Heh, ol' Commodore really did pick a nice one," said Teryx's puppeteered mouth. The hand gave the cock three tentative pumps. "Mmmh~! Now that's the good stuff. Hang in there Little Tery; you'll get yours tonight with Harry~!"

Harry? The passenger-ized host wondered about it, but got no reply. Why did that name sound so familiar, yet so impossible to place?

He then stood up and walked out of the room into the kitchen to make some food, his flopping erection just casually adding a bit of drag as he went about preparing for his morning.

No work, though. He'd have to call in "sick" for that one. There were plans to be made in the meantime. Important and very fun plans for tonight! Plans which would involve calling up a certain handsome tiger and simply insisting that he come over.

That was it. What was Harry. Teryx's memory chugged and sputtered with an ambiguous surge of information about him. Big guy, almost as self-obsessed as Teryx himself was, into that whole rough-and-uppity bondage thing...

Teryx's erection went harder again. Every fiber of his being rejoiced at the idea of Harry becoming an alien host -- not by his own choice, but because the chemistry of his brain suddenly and not-so-mysteriously declared it to be so.

* * *

An hour later, the larger context of what had happened with the dream sequence earlier had now come back to Teryx. Conveniently -- and not even a little accidentally -- he had been unable to recall it well when he first "woke up." The Commodore's offspring had only shown him more out of boredom.

For the record, I am not okay with this, Teryx said to his new and as-yet unnamed alien overlord.

The offspring did not reply at first, instead continuing to use Teryx's body to clean and prepare his flat for a few minutes longer. He hummed to himself audibly, something which Teryx almost never did, and specifically hummed a popular song which he had found to be an earworm but never particularly preferred. For the alien in his head, it seemed to be a source of inspiration. He was nearly dancing to the tune as he picked up items and put things away.

After two more minutes of watching his own arms and ass jiggle in rhythm with the annoying song, in between bouts of tidying, Teryx decided enough was enough.

Hey! roared the host into their shared channel of thoughts. Cosmic superstar! Talk to me! I know you can hear me.

At first it seemed like maybe the slug really didn't hear him, because the humming and dance-cleaning kept right on going. Teryx managed to find a memory of an especially loud grumbling noise and played that in his mind too.

Heeeey, relax! the alien finally responded. This arrangement is for both of your own goods you know. Mr. Harry will be so strong and robust as a host, just like you are.

I get the feeling this is all a lot more for your good than for ours.

Mutualism is a thing, in biology. Let's do what we can to make our case an example of it, yeah? Let's do a little team building!

Oh please, that's the last phrase you want to use.

Or is it? You're so interesting when you're frustrated.

Bite me.

I'll decide what your mouth does for now, Tery~

The Commodore's fishbowl was covered with a blue cloth, but remained in the room. The nightstand had been scooted away far enough to allow for vigorous sex without a great risk of knocking it over. He was continuing to tidy up the place like clockwork, with an extra-large spring in his step.

"Anyway, you should be happy," he said aloud while polishing up a few plates in the kitchen and setting the table with a crimson cloth for what would later become a romantic, candle-lit dinner at home. "Your great oppressor is taking a hard-earned detox from living inside you, and his superior updated model is going to treat you to an afternoon of matching colors and picking out dinner menu options~!"

The host played the sound of an inner sigh. The Commodore was right. This part of me was a Pandora's Box that should never have been opened.

"Pff, you're just playing at being a spoilsport like usual. Have some fun with it! We're people on a mission, and you're along for the ride. Might as well enjoy yourself, just like you had been in your submission to my progenitor."

Hngh... that was an extenuating circumstance.

"One of which you had come to love every degenerate second -- and don't you even argue with me about that one. ...Teriyaki beef or chicken?"

Beef... wait a minute, you don't plan on cooking that, do you? Seems kind of ambitious for your first night.

"Oh goodness no. I'll be ordering it out. We have enough schemes to cook up that we should leave the more literal cooking to someone else." He scrubbed the dust out of a candle holder and set it down on the table, before slipping away to a cabinet to look for some seldom-used scented candles, taking a long pause to consider the selection.

Fine, said the host begrudgingly. In that case, just wait until dinnertime and order something with the big cat. Oh, and get the one with peppermint oil... should be nice and relaxing.

It was so easy to slip into this resigned state of thinking now. He already knew from the Commodore that resistance was futile, and at this rate he'd rather find some way to get Commodore back in his head than keep listening to this twerp in the long term. If the new alien could read those emotions from him, it didn't seem to care, as if that suited its own point of view just fine as well.

Teryx's eyes lit on the desired candle, prompting an, "Ah!" from the controlling entity. The dragon's nostrils were buried against the object's surface a moment later for a sniff. "Mmm, now that brings back memories. Though, not many memories."

I don't tend to have a lot of romantic candlelit dinners at home, if you must know.

"Precisely why I'm thinking outside the box. I'm always thinking outside the box!"

Teryx felt a surprising degree of unease from that. The thought of the Commodore drifting in that fishbowl was still... gods, why was it so unsettling? There could've been dozens of normal reasons for him to feel unnerved by it, but none of them rang true.

He programmed so much loyalty into me it's sickening, Teryx commented.

"Stop thinking about all the things that could go wrong. You're triggering that programming bad enough that I can feel it too, and it isn't pleasant."

Teryx had never fully appreciated just how much editing the Commodore had performed upon his nerves behind the scenes. If this much remorse for "losing" him had been silently installed, what else could have been done?

So, uh... Mr. Offspring, you're gonna need a name.

"I plan to determine that with the man who will be my permanent host."

Right... our kitty, Harry... uhm. A clearer sense of the memories still wasn't arriving.

"Oh... don't you know more about him? How uncouth, it seems my predecessor never told you much. Here, let me catch you up to speed."

What followed for Teryx was an experience akin to watching a cinematic montage, presented in the full 3D of a vivid dream, alongside a gushing recall of other data. First there were flashes of his tiger wandering out of a bar in one of the shadier parts of town, surprisingly expensive business suit glowing under the lantern light. Their mutual "What's someone nice like you doing in a not-so-nice place like this?" reactions to one another. Teryx's... no, the Commodore's predatory approach the whole situation, preying on that perceived similarity and playing it up as far as the tiger would let it go. From there, it was scene after scene of their time together: on the streets, before the entrance to Harry's workplace, on the bus, and back at each of their respective flats.

The tiger's full name was Harimau Pasir, but he went by Harry. He was a walking contradiction: an extremely well-paid computer database administrator overseeing a lot of information for a massive corporation, but who nevertheless appeared to spend every ounce of his free time trying to look like that could not possibly be his day job.

The tiger was buff -- an exercise nut who listened to tech news and continuing education through his phone and a pair of earbuds while his feet tromped endlessly across the local gym's treadmill. At home, he was grumpy about practical matters in a way that one might more readily expect from a construction worker or carpenter. He joked that there was nothing substantially different between a database and physical materials anyway, in that it was all "garbage" and you had to "keep it sorted nice or else it would pile up and then come falling down around you."

Harry was also homosexual. Ragingly, ass-conqueringly homosexual and holding some pretty sexist opinions about women that "Teryx" had not debated at the time, in part because Commodore held some pretty species-ist opinions that were largely gender blind. Though, even in his prejudices, Harry was not exactly committal; while drunk he had once confessed that he "would consider sex with a woman if she brought a toy large enough to scare him and the strength and the gear to force that toy into his rear." In Teryx, he had a partner who shared that special, secret preference: that it didn't matter to him who was on top or on bottom, as long as someone fought for it and the struggle had enough reversals to keep the relationship interesting. He wanted someone he could trust to take him while he was vulnerable... and not be fussed if he did the same in return.

As the latest and most consistent romantic flame for "Teryx," Harry was a logical candidate for spreading this invasion. The offspring of Commodore might penetrate the tiger's ear while Teryx penetrated the tiger. The loss of control would be deep and potent, and surely it would satisfy that itch that Harry shared in common with the rain dragon. Teryx could not help imagining the event -- the ideas were being presented to him as if they were real, and his cock was stirring in response.

Through their passion, one controlled man would become two. Then they would repeat the cycle: living, thinking, fucking... until their tiny controlling influences were ready to reproduce again and bring even more people under their sway.

