Chapter Text
He-
He's back in the sub again.
It's sweltering, and the air is far too damp.
The heartbeat of the Blood shakes the ship.
And underneath it is-
knocking.
It's Ava, at first-
please
please, let me in
we need this, we all need this
this is bigger than us
Then it's the others, his brothers in Eden, those sent to die down here-
begging, begging for help
for salvation, for life
for let me in brother, brother please,
please
Then it's the Eel, the Ocean, the Blood-
let me in, let us in
join us, join me, you deserve no better
we will save you, you in our innumerable ranks
join us, JOIN US
Then-
"Simon, Simon can you hear me?"
Melodic. The Siren.
"It's going to be ok."
He walks towards the hatch.
The pulse of the Ocean has been replaced with a resounding hum.
He puts his hands against the walls of the sub.
"We're going to get you out of there, ok? I just need you to open the hatch for me, alright?" It's accompanied by the two taps that follow a question.
He's staring at the hatch. His hands rest on the handle to open it.
The sub never had a hatch. Not one he could open. They welded him in here, never to let him out. They wouldn't have given him a hatch he could open.
"For me? Please?"
tap-tap.
He's pulling the hatch open before he can think.
Light spills into the sub. It burns his eyes and he slams them shut before the light sears away his retinas.
He's being grabbed, lifted, pulled upwards, pressed into the Siren's chest.
He thrashes, struggles, but for every hand, every limb he pushes away, more take their place.
He manages to flip himself around, eyes flying open.
The sub is gone.
The blood is gone.
The endless expanse of stars rolls out in front of him. Galaxies and stardust and planets and asteroids, all expanding into a never ending sea.
The stars.
The Siren wraps it's uncountable limbs around him, hooking it's head over his shoulder.
The hum is louder now, impossibly loud, threatening to shake his atoms apart.
"Simon", it croons into his neck, "Si-"
-
There is a hand on his shoulder and a person leaning over him.
He flips the person looming over him before he can think, sending them both to the ground. They're pinned, with his limbs immobilizing their body, arm ready to slam down on their throat if necessary. He's still trying to blink the sleep out of his eyes, the ghost of the humming still running down his bones.
The world comes back into focus and he's looking down into the face of the Siren. The Siren who is squirming, trying to get out of his hold, face twisted in pain.
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
He jerks away like the contact had burned him, wedging himself into the corner of the medical area. His hands are up, palms open in the universal sign for not a threat.
The Siren starts pulling itself into a sit, rubbing at it's shoulders, still clearly in pain.
Idiot. Idiot.
It's going to be angry. It has to be angry. He had attacked it.
It'll lose patience or interest and finally decide to bite down, to deliver judgment upon him, to give him what he deserves.
The room starts to blur at the edges.
Please be quick. Please whatever it does to him, please let it be quick.
God and the Last Tree above, the Blood and Hell below, please have mercy.
The Siren looks at him. Spots form at the edges of his vision.
Please don't put him back in the sub.
Simon might have said that last one out loud.
The Siren startles. It scoots towards him, hands raised in a mimic of his own.
"H-Hey, just breathe, ok? You don't startle well, that's fine, I should have expected that-"
It's nervously tapping on the floor, then it's face contorts in a expression of mild frustration, muttering to itself.
"-You really should have expected that." The same chord again. Low and frustrated but at itself, not Simon.
…
Why isn't it angry? Why isn't it hurting him?
He had raised his hands to it, had hurt it and it's more annoyed with itself than him?
It's back to looking at him.
"You're ok. I promise it's ok, no-one will ever put you back in that submarine or anything like it again, I promise."
It's smiling at him.
"Besides, it's floating in space some-"
It tilts it's head to the side, muttering calculations under it's breath before giving up and looking back to him.
"I'd need a whiteboard to write it out, actually. Humans are very bad at math."
It draws out the r in very, voice still full of nervous energy. It gives a small laugh, like it's a inside joke that it's forgotten he's not in on.
He feels his breathing start to even out again.
"You were crying in your sleep, so I.. got worried and tried to wake you, sorry for scaring you."
It means it. At least as far as Simon can tell, it means it.
He doesn't understand.
"Sorry", he winces at the sound of his own voice. Rough and raspy.
The Siren just nods, "It's alright. Are you still feeling up to the plan for today? We can always have you meet Rocky another day if you need more time."
