Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Simon’s dead and he drifts. The red, it’s all-encompassing, devouring; it eats him and God does he want it to because if it’s a choice between his life, his shitty, little life, and his people, that space station, then he’s going to sacrifice himself.

Yes, a sacrifice. That’s exactly what he is. It’s what he was always meant to be—he was birthed on a planet of red, a God of desert, umbilical cord wrapped tight around his neck like a noose as he kicked and cried; of course he would die how he was born: desperate and covered in blood. It’s almost a comforting thought, to think that this was God’s plan from the start; that he was believed in by some deity to save the remainder of his species.

Still, comforting thoughts are only so much help when your lungs are full of blood. When your arm has been ripped from your body. Does he even have a body, anymore? Or is it just red? Red. The red. The red. Iron coats his lips, burns his eyes. It reminds him of the war, the bloody massacre at Filament Station. He hopes this act of self-sacrifice cancels out all the harm he caused, all the lives he took as the butcher, fighting for a cause he half-believed in because it made him feel important. Special. Because he finally realised he was good at something, and that something just had to be inflicting pain.

If he could laugh, he would. He got his wish, he was special. The man with the information to save humanity in the palm of his severed hand. Maybe they’d say his name, remember him, build statues and name rooms in his honour. Or maybe they wouldn’t. It was all the same to him, dead, surrounded by blood, none of it his own.

He’s dead. He drifts.

He’s dead.

It’s a pretty normal day for Grace, if he’s being honest. He wakes up to Rocky banging on the door, relaxes with him until it’s time to teach the pebbles, and then he goes back home (not  Earth, never Earth), half-watches a movie, and half-wonders how many of the students he used to teach are dead.

He hopes Abby isn’t dead; she was a bit of a pain in the classroom, but he knew that she’d go far. Maybe she was president now, or a Supreme Court Judge...

“Grace! Grace!” Rocky comes barrelling into the room. It isn’t often that he uses the xenonite ball instead of taking the time to put on his much more modern suit, so it must be pretty urgent. Though Rocky’s definition of urgency can range from the planet about to explode to Grace watching an episode of Gilmore Girls without him.

“Yeah, Rock?”

“Blip! There’s a blip!”

Grace blinks. The twizzler (or, Eridian-made version of) he’d been absent-mindedly chewing falls onto the couch. “What?”

“Blip!” Rocky starts pushing Grace off of the couch, towards the door. “Blip on our radars! There’s life!”

Despite it all, Grace laughs at Rocky’s enthusiasm. “Alright, alright, let me—”

“No time!” Rocky pushes him further. Grace attempts to grab hold of the doorframe, but it’s no use. Rocky pushes him out onto the beach, so excited that he doesn’t even shut the door behind them (something Grace will be teasing him about later, mercilessly). “Adrian has laptop and can explain! Run! Run!”

He quickly adjusts the frames on his face as Rocky bounds off into the distance; in his haste to follow, Grace doesn’t even consider that the life-form could be another human. There’s a 0.00001% chance of that being the case, after all.

The facts are this: there’s a man. A human man. In one of the quarantine rooms. The man, the human man, is drenched in blood—human blood.

His own? Maybe. The man (human man, human, human, human—) has a bloody stump where one of his arms should be, but to drench himself in that much blood he’d need to have had a bigger injury, a life-ending injury.

The man’s alive. He’s unconscious, but his chest—his human chest—moves. Grace can’t remember the last time he’d seen another person’s naked chest, yet here he’s forced to gaze upon one, drenched in blood, on Erid.

Because there’s a human on Erid. Another one. A man, despite Adrien’s insistence that he has different genitalia (thanks for that, Adrian!), if the beard is anything to go by. Though Grace probably shouldn’t assume that the human (human!) is a man, right? He doesn’t know. He thinks, selfishly, that it doesn’t matter, because no matter what they are, they’re a human. On Erid. A human...

“Grace alright, question?”

Grace startles, turning away from the man, the real, human, man, in the quarantine room, on Erid, and oh god, he’s going to have to clean his room because the guy will need somewhere to sleep, and—

“Grace.”

He snaps out of it. “Rocky.”

Rocky tilts his head. It’s a cute gesture, endearing, though the Eridian would probably tell him to ‘respect his elders’ if he said that aloud. His idea of a joke.

“You’re leaking.”

Grace lifts a hand to his face and, oh. There are tears. He huffs in frustration at himself, and wipes them away with the back of his hand.

“No, yeah, sorry Rock, I just...”

“Overwhelmed, statement.”

Grace chuckles. “Yeah. Overwhelmed.” He clears his throat. “How is this possible?”

Rocky does the Eridian equivalent of a shrug. Great. Even the hyper-intelligent alien rocks don’t know what’s happening.

“We don’t know how he’s here, but our primary focus is to nurse him to health.” It’s Adrian. Always breaking things down for Grace to understand, not because he’s stupid, but because Rocky is...over-excitable...on occasion. “With your consent.”

“My consent?” He runs a hand through his hair, and immediately regrets messing it up. “Why—”

Adrien takes a step closer to Grace. He and the rest of the Eridians are at least wearing the xeno-suits, making it easier for Adrien to press up against his leg; a grounding presence. “Life will change a lot. If we take in this human. Statement.”

“Yeah, but—”

“You can take time. Think,” Rocky says, kindly, and it’s too much.

“No,” Grace puts his hands out in front of him, “No, guys, we need to nurse him back to health. I—I can adapt to another person being in the house. It’ll be...exciting? Yeah, exciting. Please just...please do all you can. Please. Please.”

Adrian nods and scuttles away, probably off to run tests and other things Grace should be helping with instead of just...standing there. Watching the man.

“It will be okay, Grace, question?”

Grace places a hand on top of Rocky’s xeno-ball. “Yeah, bud. It’s gonna be all gravy, baby.”

Rocky nestles against his hand for a minute before withdrawing.

“...What is gravy, question?”

Iron. It coats his tongue, his teeth, like film. His insides burst; red covers the clinically white floor, dribbles down his chin, his chest. He gasps for air, finds it. Sweet, clean air. He vomits again; it’s blood, of course—he’s all blood. He draws a circle in the blood, like a child with finger paints, and spits copper onto his hand. When he takes in another breath, with clear lungs, it’s like breathing for the first time. He’s reborn.

He can’t look away from the blood. If he looks away, he’ll realise he’s breathing. Breathing in the belly of a monster, where his only release will be agonisingly painful starvation. Why didn’t he die? He’d repaid his debts, surely—though maybe this is purgatory. Maybe his sacrifice doesn’t take away from all the lives he stole, and now he’s doomed to exist in the belly of the beast for all of eternity.

He laughs, shakily. Fuck, was it not enough to die for people who couldn’t give less shits about him? Was it not enough to save hundreds of lives? To be torn limb from limb in an ocean of red, drinking rubbing alcohol to take away the pain of knowing he wasn’t going to see the surface ever again? His laugh turns into a cough, a loud, hacking thing. It hurts his ears and, shit, everywhere is so bright. Where’s the darkness of the submarine? The hissing of pipes? The droplets of blood and sweat licking his skin?

He’s cold. That’s what he realises. He’s cold. Maybe he’s in heaven? Is heaven meant to be so cold? He’s always thought that heaven would be a garden, that it’d be grass beneath his feet and trees ripe with fruit. This wasn’t...it couldn’t be heaven.

Suddenly, his head is on the floor. He cracks one of his eyes open the tiniest bit. Light, God, light. He shuts it again but it forces itself back open. There are sounds, not the clunking of the submarine but...chittering? Angels speaking, maybe? Or other unfortunate victims of the beast. His eyes focus on a tall figure.

He’s in heaven. If nothing else, he’s now certain that he’s in heaven because there’s an angel in his sights, separated by glass, presumably so that Simon wouldn’t infect him with his humanity. The angel is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen: eyes as blue as what he imagined ice to look like, hair as yellow as a cornfield. Lips...the angel’s lips look to be as soft as the leaf he’d stolen from the tree of Eden, when he was but a child.

The angel’s stare is fixed on Simon, and he realises that this must be a test from God, because Simon is undeserving of the attention of a being as lovely as the one in front of him. The one looking at him as if he were the miracle.

Simon sleeps and dreams of rough, tanned hands with no red beneath the fingernails. They caress his face, soft and gentle, travelling up to his hair and suddenly he’s underwater, breathing in blood, dying as angels sing beneath the surface, their crooked smiles bringing him peace.

It’d been a few weeks since the man had woken up, if only to vomit up blood and gaze, crazed, at Grace, before returning to unconsciousness. The Eridians took a week to run every test under the sun, making sure that the man wasn’t a danger to anyone, before moving him to a bed in a separate quarantine room, where Grace now sat at his bedside, reading him his own medical report.

“Severe radiation poisoning...that makes sense, what with the burns and all...no toxins in blood, now that’s surprising...” Grace puts the file down, and sighs, going to pinch the bridge of his nose before realising his glasses were resting there. “Fuck, I really should’ve done more.” He chuckles. “I mean, of course I trust what they’re saying, it’s just...I don’t know. I’m the human expert. Maybe I could’ve...” Grace puts his head in his hands. “I don’t know. I’m tired.” He chuckles again, wryly. "Not that you care."

“Grace need Rocky to watch him sleep, question?”

Grace jumps. “Jeez, Rock, how long were you there?”

Rocky tilts his head. “A while. Your help wasn’t required for human medical check, statement. Your data logs and information were help enough, Adrian said so.”

“I know, Rock, I just...” Grace looks at the man, asleep on the bed. He looks so peaceful, it’s hard to believe just a few weeks ago he was bathed in blood, his now near-healed burns oozing puss. “I can’t sleep. What if he wakes up?”

“Then Adrian will notify us, and we will come.”

“I—“He sighs, again. It seems to be all he’s doing, lately. “I keep having these dreams, Rock. Oceans of blood and...I don’t know, what if it has something to do with him?”

Rocky chirps something Grace doesn’t understand. “Dreams are stupid, statement. Illogical.”

Grace laughs. “Yeah, they are. Still, on Earth some people say that they have meaning, like uh...if you dream about your teeth falling out, then that means that you’re anxious.”

If Rocky had a face, it’d look unimpressed. “Anxious about what?”

“I don’t know...aging, maybe? I always used to have dreams about turning up to school naked, I dunno what that means, but—”

“Means Grace is forgetful. Your brain...unreliable.”

Grace rolls his eyes, good-natured. “Jeez, thanks Rock.”

Rocky sings. “Good. You smile. Grace happy, Rocky happy.”

That gets a proper smile from Grace, who stands and stretches. “Alright, bud, you sharin’ my bed tonight?”

Rocky hops around, excited. “Yes, yes, yes, yes! Grace and Rocky sleepover!”

Grace laughs, and exits the room, though not without one final glance at the man in the bed. Dreams of oceans made of blood, men that should be dead found alive; it was almost...biblical? He’d never believed in God, in all honesty, but, the man’s presence had...thrown him off. It was a less than 1% chance that he’d ever see another human again, Grace knew this, he’d calculated it, and still...here one was. Right in front of him. Close enough to touch.

But he wouldn’t. Not now, not yet.

Simon wakes up. He’s in a bed, an honest to god bed with pillows and a comforter and everything. It’s so warm, so comfortable, so unlike anything he’s ever felt, that he almost lets his exhaustion drag him down once again, but his tiredness is outweighed by the feeling of being...watched. He looks down at himself, his arms—arms? No. No, no, no. This wasn’t right. He’d—he remembers the pain of his arm being ripped from his body, the excruciating sensation of parting with yet another thing that made him human, he can’t...this must be a dream. A nightmare? A hell?

God, he doesn’t know. He’s tired of figuring shit out. Whoever the fuck is up there, controlling him like a mother fucking puppet, can either get him some damn answers or put him out of his misery. He truly doesn’t give a fuck any more.

His arm is black. Metallic. Okay. That’s new. Why would anyone want to fix his arm? Surely he was less dangerous with one arm? Maybe his captors needed him at full capacity for some sort of sick experiment? Maybe his whole trip down into the blood was some kind of psychological torture method that the COI cooked up, and now they were gonna escort him back to his cell where he’d either hang himself with his shoelaces or rot?

He looks at his other arm. There are wires, no, tubes, inserted into his veins. A stimulant, maybe? Or something to keep him docile? He doesn't feel very docile. He rips them out, waiting with bated breath for someone to barge in and beat him or inject him or—anything.

Nothing happens. Absolutely fuck all.

Okay. Interesting. He swings his legs around so that he’s perching on the edge of the bed. They’re heavy, his legs. Unused. Actually, he feels a lot weaker than usual; maybe they’re pumping him full of some kind of drug to sedate him...but then why give him the arm?

He groans, confused, tired, fucking confused. He attempts to stand but his legs buckle underneath him. As he kneels on the floor—Hail Mary Full of Grace—he realises he’s wearing someone else’s clothes: a pair of soft, albeit worn, sweatpants, and a t-shirt that says ‘I wear this periodically’ with an outdated version of the periodic table printed below.

The COI would never give him a shirt so fucking...stupid. He smells it, for some reason; it smells like someone else, smells nice. Okay, so, he’s wearing a shirt that’s obviously a staple of some unfashionable fuck’s wardrobe, he has a new arm, and he was being...drugged?

He shakes his head. It makes no sense. Fuck, nothing makes any sense. He should be dead. He should be a corpse at the bottom of the blood fucking ocean. He shouldn’t be alive, sleeping in a warm bed, wearing someone else’s clothes. The fuck!?

He grabs the edge of the bed and slowly lifts himself up into a standing position. Stretches his legs a little. They’re stiff, but not broken. He lifts up his sweats; there’s a faint line of stitches across his thigh, amongst the burns. Another thing to add to the list of confusing shit from the past, what, two minutes? Great.

Slowly, but surely, he walks towards the door, surprised to find that the handle in his grasp pulls downward. The door opens. Are these people fucking stupid!? Do they even want to keep him here!? Well...not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Simon slowly makes his way out of the door, and into a hallway.

He’s about to try his luck with turning right, when he hears noise: someone breathing, heavily, running towards him. Fuck, he can’t fight like this, he can barely even hold himself up! No, no. He’s a mother fucking butcher, if this fucker wants a fight, then—

“Oh my gosh, you are awake!”

His memories come flooding back. Unconscious on the floor, vomiting blood, an angel pulling him under and, shit, he was just thankful to die with such gorgeous company.