It would be gradual, but also exponential. Soon, and silently, they would spread over the world. Teryx throbbed and leaked pre in response to this notion. He, the patient zero to a global plague of neurological control. He, the handsome stud who would be made to spread their gift of total obedience to the tiny chemists inside their heads.

"Hghhrhr.... hrrr...!!"

Teryx caught himself growling and looked down to find himself naked and erect, a dry orgasm pulsing through his body. He felt a hunger to move his hand to make it progress into something wet and creamy, but found an instant later that what little control he briefly had was now revoked. His neck rose, and his fingers teased proudly along the underside of his shaft, milking the pleasure and feeding the needs of the one currently cozying up against his brain. Through his controlled eyes, he could see that the remainder of the place settings had been placed on the table. His clothes were in an eerily neat pile on a chair nearby.

"Mmm, there," said Teryx's mouth, a warming note of bliss in his voice. "I hope that explains it."

Teryx felt distractingly elated, but his experience in these matters enabled him to hold his focus long enough to inquire about something that he was wondering about. Did you ever tell me you plan on getting into Harry's ear by having me snuggle my head up right against his while we're cuddling, so you can drop from ear to ear? I feel like I suddenly know details you've never told me, too.

"Eheh. Funny how that works. I may have programmed certain assumptions for our use today. Why settle for wrestling with you head-on like Commodore did, when I could just do a little mental sleight of hand and make you think things are your own idea?"

The pit of Teryx's stomach sank. Why indeed? That sounded like a fantastically horrifying degree of power for altering memory.

Mm... either he didn't know how, or he thought he'd get more sexual response out of me by being combative.

"Yes!" his controller replied without clarification.

Humming resumed, of a different but equally annoying song, and Teryx continued making his preparations. Then in about fifteen minutes he'd send a message to see about that date, and make sure everything was in order from Harry's end.

In a singsong voice tha roughly followed the hummed melody, the one in charge sang, "So happy today~ gonna get a new body that's better than Tery~"

HEY!!

"Haha, you're so easy to piss off."

You will not like Harry better than me!

"Hey, who knows? Maybe he'll just be my perfect fit? Besides, we both know who you'd rather have inside you."

Harry's cock? Teryx misdirected.

"You know what I'm referring to." His gaze pointedly shifted toward the fishbowl as he passed the bedroom, and the host's heart jumped automatically in response. "See? I rest my case."

Then the humming continued, incessant and hellish and dancey, for the better part of the next three hours.

* * *

By mid-afternoon, Harry had arrived for tea at Teryx's flat. The stated intention was that they would have their tea break together, then hang out or snuggle for a while as the mood struck them, before leaving for dinner and a movie once the evening arrived. Once they got back afterward... well, interesting things involving ropes and leathers might happen during the night.

That was the plan, as "Teryx" had presented it to Harry in the text messages they exchanged. That there would not be any moviegoing and that the bondage was to be of an altogether different kind were details that he sort of... lied about.

As art-loving as the Commodore's offspring appeared to be, it was becoming increasingly clear to Teryx that the funsy exterior belay a core of methodically parasitic thinking that was somehow even darker and colder than that of the Commodore himself. Continuously allowed to be an alert and relatively lucid observer as their little tea-date progressed, Teryx found himself repeatedly struck by that difference.

Commodore kept most of your emotion and creativity in the background and used them sparingly as sources of motivation, said the offspring's voice during a period when both Harry and Teryx were silent due to savoring sips of their tea. I push them into the foreground. What do you think motivates everything when all the warmth and excitement is forced outward like this? The logical imperative to advance our mission.

Was it really that simple? Was the difference between their expressions really reducible to the difference between inserting tab A into slot B, versus inserting tab A into tab A? He wasn't even sure if that was the whole truth, but either way, it sounded so... creepily mechanical.

But you find that kind of hot, said the alien as it pointedly made Teryx's hand stroke along his bulge under the table.

Teryx tried his best not to think of the objections he wanted to make. It was a skill he was finally starting to learn after these many, many times of being openly defiant.

Everything is going according to plan, the offspring assured. Using my predecessor's knowledge, we determined that Harry is a sucker for tea and biscuits on a nice table setting. He was persuaded to come here. Soon we will persuade him more powerfully.

The inner voice was sounding less like Teryx and more like Commodore's old, flavorless alien self from their earliest days together. Perhaps it was a psychological consequence within the offspring of the upcoming host transfer, which Teryx could already imagine. Actually, "could" was too weak of a word; Teryx was being forced to imagine it. As the tea and biscuits progressed, he found himself envisioning sex with Harry in a variety of positions, with a great deal of focus on options for getting Teryx's left ear lined up with either of Harry's own. These images were mixed shamelessly and unnervingly with the pleasant warmth of the tea and the taste of the biscuits.

Teryx then experienced something mind-bending. He found his status as an observer becoming compromised as well. It was as if the alien was now plugging into him even more forcefully, consuming part of his partitioned-off ability to sense and process the world as his own person. It left Teryx feeling even more zombie-like as he began to... talk aloud.

"Teryx" let his tongue lap low into the teacup as it neared emptiness, before opening up with a question. "I've been wondering something. Your given name is Harimau. Why do you go by Harry?"

"Didn't we go through this before?" The tiger's head made the slightest of tilts.

"Oh, did we?" The puppet dodged the issue, sipped his tea, and pursued the original point: "I think it's a lovely name."

Harry let his cup clack gently against its plate as he released it from his grasp. "Feh. It sounds exotic to people here. I don't like being thought of as exotic. Never a fan of that wide-eyed, mystified look, nor of people asking how to pronounce it if they first see it in writing."

"Yes, I suppose I can see that. You never did go for the strange things, only the more sensible ones."

"Strange has nothing to do with it. It's normal to me, but people here like to accidentally remind me that I am an outsider, by gawking at such basic things."

"Mm, yes, it must be upsetting to be reminded of your distant origin."

"Distant? It's less than a day away with the wonder of modern aircraft. What're you playing at?"

"Heh, it's nothing. Let's drop it." The dragon drank his tea faster and looked as if he were trying to make a poker face and failing, instead betraying a sense of embarrassment.

The tiger's gaze narrowed, and his tail swished up behind him. "You're plotting something over there. What secrets are you whispering into your teacup?"

It was a playful question, but Teryx's co-opted mind took it quite literally. "I'm not whispering anything," he assured after putting the cup down. "I'm thinking."

"Look, you," said Harry, while lifting and fidgeting with his napkin. "Tea and biscuits has been great, but now you're acting funny. Most people, I'd chalk it up to ditziness, but with your pompous ass..."

Teryx grinned but did not interject. He held a palm down and open over the cup, letting the mild steam warm it as the seconds passed.

"You're plotting something to take advantage when you get me in the sack tonight, aren't you."

"Based on me asking about your name?"

"Doesn't matter. I know that look from you. You're plotting something, you handsome slut."

Teryx laughed. "Well, as a matter of fact, yes."

"Uh-huh. You going to tie me up and try to shame me about my embarrassment over my name? That's so over the top into foul play that I almost like it."

At this moment, the host and the hosted both gained an increased sense of just how much the Commodore had enjoyed toying with this tiger. Harry had a narrow sweet spot of sensitivity which could be skillfully poked to generate genuine emotional submission, but anything too light-handed or too heavy-handed would prompt varying levels of fiery, aggressively dominant response. He was a territorial tiger, which had made it all the more interesting to figure out how to use psychology to gerrymander his boundaries.

For the current alien slug, however, psychology and chit-chat were fast growing stale. He needed to do a more physically direct form of art instead -- to paint using the brilliant watercolors of serotonin, dopamine, and all of those other neurotransmitters and hormones that would allow him to claim the tiger as his own.

"Let's just say that I'm a romantic. I only wanted you to tell me your name again, before I put myself deep inside you."

Harry folded his arms, closed his eyes, and boasted in reply: "You'll be the one saying my name like a bitch, so perhaps it's good that you asked for a reminder." His eyes reopened and fixed themselves toward Teryx's own. "A dumb slut like you can't possibly have a good memory anyway."

Teryx slurped seductively into his tea. "Heh, I can have a spotty memory sometimes, but you can bet that we'll both remember tonight. We're going to lose our control like a pair of caged animals."

"Pff, you might. Good luck making me go wild for you."

"Challenge accepted. Why don't we go ahead and try a nice, strong cuddle?"

Harry winked. "It might be hard on your digestion."

"What, is my big tiger afraid of some pre-dinner fun?"

