Oraieus

Former navigator for a band of space mercenaries. mindreader alien. makes the bad decision to interface with a japhet (infamous telepathic pack hunters) and is never the same again. Oraieus's species lack voice boxes and they communicate using telepathy

im so impatienttttt forgive the wip

A spaceship navigator and pilot, originally with a band of roving mercenaries. The crew takes on an assassination task from an admittedly dubious but well-paying sponsor to take out the ambassador of a dangerous [country] and it goes… badly. The guys in charge of the whole mess miscalculate the alien they’re dealing with, and soon there’s an upset and hungry apex predator in the form of a Bar-Japhet Pillar loose aboard their ship.

As their minds wink out, Oraieus slowly realizes what’s happening as the rest of the crew is quickly picked off one by one, and faces off directly with the not-so-dead japhet ambassador Thisbe as the last man alive on the ship. His species trains those leaving the planet to never, ever, under any circumstances, mentally engage with a japhet, so he can’t even retort as Thisbe instructs him that he will be turning this ship around Now.
Oraieus tries to escape when Thisbe’s attempt to return home goes sour, but the bastard makes his way back onto the ship, beaten and openly offering Oraieus to end them. In his fury, he makes the worst decision of his life and throws the full force of his mind against them to take them over and make them suffer. His species’ warning is not without reason and Thisbe fights back with all their might.

They white out and wake up on the floor hours later mind-melded, fused into one, and immediately panic. Oraieus pulls back immediately but its messy and difficult, and they spend a miserable week constantly attempting to separate and re-fusing as their minds desperately try to heal.
It’s a lot. These men hate each other more than anything in the world. Their bodies want nothing more than to occupy the literal same physical space and they’re experiencing every memory of grief and happiness and trauma and sympathy the other has ever felt. The few days feel like an infinite stretch of time until finally, finally, they get a clean enough separation to be lucid and find a rehab expert.