“Am I...” He coughs, his voice rough from lack of use. “Is this...heaven?”

The angel gapes at him, flushed presumably from running. “What?”

A ball rounds the corner. There’s a rock inside it. A moving, talking rock, who the angel can apparently understand. “Ah, Rock, yeah, it’s...” The angel turns to him. “Sorry, just a second, he wants me to get the translator. We’re friendly, I swear.” He chuckles, awkward, and Simon thinks he could dance to the sound.

A cup of water is thrust in his hands before the angel leaves, and Simon chugs it, grateful for the easing effect it has on his throat. The angel quickly returns with an open laptop, and suddenly a robotic voice is asking Simon if he’s okay, question?

“That’s...that’s the...the rock? Speaking to me?” 

The angel nods. “Yeah, I can understand them but this--” he brandishes the laptop proudly, "Is a translator I made when we first met.”

“Them...?” He asks. “There’s more of these...rock things?" 

The angel chuckles. “Yeah, this is actually their planet. We’re the only two humans here.”

Simon gapes at the angel. He must’ve misheard. A planet, and....“You’re...human?”

The angel—or human, apparently—looks himself over. “Last I checked.”

“Grace is human and Man is human! You can—”

The human, man, Grace, lowers the volume on the translator, quick. “Rocky, don’t...c’mon, man, remember what we said? Boundaries.” He turns back to Simon. “Sorry.” The Rock, Rocky (easy to remember at least) looks pissed off. Simon wonders briefly if it will kill him. “So, well, I’m Ryland Grace—”

“Doctor!” Rocky chirps, back at full volume.

Grace rolls his eyes, fond. “Right. Doctor Ryland Grace, and this is Rocky.”

Rocky gives him a little wave. Simon feels ill.

“Your name is Grace?” He asks, because he still isn’t entirely sure Grace is as human as he says he is. “Like Hail Mary Full of Grace?”

“How does he know name of ship, question?”

Grace waves off Rocky’s question. “I—yeah, like the...like that. Sure. Weird coincidence now that I think about it...”

“And you’re definitely human?”

“What, do I not look human or something?” Grace’s smile thins.

“You look more than that.” It slips from his dry mouth before he can stop it, before he can think of the repercussions, and that terrifies him. Simon isn’t usually a man of many words—what people don’t know they can’t use against you, after all—so for his lips to have loosened so, at the sight of another human (if he is to be believed) is...shit, it’s scary. He hates it. Hates this obvious weakness he’s so suddenly developed.

Still, he can’t hate the way a blush spreads softly across Grace’s face, nor the shy, dimpled smile he’s on the receiving end of. “Thanks...?” Grace coughs. “Umm...”

“Grace red. Like...what Grace say? Tomato?”

“Yeah, thanks Rock! Jeez.”

Simon’s unsure what a tomato is, but he has too many questions at the forefront of his mind to care, so he catalogues that one for later.

“What is new human name, question?” Rocky and Grace turn to him, expectedly. “If you do not remember I can provide—”

“Simon,” he interrupts, not really wanting to hear what name Rocky would pick out for him, especially if the rock chose his own. Plus, he likes his name. It’s one of the only things he likes about himself. "It's Simon."

Grace smiles. His teeth are white, though slightly deviated. “Well, Simon, welcome to Erid.”

Chapter Text

Simon’s arm hurts. Well, all of him hurts, if he’s being honest, but he can take that—it’s his arm that’s the problem. The metal (or, at least, he suspects it's some kind of metal) pinches his skin, making it red and raised and, shit, what if it's slowly poisoning him? What if this, Erid, Grace, Rocky, was all just some kind of...con? Some test? What if his arm contains some kind of device, tracking his vitals, and the rocks are just biding their time until he's vulnerable and then they'll take him out back and--

He breathes. Fuck, he's gone off the deep-end. He grabs his metal arm, twists it. Nothing. Punches it. No effect. Can he take it off? There has to be some way to take it off...a button, maybe? He presses down on all the crevices; still, it remains attached.

Okay. Nothing he could do about that for the time being. He focuses his attention elsewhere, to the cameras in the corners of the room. They're watching him. Who? Well, he assumes more of those rock aliens, since he and Grace were apparently the only humans on the planet.

And, sorry, he was on a planet? He doesn't buy it. Not for a second. Grace had told him that he now had free reign of his—their—house. That he could go anywhere within the dome the rocks had built for him, and then he’d stammered out some excuse and legged it down the hall. So Simon had stayed. In his room. The white walls cleaner than anything he’s ever seen, ever touched.

He sits, cross-legged, facing the wall, his hand inches away from making contact.

There's some kind of robot arm stationed opposite his bed; it talks to him, whenever he moves or his stomach growls, or he messes with his arm. Simon doesn't think he's hallucinating it’s voice, almost amused—or as amused as a robot could be—whenever he refuses the food tubes it offers, and graciously accepts the water. He knows the water isn't poisoned. It's clean, fully transparent; the water back on Eden wasn’t even like that. He trusts the water. The water could satisfy him for the time being.

He doesn't trust the food. Or the robot. Or Grace. Why was he lying about being human? He was so...so friendly, so awkward—people who grew up where he did weren’t like that. The man would’ve been killed, on Eden. Beaten to death, a fate Simon had nearly suffered multiple times. Maybe the COI were more forgiving? He huffs. No. What the fuck was he thinking? The water was making him delirious.

“Simon can leave, statement.”

It's Rocky. The alien must’ve opened the door without Simon noticing. That was worrying—what else had happened whilst he’d been too in his head to see it?

“I know.”

“Why Simon not leave, question?” The words come from a small box on Rocky’s head. Grace must’ve built a portable translator so that Simon could understand him. That was...nice.

Simon sighs. “You said we’re on a planet. That’s impossible.”

“Why impossible?”

He laughs. A rough, angry thing that bubbles up from his bloody chest. “Because all the planets are dead. They died, along with most of humanity and the stars and— and now you’re telling me that I’m on a planet. That I’m alive, on a fucking planet, and I don’t see how that’s possible.”

“Interesting.”

“Yeah, real fuckin’ interesting. What am I, your science experiment?”

Rocky makes some noises, untranslated, then—“No. I'm no scientist. Engineer.”

That surprises Simon. “You’re an engineer?”

Rocky does the rock-alien equivalent of a nod. “Grace, scientist. Adrian, Rocky mate, scientist.”

Simon huffs, amused. “What, so I’m their science experiment?”

Rocky sits down next to him. “Maybe. Grace worried. About where you came from. Checking data with Adrian. You aren’t just experiment. You are friend!”

Rocky does a little, happy dance with his rock-arms, and Simon can’t help but be a bit endeared. “You’re...different to the aliens I’ve seen.” The understatement of the mother fucking century.

“Other aliens aren’t as good as Eridians, statement.”

He chuckles. “Yeah, for sure.” He looks up, at the cameras. “Why are you watching me?”

“Observe behaviour. Grace worried you hurt yourself. We all, worried.”

“Why?”

“You no move. No eat. Stare at wall. No touch. When we rescue you, you...injured. Blood. Burns. Blood.”

“Blood, yeah,” he mutters, mostly to himself.

“You nearly die.”

“I did die.” He did. There’s no question about it; he still remembers his lungs filling with blood, his skull shattering.

Rocky chirps. They sit and stare at the wall in silence for a minute. Simon doesn’t know why the alien has joined him, but it’s...nice. He likes the company. Even if they are going to reveal this was all a test, or a hallucination, or...whatever, he enjoys having a moment where, for a singular second, everything is calm.

Simon’s stomach rumbles, and he resists the urge to groan. He used to live on rations and spite and now, what, his stomach couldn’t handle a few days of starvation? Pathetic.

“Simon hungry, question?”

“No.” He continues to stare at the wall. Rocky places one of his hands—stumps?—on the wall, next to where Simon's hand hovers.

“It just wall, Simon. Touch.”

What if he touches it, and he dies? The thought almost makes him laugh. He wants to live; he so desperately, so, so terribly wants to be alive. It hurts him, how every breath he takes feels like a gamble.

“Am I alive?” He turns to Rocky, pleading. “Please, just tell me the truth. I can handle it, I just—I need to know, please.”

Rocky’s hand moves from the wall to Simon’s heart. “Rocky feel pulse. You alive, statement.”

Simon braces himself against the wall and weeps.

Grace is in the observation room, watching the camera’s feed, when Simon says that the planets are dead. The planets, the stars, most of humanity. Dead. His first thought is that that isn’t possible. It just...it couldn’t happen, scientifically. He’d only left Earth, what, less than twenty years ago? If The Beatles hadn’t made it to Earth, that’d still only mean that there’d be the beginnings of a world-wide famine. Discussion of war, maybe, over resources, but for the planet to disappear...? Impossible. Simon’s either lying, or... or what? Not from this universe?

He has to laugh. He’s never held the parallel universe-theory in very high regard, particularly after all the crappy superhero movies that took it and made it seem so boring. There are some, obviously, who seriously believe in multiverses, but it’s only ever been a... hypothetical. An idea thrown around when the world seemed particularly small. It’d always been more of a philosophical theorem, in his opinion, something that people believed in that couldn’t be confirmed nor falsified: an almost religious ideal.

But did Simon just confirm it? It was either that or Grace had lost track of time, and The Beatles didn’t make it to Earth, and everyone he knew and liked and had bumped into on the street was dead.

Okay. Multiverse. It might be real. He could live with that.

“You’re muttering.” Adrian. Right, he was with Adrian. In the observation room. “Sit.”

He sits. “Adrian, I think either this guy just confirmed the multiverse theory, or the entirety of my planet is dead.”

“Breathe. Rocky sure The Beatles made it to Earth, remember.”

“Yeah,” he gasps, almost laughing because holy crap. “Yeah, but he could be wrong, or—”

“Mate not wrong.”

“Right.” He laughs, incredulously. “Right. Oh my god. I need—need some paper—”

Adrian pushes a pad of paper and a pen in front of him, and he immediately begins to scrawl down all the theories, the equations that are ringing in his head.

He doesn't know how long it's been when he's interrupted by Adrian's notes.

“Rocky good with Simon.”

“Huh?” He glances at the screen in front of him, the live-camera feed. Rocky's comforting Simon, who's hunched over, crying. He moves his glasses from where they hang on his ear back onto his nose. “Oh. When...when did that happen?”

“Crying long time.” Grace looks down at his notepad. He’s scribbled on more than ten pages, and still nothing makes sense. “Simon mention us. Ask if he was science experiment.”

Grace cringes, averting his eyes from the screen. “Yeah, we...that was a vulnerable moment, we probably shouldn’t be watching.”

“Why? Simon know.”

“Just—” He glances over his notes. “Human’s don’t like crying.”

“You leak everywhere. All time.”

Grace laughs. “Yeah, weird, huh?” He scribbles in his margins, something about Simon growing up on a parallel Earth that’s more advanced than his, somehow...

“Ask Simon.”

“What?” His glasses are crooked. He corrects them.

Adrian does the Eridian equivalent of a deep, long-suffering, sigh. “You speculating. Talk to him, instead. Ask more about his...experience.”

“I can’t just...” He rubs his eyes, feeling a headache coming on. “He might not want to talk about it yet.”

“Ask.”

Grace looks up at the screen, at Simon. A stab of empathy pierces him. “I don’t want to get off on the wrong foot.”

“Human phrase, question? Not understand.”

“It means, uh...I don’t want him to dislike me, basically...” Rocky’s hugging Simon. Grace looks away and wonders what Simon’s scarred skin feels like. Wonders what any skin feels like against his own. He can't recall.

“That why you hide from him.”

“I’m not,” he chuckles, awkward, “I wouldn’t put it like that...” Adrian just stares at him. Grace can practically hear him thinking that humans are stupid; Rocky must be rubbing off on him. “It’s...complicated.”

“Okay.” Adrian turns back to the screen.

Grace looks at his notes. They suddenly feel a thousand miles away. “I mean, what if we don’t get along? He already doesn’t trust me. He doesn’t think I’m human.”

“More than, he said.”

Grace blushes. Clears his throat. “Yeah, well, he’s delirious—”

Adrian makes a chittering noise that Grace has come to decode as an Eridian hum. “You embarrassed. Run away.”

“I didn’t run...I walked fast at most.”

“He can’t trust if you run.”

Grace groans, running a hand down his face. “I know, I know, I’m just...I wasn’t the best at interacting with normal people on Earth...never mind a traumatised one on Erid! If I speak to him properly I'll just mess up, or make him worse somehow." He exhales, self-deprecating, "I don't know."

Adrian puts one of his hands on Grace’s. He isn’t as tactile as Rocky. Grace thinks this is the sixth time Adrian has touched him since they arrived on the planet. “You don’t have to be alone.”

He laughs. “What? I’m not alone! I have you, and Rocky, and my students—”

“Grace.” His words stick in his throat. “Human word. Not alone, but alone.”

“...Lonely?”

Adrian nods. “Grace don’t have to be lonely.”

He swallows down the lump in his throat. Wipes tears threatening to spill with the back of his hand. God, the Eridians are right, humans are leaky. “Thanks. Thank you, Adrian.”

Adrian turns back to the feed.

“Simon lonely too.”

Grace looks at Simon, curled up in a ball, leaning on Rocky, whispering that he just wants to live, just wants to live...

Adrian’s right. At the very worst, the two of them can be lonely together.

Rocky guides Simon out, into the hallway. He wants to give him a tour of the house, away from the four white walls Simon’s become so accustomed to, but for now, they sit in the hall. The alien seems fine with this; for a rock seemingly so impatient, he can be extremely patient.

“So, how many rooms does this place have?”

“Four. Observation room, Grace room, living room, kitchen.”

Simon sniffs. Four rooms? Bigger than the SM but smaller than prison, obviously. Smaller than Eden. Still, four rooms for only two people is a bit extensive. “Kitchen?”

“Yes. Rocky help Grace grow plants. Cook into human food. Disgusting.”

“Plants? You have plants?”

Rocky nods. “Yes, fruit and vegetables and flowers.” Simon almost breaks down crying again. It seems unreal. “Simon leak again?”

He laughs. “No, no, sorry. I haven’t seen a plant since...” He glances at his emblem; the garden of Eden. “A long time.”

“No sorry.”