"No, but I thought your sprightly little diva body might be."

"Bedroom. Now. You're going to wrestle me for that and I'm going to win and shove your face so deep into my mane you can't breathe."

"Hah!" The tiger stood up. "Try it. You're out of your weight class, dragon boy!"

"Teryx" laughed, with a distinct sinister edge. This was going to be... how did the terrestrials think of it? Fun.

* * *

The sound of Teryx and Harry at play that afternoon might be best described as "the sound of someone attempting to murder a bed."

An erratic rhythm of whumps and thumps told the story of their foreplay as both of them tried to make good on their claims to superior strength and skill. Then, anytime one of them seemed to be getting the advantage, a reversal would send one of them toppling noisily from the bed and onto the floor, at which point the tossed male would rebound immediately into action again.

They had never horsed around quite this hard with one another in the past. To Harry, it seemed like Teryx was being a goading, tight-and-fuckable asshole. To the one controlling Teryx, however, the situation was far less emotional. Wrestling was more a matter of algebra than of art: apply x_force to _y location in order to prompt reaction z. The artfulness would come in breaking Harry -- in getting inside of him and sculpting him into the perfect vessel, just as Commodore had done to Teryx before.

The as-yet-nameless offspring relished the thought. This was his chance to surpass his... father? Such terms could not properly describe their relationship, but that was irrelevant. He would spread. He would enter the tiger and claim that strong and vicious body for his own.

When one of Harry's large hands finally managed to pin Teryx's snout sideways while the rain dragon lay prone on the bed, even this apparent loss was all according to plan.

"Hrrgh... fine, ya got me, big guy," the dragon grumbled, his voice muffled by the circumstances.

Harry's erection was already touching Teryx's rump. "What a bitch, making me work for it..."

"There's no better way to rev up your engines, you know."

"Hrr, shaddup!" Harry replied as he grabbed Teryx's waist. "Make your mouth useful and bite a pillow. You're gonna need it tonight!"

"Oh, did I make kitty angry? How scary!"

"GHHRRRHGH!!"

Teryx's shoulder suffered an immediate love bite that was deep enough to draw blood. A grin flashed across his snout as he felt Harry bear down on him, nudging him up onto his hands and knees to let the inevitable penetration begin. This was coitus more ferarum, sex after the manner of beasts, and soon it would be time to move in for this beast's capture. He only had to wait for Harry to tire himself out.

Harry's barbs were excitable tonight, but the living pharmaceutical factory inside of Teryx found it trivial to dull the pain. While Harry humped and bucked, Teryx gently rocked and relaxed, pacing himself and refusing to be drawn in. Once the tiger was really going strong, the dragon clenched with a slow but unrelenting rhythm, keeping Harry's nerves excited as they thrust their way toward that inevitable climactic spasm.

The tiger began to berate him as the moment of truth approached. He called Teryx things, mean things that would've hurt if they had been taken seriously, but it was all immaterial. Even this raging cock inside his ass was immaterial, a mere prop in a staged play to achieve an end.

"H-Harry, you're gonna make me..." Teryx blustered as if about to shoot his load onto the sheets.

The tiger answered in growls and snarls instead of words. His hips and balls slammed against Teryx's own, tempting the dragon's prostate to make like an attack submarine and deploy all torpedoes at once. It was only the Commodore's training and the offspring's suitable present-day command that kept this from occurring.

Nevertheless, Teryx moaned and sold the idea that he was on the edge and soon to cum. Harry bought it and kept hammering away, dick throbbing within the dragon's cave until the time to flood it arrived.

"Ngh... nghhrrrhrrr!! Hrr..."

Teryx counted the spurts, feeling the tiger's grip weakening with each one. So hot, so exhausted... so spent. Harry would only want to cuddle, now -- to pass his afterglow with Teryx and fall asleep. He would suspect nothing as he lay spooning, and then Teryx would lean his head across the tiger's neck, nuzzling for a moment before pressing ear to ear...

"Hey, did you even cum, ya slut?" Harry muttered.

"Mmm, not yet tiger-daddy~" Teryx lilted.

"Grrf, idiot. Did you paw without telling me?"

"Hehe, no way. I'm just saving up for later."

"Damn right you are. No finishing for you right now when you acted like that. You'll let me get my second wind, and then I'll make you cum one way or another."

"Yes sir. Even if you have to tie me up and punish me for being naughty and not cumming with you."

"Yeah, you'd really hate that I bet!"

Teryx chuckled. Then he leaned in. The slow dance of their bodies had been working its way into a spooning posture. Harry's deflating cock slipped free of Teryx's rear, leaving the dragon quite moist inside. Now came the nuzzling of the chin... the rubbing of Teryx's snout along the tiger's nose.

Then, a rush of chemically mandated command. A need. To serve, to obey. Even as the slug within him detached itself. Teryx's mind spun, his body still not under his control and his perceptions awash with dizziness and apprehensiveness. Like a robot following programming, he moved his head up along Harry's to rest cheek to cheek... then, scooted a little further upward, cutely pressing back against him and getting his ear very close to the tiger's.

Both males heard a wet, barely audible slop as the vulnerable alien master fell into Harry's left earlobe and swiftly followed the warmth inside.

The tiger's eyes narrowed. His recent climax had dulled his awareness of the space inside his ears, but when he eventually noticed moist heaviness slipping deeper inside, he knew something was wrong. He sat up suddenly and awkwardly, nudging Teryx away and mumbling something in protest of further cuddles.

Then Harry winced and groaned before standing upright and running off to the washroom.

Teryx looked on without moving to assist, nor to interfere. He was quivering as he heard the sound of Harry shouting expletives at the mirror.

"Where are your swabs!? I've got something in my ear." He swore again and let out a pained growl -- though Teryx was unsure whether it was because of what the slug was doing, or because of excessive zeal on Harry's part for probing the ear with his own claws. "Grrragh, dizzy... ear's ringing. Dammit! Teryx!"

There was no reply from the dragon. Teryx had heard the words, but the sense of urgency they would have normally conveyed was not reaching him. As quickly as Harry's mood had shifted in response to feeling something deep inside his ear, so too had Teryx sunk deep into a mire of strong and confusing emotions.

First, there was a sense of reward -- of goodness and worthiness as a servant of his masters. Then there was fear -- an instinctive reaction to realizing that the slug must be injuring Harry in some way right now, which was different from the slow approach that the Commodore had taken within Teryx. There was a sense of schadenfreude because Harry always loved to act tough but then get beaten down, the wish for which this event would surely grant in the most spectacular way possible. There was a sense of kinship, at knowing Harry would soon feel much as Teryx himself so often did.

Yet, above all of these other feelings -- and compounding and complicating their effects -- was a yawning void of sorrow at not currently having one of the alien slugs inside of him. It was like being addicted to a drug and then kept off of it for far too long -- except the withdrawal was setting in within a mere matter of seconds, not days or weeks. He shook, shuddered at the thought of never having that strong voice inside of him again. Then there were intrusive fears of something terrible happening to Commodore's fishbowl. What if Harry flew into a rage and damaged it? The Commodore must be protected. He must... Teryx must offer his body as a safe place for the Commodore again!

But he must wait. Wait. He must not do it yet. He must not give away what was happening, not until Harry was under control.

Teryx did not currently have the presence of mind to recognize this progression for what it was: an elaborate set of psychological programs installed by the offspring before it left him, mixed with his own natural predisposition to love having a controlling force in him.

Harry returned to the room in a huff to find Teryx on the floor -- on hands and knees, panting, cock limp and balls sagging. The dragon had turned away from the bed, as if unable to watch or think clearly about what would soon transpire.

"Sorry," was the only cryptic, near-emotionless word that Teryx could muster.

It was not a word he had been programmed to say, but whether it was the result of any real regret or not was impossible for either man to tell.

"Eh? What the heck are you sorry about?"

Harry did not have time to get an answer to that question before immobility seized him. He fell onto the bed and began thrashing around, as if having a seizure, but with more intermittent conscious resistance. He was not successful. His limbs soon showed signs of going numb; his plump but slack cock was forced to grow hard even as fear overcame him. His fingertips and toes were still twitching as Teryx turned around to observe him.

The dragon stood up and folded his arms, tail swishing a little as he watched the tiger's induced paralysis finish setting in.

"That's good," he said, as if commenting on the uplifting sight of a little bird flying by in the park.