He nods. "I can do it."
It is the least he could do, after attacking it, is to not delay it's plans. It's been looking forward to this for the last few days, even more excitable than usual. This Rocky, who or whatever they were were clearly important.
He knows that they're the Siren's friend, that they're not able to be in the atmosphere of the Hail Mary, they're some kind of engineer or mechanic and the Siren had kept them separated as to not frighten Simon when he first woke up.
Please don't be an eel. Please be anything other than an eel.
The Siren brightens up and pulls him to his feet, then starts all but pulling him down the hallways of the ship.
He needs to not panic at whatever this being is going to be. He needs to be polite and non-threatening because the Siren clearly likes him for some ungodly reason, but definitely likes this friend more. He's already fucked up once today, the last thing he needs is for the meeting to go poorly and end with him getting thrown out the airlock or worse.
The Siren sings, loudly, down the hallway as they enter a room that had been heavily edited. The strange glass-like substance portions off a decent amount of the room, with a odd airlock-looking system built into it and tools and odd almost geometric structures scattered around the other side of the wall.
The Siren grabs a laptop from a table and opens it, fiddling with an program.
Simon looks at it and it responds, "Translation. He'll understand you just fine but you'll need some help." The Siren sits by the barrier and motions for Simon to sit.
He sits a few feet back from the barrier, holding the laptop in his lap.
There's a clattering noise as something moves on the other side of the wall.
Simon stiffens.
It sounds like.. scuttling? The sound of something with too many limbs moving quickly over the metal of the ship.
He feels his heart rate begin to spike, and the movement pauses for a second before resuming, slower this time.
Something starts to come into view.
It moves slowly, measured, cautiously as it approaches on five legs.
…
Is that a crab?
It looks like one, but one made from stone rather than shell. Five legs, no face or visible features, odd vent-like structures on it's sides, carvings and green spots on it's sides.
It seems mostly inorganic which was much less…fleshy than he was worried it would be. He was hoping it wouldn't be a horrific mangle of organic material and bodies like the Eel.
The Blood impacts artificial material and can warp it as much as anything but it seems to take longer. Maybe some sort of protection against the Blood? It'd probably blend in with the seafloor too. The Eel and the other things in the Blood probably eat more than just humans sent to die.
Probably.
Someone smarter than him would know.
It waves at him, or what he thinks is a wave. He gives it a shaky wave back.
"Hello. I am Rocky. Rocky from Erid, not Rocky from movie. "
The Siren laughs, "You don't have to say that every time you meet a human, you know."
The device in his laptop seems to take the singing from this creature and translate it into something he can understand. The voice lags behind the initial singing by a few moments, so he can still make out the chords underneath.
It's like the Siren.
Well, it talks like it anyways.
The Siren gestures for him to introduce himself, so he does.
"My name is Simon."
Small talk. Pleasantries. He remembers how to talk to people. He definitely remembers how to talk to people that aren't trying to send him to his death.
He doesn't.
Shit.
An silence hangs in the air for a few moments before the Crab continues,
"Will need name put in thinking machine."
The Siren jolts and scrambles for the laptop, flustered.
"Right-right, forgot about that, sorry."
The Siren points a microphone at it while messing with the keys of the laptop. The Crab- Rocky, it's name is Rocky - sings a short chord that the Siren mumbles under it's breath as it hands the laptop back to him.
"You good with that?", the Siren asks, "We can always change it if you'd prefer?"
Again with the choices.
He nods.
It's pretty. He didn't really have an opinion on his name before, apart that the people sending him to fucking die should know it, but he'd never considered it pretty. He likes the chord, at least he thinks that the word for it, and it sounds..
nice coming out of the Siren's mouth.
Like whatever harmony or beauty the Siren has gets passed to him, at least a little bit. Like he wasn't some awful thing.
Things go from there.
It's awkward, painfully so, but they do manage to talk.
Rocky is an engineer. They're supposedly from a planet called Erid, which is where the Hail Mary is flying to. Them and the Siren are currently singing back and forth at each other and he turned off the translator because it got very overwhelming, very quickly with the two singing at once.
He has no idea if this being is a part of whatever the Siren does, or if this being is also in it? The problem is that Simon knows basically nothing about sirens or how the creatures beyond earth, beyond men work.