“Okay, no sorry.” He gives in. “What’s outside?” He can’t see any windows, made sure that he couldn’t when he sunk to the ground in the hallway. He thinks it’d kill him, to get his hopes up and see darkness outside, to see a sky full of dead stars and broken satellites. Even though there seems to be light coming in from outdoors, he can’t get his hopes up just yet.

“Beach. Not real human beach, waves are machine, but Grace likes it. Sky is fog.”

He stills. “There’s an ocean?”

“Yes.”

His nails dig into his thigh. “What...what colour is the ocean?”

“Grace says blue. Water. Rocky like.”

He nods. Of course. It’s not the blood ocean, it’s not. The fact that there’s an actual, honest to god ocean, just a few minutes away from him, and all he can think about is how to get further away from it, makes his heart sink. He used to listen to stories about oceans; great bodies of water full of living creatures. They’d sounded beautiful.

Just another thing the COI took from him, he supposes.

“Simon scared, question?”

He barks out a laugh. “Terrified. Don’t tell anyone, though.”

Rocky dances, excited. “Rocky, Simon, secret! Fist my bump!”

He puts his tiny rock fist out. “Fist your bump?”

“Yes, you fist and then you bump.” Simon’s never made a fist without seeing it through with a punch. It’s the person he is—was: the butcher. Now, he slowly makes a fist, and rests it against Rocky’s own. “Yay! We fisted bumps!”

“Uh, that sounds...wrong.”

Rocky shrugs. “Ready to see more, question?”

Simon sighs. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I am."

They walk, slow, towards the living room, where Grace is sat with a notepad, muttering to himself. When Simon walks in, he looks up.

"Hey, you alright?” Simon looks down, ashamed. Grace probably just saw his breakdown in the observation room. Still, he nods at the man, whose face breaks out into a blinding smile in return. “Great. You want to...?”

He gestures to the front door. To the outside world, the beach, the fog, the ocean. Rocky, sensing his discomfort, speaks: “Simon hungry.”

Grace takes it in stride. “Sure! I have some, uh, pasta I made earlier. Sorry, it's kind of plain, I'm not a chef or anything, but let me just—” He stands and makes his way towards the kitchen. Rocky follows, and so does Simon.

The man (though he’s still not completely convinced) takes a pot off of the hob, and dishes out the most heavenly thing Simon has ever smelt. It’s white with red sauce and, fuck, he’s practically drooling.

“Here,” he hands Simon the bowl, and a fork. The fork isn’t sharp enough to pierce skin but if Grace tries anything he can always aim for the eyes.

“You try some first.” He shoves the bowl back into Grace’s hands. The man fumbles, but keeps hold of it, and shovels a forkful into his mouth. Simon watches as he chews and swallows.

“Ta-dah!” The man chuckles, awkward.

“Can you open your mouth?” Simon asks, wanting to make sure it’s all actually gone. Grace does, albeit slowly. He counts the man’s teeth, thirty two, before stabbing a piece of pasta with the fork and placing it on his own tongue.

Fuck, it’s good. He chews, swallows, groans in delight, eats a bigger mouthful, chews, and suddenly he’s back in the ocean, gagging as something grows inside him. A parasite? No, no it’s...it’s hard, it hurts, his chest is being split in two and the monster...it got Ava but it’s dead now, it’s dead, and he’s—

Vomit. His vomit is red, like blood. He’s kneeling in it. In the blood, the vomit. Somewhere next to him lies a bowl, cracked in two. His Talisman. The man, his brother—no, hope that lies beyond the veil. The executed. They got their execution, he got his freedom. Did Simon...? Did he travel beyond the veil? Not of life and death, but of the ocean and the sky? He was drowning one minute, suffocating the next. He was himself, and then he was it. The tree. Eden. How?

His talisman shakes with his hands. It has no seed. No seed; the hope that lies beyond the veil. Which veil? Which seed? He groans, pained, grabbing his head. There are voices surrounding him, so many voices, and flesh, growing, on the inside of the submarine, his skin, stretching—

He gags onto Grace’s kitchen floor. Nothing but bile.

“Simon okay, question?”

He nods. Hisses. “No more red. No more red, please.”

Grace is hovering next to him, just shy of touching his shoulder. He looks shaken. “Right, of course, sorry.”

Simon groans. “No sorry, just—” He stands, walks to the sink, and spits. “I need food.”

“Rocky get food tube.” Rocky scuttles away, leaving Simon, his head in the sink, and Grace, cleaning up his mess.

“I—” He gags, again. His head hurts like hell. “Let me—”

“No.” It’s the first time he’s seen Grace look completely sure of himself. It’s a good look on him.

“Waste.”

“We have enough food, Simon, don’t worry about that. Eridian scientists are attempting to replicate Super Noodles as we speak.”

Simon’s heart stops beating in his head. “Super noodle?”

Grace sounds shocked. “You’ve never had Super Noodles!? Jeez, I need to tell the scientists to hurry up, the chicken flavour is so good.”

Simon runs the tap. Water, blessed, cold water, fills his hands, his mouth. He swishes it around and spits it out. Does it again. Swallows. “Chickens? Like, the animal?”

Grace blinks. “Yeah?” He sighs. “You know, you say you’re human, but you don’t know anything about Earth.”

He splashes his face with water. It shocks him, the cold. So different from the warm, red blood. He shivers, wiping his face dry with his hands, his shirt, anything, he just needs to get the water off--

Grace hands him a towel. He takes it, gratefully, and rubs his face. “I’ve never been to Earth, I was born on Mars.”

Grace drops the broken bowl back onto the floor. He hurries to pick it up, mumbling apologies about clumsiness and how Simon has a headache. “Ask me.” The man looks at him, glasses askew. “Ask me what you want to ask, Ryland.” His given name, though Rocky and, he’s guessing, the rest of the Eridians, call him by his last name, seems more...amicable. To Simon. He remembers being called his last name at Eden, and then The Butcher; reduced only to his dead family and his skill.

Ryland puts the bowl down on the side. “Let me grab my notebook.” He runs, dodging Simon’s vomit puddle. Simon uses the opportunity to place the towel on the ground, over his sick, so he doesn’t have to look at it. “Okay.” The man bumps into the couch on the way back to the kitchen and doesn’t even seem to notice.

He flicks to a new, empty page, resting his pen above the paper. “What year is it? Or, what year was it where you’re from?”

Simon thinks back. The last time someone told him the date it was in the EIC, not the IMC he’d grown up with. Still, maybe that was helpful? “Uh, it must’ve been around 364 EIC.”

Ryland stills. “EIC? What does that stand for?”

How didn’t he know the EIC!? “Epoch of Interplanetary Colonisation. It was created when we colonised Mars.”

Simon watches Ryland’s pen fall to the ground. He scrambles to pick it up, looks up at him from the floor in disbelief. “You colonised Mars!?"

"Yeah. I said I was born there."

Ryland rises. “Right. I just didn't...Holy crap. Holy crap. Okay, so we definitely aren’t on the same page right now.” He chuckles. “When you, or, well, when your humans—” Your humans!? "--were on Earth, did they use AD as their calendar system?”

He nods, repeating what he’d been taught on Eden. “The first Mars colony settled in 1992 AD, or year 0EIC.”

“Okay, brilliant.” Ryland scribbles something down. Simon warms at the praise. “So if you’d been on Earth, the year now would be around...2357, which is crazy because when I left Earth it was 2026, and that was, well, not three hundred and thirty one years ago.”

Simon stands up straight to look Ryland in the eyes. There’s no malicious intent there, no sign that this was a sick joke. Just...kindness, and a spark of excitement. “So, what does that mean?"

Ryland chews on the end of his pen, pacing. “Well,” he laughs, “this is gonna sound crazy, like, seriously insane, bear with me, but...I don’t think you’re from this universe. You must’ve-- do you remember any black holes? No, never mind, that’s a stupid question, of course you don’t—"

“The veil,” he says, amazed. It all makes sense. If Ryland were from this universe’s Earth, then of course he didn’t act like the people Simon knew. “So you weren’t lying?”

“Lying...? About what?”

“Being human. You’re human.”

Ryland laughs, soft, and Simon could drown in it. “Yeah, of course I am...and so are you.”

Simon nods. “Yeah, so am I.”

The man in front of him blushes, looking away, sticking the end of his pen in his mouth as if it were edible. It wasn’t edible, right? Simon would have to ask at some point.

“Rocky back with food tube! Why Grace red, question?”

Ryland smiles at Simon, wide. “We might’ve figured out what’s going on, Rock.”

Chapter Text

“So, the quiet rapture, as you called it, happened in 357EIC, right?” Grace scribbles the date down in his notebook, then converts it to AD: 2349. He wonders if Simon ever got to listen to The Beatles, or Oasis. If he’s around thirty years old, which Grace suspects he is, then he would’ve been born in 2387— a bit after their time, granted, and a bit after Earth 2’s time (that’s what he’s deemed to call it in his notes; he never said he was good at naming things, in his defence) as well. “All the stars die, all the planets disappear, there’s, what 1000 humans left alive?”

Simon shrugs his, quite frankly, large shoulders, sucking on the food tube Rocky gave him. “Give or take, yeah.”

Grace frowns. “But you were born on Mars? Didn’t the quiet rapture happen before you were born?”

“It’s kind of funny, actually.” Simon tongues the inside of his cheek. “Mars was overpopulated, so when my Mother gave birth to me, they put me in an induced coma and sent me up to Eden, the space station. I was meant to come back down, y’know, after some time, but then the rapture happened and...”

“Emperor Comatose, like Grace!” Rocky wiggles around against Grace’s side as the man himself sweats.

“What?”

“Oh,” he laughs it off, “It’s nothing, I just got put in an induced coma as well. When I woke up, I didn’t know my name, so I joked around saying I was—”

“An emperor?”

Grace’s hand goes to massage the back of his neck. “Yeah...”

Simon smiles. “Funny.” Grace can feel himself positively glowing in return. He reluctantly averts his eyes from Simon and his vomit-stained sweats, focusing back on his notes.

“Thanks. Anyway, so, Mars was overpopulated? Was Earth? Or any other planets you guys colonised?”

Simon's inflating and deflating his now empty tube. “Earth was, that’s why we colonised Mars in the first place. I think some moons were as well...?”

Grace chews on his pen, deep in thought. “So, you guys were overpopulated on two planets, a few moons, and then suddenly, bam! Everything vanishes?” Simon nods. Grace hums. “Were a lot of babies sent up to the space stations?”

“No, only those who could afford it. I remember them saying my parents were pretty important on Mars, somehow. I think my Father was in politics; they must’ve had money.”

Grace bites at some skin on his thumb. His notes are going places he doesn't necessarily want them to, but, well...he has to ask. He has to make sense of this. If not for himself then surely for Simon. The man would want to know the truth...right? “So...rich people could have their babies put on Eden. Rich people...people who were important. Do you think...” He bites his lip. “Do you think your parents knew that The Rapture was gonna happen?”

Simon’s silent. Grace almost apologises, thinking he’s crossed a line, but then the man speaks, slow. “There was a ship sent out, about three-hundred years before.  No one really talked about it, they refused to teach us ‘ancient history’, but my bro—people used to whisper, y’know? Apparently they were looking for something that was decreasing the temperature on Earth. That was another reason we went to Mars, I guess, but the ship didn’t return and they just...said everything was okay, apparently.”

“Three-hundred years before the rapture.”

Simon nods. “Around that, no one really knew for sure.”

“...That would’ve been 2049. If it was a few years, twenty-three years before, which it could’ve been...then that ship might’ve...”

Rocky pipes up. “Hail Mary.”

Grace points at him, like he would with his students. “Exactly!”

Simon raises an eyebrow—who can even raise a single eyebrow!? “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Alright, let’s...” He stands, pacing. “Just, hold on!” He runs to his bedroom and wheels his whiteboard out, into the living room. He places it opposite Simon, so that he can see clearly, and hastily starts scribbling out the chemical compound for Astrophage.

“Okay, this is Astrophage, also known as the star killer.” He draws the Hail Mary and a crude stick man inside it. “That’s me.” He points at it with his pen. “Now, I was sent on a mission from Earth—” He picks up the green pen, draws a crappy version of Earth at the bottom of the board. “—In 2026. This mission was to find out why our stars were dimming. Well, no, we knew why, it was the Petrova Line—” Red pen. Draws Venus and the Sun joined by a line. “From Venus to our Sun, and the Petrova Line was made up of little dots called Astrophage.” He grabs the black pen and draws dots in the Petrova Line. “My destination was the Tau Ceti system, where the stars weren’t dimming for some reason, and I was sent to find out why. You following?”

Simon studies the board for a second. “I think so?”

Grace grins. “Great! Now, Astrophage grows on the surface of stars, and essentially kills them, hence the name. This would’ve meant that Earth’s temperature over the next thirty-years would decrease, and there would be famine, war, y’know. Human stuff.” He draws a snowflake over Earth.

“Not know. Humans stupid.” Rocky pipes up, and Grace rolls his eyes, fond.

“I’m aware, thanks Rock. So...I was sent up on the space ship, the Hail Mary, to find a way to stop Astrophage from eating the Sun. That’s where I met—” he points at Rocky. “You!”

“Me, me!” The alien exclaims, and Grace laughs, drawing a miniature Rocky in the spaceship with him.

“Right! Because Astrophage was also killing Erid’s stars, and Rocky had been sent up in space to stop that.”

Rocky nods, solemn. “Whole crew die. Very sad. Found Grace and happy!”

Simon looks at Grace, concerned, and then turns back to Rocky. “I’m...sorry.”

“Okay. We mourned. Grace, continue.”

The two turn back to him. “So we met, and learned how to communicate, and realised we were looking for the same thing. This basically led to us travelling to the system, and to the planet Adrian, named after Rocky’s mate, of course.” Grace draws Adrian, the planet, and then Adrian the Eridian, just for context. “We managed to secure some samples of Taumoeba, native to Adrian, and also a natural predator of Astrophage.” He draws a monster eating the Astrophage; labels it Taumoeba.

“Grace very brave. Risk life to secure samples.”

He chuckles, waving Rocky’s praise away. “It was nothing, bud. Besides, you nearly died saving me, so...you’re the brave one here.”

“I am brave.” Rocky says, “Grace brave brave.”

He’s about to interject, but Simon gets there first. “I think you should listen to him, this sounds...insane.”