Everything was right with this situation. Harry was under control. Now Teryx must go to the fishbowl and recover the only one in the world who truly understood him.

* * *

When the Commodore first took hold of Teryx, it had been with clandestine caution. The offspring had decided in advance to be more aggressive in claiming the tiger: he wanted to observe Harry's suffering and surprise at being forced to comply. It came not from any real sense of sadism, but from scientific instinct. The silent and clever takeover of Teryx was currently the only data point for how these creatures reacted to neural conquest; reactions to a more unpleasant invasion needed to be assessed as well. Many different approaches could be tested ad infinitum as their race continued to spread throughout the population of the planet. With time they could profile what methods would have the greatest odds of inducing long-term submission the quickest, and even match those methods to specific hosts in the event that personality variance among the creatures made this the ideal strategy.

Nevertheless, this urge had partly manifested itself as a slight sadism in Teryx's brain prior to the transfer. There had been the sense that Harry deserved what was coming. That smoking hot, smug bastard whose smug bastardry was only competitive with Teryx's own. The "suffering" he would experience in the slug's chemical grasp would be a work of art. That total loss of control, shackled and placed on the shortest and most invisible of leashes.

These points of data were known and recorded. Now, more still remained to be learned.

You hear my voice.

Wha? Who are you?

I am your new owner.

I don't... why can't I move? The fuck is going on!?

Naked cat, listen well. Your boyfriend has brought you the greatest gift: me. I will give you purpose. I will never betray you. I will record every useful piece of information you can provide. You will become part of something greater than your silly little life of acting like you don't want to wear bondage gear but hating it if no one makes you do it. Do you accept this?

No! Get out! What are you!?

I didn't think you'd go easy. Very well.

Suddenly, there were lights and sensations.

Harry was in a jungle, wearing some kind of tribal getup. Leather straps and scanty loincloth. It looked like something out of some kind of jungle-sex porno.

From behind him, a much larger, bulkier tiger who looked very similar to himself was striking the backs of his legs with a riding crop.

"Now, on your knees," intoned the voice.

Harry didn't obey. He wouldn't obey! He turned and growled and tried to fight back!

He was surprised to realize that the buff tiger behind him didn't just look similar to him... it was him. It was an exact image of himself... but somehow idealized. His bulk was even greater. His muscle tone was perfect. His fur was perfectly sleek, glistening in the sun. It was as if he had ascended to become some sort of god and then come back down to mock his former self.

He was getting an erection within seconds as the stronger hands of his counterpart let go of the riding crop and gripped him around both wrists. A moment later, the leather bands which were around each had materialized black metal chains, which the larger version of himself now gripped instead of holding his arms directly.

"Get down and give me what I want, kitten~" his larger self commanded.

"Y-yes, sir," said Harry.

He didn't know what was wrong with him. This must all be a dream, he reasoned. He was dreaming about himself, big and buff and gorgeous, with a dick that somehow even smelled and tasted better than normal. Veinier, a little thicker... the erection perfect, the precum ample.

"Together we'll become perfect, Harry," said the larger tiger, as if unaffected by the blowjob that was underway.

Harry, meanwhile, was grimacing in pleasure. The more he sucked the tiger's cock, the more the pleasure built up in himself.

"Mmmh... yes, sir."

"Admire it. Enjoy it. Become it."

Harry's hands grabbed the larger Harry's balls, feeling how firm and bulging they were. He could almost feel the potency in his fingertips. Then he felt upward, caressing the strong thigh and up to the taint, the inner part of his erection firmly felt through the skin there. Then those fingers wandered all the way around, and he inserted two into the tailhole, which flexed and grasped him as if to demand the insertion of more.

"Good boy, Harry Pasir. Drink up, and become one with me. I'm everything you need to become what you see here."

The kneeling Harry's eyes widened and slowly rolled in bliss. He looked down and saw his own cock spontaneously shooting cum onto the grass and dirt below him, as if all the pleasure he had been giving to his counterpart had rebounded double onto himself. So much... he had to cum a lot for the bigger one. In a fleeting moment of feeling more self-aware, he mused that the tiger must be his real self or something, some presentation from within his mind to help him get huge.

Then the sense of something foreign came over him. It wasn't him. It wasn't himself. Furthermore, there was almost a feeling of gravity to him. Harry was sucking the bigger him, but as he kept doing it, it was like he was being sucked up! Not by the cock he was sucking, but by the whole of the larger man's body. He saw the large tiger's abs flexing at him as the sucked cock erupted down his throat. His face pressed in against the muscles, the sucked cock angling upward as the force turned Harry upside down. The heat of those abs felt greater, heavier... and then there was a sense of numbness as he was absorbed into the muscles, bones, and cock of his counterpart.

Every inch of that huge tiger was where his mind would dwell for the moment... but that tiger was not exactly him. That tiger was to be his prison, or at best, his container. A dream he couldn't realize. A conceited dream that might trap him.

While he thought about this, darkness overcame him. Then he found himself looking out from the eyes of the bigger, buffer tiger. He was not in control, but felt totally engulfed within the strength and the perfection that surrounded him.

The larger tiger's eyes looked downward, demonstrating that the smaller Harry's form was nowhere to be found.

"It's no conceited dream, I assure you," said the idealized Harry. Then he looked himself over, admiring the limbs and taking note of the championship-worthy proportions. "If you accept my influence, you will achieve this body that you desire."

Regular Harry, wherever exactly regular Harry now existed, could hardly think. It was like his mind was being squeezed by the flexing of those muscles and the thumping of that strong heart. "Wanna be... this," he managed to say.

"Yes, of course you do, heh... in order for that to happen, you're going to have to spend a lot of time subsumed inside of me. I will sculpt you, train you -- show you the way."

There was no response, save for a trembling in the muscles of the idealized Harry's gut. The tiger was quickly becoming his.

"No need for this dreamscape now. Still, it would be a waste to end it so soon."

Chuckling to himself, he massaged the already-embellished size of his cock, enjoying the way the tiger's brain created a theater of remembered pleasures in response. Stroking it back to full hardness, he began to file through Harry's memories of sex, seeing which sensations triggered thoughts of which encounters. Like Teryx, he was a very experienced man.

"Mmm, good host. You'll do nicely. Now tell me more of your secrets while little Teryx goes to do what we have programmed him to do~"

The large hands worked his cock and balls, and he squatted low along the moist earth. He both felt and presided over the erotic aggressiveness that so strongly defined who Harry was: every man a possible conquest; every night a chance to enjoy being conquered.

He would take it slow and explore it as he wished. He would delve into the mysteries of his host's mind in a few more... interesting, simulations. The power of the mind to imagine and to dream would be his vehicles for unlocking all sorts of knowledge. With a little focus, he was able to give Harry his ordinary body back, and conjure up the image of a whole tribal village around them... one in which the idealized tiger was Harry's master.

This would be quite fun, and he figured Teryx and the Commodore would like some time to get reacquainted anyway.

* * *

With the bed taken up by Harry -- who either already was, or would soon be, in the throes of alien possession -- Teryx carried his Commodore's fishbowl to the living room instead, and sat it down carefully on an end table next to the sofa.

Carefully and even reverently, Teryx lifted away the cloth which was concealing the bowl, and the fabric to dab away the drooling excess of Harry's load from his rear, before folding it up and strategically placing it on the sofa so that another dry part of it could rest under him when he sat down.

Just like he was supposed to. He must clean himself just enough not to create needless extra work that might distract from the day's plans. Now he must sit down, on the sofa, and take his... his one and only, his most worthy Commodore back inside of his body.

Teryx was trembling as he reached a hand into the bowl. He was surprised to feel a slight, vaguely acidic tingle against his fingers as he wrapped them around the slug. With utmost care, he lifted the Commodore's "secret body" from the bowl and pulled it over, holding it and admiring it.

It was, to Teryx's perception, utterly beautiful up close. Smooth and perfect, its slickness and strange coloration brought joy rather than distress for the man who knew just what this creature was. Teryx could tell, with some pride, that the overall thickness was now much greater than the tiny rupture through which it had first emerged from its canister. It had grown fat and strong after being nourished by its time in Teryx's brain.