Sirens were beautiful, designed to lure you with your greatest desires. Temptresses. Creatures of the sea from old, old myth.
Are the stars a sea?
Is this real?
It's not real. Not really. But there's a difference between being scooped up by something bigger at the hour of his death and him lying on the floor of the Ocean hallucinating.
He'd be dead by now. If he was still in the Blood, he'd be dead.
So this has to be the first option.
The Siren yawns, loudly, and stretches it's limbs outward.
Simon quickly switches the device back on as Rocky speaks.
"-disgust. why humans so leaky and gross, question?"
The words are harsh, but there's no malice behind them. It seems well-worn, like habit, an argument had many many many times.
A very odd inside joke?
The Siren just laughs.
It goes to lay down in a small nook, almost indented into the glass-like substance. It has various pillows and a very bright quilt. It's slightly more disorganized than the rest of the ship but still as impossibly clean as everything else.
It looks comfortable. It looks safe.
It looks to him, "Your bed is over there, but I guess you could sleep in the med bay if you preferred?" It gestures to a spot a few feet away, also covered in pillows and blankets.
He nods then lies down.
Rocky scuttles up on top of the nook, on the other side of the glass. They let out a hum, wordless but soothing.
"I watch, you sleep."
Oh.
He probably should have expected that.
He's a unknown, a potentially dangerous one, one who attacked their friend earlier, so of course he's being supervised.
Something in him hurts at the thought. A scraping of claws on the inside of his rib cage, bone on metal, metal on bone, something inside him trying to get out-
"Lower volume on thinking machine, please."
Simon does. The Siren has somehow already drifted off, but he doesn't want to risk waking it.
He sits up, staring at Rocky and what he can see behind the wall. He stares into the space for while, trying to determine what the small projects around are for before he's interrupted.
"Watching sleep upset Simon, question?"
Fuck.
He opens his mouth to respond, then closes it, not wanting to dig himself into a bigger hole then he already has. He grits his teeth.
"Respond, please. Not upset. Want to know."
For some insane reason, Simon believes him.
He shouldn't. He shouldn't be here, he shouldn't be ok with this, he should be screaming and fighting, he should be angry, he should be a splinter in God's eye, a feral dog being put down, a man drenched in blood.
blood and Blood, the Blood.
"Why", he swallows, "Why are you watching them? I understand watching me. I-"
He knows what he is.
(through my fault, my most grievous fault.)
"I know what I am. Why would you watch them?"
He whispers it, trying not to wake the Siren.
They hum at him, sounding almost confused, "Rocky watch. Rocky keep safe."
It pauses for a second, then, "Rocky keep you safe. Rocky watch Grace and Simon. Rocky keep safe. Someone to watch sleep, someone to keep you safe."
It wants to keep him safe. It's watching him to, what, guard against intruders? Predators?
It's not watching him because he's dangerous, or a threat or a wreck in the vague shape of a man. Inhuman, monstrous, a butcher, a beast. Not the hateful eyes of prison or the cold gaze of the COI or the thousand eyes of the Blood, all wanting, all trying to take his life from him.
It wants him to be safe.
He wants to scream. He wants to cry. He wants to rend this ship, this galaxy, this world, whatever the hell it was, apart.
His body settles on crying. It's been doing that a lot lately.
He drops his head into his knees, uselessly trying to hide his face from Rocky's gaze, or hearing. Rocky, who apparently works on echolocation, can definitely see the tears and the ugliness that is him and his body.
(Another point against him drowning in the Blood. He wouldn't have been able to come up with this if he tried.)
Rocky hums, "Am sorry."
"What for?"
"Sorry for not explaining. Sorry for upset. Sorry for your past watchers. They sound…"
Rocky makes a very complex sounding noise, sounding like fifteen people attempting to play some sort of instrument at once.
"Does not translate. They sound bad, bad, bad."
They perk up a bit, something that might be pride in their posture.
"Rocky fix. Rocky watch. Rocky keep safe."
Simon just nods, empty. He's too tired.
He reaches over and turns off the translator as Rocky starts singing a slow, calm, tune. It's somehow different from the speaking-singing and like the Siren's song before it, it hits at something deep in his body. He casts a glance at the Siren, somehow not having woken up during any of that, who looks borderline angelic in the low light reflecting off the glass.
He drifts off, feeling something close to safe.