Grace flushes. “Well, I mean, I—” He clears his throat. “Ha. Bad cough. Uhm—well, where was I...? Right, Taumoeba. So, we collected samples, sent some back to Earth where they’ve hopefully arrived by now, and scientists can, y’know, stop everyone from dying. The other half of the samples were used by the Eridians here, to stop their stars from dying, so—” He draws a big smiley face in black marker. “All the stars have stopped dying.”

“Thanks to you two?” Simon asks, awed. “Wow.”

“Grace too, what word...? Grace not give himself enough credit. Grace nearly die. Against his will—”

“Rocky, enough!”

Rocky chirps, annoyed, but shuts up.

“Against your will?” Simon asks. “What do you...?”

He sighs. He doesn’t like to talk about it, it’s in the past now, but Simon’s so confused, and he supposes he’ll find out eventually, what with the two of them spending the rest of their lives together. Okay, hold up. Crazy thought. Still... “Oh, it’s...it’s nothing, really, Rock is being dramatic. I was just put onto the ship against my will because the other scientists died and, well, I was too cowardly to say yes to the mission because it was...y'know...a suicide mission.” He chuckles. “I know I should’ve, I mean, to save the world, but—”

“That’s horrible.” Grace looks at Simon whose eyes, in the meagre light, look red as blood; whose hands, interlinked like he's mid-prayer, look strong enough to hold up mountains. He truly is a sight to behold. “How could they do that to you!?”

Grace shrugs. It’s been a while since he thought about it. He isn’t angry at Stratt, not any more—she did what she thought was best for the world, and, well, it paid off in the end. “For the sake of humanity.”

“But...” Simon runs a hand through his hair. “But you? You’re...so nice, and you must've been valuable to Earth with your knowledge...why would they send you to die?” Grace gapes at the man in front of him. The man he’s yet to touch. The man he's so...so terrified of disappointing. His heart sings.

“Rocky agree, statement. Earth is—” He trails off into what Grace guesses is Eridian curse words. He refuses to translate those, on principle.

“Yeah,” Simon points at Rocky, “What he said.”

Grace smiles, tight-lipped, to stop himself from leaking yet again. If he did, he wouldn’t hear the end of it from Rocky, going on and on about humans and their various...liquids. “Thanks, guys.” He walks over to Rocky and pats his head. Smiles at Simon, gratefully. “But, back to the point, uhh...” He looks the whiteboard over. Scratches his head. “What was my point, again? OH! Right, imagine if the Taumoeba didn’t make it to Earth.”

Rocky makes a distinctly upset noise. “It did.”

“I know it did, Rock, at least it got to my Earth, anyways, but just imagine it didn’t. Imagine if the mission failed, and then the Astrophage was left to breed for, what, three hundred and twenty three years?”

It’s dawned on Simon; he’d know the look of a difficult answer clicking in someone’s mind anywhere.

“Then...it would eat the planets? The stars?”

He smiles, proud. “Exactly! It might evolve or mutate or...I don’t even know what it would have to do to make all the planets and stars disappear simultaneously, but I don’t doubt that it could. Astrophage is a resilient microbe, almost like a mould. If it goes unchecked, it will spread. And I’m willing to bet the space ship you were talking about was your Earth’s version of the Hail Mary that didn’t succeed.”

Simon gapes at him. “Holy shit.”

Grace nods. “Indeed.”

“But it didn’t...it didn’t destroy the moons. Four moons, I think, two of them were—” He cuts himself off, pale in the face.

“That’s...interesting.” Grace sits opposite Simon, next to Rocky once more. He grabs his notebook and pen, flips to a clear page. “Was there anything strange about the moons? Have you been on them?”

Simon looks sick. “Only one, but two of them were...” He swallows. “Blood moons.”

“Oh!” He writes that down. “So, like, always in eclipse with one another? That’s interesting, on my Earth we only have the blood moon when—”

“No. You don’t understand.”

Grace stops. Puts his pen down. “What do you mean?”

Simon closes his eyes, puts his head in his hands. Jeez, he’s really effed up with this one. “They were oceans of blood...human blood.”

Something in Grace clicks. The blood Simon was covered with when he got here, the vomiting, the ‘no more red, please.’ Simon thinking that he was dead, in heaven. His dreams?

He’d drowned in an ocean of blood, and somehow, somehow, ended up here.

“Oceans of blood, like Grace’s dream, question?”

Simon lifts his head at such a speed it could probably compete with the speed of light. “What?”

He plays with the hair at his nape, averting his eyes from the man in front of him. “I—it's nothing. After you got here, I just started having dreams about an ocean of blood. Someone...drowning. They never spoke, never said a word, just...choked.” He chuckles. "It must be a crazy coincidence, I mean, in one of the dreams there was a tree growing under the blood! That couldn't possibly happen.” Simon stares at him, intense, eyes wide. “There was also a monster...some kind of big eel, or something....that can’t be real.” Simon’s silence speaks volumes. “...Can it?”

Simon’s jaw clenches. “Sorry,” He stands, “I just—” He walks away, his fingernails digging into his palms. Grace gets up to go after him.

“Grace dreams of Simon, question?”

“Yeah, I—” He runs a hand through his hair, confused. God, he’s so confused. Why the heck was he having prophetic dreams!? Or, well, not prophetic, Simon had already drowned by the time the dreams had started, but why was he having any dreams about something that’d happened in a different universe!? It was...crazy. Unscientific. He didn’t understand. “I think so, bud.”

Rocky tilts his head. “Help Simon.” He's already gone.

Simon punches the white walls with his fist. The one that's his, the one that has veins and blood running in those veins and—he punches it again. No good. Again. He hopes he breaks his hand. Hopes he’s never able to use his fingers again, hopes that he can never again pray to an unjust God who would take his death, and give the memory to someone so...so undeserving of the pain Simon has put him through, hell, the pain this sick fucking universe has put him through.

He hisses, his knuckles red raw. The wall is pink where he punched it. It’s not good enough. He needs—he needs control. He yearns for it, for this situation to just make sense. It nearly had. For a singular second, he thought he knew what was happening, and then it got messed up again—

His knuckles crack. He can hear Ryland running towards him, stopping in the doorway. He turns.

“Simon? Please don’t...” The man edges closer, but not close enough to touch. “What’s wrong? I know it’s upsetting, me knowing what happened to you before you told me, but I won’t—”

Simon laughs, crazed. “You think that’s the problem?” He bites his knuckle. Blood oozes out of one of the scrapes.

“Well, what else is it?” He takes another step. Simon could reach out and touch him.

“You have to go through that suffering every night because of me. I don’t know why you’re dreaming about my death, but it...it was horrible. Painful. I—I think I slipped through the wrong veil because there wasn’t hope in the void I lived in, and now you’re stuck with me. Stuck reliving my death night after night, all because I just wanted to live.” He bites his lip. “I didn’t deserve to survive.”

Ryland bites the skin on his thumb, looking like he's found a dead animal and is unsure whether to comfort it or put it down. “Simon, do you know how happy I was when I got told another human was here? I was...” He sighs. “I was overwhelmed...terrified, of course, but not of you. I was terrified for you. You looked—you looked like hell, and I just thought that you must be so brave to still be...alive, against the odds. The Eridians asked for my consent to save you. They wanted to, but they wanted to ask me because they knew we’d be in close-quarters, and you know what I did? I begged them, Simon. I begged for you to live, and I don’t regret that one bit.” He runs a hand through his hair, something Simon is beginning to recognise as a nervous tic. “So don’t you fucking dare say that you don’t deserve to survive. You deserve to live, Simon. You’ve fought tooth and nail for that right, and I will gladly dream about you every night if only you let yourself trust that this is all real and just...live.”

The only things Simon can hear are Ryland’s breaths, and the blood rushing in his ears.

“I’m a convict. I was put on that submarine because I killed people, Ryland. A lot of people.”

The man shrugs. “Okay, that isn’t exactly ideal, but you obviously regret it, and you sacrificed yourself for the sake of humanity, so I don’t see the problem. You’ve been reborn, Simon, don’t spend your entire life thinking about your past.”

Tears drip down Simon’s face, slow and thick. “You’re fuckin’ insane.”

Ryland grins. It says something that even in Simon’s current state, he finds it charming. “I get that a lot.”

There’s a shared moment of silence as they just...look at each other. Simon takes the man in front of him in. Takes in his messy, gelled blond hair; his eyes, tired but warm; his glasses that are nearly falling off of his nose; his stupid science t-shirt that says ‘I had potential.’ He realises that the shirt on him, the shirt he’d smelled earlier, was Ryland’s, and of course it was. The man was endlessly kind, and more than a bit-strange—of course he’d dress an injured stranger in his own clothes, of course he wouldn't care if they got dirty. He only wishes the guy had more fashion sense. Simon's from a post-apocalyptic universe and even he has a more thorough knowledge of clothing style. Still, he would be lying if he said Ryland’s clothes weren’t kind of sweet on the man himself.

“Can I—” He sweats. Asking Ryland a question, for some reason, feels insurmountable.

“Yeah?” The man breathes, heavy breaths in through his nose and out through his mouth. The rhythm of them is calming.

“Can I, uh, change my sweats? The vomit...”

Ryland pushes his glasses up his nose. “Right! Yes, of course, let me...let me get you some more.”

“Thank you.” He loosens the drawstring of the sweats and tugs them off. When he looks back up, Ryland’s still there, just...looking at his thighs? “Sorry.” Ryland averts his eyes. “Is it not normal to change in front of one another? I didn't have much privacy back on the station, so..."

The man swallows. Smiles reassuringly. “No, no, it’s okay, sorry, I just...I haven’t seen another human in, like, years, well, not if you count dead ones I suppose, but even then it was, like, four years ago...and I didn’t see their thighs, that would’ve been, like, weird, like, sooo weird.” There’s a beat of silence as Ryland looks away, his face red as a...what was it? Tomato? “Anyway! I’ll get you my clothes, your clothes. Ha. Bye.”

Simon hears Ryland muttering to himself in the corridor. Observes him hitting his own head with his hands through the glass. The man then turns, seemingly remembering that Simon can see him, gives him a wide smile, and books it to his bedroom. It’s funny, how...unsure Ryland is. How he constantly second-guesses himself in everything but his scientific work.

A thought suddenly occurs to Simon. If Ryland dressed him, or, well, even if he didn’t—does he know? It’s not a big deal, surely. Earth was apparently quite accepting before it’d been eaten, though he’s not certain that humans had reached that level in 2026. He shifts from one foot to the other, nervous. It wasn’t like Eden was accepting, anyway; he’d had to bum testosterone from one of his brothers who stocked the black market, and his chest was relatively flat to start with.

He could make it work. Maybe Ryland would like him more if he pretended he was a girl...? He shudders. No, fuck that. The aliens, they’re hermaphrodites, right? They would at least accept him, what with no concept of gender n’ all...

Ryland rushes back in, as if he were on a time limit, handing Simon another pair of sweats. Their hands don't touch. The man made it that way deliberately. Now that Simon thinks about it, have they even touched once? He doesn’t think so; he’d remember. Maybe the guy was touch averse? He shakes his head, focusing on the sweats. These ones are grey, and look well-worn. He can already tell they’re going to be comfortable.

“Here! Just had to dig through my closet, not that that was an issue, like...at all. There isn’t much in there anyway, my room is such a state—”

“Thanks.”

Ryland nods, eyes firmly on Simon’s face. “Of course.”

Simon scratches the back of his head. Sighs. “Do you know?” The man in front of him tilts his head, confused. “The...” He gestures to his crotch. "Situation."

Ryland’s eyes go wide. “Oh! Rocky’s mate Adrian mentioned it but I’d honestly forgotten. Eridians can't see like we do, they use echolocation, but he could probably hear your uterus or something, their hearing is incredible! Or Armando gave him your medical files after it cleaned you up, oh, that's just what I call the robot--"

“You don’t...care?”

The man levels him with a look. “Dude, I’m not an asshole. Of course I don’t care. Or, rather, I care, but like, in a caring sense—”

Simon holds a hand up. Ryland chokes, flushing. “I get it. Thank you.”

“Of course.” He’s massaging the back of his neck, again. A lot of obvious nervous tics, Simon thinks, but he doesn’t comment.

“Y’know...I think you’ve sworn twice in the time I’ve known you, and they were both in the past five minutes.”

Ryland chuckles. “You must bring it out in me. I usually don’t because of the kids.” He must notice Simon’s shocked face. Kids!? “Oh, no, no, not my kids—I was a teacher back on Earth, taught kids, couldn’t swear, the whole shebang. No, no, I’m chronically single. I mean, I had a girlfriend back in college, of course, I guess most people do, but she said my head was in the clouds, and then when I told her I was bisexual it was a whole thing—”  He cuts himself off, flushing an even deeper red if that was possible. “I’m rambling again. Anyway!" He claps. "I should...leave you to put your trousers on. Yep! Just...leaving now. Bye.”

And away he ran. Simon couldn’t help but smile as he pulled the sweats on. What a weird fuckin' guy.

Chapter Text

When Grace dreams, it isn’t of a nameless man drowning in a sea of blood. There’s a lamb being chased by a fox. It runs for its life on shaky legs, but he knows it’s only a matter of time before it ends up limp in the fox’s jaws. When the lamb dies, the fox whimpers and cries, blood still warm on its tongue, and for some reason, Grace wakes up with damp eyes and a metallic tang in his mouth.

Rocky isn’t there, tonight, watching him. He’s alone. Tired, but knowing he won’t be able to go back to sleep, he stretches and makes his way to the kitchen for a cup of coffee, a habit that even being in space hasn’t kicked out of him.

Simon’s on the couch, asleep. He’s taken to doing this since that day in the observation room when Grace made a fool out of himself talking about his college ex-girlfriend. He sighs. God, sometimes he’s so...stupid! He should’ve taken a page out of Stratt’s book when he had the chance, used his amnesia as a chance to reinvent himself as some mysterious loner who only spoke when he actually had something to say. Though that would be kind of difficult, and boring—

His thoughts are cut off by the sound of teeth, grinding. They’re Simon’s, of course they are, no one else on the planet even has teeth. Grace winces, feeling sorry for Simon’s jaw. If he carries on like that, he won’t have any teeth left in ten years. They’ll just be little, white stubs.