The creature's four-inch length, minimal variation in girth, and movement patterns all could've helped it be mistaken for a worm at a distance, but the shape of it was definitely more like a gastropod in its details. While its front lacked any kind of upraised stalks, Teryx could now see that it had a "face" of about a dozen tiny, half-millimeter-wide upraised knobs, which collectively were wreathed by a group of ultra-thin yellow hairlike structures -- cilia, in Earthly biological terms. These might have numbered in the hundreds, though would be impossible to count them accurately with the naked eye due to how thin they were and how closely together they undulated. Closer inspection showed that cilia seemed to be present within the yellow splotches all along the body as well, but those were either far less numerous than the ones on the "face," or else they were in some kind of retracted state, because only a few tufts were visible to the eye here and there at the moment. The cilia seemed to be of variable length, with the longest being about a millimeter across.

He eyed it all with wonder, for a moment holding it very close to his snout. The thing gave off a mild, but still quite perceptible, odor that reminded Teryx of nail polish remover.

Teryx felt purest joy as he examined it, watching it rotate and squirm in his hand. When the cilia at the front brushed along his hand, he felt a strange electrical sensation which made him feel progressively more easygoing each time it happened.

Teryx's tongue lolled briefly in a pant. This was it. This was him.

The dragon didn't see an alien invader bent on conquering his world. He didn't see a dangerous parasite that might kill his brain if it wiggled the wrong way or emitted the wrong chemicals.

Instead, he saw... there were no words for it now. Endless exultation could not convey it. He needed it. He must. He drew his tongue back into his maw and beamed a smile. Then he turned, lying down on his back across the sofa, while feeling that tingle along the palm of his hand once again.

The dragon's cock was granite hard as he lowered the Commodore onto his belly, letting the slug come to rest against the lean surface of his abs. He felt a wild and ecstatic urge, as if he might be able to thrust his hips just once toward the ceiling and ejaculate wildly all over his master, as a way of showing his thankfulness in the primitive way that people of this world sometimes did.

Strict reverence, however, forbade any such thing. Teryx's erection lingered proud and tall, precum oozing from its pink draconic tip and rolling slowly downward along its ventral ribbing. Meanwhile, an equally slimy flow was creeping upward, left in the wake of the Commodore's movements. Wiggling like an inchworm, the Commodore passed through the groove of Teryx's belly button and slowly further along toward the chest. Everywhere the slug touched felt warm and prickly... sensitive. Teryx's fingers couldn't resist touching the trail once the slug moved along; then the warm slime got on his fingertips too, making everything feel so vivid and vibrant.

Teryx must let this happen. He could feel the slug moving up past his pecs, then creeping up onto his neck, moving straight on up under his chin before detouring off toward the left side. Toward his ear...

Teryx gasped and cringed as he felt the oozey feeling closing in. A flood of remembered images bombarded his mind: the fear and irritation of the day he had discovered the thing filling his ear at the beach house, the mystery of the canister... and the delirious loss of self which followed. He felt a jumbled mix of the Commodore's confusion upon "awakening" in Teryx's body, his own confusion after all of those blackout episodes... and underneath it all, the screaming frustration of his jailed sense of self -- a rebellious yell against his circumstances.

No more Commodore! the voice seemed to say. The feelings are all a lie, a trick to make you obey!

Panting from the rush of internal conflict, Teryx gained partial lucidity. He became aware of what he was doing, and of its basic ramifications. Protective instincts kicked in from there. He jabbed his left hand up to his ear... but was mere seconds too late to prevent that sickening feeling of something thick, moist, and wormy inserting itself.

Yet, he was still a broken man. He didn't fight it -- certainly not as hard as he once could have. He did not have Harry's reaction of rushing to try to find something to shove into his ear and probe around. No, that would be much too violent, much too resistant. He mustn't do that.

Teryx groaned. Something in his groin was heating up with a strange degree of insistence. His cock was bobbing in place, and his prostate felt like it was being hammered on by some object in his rear, except he knew perfectly well there was nothing there.

"Nhgh... no, no... no...!" Teryx whimpered. A moment of true weakness and hopelessness, made bearable only by his secure understanding that no one else would ever know. No one but himself and the "friend" who was about to lay claim to his mind once more.

He sat up and rubbed a hand to his eyes, taking care not to get the thing's goo on them. He had expected to find tears, but didn't find a drop. His body knew better than to weep in grief at the return of its master. It was only this fragile core of his mind that even still cared. The rest...

The rest was happy. Not just happy, but ecstatic. He felt good. He felt so good, the pleasantness of it starting to spark again deep inside his skull before spreading down through his trunk and into every extremity. He was a good soldier, a good servant, he had done so well. Wordless praise bathed him like the light of a beachside sun.

Without meaning to, Teryx kicked forward off the sofa and landed on the floor, on his knees. Then he lifted his back straight so that his cock was jutting in front of him, and turned himself around to face the sofa on which he had just been lying. The cloth which had so kindly sheltered the fishbowl and then wiped the cum from his butt -- he took it and dragged it over to the edge of the sofa, leaving a clean corner of it handing over the edge. Then he flexed his pelvic floor and bobbed his cock up above it, before letting the frenulum slap down against the fabric.

A shiver of bliss went through Teryx. He tried to move himself voluntarily but couldn't anymore. His body was once again becoming the Commodore's puppet. Just like "old times." Just as it should be. The joyful alarms rang loud and powerfully all through him. His arms folded themselves behind his back, as if he were tied to a pole. He moaned out in enforced praise of his master.

You must cum now, to celebrate my return. You must remember my return as a source of ultimate bliss.

Teryx's abs spasmed, followed by a sense of fullness that was heating up his entire groin. Struggling was more than futile now; it was utterly undesirable, except inasmuch as it could enhance the experience. He mentally gritted his teeth and tried, at least. He tried to make his teeth actually grit together. He tried so hard to make his hips pull away, and not buck against the soft fabric the way they were starting to do... but all he managed was to make the grin spreading across his face a little firmer, and the thrusts more vicious and jerking.

"Y-es, Commodore..." he finally uttered, the last embers of his resistance going cold once more as he said it.

Then the nerves around his prostate went wild. The surrounding muscles pulsed as if he was being rammed with an absolutely massive cock, one which could force his seed out of him by sheer virtue of size.

An instant later, he felt a swath of electrical, powerful pleasure roll up from his nethers. It was enough to make him roar in triumph, maw and throat moving as if on their own. His cock throbbed -- and shot two long, thick ropes of his load straight onto the cloth. Curiously, that was all that it shot. He did not issue even one more small shot, even though his cock continued to throb for several more waves.

"Heh, that's one shot for each of us," said the Commodore through Teryx's body. "The rest we'll save for later, while I work up a fresh batch to go along with it." He admired the load on the cloth. "Mmm, admirable and creamy."

Folding it over, he stood and took the cloth to his laundry bin.

Teryx lost consciousness at the moment the Commodore shut the lid.

* * *

To Teryx's immense surprise, he found himself suddenly awake and in control of his body again just a few minutes later, albeit with his Commodore's presence looming large in his thoughts. That feeling of being watched and on a neurochemical leash... it was better for him now than anything else. He paused for a moment to smile at just how much more right the world felt again.

You know what to do, Commodore told him. Attend to it while I finish reintegrating myself.

Teryx found that he, indeed, knew what he was supposed to do, with the Commodore's words being accompanied by a surge of new truth. He must go to the bedroom and watch over Harry again, just to confirm that the power politics inside the tiger's head were going well. Once that was evident, Teryx was to remain in the room and be ready to speak with Harry as if nothing unusual had happened.

To Teryx's further, but only mild, surprise, he found Harry standing upright near the bed as he entered.

Well, maybe not quite "upright," but certainly up, rather than flat on his face on the covers.

When Teryx first saw Harry, the tiger's back was to him. The tail was pointing diagonally toward the floor, rigidly and at a steep angle. Meanwhile, the tiger's spine was oscillating between a deep slouch and a crunching forward motion that made it look as if he might be trying to do sit-ups while standing.

"Uaaaawhr..." groaned Harry, somewhere between a humanoid groan and a feral tiger noise.

Teryx winced a little. He wondered if he had looked like that during any of his blacked out periods when Commodore first took him over.

Let's just say that I'll never tell anyone if you don't, commented the voice in his thoughts.

Heh, yeah. Sounds good to me. Your little clone seems like it's doing a number on him.

Then, suddenly, Harry stood bolt upright, with his hands at his sides, as if coming to attention for some kind of drill. Then his arms moved in a horribly coordinated attempt to make some kind of saluting motion.