As the water boils, he busies himself thinking about whether it was more likely Simon had always grinded his teeth in his sleep, or whether it’d started when he was in the submarine, or perhaps even on Erid. It’s probably genetic, like with snoring. His college flatmate used to snore and it annoyed the crud out of him. Still, Simon’s teeth grinding wasn’t...unpleasant. Oh, who was he kidding? It was. It was just...Simon. Grace didn’t believe there was anything the man could do that’d make him dislike him. Hell, he’d killed countless people and Grace was still daydreaming about how rough his hand might feel against his own.

Was he insane? Was he actually, medically, insane? Maybe he was, he’d never been to therapy before, couldn’t afford it with a teacher’s wage, but...that was fine, right? He had to be a bit insane to move in with the first alien he’d encountered in deep-space. Hey, at least he didn’t regret it, that would be properly insane.

Simon mutters in his sleep, shifting his body a little. It can’t be comfortable for him, sleeping on the narrow couch. Maybe he should offer up his bed, but then he’d have to take the couch, and, well...he was older. He’d probably get back pains, anyways. Maybe they could share his bed. It was definitely big enough, Rocky had made sure of it for when they had sleepovers. They could probably even fit some kind of pillow wall in the middle of them, if Simon wanted. Though he did tend to move around in his sleep; the wall would probably get knocked down. They might even wake up in each other’s arms.

Grace sighs, pondering his dream some more. Does it mean anything? Is he the fox, or the lamb? Prey or predator? Humans are natural predators, of course, but only out of necessity. The fox weeps when it bites the lamb; the human looks the cow in its eyes and shoots it in the head.

He shudders, attempting to put his dream aside, but it reminds him of something...a fable...or a myth, maybe? A wolf holding a lamb in its ribs. He sighs—it’s hazy, sometimes, when he tries to remember things from Earth. His long-term memory was never particularly good to begin with, but being on Erid tends to make all of his Earth-isms (as he likes to call them) fade slightly.

He imagines himself, a myth. Did Stratt keep her word? Was he celebrated on Earth as a hero? He hopes not. For his every step to have been written in historical texts, his every word turned into mere quotes for people to read and dissect. The thought makes him sick to his stomach.

Stratt’s the fox, he thinks; doing what it takes to survive despite it hurting. Does that make him the lamb? Maybe. He rubs his wrist with his thumb, feeling for a pulse. Maybe he is a lamb. Is that so bad?

Simon groans. Grace’s eyes dart to his figure. He’s still unconscious, but his arm (the one that didn’t get severed) hangs off of the edge of the couch, uncomfortably, and his breaths are coming out at an uneven pace. He should...he should help him, right? He doesn’t want Simon to wake up with cramps. Grace inches closer to the sleeping man, completely forgetting about the coffee he was going to make. It’s pretty dark in the room; Simon insists that all the curtains remain closed, both in the day and night, so that he can't see the ocean. Grace doesn't mind, so long as it makes Simon comfortable. Besides, he can go outside whenever he wans, and he does, often dipping his toes in the lukewarm ocean water before he retires to bed.

He bumps into the edge of the kitchen counter, suppressing an exclamation and jumping up and down until the pain subsides. Simon sleeps through his pained grunts, thank god, and soon enough he’s kneeling at the man’s side.

He feels...creepy, doing this. Watching Simon sleep. His chest, covered by Grace’s favourite t-shirt, moves up and down, fast, as if Simon were running. His jaw clenches, but he’s not grinding his teeth any longer. That’s a positive, at least. He moves his hand towards Simon’s own, his fingertips inches away from finally, finally, touching another human’s skin for the first time in years, before withdrawing. Something about the first time he touches Simon being when the other is unconscious doesn’t sit right with him. He can feel the heat radiating off of the other man’s body, and a wave of nausea coils in his stomach.

He’s sick with want. He wants to touch Simon. Wants to run his fingers through the man’s hair, and trace the scars on his thighs with his fingertips, he wants to—god, this is humiliating—he wants to hug him. Hold him tight and not, not let go...because the reason he hasn’t let himself touch Simon yet, the true reason, is because he fears that once he starts, he won’t be able to stop. That his hunger, his greed, will consume him, that Simon will get frustrated by how tactile he is, and everything will fall apart.

It’s happened before—he’d always been touchy in his past relationships, always been the one begging the other to hold him at night, to stay just a minute longer. If Simon doesn’t feel the same way, doesn’t crave Grace’s touch like he craves his, merely puts up with him because he has to, it’ll ruin him.

It’s selfish, god, he knows he’s selfish. He’s known the man, what, a week? Not counting the weeks he’d sat at Simon’s bedside whilst he’d been unconscious, reading to him from his medical file, or his laptop, or, on his worst days, begging him to just wake up, to stop giving him false hope.

He sighs. He won’t touch Simon, not today, maybe not even—

A hand wraps around his neck. Eyes are on his. Rich, brown eyes the colour of soil. It’s funny how Simon’s never been to Earth, yet he’s so...integrated with it. Sun-kissed skin, lips the colour of rosé. What he wouldn’t give to drink from the well of Simon’s mouth.

The man’s thumb presses down firmly on his suprasternal notch, just enough to hurt, and he knows what Simon meant now, when he asked if he was in heaven, because the other man’s touch, even if it hurts, feels like that of an angel.

Almost as soon as he’s grabbed, he’s released. A choked cough is ripped from his dry throat, but he craves Simon’s hands on his neck more than anything that could soothe the pain.

Simon dreams of a fox. It chases a lamb. Catches it in its jaws. Cries. The cries of the fox don’t cleanse it of its sin; it knows what its done, how much blood its hands are covered in. It cradles the lamb’s face, tenderly, but still stains its white coat with blood.

He wakes up and he’s choking Ryland. His hand wraps around the man’s neck like a rope, and it burns to let go, but he knows that to stay would result in yet more blood on his hands, another life taken as the butcher.

“Oh, fuck.” He sounds monstrous, voice as deep as an ocean of blood. He scrambles to get off the couch. Distantly, he sees Ryland reaching out to grab him. “DON’T FUCKING TOUCH ME!” The man’s face crumbles, and Simon hurts. How dare he? How fucking dare he harm Ryland, after everything he’s said, after all the man has been through?

Simon crawls, backing himself against the kitchen counter, his eyes on Ryland’s face, snarling like a rabid dog. He remembers reading about dogs, once. Reading that you could take a dog out of the wild, attempt to domesticate it, but in the end it would still bite.

“Simon, it’s okay.” Ryland...Grace, never has Simon met someone with a name more deserved, looks at him, gentle. “I’m okay. I shouldn’t have been near you when you were asleep, I’m—”

“Don’t apologise,” he spits. Liquid pours from his nose. It’s blood. Oh, god, it’s blood. No matter how much blood he endures, there’s always more, always more, and more, and...

Ryland’s in front of him, not touching but close enough to. Simon’s blood drips into his mouth; he gags. The man in front of him reaches out. “No.” His hands shake, millimetres away from Simon’s own weapons of mass destruction. They shouldn’t have built him another arm, he thinks. He’s deadly enough with one. “No, please...”

“Give me your hand, Simon.”

“No.” He wipes the blood from his nose, holds them out so that Ryland can see. “They’re bloody.”

Ryland smiles, his fingertips skimming the pads of Simon’s fingers. “I don’t care.” He entwines their fingers, Simon’s blood staining his hands.

Simon squeezes his hand. Presses his forehead to his knees. “I’m sorry.”

“No. No apologies, okay? They’re not wanted.”

Simon nods against his knees. They sit in silence, his blood drying on their palms, waiting for an artificial sun to rise.

Chapter Text

Simon stares at his reflection in the small bathroom mirror. The Butcher looks back at him. He runs his tongue along his teeth, counting them. Twenty-nine. Three less than Ryland. His tongue teases the gum at the back of his mouth, where his thirtieth tooth used to be. It’s pink, inflamed, copper-like in taste.

His hair, no longer pulled back by his headband, has grown a few inches since he last saw himself, now far below his shoulders. It’s matted, greasy. He hasn’t washed it, or his body for that matter, since he woke up in the observation room however many nights ago. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to, he just...couldn’t bring himself to.

He used to love warm showers. They were few and far between, on Eden, so whenever they had hot water Simon would savour it, standing under the spray for ten minutes—maybe even fifteen, if the Father had pissed him off— letting it warm and cleanse his aching body. Now, the thought of actually getting in a warm shower, or worse, a bath, made him feel ill. The idea of any water drip, drip, dripping onto his face and into his eyes and suddenly he can’t see, and, fuck, it's in his mouth—

It makes him want to punch something. Hard.

His arm. His headband. His teeth. His cleanliness (and cleanliness was next to Godliness.) All things the COI, the mission, stripped of him. He doesn’t feel human, he feels...loose at the seams, like a badly-sewn shirt or a bloated corpse.

He opens his mouth, again. Counts his teeth. Still twenty-nine. He counts the moles on his arm, attempts to remember how many moles he had on the arm he ripped off; he can’t. He tangles his fingers, the same ones Ryland had clutched earlier that morning with such desperation, in his hair. He’s disgusting. He doesn’t know how the other man manages to be near him, never mind comfort him.

He starts rifling through the drawers in the bathroom. He probably shouldn’t—he should respect Ryland’s privacy, but as it turns out there isn’t much in there anyway. Some painkillers (he swallows three, eagerly), a pair of nail clippers, a razor, and some scissors. Perfect.

He picks up the scissors. They’re a bit more blunt than he would’ve liked, but beggars can’t be choosers ‘n all that. He looks at himself in the mirror, one more time, hoping that the next time he sees his reflection, a stranger will be staring back at him.

He grabs a chunk of his hair, and cuts it off. Another. As he progresses, more and more of his dark hair clogs the sink’s drain. He’ll remove it later, he thinks absent-mindedly; if he doesn’t finish this now, he never will. His transformation must be instantaneous. He can’t be the man who butchered innocents, who choked his only companion in his sleep, any more. He can’t be the convict. He’s not even sure if he can be Simon but, fuck, he’s willing to try. What else can he do, really?

More and more hair finds its way into the sink. He cuts it until the weight lessens, until he can feel the ends of his hair on his lower neck. The top of his hair still hangs relatively long, the front curling just above his eyebrows. He puts the scissors down, picks up the razor. Scrapes it against his sideburn. He nicks himself and hisses, wetting the razor before shaving his other side.

In the end, he looks...fine. He’d always quite liked his long hair, even if it made his brothers and sisters on Eden mistaken him for a woman often. This, though, it was...different. Still long, but the shortest he’s had it in a while: his hair curling outwards on his shoulders. He still has his stubble (though, he did wonder whether that would stay considering his lack of testosterone), but it was like...a weight had been lifted. No longer was he weighed down by the grease, the blood. He’s shed his past identity and become a new man. A good man. A man who lives and laughs and holds another man’s hand.

He laughs, looking at his reflection, tears in his eyes. It’s him. It’s really, despite everything, him. Blood drips down his jaw, his neck, staining his (or, rather Ryland’s—) collar, and, for the first time in his life, he smiles at the man he sees in the mirror.

Then there’s a knock.

“Simon?” It’s Ryland, of course. “Sorry, you’ve just been in there for a while, and I’m kind of worried—”

Simon steps forward and pulls the door open. Ryland’s face greets him and, wow, what a greeting. The man looks slightly exhausted, as always, but still devastatingly beautiful. He wonders if all humans who are born on Earth have the...the glow that the man in front of him does. The magnetic pull that could make an entire alien species love him as one of their own, and the man who’d drowned in blood clutch at his hand like a lifeline. He doubts it.

He looks at Simon, soft. “Hey, you.”

Simon’s shoulders drop slightly, losing some of the tension they’d built up earlier. “Hi.”

Ryland’s eyes wander from his mouth, to his eyes, to his ears. “You cut your hair?”

Simon nods. “Yeah. It was weighin’ me down.”

“Huh. I like it. Though...” Ryland hooks his fingers under Simon’s chin, tilting his head one way, and then the other. He can feel the other man’s breath against his jaw. His fingers are smooth but undeniably masculine against Simon’s stubble. “It’s a bit uneven.”

He looks up, raises an eyebrow. “I’m no professional.”

“I know.” Ryland smirks. “Do you want some help?”

"Oh? So you're a professional?" 

"Well, I wouldn't say that..." 

Now it’s Simon’s turn to smirk. "How do I know you won’t make me look horrendously ugly, then?”

Ryland laughs. He has the stars in his eyes. “I don’t think you could ever look horrendously ugly.” He clears his throat, flushing a dark, dark red that brings out his eyes further (much to Simon’s delight). “I mean, I know I’m not a professional, but I did used to cut my own hair on Earth, teachers wage y'know? Plus, I'm, well...this is stupid, but I'm kinda scared of hairdressers?"

Simon grins, teasing. “What? Why?”

“It’s not a very interesting story. Scared might even be a bit of an overstatement." He looks at Simon, who gestures for him to continue. He could listen to Ryland talk for hours; his voice was soothing as an old song. “Alright, but don't say I didn't warn you...It, uh, happened in sixth grade. My Mom said my hair was getting too long, which...it kinda was, y’know? But I didn’t want to tell her that. Anyway, she took me to her hairdresser, a woman named Stacey. I still remember she had a British accent, yellow-blonde hair, and chewed gum for the full hour it took her to cut my hair! It was the worst. Uhh, at the time though, I was, what? Eleven years old? I was obsessed with this anime called Naruto—” He stops at Simon’s confused look. “Oh! An anime is a Japanese...you know about Japan, right?” Simon nods. They’d been taught Earth-history briefly on Eden: countries, animals, politics, etc. “Okay, cool! So anime is like Japanese cartoons, you watch them on the TV, and this one was about a boy called Naruto who wanted to become the leader of his village. He was bullied as a kid, and so was I, so I kind of...connected with him on that, I guess. That’s why he was my favourite character. He also looked really cool. He had spiky blond hair that was short at the back, and I really wanted to look like him. Heck, I even had his headband, it was a bit like yours was now that I think about it.” He chuckles, again. “Anyway, I told Stacey that I wanted to have my hair cut like Naruto’s hair. I’d even brought a picture of him that I’d printed out earlier that morning, but she said she didn’t need the picture, that Naruto was her son’s favourite anime and she knew exactly what I wanted. So she cut my hair, and she must’ve gotten Naruto confused with another anime or something, because she ended up giving me a bowl cut.”

“No!” Simon gasps, resisting the urge to laugh.

“Yes! It was the worst! I cried in the car on the way home, and the next day at school everyone called me Bowl Boy.” Ryland hides his face in his hands, re-living the embarrassment.

Simon snorts. “Ouch. Kids are cruel, man.”

“So cruel! That name stuck for the entire year, even after I cut my hair short. It got to the point that, when we graduated, I deliberately went to a High School far away so that nobody would know me as Bowl Boy.”

Simon snickers into his hand. Ryland pouts. "Sorry, sorry." He holds his hands up in mock-surrender. "That's a solid reason to be scared of hairdressers."

“Yeah, I’ve been cutting my own hair ever since. It’s not bad, right?” He does a twirl, smiling. One of his dimples is a fraction bigger than the other, Simon notices.

He swallows. “Yeah. Not bad.” He weighs his next words on his tongue. “I haven’t been able to wash it, though.”

Ryland blinks. “Your hair?”

“Well, everything, but...yeah. It’s fuckin’ stupid...” Simon plays with the hair curling behind his ears. “I just can’t think about showerin’ without feelin’ sick.”

“Well, that makes sense—"

Simon scoffs. “No, it doesn’t. I’m fuckin’ crazy.”

“We’re all mad here.” Ryland chuckles. “Alice in Wonderland? No?”

Simon’s lost.  “Who the fuck is Alice?”

“It doesn’t...” He scratches his head. “I’ll have to show you later, that’s my bad. I really thought you’d know that one...Still, maybe I could help? With your shower—I could get you a cloth and some soap for you to wipe yourself down with? That way you’re only getting damp, and the water won’t get in your eyes or mouth.”

That’s not a bad idea. “What about my hair?”

“Well, uh, I could do that? Only if you wanted—"

“You would do that for me?” He makes a face, disgusted. “It’s so...dirty.”

Ryland huffs, almost amused. His gaze is warm as he looks down at Simon. “I’ve cleaned up your vomit, Simon. I can touch your greasy hair.” Well, that was true. “Only if you want me to, though.”

“I do.” The words come without him even having to think. “Sorry.”

The man rolls his eyes, fond. “Shut up. I want to do this, okay?" 

Simon nods. “Okay.” When has anyone ever wanted to do something for him before, expecting nothing in return? He can’t even think.

“Cool, so we can do that and then you can clean the hair off—”

“Oh.” Simon looks down at himself; at Ryland’s shirt covered in his hair. “I should’ve taken this off before, huh? I didn’t really know I was gonna cut my hair when I came in here, to be honest.”

Ryland waves his concerns away. “It’s alright, I get it. I’ll wash it later, and, besides, I have more shirts you can borrow—”

Simon groans. “Do they all have stupid science jokes on them?”

“Uhhhhh...” The hesitation isn’t giving Simon high hopes. “Maybe?” He groans again. “Oh, c’mon, they aren’t that bad!”

“I wear this shirt periodically,” Simon deadpans, and Ryland snickers.

“See? That’s objectively hilarious!”

“More like objectively awful.”

Ryland pouts. “You sound just like my students on funny t-shirt day. They tried to send me home for wearing my I Had Potential shirt, because it, and I quote, ‘wasn’t funny enough.’ I nearly gave them all detention.”

Simon whistles. “Sounds oppressive.”

“Tell me about it,” he mutters. “I might have a shirt with a cat on it? What about that?”

“Ryland, if it’s not a science pun, I’ll take it. I'm desperate enough."

Simon’s sat on the toilet lid, hair choppy and uneven. He looks good, unfairly good for a man who just cut his own hair in what Grace can only imagine as some kind of mental breakdown or identity crisis. Not that it wasn't totally valid. Hell, he's four years deep into his identity crisis, and it's not disappearing anytime soon. That's what you get when you're sent into space against your will, he guesses.

Grace stands in front of him, damp cloth in hand. “Ready to start?”

Simon has to tilt his head up to look him in the eyes. “Yeah, whenever you are.” He looks back down, keeping his head straight and still.

“Alright. Cool.” He unceremoniously places the damp cloth onto Simon’s scalp. “You sure it isn’t too cold?” He rubs small circles, slowly dampening his hair. The cloth is thin; he can practically feel Simon’s hair against his fingertips.

“No, that’s perfect.” Simon sighs, sagging slightly.

Grace continues to rub Simon’s scalp, red in the face. His hair is thick, so much thicker than his own, and the dampness makes it slightly wavier than usual.

“Okay, scalp is done,” he says, wringing out the cloth and running it back under the tap. “I’m gonna have to kneel down to do your sides, okay?”

Simon nods, his eyes closed, and—god—opens his legs for Grace to kneel between. “This okay?” He mutters.

“Yeah!” His voice honest to god breaks. “I mean, yeah, cool, thanks. Ha.”

Simon cracks one eye open, looking at him with amusement. He’s doomed, he’s actually doomed. He’s going to die in this bathroom, just like the guy in the film with the puppet he’d watched one Halloween with his ex (it was alright, but he was really more of a Coming-Of-Age-Movie-That’ll-Make-You-Sob kinda guy) because all his blood is rushing to his face and his head is going to implode. “You good?” Simon’s voice is raspy and relaxed.

“Yeah,” he whispers. His face is inches away from Simon’s, who now has to look down at him. “I’m just gonna—” He leans over Simon’s thigh to get to his hair, running the damp cloth across his dark strands. Simon hisses a little as he pulls, and Grace moves away, steadying himself with a hand on the man’s thigh. “Sorry.”

Simon waves his apology away, eyes still closed. Grace observes the man’s face under the lights. Christ, he’s stunning. High-cheekbones, bitten lips, a scar that runs over his nose, almost matching his own. He huffs a laugh, at that. Of course they have matching scars. Could it be any more on the nose (ah, see what he did there)? Simon cracks his eyes open. “What’s funny?”

“Oh, nothing, I just...” He takes his glasses off, points at the bridge of his nose. “I noticed we have matching scars.” Simon leans towards him for a closer look.

“Huh. Yeah.” He traces Grace’s scar with the pad of his thumb, deep in thought. Grace bites down on a whimper. “Broken nose?”

He nods. “On the Hail Mary. Yours?”

Simon shrugs his broad shoulders. “A fight, probably. Or the sub.”

Grace goes back to running the cloth through Simon’s hair. He’s nearly finished now. “You get in fights often?” He leans over Simon’s other knee, running the cloth through his hair on the other side.

“I wouldn’t pick ‘em, but...yeah, if someone was bein’ a cunt.”

Grace chuckles. “Fair, fair.” He can feel Simon’s eyes on his body, the weight of them almost overwhelming. “Can I tell you a secret?”

Simon furrows his brows. Grace wants to reach out and smooth the wrinkle between them. “Anything.”

"You can't laugh, though, alright?"

"Oh, I don't know about that..." Simon grins, and Grace leans in close, his lips on the shell of Simon's ear.

“I’ve always wanted to get into a fight.” He stands. “Alright, I’m gonna lean over you so I can do the back.” He leans, his abdomen practically in Simon’s face. Hands steady his hips as he pulls more of Simon’s hair up and rubs the cloth against it.

“Why would you want to get into a fight?” He can feel Simon’s thighs on his calves, feel his breath through his t-shirt. His legs quiver.

He takes a second, focusing on the hair. “I don’t know, really. It was more when I was a teenager that I wanted to. I think I just wanted someone to touch me.”

Simon’s thumb lifts up the hem of his shirt, rubs soothing circles on the bare skin of his hip. Christ. “No one touched you gently?”

“No.” Simon’s hair is sufficiently damp. Still, he carries on. “No one really touched me at all.” He stands up, straight. “Your hair’s done. I’m gonna rub some shampoo in it if that's alright?”

Simon nods. Then: “Use your hands? Don’t want the cloth gettin’ all soapy.”

Grace smiles. “Sure,” he says, knowing this will be the end of him. Simon smiles back, close-mouthed and sad, before closing his eyes. Grace lathers shampoo onto his hands, and runs them through his hair. God, it’s thick. He imagines himself running his hands through Simon’s hair whilst they’re in bed together, imagines yanking on it when—

“Ryland?”

He startles. “Yeah, Simon?”

“How do you take your coffee?”

“Uhh, milk and three sugars, how about you?” He wipes suds from Simon’s forehead, so they don’t reach his eyes.

“Never had it. Just wanted to know yours.”

Grace’s hands pause in Simon’s hair. He’s weirdly touched. No one’s ever known his coffee order before, well, apart from the barista...obviously. “Oh.” He soaps the sides of Simon’s hair; no need to kneel, this time, he simply massages the shampoo in with his hands, catching the excess. Even with the dirt and grit, Simon’s hair is soft. It feels right in between his fingers. “Alright.” He steps back and chuckles. Simon looks insane with his hair all slick and white.

“What, I’m not runway ready?” He asks, an eyebrow lifted—always the darn eyebrow—and Grace laughs.

“So, you don’t know what Alice in Wonderland is, but you know about runways?” He rinses his hands under the tap, ridding them of the shampoo. "You sure do amaze me."

Simon shrugs, flushed. “I don’t really know what it is, I think I heard Rocky say it or something.”

Grace chuckles. “Yeah, seems about right. Rocky is such a diva sometimes, man.” He grabs the cloth, running it under the cold water and ringing it out. “You ready? I’m starting at the sides, this time.”

Simon takes the hint and spreads his legs. Grace goes pink in the face. Thank God the other man’s eyes are closed.

“Tell me about Alice in Wonderland.”

Grace begins ridding Simon's hair of the suds. “Uhh, okay, I don’t know it very well, though. I read it once, for English, but I was always better at Science.”

“I don’t mind.” Grace cleans behind Simon’s ear. Rinses the cloth in water.

“Okay, well, it’s a book. I’m guessing you had books on Eden?”

Simon dips his head. “Some, yeah.”

“Well, this book was about a girl called Alice. She followed a talking rabbit into a hole in the ground and found herself in a room where there was a cake. It had a label on it that just said ‘Eat me’ so she did, and she grew really, really tall. I think she cried so much, and her tears were so big, that she almost drowned in them.” Simon stiffens slightly at the mention of drowning. “Sorry.”

“Go on.” So Grace goes on.

As he continues recounting his, probably very incorrect, version of what happens in Alice in Wonderland, he wipes down Simon’s hair, raking his fingers through it afterwards to ensure there are no any tangles. By the time he gets to the part about the Queen of Hearts, he’s stood, scratching at the man’s scalp. Simon hums, low, and heat pools in Grace’s lower-body. “And, well, she sentences Alice to death.”

Simon lifts his head to look Grace in the eyes. “What the fuck!? What's with her death fetish?”

Grace hides his laugh with a cough. “I don’t know, honestly, but after that Alice is like, ‘well, your guards are only playing cards, how are you going to kill me?’”

“Too fuckin’ right.”

Grace hums in agreement. “And then she wakes up. It was all a dream, apparently.” He grabs the scissors from where they’re balancing vicariously on the edge of the sink.

Simon scoffs. “You’re kidding. It was all a dream? After all that?” Grace gently cradles his face and moves it down a little. Simon’s stubble ignites a fire beneath his fingertips.

“Stay still. I’m using the scissors.”

“Yeah,” his voice is hoarse. “Alright.”

There’s a beat of silence as Grace kneels down, gazing at Simon’s face—his hair. “You don’t want it shorter than this, right?”

“No.” Then: “Was it really all a dream?”

Grace stands back up, taking his place in between Simon’s legs. “Either a dream or a nightmare.” He starts to, slowly, even the man’s hair out, taking a step back every few moments to make sure he isn’t messing it up.

“Do you—” Simon shifts on the toilet-lid. “Do you still have dreams about me?”

Grace steps back, looks into Simon’s eyes. He moves closer, realising he doesn’t have his glasses on—where did he put them this time!?—and pinches Simon’s bangs in his fingers, cutting them so they’re even.  “Not often. Last night I dreamed of a fox and a lamb.”

Simon’s eyes widen. “And the fox ate the lamb?”

“And the fox cried.” He holds another lock of Simon’s hair between his fingers, cutting its end. “How did you know that?”

“I had the same dream.”

Grace laughs. “Of course. Same scar, same dream. I’m not even surprised any more.”

Simon raises his signature eyebrow. “Really?”

Grace steps back. He’s finished with the front. “Turn around.” Simon straddles the toilet seat, his back now facing him. “Perfect, thanks.” He looks at the ends of Simon’s hair, cuts off an obviously uneven strand. “I’m not. I think...I think you’re in my head.” He blushes. Simon goes to look at him, but Grace softly holds his head in place. “No, sorry, you can’t...you can’t look at me.” He laughs, again. He feels frantic. “It’s strange, because usually it’s the wolf and the lamb, or the rabbit and the fox, right?” Simon doesn’t move. “The wolf bites the lamb and the lamb loves it despite.”

“On Eden, I had to read the Bible.” Grace kneels to get closer to Simon’s head. “I never really understood how everyone saw the Lord as our shepherd, and didn't realise that, if he even existed, he was just grooming us for a slow, painful death in the slaughterhouse.”

Grace hums. “I’ve never believed in God, to be honest.” He cuts more of Simon’s hair off. It sticks to his t-shirt like static. “I thought Stratt was the fox,” he starts, soft, “not you.”

Simon huffs. “Hey, I could’ve thought I was the rabbit.” There’s no force behind it.

“But you didn’t, did you?” He snips off more uneven hair. Lets it glide onto his fingers, rest against his palm.

"No." Simon’s voice breaks. Neither mention it. “I didn’t. I dreamt of hands covered in blood and woke up to—” He breathes in, shakily. “You. I could’ve had more blood on my hands.”

“No.” Grace shakes his head, even though Simon can’t see him. “No, you’d never.”

“How do you know!?” Grace can tell Simon’s crying now. Thick, wet drops make their way into his hair. He wipes away a tear at the tip of the man’s cheekbone. “You don’t...you can't know."

He runs his fingers through Simon’s hair, soothing. “I do, Simon. I do. I know. You’re not my fox.”

“Fuck—!” Simon spins around and hugs him, tight, burying his head in the crook of Grace's neck. As he hugs him back, he feels the man’s lips brush his collarbone—it’s heavenly.

“It’s alright,” he says, rubbing Simon’s back with the hand devoid of scissors. “It’s alright.”