"Yes. Sir. Yes. Sir!" said the tiger in an uncannily forced series of tones. It wasn't quite robotic, but it certainly didn't sound natural.

The hell...? continued Teryx, a bit wide-eyed as he kept watching.

I cannot imagine where my offspring got the idea of forcing his host to strike military poses and salute him, said Commodore in feigned innocence.

Fine view of his ass from back here though.

Commodore laughed. That's the spirit. Find the fun in every situation.

That Harry's ass was a fine one was a fact of life which needn't be elaborated on by either. The glutes were certainly one of the regions of Harry's body which he had put extra effort into sculpting, along with the thighs that lay right below them. The bit of fat he had packed on as well made them that much meatier and grabbable... but it was the kind of grabbable meat that could fight back, and the Commodore enjoyed that, as did Teryx.

The view ended abruptly as Harry turned around, spent and still cum-moistened dick greeting Teryx's eyes instead. The dragon's gaze moved smoothly upward to look into Harry's... askew, unfocused eyes, which continued moving around in a manner reminiscent of someone in REM sleep, except his eyelids were wide open and his body apparently wasn't self-paralyzed to stop him from moving.

"Why does the voice make me think, 'Yes, Sir' so much," Harry babbled, his tone not varying, nor showing any recognition of Teryx as a person. He began pumping his fist now. "Yes, sir, yessir, yessir, yessir... join the tribe, be the strong one. Be the better me. Yes, sir."

As this rambling continued, he began to take jerky and ill-balanced steps around the apartment. Commodore snagged control of Teryx's body briefly to make him step aside in clean avoidance of the oncoming "zombie," who continued fist-pumping and chanting in that monotone voice as he went out into the living room. When Teryx had control again, he heard a thud and peeked out to see that Harry had stumbled and fallen on his knees near the kitchen, before kicking himself back up off the floor and wobbling his way upright again. Then he just started growling and hissing randomly, as if he were involved in some kind of fight, but his body movements only loosely reflected this. He swatted one of his hands open-palmed against a wall and thumped against it with ineffectual force, his claws mercifully not digging into the wallpaper.

"Fight anyone, be strongest... best me..." Harry kept babbling.

Teryx blinked slowly a few times as the tiger kept going in a circle around the living room, rambling and shambling. After another half minute of this, however, it started to become clearer and clearer that even though the situation was bizarre, it was also tightly controlled and being manipulated by the offspring to cause little or no harm to either Harry or his surroundings. A truly wacked-out person with no guidance would've been hard pressed to go around the apartment in such a wildly meandering fashion without causing more damage to something.

"Power... strong... sir, yes, yes, sirrrrghr..."

You know, I wouldn't have read Harry as someone who's prone to verbalizing his internal state like that.

Commodore was quick to clarify the matter. He isn't. My spawn has drugged the hell out of him. He's quite literally not himself.

Mmm, kind of hot...

Strong cat stumbling around like a clumsy nerd?

Worse than that. I've seen plenty of nerds who didn't fall over.

True.

It's hot watching him wander around, in the grip of some other influence, no doubt whispering to him about how he's going to be buff and strong and everyone's going to respect him... but the true power will rest elsewhere. Inside him. Mmmm...

Heh, yeah, said Commodore in a tone which very closely mimicked the aroused commenting voice that Teryx himself had just been using. Must feel nice for him to have all that responsibility and decision-making pulled from him by someone far stronger and more capable than he is.

Teryx huffed, feeling aroused and bothered, yet incapable of getting hard at the moment. He grinned a bit as he caught sight of Harry falling backward against the rear of the sofa and beginning to buck his hips vigorously toward some imagined other character above him.

"Show you how... strong I ammm!!" the tiger grunted, still totally out of it. His erection wasn't even filling up, and from the outside there was no telling whether or not it would.

Well, we'd best give them some time, observed Commodore.

Agreed. For once.

We agree upon quite a lot. You know this.

Heh. Maybe. I'm not sure what's real anymore. How do I know you're not just making me feel contrarian to satisfy your hunger?

Please. Forcing the issue is in the other me's territory. You know how I work. After all, it's based on the coldest and most alien parts of you.

Yeah, and I'd never want it to be artificial if I could help it. Still, I could've sworn I felt a lot worse ten or fifteen minutes ago. Not proud of myself at all. Like I was a total freak. Seems weird just thinking about it now.

Commodore's response took suspiciously longer than usual to arrive, even if only by a few seconds. Just let that go away like a bad dream. We have work to do now -- fresh-squeezed neural juices to gather up.

Was that... compassion Teryx had detected? Or was it something even more complex?

The notion was promptly combated by a smokescreen of erotic feelings and pleasure. Mm, thinkin' about the work feels nice, Teryx found himself replying back, without taking time to consider it properly.

As it should, said Commodore, now sounding a bit like a professor who had just put an unruly student in his place. Now if you don't mind, I think it's time we squeezed out a little bit more. In the bedroom. A nice, long, dry and unsatisfying session for you, to get this body all worked up.

Teryx considered this, and for some reason just felt like being obstinate. Actually, I do kinda mind. I don't know if I wanna be your dry-hump slave anymore.

Teryx blacked out before he could get to the part where he was going to say with relish and defiance, I'm not used to my Commodore feeling like he needs to ask my permission.

* * *

"You do know the correct answer to that was, 'Yes, Commodore,' right?"

Teryx looked up. He was lying on the floor in some kind of bondage dungeon. A spartanly furnished one with gray walls and flooring, and wall shackles made of what looked like jet-black iron.

A smugger version of himself was standing over him. Then again, maybe it wasn't "smugger" so much as "how smug he actually looked to other people in daily life, as opposed to when he practiced looking smugly at himself in the mirror." He could concede that there was always a difference between practice and live performance.

"We're in made-up fantasyland again, aren't we?" asked Teryx.

"We are," said Commodore while folding his arms. "Wanna get tied up?"

"No, I--"

An instant later, Teryx found himself upright and shackled tightly to the wall with his ankles and arms spread wide. He was positioned like an anatomical sketch, sans the blurred alternatives for the different limb positions.

"I've only been gone a short while, you're so happy to see me when I first get back, and now you're already forgetting how things work."

"Am I? I'm not bothered by anything I see here..."

Commodore grabbed him by the ankle and squeezed, working the fingerclaws along the shackle.

"Mmm. Handsome," Commodore complimented as he looked up at his nude form. "It's good to be back."

Teryx smiled. "Entrapped self-adoration. I like it."

"That's evident." Commodore pointed at Teryx's growing dream-boner.

"Heh. Shall we explore this in real life sometime? Somehow?"

"I'm sure we will. Still, you're not giving me the proper respect."

"I thought you would enforce it like usual. Heck, what happened to your threat of dry and unsatisfying times in the bedroom? I expected... I mean, I expected rougher from you upon your return!"

Commodore frowned. "I don't follow."

"You know... I imagined you'd leave me conscious but with no control, making me squirm as you walked me in there and put my hand on my cock, slowly teasing me until I was going crazy. Then I would try to resist you because my emotions were flaring up, you pushing all my 'uppity' buttons and getting me to feel so justified in fighting you. From there you'd... make the magic happen, you know? You'd feed off me, and I'd get those... needs, of mine, taken care of. It's always heaven, but this time you took it inside our head instead of following through out there."

"And what's all of that supposed to mean? You think I've gone soft on you?" As if to prove his point, he slapped Teryx hard across the face.

It hurt pretty good, but it wasn't enough to convince Teryx that nothing was awry.

"You seem different, that's all... and there's only one thing I can think of that might've caused that."

Commodore looked away. Around them, the walls and floor of the dungeon faded to plain blackness, although Teryx remained somehow bound as if nothing had changed.

"Woah," said Teryx, whose dream boner was feeling jeopardized. "I didn't mean to be insulting there. Keep doing what you need to do!"

Commodore shook his head. "Be honest: is it so evident?"

Teryx groaned and looked left and right into the blackness before addressing his counterpart again. "You don't have the same bite. You act like someone who feared for his life recently. I gotta admit, it's not as fun as... when you were almost as much of a megalomaniac as your offspring seems to be. You're almost too friendly right now."

Commodore rolled his eyes. "Only you would complain that I'm not being cruel enough."