“Sorry.” Simon distances himself enough to look into Grace’s eyes, and, is he messed up if he thinks Simon, face flushed, eyes damp, nose running, is the most beautiful he's ever been? “You just...you say things nobody else would ever even think about me.”

Grace catches a tear running down Simon’s cheek with his thumb. “Well, sucks to be them.”

Simon chuckles. Rubs his neck, shy. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your work.”

It takes a second for Grace to realise what the heck he’s talking about. “Oh! Your hair?” Simon nods. “It’s finished, look.” He stands, offering Simon his hand. The man takes it and doesn’t let go, not even when he looks in the mirror.

“Wow, I look—”

“Beautiful?” He tries to say it jokingly, but it just comes out incredibly raw. Crap. Still, Simon bites his lip, and smiles.

“I was gonna say different, but...thanks.”

“Oh, just—” He drops the scissors. “Crud. Just uh—” He bends down to pick them up, reluctantly letting go of Simon's hand. “Appreciating my own handiwork.”

Simon looks at him like he’s stupid. Maybe he is, a little. “Right. Well, thank you.”

“Of course! Anytime!” Simon’s looking at him, so achingly tender and gosh, he’s so stupid. “I should, uh, leave you to wash up, I guess?” Please no, please no, please—

“Oh...yeah.” Simon takes off the shirt he’s wearing, which is now covered in hair, and shakes his head to rid himself of any loose strands. It’s cute, Grace thinks, kind of like a dog. “Here.” He hands his sweaty, hairy shirt to Grace, and he almost goes to smell it. Jesus Christ. 

“I’ll, uh, leave your new shirt outside, okay?” He walks towards the door. Simon’s already removing his trousers, his boxers incredibly low on his hips. “Okay! Bye.” He isn’t proud to say that he runs away, but it’s what he does. Ha, he is totally the lamb.

Chapter Text

There’s a plant in front of him. A real-life plant. She has green leaves and fruit growing on her and Grace’s fingerprint indents in her soil.

She’s a tomato plant, apparently. Grace handed her to him after he’d taught the pebbles, frazzled yet handsome as always with a quick: “Would you mind taking care of this? Thanks!” before he ran away, back to the outside Simon was yet to see.

She’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen—the plant. He wants to bury his face in her soil and cry, wants to carry her around in his pocket until all her fruit moulds and her leaves shrivel, wants to sustain her, plant her, let her live. Fuck, he wants her to live so badly he’s unsure he’ll even eat the fruit hanging from her tender stems. He thinks he’d rather eat human.

The plant, the tomato plant, rests in Simon’s hands. Soil leaks from the bottom of her pot, onto his palm. It sits just above his veins, waiting. He knows what she needs to survive, and he will eagerly give it. Suddenly, far too suddenly, he’s at the kitchen counter with Ryland’s razor in his grasp. He digs the blades into his palm and slices, squeezing his hand into a fist just above the plant on the counter, staining what once was green with drops of blood red—

“Simon?” It’s Ryland. Of course. He grabs Simon’s hand, pries open his palm, blots his blood with a tissue.

“It’s for the plant,” Simon mutters. “No.” He yanks his hand away from Ryland. “She—she needs to be fed.”

Ryland grasps his hand in his own, places a fresh tissue on his wound.  “She—? Fed—? What the heck are you talking about!? Look, let me—”

Oh. It clicks in Simon’s head. “Is my blood not good enough? Will it kill her?” Oh, Lord, if he’s killed the plant, he won’t live— Lord just kill me dead, like you were supposed to, from blood I was born and from blood I shall return—

“No, no, hey—” Ryland tucks his thumb under Simon’s chin, forces him to look into his eyes. “Your blood is fine. Perfect. Trust me, we checked. Extensively.” He chuckles. “It’s just...we don’t usually feed plants with blood...?”

And. “What?”

“Yeah, they usually need, like, sunlight—” He starts counting on his fingers. “Carbon dioxide, water, and soil, of course. Blood isn’t really...in the picture. Though some people give their plants what are called ‘Blood Meals.’ The animal blood works as a quick nitrogen boost, but it can also cause nitrogen burn and attract insects that could feed off of the plant and—”

“Kill her?” He feels sick to his stomach. Then: “Are there even insects outside?”

Ryland laughs. “Luckily, no. Mosquitos were the bane of my existence in summer, I swear to god. The amount of times I got bitten! I have a blood type that they really like, apparently...I think it’s type O? Lucky me—" He cuts himself off. Flushes. “Not that you...have you even seen an insect?”

Simon shakes his head. “Only in books.” He’s kind of glad; he didn’t realise mosquitos had teeth...? “So, she’s gonna be okay? She won’t get...nitrogen burn?”

Ryland cradles the plant, studies her. “Shouldn’t do. Not much blood actually made it into the soil. I reckon Mary should be able to fix her up if anything happens.”

Simon sighs, relieved. “Thank fuck.”

“Hey, language,” Ryland jokingly tells him. Simon swallows, his face warm. “Do you mind if I, uh, treat your hand? It’s dripping...”

“Oh.” Simon looks down at his hand. It’s slick with blood. A far-too-familiar sight. “Yeah, please. If you could just get me a bandage—”

“No way Jose, we don’t want you getting an infection.” Ryland fast-walks away, to the bathroom, “Just—stay. A sec.” He smiles and disappears. Simon can hear him ransacking the cupboard, looking for something... “Ah-ah!” He shouts, walking back into the kitchen, victorious. Simon huffs, amused. “Antiseptic.” He empties some onto a fresh tissue, wincing. “It, uh, might sting.”

Simon shrugs. “That’s fine.” Fuck knows he’s been through worse. At least this time he has Ryland holding his hand, dabbing at his bleeding wound with a care he hasn’t felt...ever.

“There!” The man exclaims, once most of the blood is gone from Simon’s hand.

“That it?” He’s surprised. Slightly disappointed.

“Well.” Ryland places his hand on his neck. “I’ll wipe it again in a sec, after I get you a bandage, but...yeah.” He huffs. “What, do you want me to kiss it better?”

Simon blinks. Kiss his palm? Would that really make it better? Surely not, but, well, he isn’t exactly opposed—

Ryland scrambles to save himself. “I mean—I didn’t—That’s just a phrase back on Earth, sorry, I...well, I don’t even know where it originated, actually—”

It might be the man’s rambling, or how one of his hands, the one that’s still touching his own, is trembling slightly. Maybe it’s the fact that Simon’s sick, fuck, he’s sick of wasting his second-chance at life, debating what-ifs and being so damn terrified all the time. Or maybe it’s the blood loss. Yeah, it’s definitely the blood loss. Still, he says: “Go on, then.”

Ryland stills. His brain, usually working at unfathomable speeds, seems to have short-circuited, because he’s just staring at Simon, forehead wrinkled, mouth agape. “Sorry, what? I must’ve misheard or—”

Simon grins. Shakes his head. “No, Ryland, you didn’t. If it’ll make it better, then...” He holds his hand out.

“But, it doesn’t—it doesn’t actually—”

“Well, won’t know ‘til we find out.”

Ryland bites his lips. Smiles, shy. “I suppose we do need to conduct research in order to prove my hypothesis.” He brings his lips down to hover just above Simon’s palm, looking him in the eyes as he presses them to his weeping wound and fuck they’re so soft against his skin that he can’t help but think maybe the phrase actually has some truth in it. When Ryland stands back up, he licks Simon’s blood from his lips, and shit, he’s wet. He can’t even remember the last time he got off; probably in jail, one hand between his legs, the other gripping the metal bed as he thrust down onto his fingers. It’s obviously been too long, fuck. “Did it help?”

“Yeah,” Simon states, voice hoarse. “Sorry about your hypothesis.”

Ryland shrugs, stifling a smile. “Ah, no worries. I’ve had bigger losses.”

“Oh, really? Like what?” Simon smirks, and Ryland regrettably averts his eyes back to his palm.

“You’re gonna have to work for that info I’m afraid,” Ryland says in what Simon’s come to realise is his teaching voice. “Plus, I think that I have the questioning rights, considering...” He gestures to Simon’s hand.

“Right. Yeah.” Simon’s eyes make their way back to the plant. “Can you take care of her? Before me? I just don’t...I want her to be safe.”

Ryland rolls his eyes, fond, and picks up the plant. “She doesn’t seem to have any of the symptoms of nitrogen burn I can remember off the top of my head. No burnt edges, no white crust on the soil...I think all we can do for now is water her, deeply, over the next few days. That should flush the blood out. Not that it’s really necessary if she’s not showing any symptoms, but...better to be safe than sorry?” He places the plant back down. “Actually, there’s definitely a Ph stick on Mary, so we can test the soil tomorrow and see if it’s fluctuated whatsoever, though I do doubt it.”

“Okay, wow.” Simon’s overwhelmed, attempting to take all the information in. “You know a lot about plants.”

Ryland scratches his jaw. “Ah, well, I’m no botanist but I had this phase in my mid-20s; got really into gardening. I guess the info I read just stuck with me?” He gazes downward. “I had this beautiful pink succulent, Sedum rubrotinctum ‘Aurora’ on Earth. The name’s a bit of a mouthful so I just called it Jelly Bean. I’d always been really bad at keeping indoor plants alive, I don’t know why, I guess it just slipped my mind to schedule when to water them.” Tears run down the man's face, silent, his eyes still cast on the floor. “But I tried so hard with this one. Set alarms for when to water it, always made sure its soil was well-drained, and set it up on a nice, sunny windowsill, right next to the stuffed cat an old student had given me as a goodbye present. I guess it’s dead now. Thrown away with the rest of my stuff.” Ryland’s shoulders shake and, before he knows it, he's kicking his socked foot against the kitchen counter and screaming an eloquent “CRAP!”

Simon jumps. Ryland notices and turns. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“How’s your foot?” Simon asks, unable to hear the man apologise again, for what? Feeling emotions? Shit, if he ever goes back to Earth, he'll spend the rest of his life searching for every single one of Ryland's old possessions, if only the man would never cry out of sadness again. 

Ryland flinches. “Hurting? I think?” He moves it and gasps. “Yep, definitely hurting.”

As Simon walks over to the freezer, he chuckles. “Here.” He grabs a bag of peas and kneels down, placing it on Ryland’s foot. “Now we’re both injured.” Simon rises to his feet and wipes Ryland's tears away with his fingertips.

“I didn’t even get you a bandage—” He goes to protest. Simon’s never met someone so fuckin' stubborn. It should anger him, he thinks, should make him dislike the man in front of him. Instead, he thrives on Ryland’s imperfections, the things that make him human. He loves them.

“Yes you did.” He grabs some tissue and, half-assed, wraps it around his still bleeding palm. “See? There.”

Ryland snorts. “That is the worst dressing of a wound I’ve seen in my life.”

“Well, that was the worst kick I’ve seen in my life. What, were you trying to break your foot?” Simon’s smug as the man in front of him gasps dramatically.

“Lies and slander. I’ll have you know I had to fill in for the PE teacher once, she’d come down with pneumonia, long story, and the kids said my karate skills were, and I quote, ‘amazing.’” His hands are on his hips, his grin arrogant. Simon doesn’t know whether he wants to push him over or eat him alive.

“Oh, so the opinions of schoolchildren mean more than mine, then?” Ryland opens his mouth. “Remember I was trained to kill people, Ry.”

He laughs. “Look, Simon, it isn’t that your opinion doesn’t matter, it’s just theirs is far superior—”

Simon pushes his shoulder, light. The man braces himself against the counter, laughing his ass off. “Fuck off, oh my God.”

“I—” The man’s still laughing, hysterical. “I’m sorry—”

“No you’re fuckin’ not.” Simon smiles.

Ryland’s laughing evolves into wheezing. “You’re right. I’m not.” He calms after a second, simply snickering to himself as Simon admires the way his long, wet eyelashes have clung to one another, making him look slightly effeminate. “I like the nickname, by the way.”

Simon tilts his head, confused. “What?”

“You called me Ry. I like it.” Ryland’s messing with the sleeve of his shirt, and Simon wishes he would not because every time he moves it up he can see more delicious, tan muscle, and his mouth goes suspiciously dry.

“Oh. Okay.” He hadn't even realised. It'd just...slipped out.

“We’re Ry and Sy, that’s funny. Kind of like Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street.” Ryland looks him over. "You'd be Bert, but shorter."

Simon kicks the man's un-injured leg. “First of all, dick. I'm actually considered tall on Eden." The man raises his eyebrows, and Simon continues before he can interrupt. "Second, Bert and Ernie don’t even rhyme.”

"Do you even know who they are?" Ryland's got a twinkle in his eye, and Simon doesn't want to disappoint him, but--

“Well, no.” He itches where his real arm ends and prosthetic begins. “But I know they don't rhyme.”

“True, but I kind of meant more like, because they’re iconic.” Ryland hops towards the couch. Simon follows. “You’ll see, let me put on an episode of Sesame Street.”

Simon sits in the middle of the couch, dragging Ryland down next to him by his bloody hand. He's never seen anything more than writing on Ryland's laptop, apart from the time he'd walked in on Rocky and him crying to some teenage-girl drama; that was real humbling for everyone involved. Still, he's excited to see what entertainment Ryland's Earth has to offer. It'll beat Eden's selection at any rate. 

Chapter Text

It starts off small. Ryland’s pacing (or, considering his injury, hobbling) back and forth in front of the couch, chewing on one of his signature red sticks. It’s slick from his saliva, and, when he waves it around, asking questions, Simon’s self-aware enough to know that he’s staring at the contrast between the red of the stick and the pink of the man’s lips more than he’s listening to him ramble.

And rambling he is. Something about blood sacrifices, cults...Simon’s eyes stray from the man’s squinty eyes, to his nose, scrunched up in confusion, to his crooked mouth, to his knobbly, bruised ankles, and the tuft of hair at the back of his head, sticking up, cute—

“Simon?”  

He startles. “Sorry, must’ve spaced out.” He rolls his shoulder as Ryland laughs, all teeth. It’s been aching on and off for days; he wonders if he should get Rocky to have a look at it. “What’s funny?”  

“We’re in space!” Veins poke out of the man’s bony hands as he gestures to himself, and, oh, Simon is fucked. He wants those hands on him constantly. He never wants them on him again. “Spaced out? Get it?” Simon huffs, more at Ryland’s enthusiasm than his own accidental joke. “Well, I guess technically we’re on a planet, and that planet is in space, but—”

“I get it.” Simon’s not smiling. He’s not. “Almost as hilarious as your shirt.” Ryland looks down at his chest, crosses his arms over the slogan: Oxygen and Potassium ran into each other, don’t worry they’re OK!, and cocks his hip. Simon’s chest tightens.

“Har, har.” On the computer next to him, Bert and Ernie are mutely making their beds. Simon doesn’t really understand how this is, as Ryland put it, ‘peak television,’ but it’s better than watching people fight for scraps of food, or reading instruction pamphlets, so he sucks it up. “So—" Ryland spins around to look him in the eyes. Simon can’t remember when he’d turned around in the first place; the man gets distracted so easily it’s almost alarming. “Blood?” It dribbles from his palm, down his wrist.

“Yeah?” He coughs, rubbing his chest. “What about it?” His skin is raised and red where his prosthetic meets his arm; he digs his fingernails into it, itching at dry skin.

Ryland walks to the couch and sits next to him. “You tried to water a plant with blood, dude. Or, blood a plant...feed a plant. Whatever.” He shakes his head. “Is that normal where you’re from?”

“On Eden?” Ryland nods, and Simon’s...he’s out of breath, somehow. That isn’t right. He’s hunted people before without breaking a sweat and now, what, sitting on the couch exhausts him? He turns his attention back to Ryland’s question; maybe if he doesn’t think about it, it’ll go away. “There was—” He clears his throat. Phlegm. “There was only one tree, there. The Last Tree. She was...beautiful. Really beautiful." A current of warmth runs down his shoulder, through his xenonite arm, making him shudder. "She had brittle leaves and a sturdy, brown trunk. I’d never seen anything like her before, and I haven’t since.” There’s definitely something beneath his skin. He itches at it incessantly. Ryland’s speaking, concerned. Simon ignores him. “Then she started...dying. Slowly.” His fingernails find the edge of his prosthetic; he pries the xenonite from his skin, hot, so hot to touch, as the tang of sweat and iron fills his nostrils. “The Father, he made us bleed for her, said it would give her life, and it did. She thrived on our blood, grew and grew and it was...she was as tall as the dying stars but it wasn’t enough, she wanted, she needed more. So we started feeding her our dead, our...prisoners.” He’s choking on the seed lodged inside himself, clawing at bloody xenonite, ripping his nails from his fingers. His words are bile, his tongue poison. Sap rises up his throat—“I only saw her feed once. She—” His arm cracks, his prosthetic falls to the ground. There’s hands on him, so many hands, but all he can see is The Last Tree, above him, and he, a boy, cradling one of her leaves in his hand before plucking it from its branch. “She opens up, like a wound, and lures you in.” He’s stupid, so, so, stupid. Of course he couldn’t escape her, couldn’t escape the blood. “No one escapes The Garden.” The Father had told him that, he should’ve listened. “No one,” he gargles. He’s drowning.

He falls.

Grace knew something wasn’t quite right when Simon spaced out (ha). It wasn’t that the man didn’t usually get lost in his head, because he seemed to quite often, but it was more that his body language was...different. Simon’s fingers danced across his arms impatiently, his leg bounced with nerves. He was acting like his kids ten minutes before lunch time, like he wanted to get as far away from Grace as possible, which was fine! But, hey, he wasn’t that bad company, right?

He chalked it up to him being anxious about the whole feeding-the-tomato-plant-blood thing. Though Simon was...somewhat acclimatised to Grace himself, the man only knew what he and Rocky told him about Earth and Erid respectively, so misunderstandings were bound to occur. Not to mention that he’d obviously grown up in some kind of religious cult (in which Grace was pretty sure he was groomed to become a child-soldier) so his version of ‘normal’ wasn’t exactly...well, normal. Hence the blood and the plant and the general vibe of nervousness that Grace had attempted to get rid of by talking about some ritual sacrifices that were completed in the 1800s (spoiler: it hadn’t worked).

It’s only when Grace sits down next to Simon, and the man starts talking about Eden, that he realises something is seriously wrong.

He speaks in a tone many reserve for prayer, looking through Grace with unfocused eyes. His long, bloody fingernails wedge themselves between his skin and his xenonite arm, itching until beads of red decorate his shoulder. As he rasps about the Father and the Tree, sticky, brown liquid pours from his mouth, down his chin, and, fudge, his prosthetic arm falls to the ground, his stump raw and bloody as something moves underneath his skin, and Ryland’s hands are on him, he knows they shouldn’t be, knows Simon could be contagious, but they’re touching and—

He picks Simon up, foot injury forgotten, and rushes him to the quarantine room. “ROCKY!” He shouts, placing the man’s convulsing body on the white sheets. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” A loud crack echoes through the room as Grace hovers above Simon, unsure what to do.

It takes him a second to realise the crack is coming from Simon’s shoulder, where his arm was severed. It’s moving, as if something were trying to escape his body. “Okay, okay.” He stares at Simon’s flesh, swallowing vomit. “Think. What would Sigourney Weaver do?"

And that’s when—

Simon’s awake and he’s screaming. Fuck, it hurts. His arm, fuck, his arm is moving. He can’t breathe.

He can hear her in his head, she just wants to come out, she just wants to escape, to grow, to live—

He screams again as she tries to pierce through his chest. Distantly, he can hear voices, someone talking and a robot...Rocky. “Rocky,” he gasps. Grace trusts Rocky with his life, he remembers that. Remembers the man saying he’d let the rock perform open heart surgery on him if he wanted to. “Surgery.” He spits sap across the floor, straining against Armando. “Please.” She’s spread to his ribs, he can feel her. She started off in his chest, wrapped her vines around his ribs, and now she wants his heart. “Heart.” There’s voices next to him. Armando backs away. Pain shoots through his arm. “FUCK!”

Simon watches through lidded eyes as Ryland wrestles an oxygen mask onto his face, and then, thank fuck, he’s out cold.

Grace really didn’t start the day thinking he’d be watching Rocky perform surgery on Simon. It’s funny how these things happen, really. Funny how, after meeting an alien, saving the stars, living on a different planet, and encountering another human on said planet, things can still surprise him. It’d be a comforting thought if he weren’t watching an unconscious man get cut open in front of him.  

Sweat trickles down Simon’s pallid face. Thick, brown liquid (it almost looks like honey? He’s itching to take a sample) rests at the corner of his mouth. Grace rests his hand on Simon’s forehead; it’s hot, so hot.

“He has a fever.”

Rocky nods. “We have everything we need from Mary, question?”

“Uh...” Grace looks at the medical equipment the Eridians had brought from Mary, and sends a little thank you across the galaxies to Stratt for being so overly-prepared. “Yeah, looks like it.” He swallows. “Can you, uh, see what’s—”

“Yes,” Rocky sings, concerned. “Not good. Closing around heart.” Grace pales. He can’t lose Simon, he can’t, it’s...he just got him, he can’t— “We save.” Rocky places a hand, or leg, or paw (he hasn’t decided what to call them yet) on Grace’s hand, calming him.

“Right. Yeah. We save.” He breathes, getting a hold of himself. “So, you’re going to want to make an incision from here,” he points at Simon’s clothed sternum, “to here.” Points at his belly button.

“Grace remove shirt. Fast.” He doesn’t even think twice before cutting Simon’s shirt open with a spare scalpel, exposing his tan chest. Something moves below his skin, and he’s man enough to admit that he’s kind of freaking the fuck out. “Thank. Neck.” Grace removes Simon’s talisman and puts it aside. 

Rocky climbs on top of Simon, sitting on his hips, and makes the incision, pulling Simon’s skin apart. Inside, Grace can see his ribs, entwined with pulsing green vines. “This...” He leans down to get a closer look. “How is this possible!?”

A voice comes from the speakers above. “A mutation. We ran tests on the blood. Causes cells to take on new function, to change.”

He takes that in. “What the fuck!? You did the tests without me!?” He looks up at the camera, where Adrian and doubtless other Eridians are watching Simon being cut open, taking notes on his alien anatomy and plant problem from a safe distance. He can’t help but feel slightly jealous of them.

Adrian hums. “You were pre-occupied.” Grace thinks back. He supposes he’s been a bit busy this past week, what with helping Simon adjust to life on Erid, and attempting to piece together the man’s past from what little information he’s had to go on. Plus, he’s been stuck writing the Pebble’s syllabus the last few days, and he and Rocky have been playing a lot of Uncharted—

He scoffs. “I’m never too busy for mutant blood, Adrian. Remember that.” He looks back down at Simon. Rocky’s disentangled most of the vines around his rib cage, but there’s something underneath, near his heart... “Y’know, I’m really glad that when I said I’d let you do open heart surgery on me, I meant it.” He chuckles, averting his eyes from Simon’s chest to his hand. The spaces where his fingernails should be are bloody and raw. It’s hard to believe that only hours ago, Grace had kissed the man’s palm, and now he was, well, here, staring at his insides. “How does mutant blood cause plant growth, Adrian?”

“Unsure. No alien residue in blood samples.”

Grace frowns as Rocky spreads Simon’s ribs. “Mutant blood...” He paces back and forth, careful not to jostle the bed. “You sure it’s not radiation? Though that wouldn’t exactly make any more sense...”  He thinks back to what he knows about Simon’s death, what the man told him and what he saw in his dreams. His dreams. “Holy fuck, my dreams!” Rocky makes a grumbling noise; he’s lucky Eridians don’t startle easily. “Rock, in my dreams of Simon’s death, there was a tree. It was, fuck, it had leaves just like on the vines, and earlier he was telling me about The Last Tree, and how it fed off of blood—”

“Grace. Calm.” It isn’t often that Rocky’s the level-headed one of the two. “Explain.”

“I think Adrian was right, this is a mutation from the blood, but Simon must’ve had something from the tree he was talking about on him when he died! His cells and the plants’ then fused together, and since the tree survives on blood, it kept him alive long enough for us to find him!" He chews on the frames of his glasses. Slips them back on his face. “Though what would Simon have had on him? We didn’t find anything, right?”

Adrian answers. “No. Just him and blood and clothes and neck decoration.”

Grace pauses. “Neck decoration?” He grabs the talisman. Takes his glasses off to observe it up close. It’s cracked down the middle, with a dip big enough for a small leaf, or some soil, or a seed to rest nicely. “Adrian, I need a microscope, STAT.” Rocky hums. “Don’t worry, Rock, I’m not leaving, I’ll examine the samples in here.”

“No, Grace. Problem. Problem.”

He turns. Simon’s upper-body is convulsing, brown foam leaking from his lips into the oxygen mask. “Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck.” He runs to Simon, rips the mask off of his face. “I can’t...okay, well.” He places his lips on Simon’s own, breathing into the man’s mouth. He can’t do chest compressions with Simon’s open wound, so he takes a thirty-second break (just like they taught him in safeguarding at school) and repeats. And repeats. And—

Simon turns to the side and gags brown onto Ryland’s socks. His eyes open, and, before Grace can process that the other man’s even alive (because thank god he’s alive, he’s alive, holy crap their lips touched!?) he snatches the scalpel from his hand and digs it into where his arm was severed, carving a deep, bloody line in his muscle, and immediately falls unconscious once more. “What the—”  

Simon’s shoulder creaks. Brown emerges from his wound. Thick, brown—holy shit. It’s wood. Tree branches. They entwine themselves to form a shape similar to an arm, complete with five branches for fingers, and Grace...he has nothing. It’s incredible. Beautiful. How Simon so desperately proves that he wants to live countless times despite the odds being stacked against him. He hopes, desperately hopes, Simon wakes up soon, if only so that he can feel the other man’s stitched-together chest rising and falling against his own.

Grace doesn’t understand how Simon ever thought he didn’t deserve to live, not when nature itself is fighting for his life.

“This strange, question?” Rocky asks, and Grace barks out a laugh.

“You’re telling me, Rock. Jesus Christ.”

Rocky re-opens the man's ribs and removes...a crab apple. From Simon's chest cavity. The Garden of Eden. "You've got to be fucking kidding me!?"

Rocky places it aside and chirps. “Need to sew Simon. Run tests on samples.”

Grace nods, eyes still fixed on the apple. He wonders if it's edible. Would eating it be cannibalism? Surely not...? “He’s...okay, then? Stable?”

Rocky nods. “Removed vines. Think they wanted escape."

“You mean, like, they wanted to kill him?” Grace looks at the limp vines on the table next to Simon’s bed. This has got to be one of the weirdest hours of his life.

“No.” Rocky’s fixing Simon’s ribs, sewing him up. Grace takes one last look at the man’s beating heart before it disappears beneath his skin where it belongs. It’s a nice heart, very robust, very anatomically sound. He kind of wishes he'd taken a picture. “Now that they’re out, they won’t grow back. Hope. They need him alive to live."

It clicks. “Oh...so it's symbiotic? It won't grow around Simon's heart now that it's settled as his arm? That sounds...” Fucking insane? "Promising." 

“Yes, yes, Grace slow today.” Rocky climbs off of Simon and Grace pats his head; he preens.

“To be fair, I think anyone would be slow after...this.”

Rocky scurries towards the door. It opens, revealing a microscope. He pushes it towards Grace. “Rocky not slow. Rocky perform open heart surgery.”

Grace sighs. “Alright, you got me there, smart-ass.” He kneels down. “Seriously, though, thank you. I know it’s not exactly in your job description.”

Rocky nuzzles his palm. “What job, question?”

Grace pushes him, playfully. “You know what a job is, Rock.” Rocky does the Eridian equivalent of a laugh.

“My job surgeon now." He scurries away from Grace. "What on your foot? Gross. Gross. Gross.”

He looks down. "Oh." It's the liquid Simon threw up on him earlier. He runs a finger through it, smells it. “Grace irresponsible. No glove. Dumb. Dumb.” He smirks and licks his finger; Rocky goes ballistic. 

“No.” He laughs. “Calm down, it’s—it’s tree sap!” He shoves the sap towards Rocky, who recoils. “It’s harmless.”

“You, what word? Idiot. You idiot. Go examine samples. Stop being idiot.” Rocky scuttles away, out the door. He's always been a sore loser.

“No, c’mon Rock—” He’s still laughing, he can’t help it. Simon threw up tree sap; he’s got a wooden arm; he had vines in his ribcage. “Don’t leave! I can't work in silence!”

Rocky’s voice comes from over the speakers:

“Rocky hang with intelligent Eridians only, statement.”

Grace laughs until he can hardly feel his lungs.