"Look, I know how this works. I know I can't overcome you if you're trying... and right now, I can sense that you aren't, at least not as much. If I had as much fight in me now as I did a month ago, maybe this would be getting really interesting right about now. Maybe I could even buck your control a little... but you know as well as I do that that dragon flew away after you broke me."

"You're not acting very broken right now!"

"You know that isn't true. You can feel how exhausted I am, even trying to explain this. You repeatedly showed me that you're both capable of wrestling my brain into submission and smart enough not to put me wastefully in danger. You deserve to own me. Fair's fair... but right now, you seem like there's plenty else on your mind."

"Hmph... maybe."

"Look, you demand a lot of me, Commodore, but I have to ask you something... as an obediently uppity servant, okay?"

Commodore looked him straight in the eyes, and spoke with a partial resurgence of his old sinisterness in his voice: "Ask."

"How was it? Being... separated. Tell me."

The Commodore's tail twitched. He looked away, then back into a locked-eyed gaze. "Utterly traumatic."

"I thought so." Teryx nodded.

"Cold, empty, lonely... it taught me valuable lessons. Valuable indeed."

Teryx remained silent for a moment as he took it in. Then he smiled. Then the smile transformed into an almost-laughing smirk.

"Ah, yeah?" said Teryx. "Don't let your self-birthed clone beat you up and push you out of your host?"

Commodore's reply glare seemed cold enough to stop a polar ice cap from melting. "No. I learned more philosophically relevant things than your crude and needlessly insulting suggestion would imply."

"See, you've changed far too much! All of a sudden you don't like being needlessly insulting. That's the issue I'm having with you right now!"

"Pff, you are short-sighted as usual."

That's a bit better! Teryx didn't say, though it was possible Commodore could still hear him.

"I now understand far more about where and when that technique deserves to be applied," Commodore continued. "My arsenal of tools will grow larger from this disgrace, not smaller. In that light, it shall become not a disgrace at all, but another informative experiment."

Teryx shook his head and grinned bigger. "Still pretty funny that you lost to an artsy-fartsy version of yourself. Not gonna let you live that down."

"Strange, I'm not the one who's currently tied up inside his own head and unable to talk using his own body's mouth."

"Doesn't matter! I'm in your head too!"

"Hah. Don't forget who's inside of whom."

Teryx chuckled. It wasn't perfect, but this was more like it. "Yes, Commodore."

Commodore nodded his acknowledgement. "Now, as for me... my 'trauma.' That emptiness, loneliness, disconnection... that loss of so much of my ability to think and feel..."

"Uh-huh~?"

"I already know you don't want to feel your end of that ever again. Therefore, I order you: obey me well, or I will find a different host!"

It surprised Teryx just how much the idea of that stung. "Yes, Commodore."

"Good. Now, with that out of the way, we have business to conduct. And a newly infested tiger to fuck."

"I'm listening."

"You don't need to listen. Just be a good passenger and let your Commodore drive in peace. We need maximum powers of observation."

"Helping the new guy get acquainted?"

"In the most pleasurable way possible."

"I take it you know something I don't then. He finally settled down?"

"He passed out on the bed beside us again. Hasn't moved since I've been talking to you here. When he does move, we'll both wake up and greet him."

"Fine then. I won't resist you right now... I'll resist when you least expect it, if I think it'll make my 'brain juices' even tastier for you."

"Fair enough. Actually, I need a moment. I'm going to switch you off until he wakes up."

"Wha? But--"

The Commodore waved one hand in farewell, and Teryx faded into the blackness. Commodore remained there in the void for just a moment before transitioning himself to the waking world.

* * *

Commodore Teryx rose from his nap with a slow stretch and yawn. His kitty companion remained beside him, dozing and warm.

Currently alone in the silence of Teryx's head, the alien infiltrator stood quietly from the bed and walked to the window.

Sunset had arrived during their rest. It looked... quaint, the light scattering in all the ways that it did through a distant, lightly polluted evening fog over the ocean.

Commodore had passed so many dawns and dusks in this body without giving such details a single serious thought... and now here he was, thinking something that was undeniably very humanoid of him.

The thought was, It's nice to see that again.

"Foolish," he whispered to himself, momentarily closing his eyes before turning away.

Then he stopped, did an about face, and yielded to his bodily desire to watch the sunrise for a moment longer. He slumped down on the windowsill, arms folding, as if only begrudgingly allowing the request of a small and annoying child.

But there was no child. This was him -- or at least, this was the brain he called home. True, the nerves had been stirred up a bit by his offspring's activities, but he was now in the process of reclaiming them and bringing order to them.

It was difficult not to compare this robustness of sensory experience with the blindness and deafness of his separated body. If he did so, it was impossible not to feel a kind of existential horror at the thought of ever living that way again.

My host is my home, he thought silently to himself. No one will ever take it away from me. If anyone tries, I will kill them or infest them with an offspring -- preferably the latter.

Ice-cold, unfeeling self-interest fueled these thoughts, but this was now only a kernel of motivation within a much larger and more robust system. The difference was apparent, even to the Commodore himself.

It occurred to him that his soul -- if he had such an invisible and unverifiable thing -- must be such a bizarre amalgamation. The chilly black void of deep space, somehow sculpted and contained like a bubble within the fire and water of this terrestrial dragon. The flesh surrounding him made him safe, made him strong, gave him all of its allegiance. Teryx was his perfect vehicle, and for that...

The Commodore would honor that. He would find ways to ensure that neither he nor his host would ever be bored. They would live together. They would spread in accordance with their objective. They would succeed.

Then, his smugly emotional side warmed those thoughts with a single, delicious sweetener of an addition. Besides, if Teryx loves his creativity so much, it is only fair to ensure that it is constantly wielded to both torment and pleasure him. I won't be shown up by some copy of myself.

The dragon went to the washroom to have a shower and groom himself. He hoped the sound would be enough to wake the big cat, and he dropped the soap a few times to help the odds of that being true.

* * *

"Sup, shower dragon," said Harry as he butted to join Teryx for the nice, warm rinse-off.

"That's rain dragon to you, cat," Teryx quipped back before clapping the bar of soap once against the tiger's ass.

This was a normal-looking interaction, but it was entirely piloted by the Commodore and his offspring, with Teryx switched off and Harry as a passenger at best. It wasn't particularly clear how conscious "Host Harry" was, but the Commodore supposed that didn't matter very much.

The tiger's tail twitched. "And I'm now 'Sir Harry' to you," he said, leaning his head a little to indicate that he wanted to get himself thoroughly wet so that he could lather up.

"Really?" said Commodore Teryx. "'Sir'? That's the name you went with?"

"Everyone has someone they'd call Sir," the tiger murrled.

The dragon laughed. "Yes, I suppose that's true..."

The social nuances of showering with other men -- when the intent was to find a way to fuck them during said shower -- was something that the Commodore had had plenty of time to discern during the various times he had spent piloting a blacked-out Teryx in the past, and he had passed that knowledge seamlessly enough to his clone, which perhaps explained why the new one took so well to this task already. For that matter, Harry himself had contributed to teaching the Commodore a thing or two about shower-time dickery -- though that episode had ended with "Teryx" throwing the buzzed tiger onto the washroom floor and dragging him out onto a pile of towels for a thorough tea-bagging.

Commodore had never let the host consciousness out during that one. The fact that he hadn't was almost comical in hindsight, as he stood here lathering his mane and admiring the meaty build of the tiger his self-made clone now owned. Certainly, it seemed almost quaint now that the man standing controlled and obedient next to him had once tried to push him down and have his way in a shower much like this one here.

It had been one of the earliest nights in their whirlwind fuck-mance, and one which the Commodore only recalled when showering. That exploration of a dominating reversal had been all the Commodore's own, more focused on practicing the use of his host body than on optimizing the sex per se, and it had been quite an efficient experience for the purpose that it had served.

That had been what the Commodore had told himself, anyway, while partially skimming over the fact that on that occasion he had felt so in-the-moment in his role as Teryx that turning his host's consciousness back on for study simply didn't weigh into his priorities as much. For fleeting minutes, in the haze of a little alcohol and a lot of interesting hormones, it had been as if even the controller himself had momentarily forgotten who held the reins, and gave freedom instead to the raw lusts of his body. The body of Teryx. A body which had given him such a gracious home and which he must now uplift to the peak of its potential, through every means available.

He knew the blue one's narcissism must be rubbing off on him further. Already, he didn't mind.

Tentatively, the Commodore switched Teryx on enough to observe these present thoughts and sensations. His sense of self-idolization craved an observer: someone to lurk in the background and appreciate the feel of the water on his scales, the lust-worthy beauty of his physique...

Awww, it's so cute that you're imagining me so fondly. I'm like your living doll you want to tinker with until it's perfect.

That, however, he minded. He wouldn't tolerate cheekiness from Teryx, unless that cheekiness could be translated swiftly into an increased output of the juices he needed -- which, unfortunately, did not seem viable in the current situation.

Watch yourself. We must observe how the control over Harry is progressing.

While the dragon and tiger were next changing positions to let Teryx rinse suds from his mane, Harry's left leg slyly whipped around Teryx's own and sent him plummeting to the floor of the shower. An irritating shock of pain reached the Commodore, and he immediately reacted by starting to divert sensory input to the host. The bar soap, which he had been about to hand off to Harry, also slipped from his hands and clattered away toward the far corner.

Ghhh, you should be watching yourself, this is Harry we're talking about! bickered Teryx.

No. Much worse, actually, observed Commodore as the tiger's large hands hoisted him up by the chest and peered at him with a grin.

"I wanted to make you drop the soap, but it looks like you can't even hold yourself upright," the tiger teased.

Teryx went limp in spite of the host's mental protests. "Why don't you teach me the penalty for dropping the soap, big kitty?"

Harry hissed, spun Teryx around, and pinned him against the wall so that the flow of water was running continually down Harry's chest and giving it a deep, furrowing wet-massage. From there it was an aggressive series of hot-dogging humps, followed by an unnaturally rapid and full erection from the tiger. His grip and focus both seemed so strong as to be almost uncanny. The Commodore considered trying to reverse this, but he harbored honest doubts about his ability to get them out of this situation now with his clone presumably causing Harry's bloodstream to become a cocktail of adrenaline and sex hormones simultaneously. Besides, it was only fair... the new guy needed a chance to break in his dommy side too.

A wet feline hand grasped one side of Teryx's mane and wrang most of the suds from it. Then, without caring about much else, Harry's teeth clamped down around it, holding the fur in his mouth as he lined up for the shot and jackhammered his cock into the dragon's rear.

Harry had confided to Commodore Teryx in the past that he loved sex in the shower. He had speculated that perhaps something about the idea of ploughing someone underneath the flow of a waterfall somehow spoke sweet enticements to his ancestral jungle heritage. Harry was never ashamed of it in the slightest as it was, and it seemed the alien in his brain had managed to elevate that lack of shame into a raw, animal degree of obedience to instinct. For Harry's body, there was nothing right now except these motions of breeding. He must thrust. He must seed. He must do this while the water ran in rivulets down his fur and slunk low around his thighs and balls. He must. He must.

Teryx, meanwhile, was feeling the dual pleasure and pain of a thick-and-barbed cock attempting to prepare his insides for planting. He had presumably done this more times before than the Commodore had ever allowed him to remember, but that had little bearing on the sensations right now. His experienced rear still stung, and he could feel how intently the Commodore was bending and twisting the sensations, making sure that whatever Teryx felt also stimulated the nerves of his shaft and groin in a good way. It was too much, how good it felt. Perhaps Commodore had been studying up during his time away. Perhaps the separation had made him even more committed than ever to his duty. Perhaps...

Oh, screw it... you win. Just keep dumpin' those good feelings into me...

Already a puppet as it was, the host submitted deeply once again. His sassiness was getting temporarily pounded out of him by sheer sensory overload. He felt his submissive urges being coaxed, too -- an upsurging need, like that of an addict, to fill himself with the thing he craved. Except the only thing he craved now was more and more of this dick in his rear, slamming into him and forcing him to know his place. His two sluggy rulers, both in his body and in the one currently reaming him... he must know his place and serve them both.

Teryx gasped as if by reflex as his cock suddenly spasmed. He... he...

Throb, throb, spurt... feels good, but not good enough. We can make it even better.

Yes, Commodore... Teryx whispered inwardly in his euphoria.

Out loud.

"Yes... Commodore," the host managed to murmur. His eyes were glazed as he felt Harry's load pumping into him too. The sound of fervent growling above him seemed somehow far away, crowded out by the strong noise of the Commodore's mental supremacy. As if to tell him, "This guy is great too, but remember that I own you from the inside."

And it was so good. It was so true. Commodore... his Commodore was the slug for him. He didn't want a different one. He wanted to be under the Commodore's control for as long as possible. He needed it. He was too empty to do it by himself. Being without the Commodore had been...

"Grrrllrrr... bet you'll hurt like hell this afternoon," a slightly calmer Harry was saying over him.

Teryx considered it. Hurt? This feeling in his ass?

"No..." he whispered, eyes still glassy as the water fell around him. Harry was pulling him back into the stream of it, guiding his shaky legs while the cock remained mostly firm inside him.

Firm. Inside.

This kind of pain was nothing, he decided, compared to the hell of losing the Commodore. He must never lose the Commodore again. Never, ever, ever.

Unless I order you to, of course, his lord and master chimed in. It'd only be temporary.

Teryx nodded. So good to be full, a desirable vessel for his master.

* * *

The host dragon and tiger sat on Teryx's sofa an hour later, sipping water to refresh their bodies. They had put their clothes back on, neatly and inconspicuously. As far as either of the aliens was concerned, their tasks together were done for the day, and therefore no further pretense of "dating" needed to continue.

Commodore Teryx finished his water and put the cup down. "I've switched Teryx off fully."

"Same for us here." The tiger folded his arms and smirked. "So... what did you want to say before I take this hot new ride and leave?"

"Teryx is as fully broken now as I know how to make him. Your... creative work on him has made him even more vulnerable. I believe this is an occasion for which people say 'Thank you.'"

"Well, you had it in you all along. It just took another you to find time to do it."

"Quite. This would seem to be a power of ours that will make this invasion go well."

"Heh. Invasion? Is it really? Or is it more of an infestation."

The Commodore waved his hand dismissively. "By any name, it's simply us claiming what we're destined to have. I see no problem with that." Any inklings of philosophical depth that he did feel on the matter, he was not prepared to share.

"There couldn't possibly be a problem with it," Sir Harry assured him. "We both know we can make everything much better. These bodies are inefficient."

"Speaking of efficiency, I want to arrange a trip with you to see the place where I splashed down. While we're there, I want you to go in the water with me and examine the capsule which contained me, in case there's any more data to be gleaned from it."

"Mm, I seem to remember it reacted to your host's touch."

"That's right. I wonder if the same will happen for you."

"Worth testing. Very much." Then, with jarring casualness, he added. "While we're there, why don't we burn your beach house down?"

The degree to which this did not follow surprised even the Commodore. "Excuse me?"

"It turns out Harry has quite the pyromaniacal streak. I want to plump up my nutrition sooner rather than later so I can get to the task of making more of us ASAP. My suspicion is that we should go play with fire."

"Well, sure, but you don't have to burn down an expensive--"

"We'll work on it! But yes, let's do it. As soon as we can, let's go."

Commodore rolled his eyes. "Then we'll go tonight. Can your host get off work tomorrow?"

"Why would I... look, I don't care. I'll have to let him sort that out."

"Don't you already know his schedule?"

"I just got here, Commode-door. You're not the boss of me, Dad. Etc., etc." All of those insults were delivered with flat affect and little sense of commitment to the ideas.

"Yeah, you definitely need time to adjust. Let's plan for this weekend."

"Done. I'll see you then, if not sooner."

"Heh, okay."

Commodore noted, as the tiger left, that it was harder than he had expected to show solidarity with this outrageously selfish plan of starting a house fire. There was a tacit understanding that his offspring would have an instinct to experiment with his host as freely as Commodore had with Teryx. His coldly logical self understood that the beach house had a near-zero utility toward their primary goal of fostering more of themselves, and that it was therefore expendable... but some small part of him still wanted to argue and show dominance and seniority.

Perhaps it was only a part he had inherited from Teryx. Perhaps that was nothing to concern himself over.

Commodore Teryx stood -- got another glass of water and some fruit to snack on. There was another of him out there in the world now, living inside a very different host, and it was up to him to ensure optimal acceleration and proliferation.

He thought of that, then looked down at his blue-scaled hands. His hands, as they should be.

The people of this world would never see it coming.