Chapter Text
It's been two weeks and he still hasn't reached hell.
Week one certainly felt like he had. In between heavy, dreamless sleep and groggy, painful spans of consciousness, it was hard to tell when a day began and when it ended. It was just one big afternoon to him. Didn't help that the room stayed exactly the same. Well, mostly. The only constant comfort was Grace. He brought in pictures of strange places and faces to hang on the wall in front of the bed, he would curl up in a corner of the room with his laptop and play music while he worked, he would sit and ramble on for hours and hours about the most bizarre things and eat tiny colorful beads from a green bag.
"...and there's this shrimp species that can see a ton more colors than we can. Colors that probably taste like jazz to us which doesn't make any sense but that's the best way I can describe it. And then..."
"Have you ever had Skittles? They've got like, twelve different flavors in these babies." A cough. "I think I'm sugar high...Rocky!"
"I hope you're a math genius because I could really use the extra brain power. This stuff is all letters and, sure, I can solve it but sometimes it feels like I'm reading a boring research essay. I mean, look at this!"
"Whoops, wrong song!"
But there's one particular occurrence that doesn't end up turning into a fuzzy ball of memory like all the rest.
He wakes up to spikes of level 10 pain in his left shoulder. Nerve damage is a real bitch sometimes. The overhead light is blinding. His vison blurs to the point where he thinks he's going to pass out again. The light is too damn bright.
Groaning, he tries to lift his hand to cover his eyes but fails spectacularly. He can't even hear Grace in the room, the ringing in his ears is too loud. Is he even there at all?
"F...fucking h-hell..." he hisses to apparently no one, panic rising. "W-where-?!"
It's miserable even speaking. Just as he's about to give up and welcome sleep, the light dims. Something pokes his arm and a familiar hand gives it a gentle pat.
"Calm down, you're okay. I'm just working on something," Grace murmurs and god, he really sounds like an angel. "Go back to sleep, Simon."
So he does.
And now it's been another week and still no hell. Simon is starting to think that maybe Grace is lost but he can't tell for sure. He's much more lucid and aware of his surroundings now which has earn him some books about ancient Earth travel(All Types of Cars) and facts about extinct wild species(The History of Cats and Dogs). Grace has yet to tell him anything about what hell is like or how he even became an angel of death who takes people to hell when he's really just a pretty nerd. For an angel who seems to know what he's doing, Simon would think he'd be much more informed about where he's going by now but oh well.
What Grace has told him, besides random ass facts, is a whole lot of stuff he can't begin to wrap his head around. The stuff like stars dying makes sense but everything else, the 'astrafage problem' and the planet, Adrian, sounds like gibberish. He guesses maybe the planet is where Grace found him and angels just have different names for planets than humans do.
"...you'd love how beautiful Adrian is, Simon. Just a giant green super Earth," Grace tells him one random afternoon.
He's been keeping Simon company for the past thirty minutes while Armando rebandages what's left of Simon's arm. It's awful to look at and Simon would much rather be knocked out with a shit load of med drugs than stay awake to see it happen. He's grateful Grace doesn't seem to mind in any way but hey, that's angels for you. The kindest beings in the universe or so the stories say.
"It couldn't be green. It's red," Simon counters without thinking.
Grace raises an eyebrow in confusion. "Well, if you look at it from the Petrovascope, then sure, it's nothing but red."
What the fuck is that? Simon winces as the robot tightens the bandage and forces a tight smile.
"Sure, sure, whatever you say, angel," he bites out.
Maybe if he agrees with everything Grace says, Grace will tell him about hell. It's a childish theory but he really ought to know something about it by now. However, instead of the hell insight he was expecting, Grace chokes on seemingly nothing but air, face going bright red, and spins his chair around -so quickly it tilts- until he isn't facing Simon anymore.
Strange strange angel.
In addition to all the angel's nonsense, occasionally Simon will hear more music notes outside the room that vary from happy musician sounds to frustrated musician sounds. Many of those times, he'll hear Grace outside the room as well and it almost sounds like he's responding to the music.
It's all very baffling and Simon's brain feels too small to process everything so he just sleeps.
And sleeps and sleeps.
Once, after waking up from an especially good nap, Grace had been working on something inside the room and, when he noticed Simon was up, had remarked that it was 'good he was sleeping so much' and that 'he'd slept a lot when he'd been in Simon's position'.
Simon still has no idea what the fuck that means. Maybe he'll become an angel of death too. Maybe he'll work with Grace. At this point, he'd like to think that would be kind of nice but he doesn't dare believe it'll actually happen. That idea alone is probably the main reason why he dares to bring up hell on the third day.
"I have a question."
It's been a nice day so far. Grace has just brought in some cool looking maps for Simon to look at which, if he's being completely honest, are a bit triggering at first, but he's made himself get over it because Grace doesn't seem to have a clue about, well, anything, and it really isn't a big deal.
"I've got maps of Europe and Asia in the back of the ship, if you ever want to look at those," Grace says, motioning towards the closed door as he takes a seat on his chair. "Although, I'm sure you must be used to maps by now."
No, he isn't. He barely recognizes the old country names from ancient textbooks he'd read as a kid but again, it's okay, because Grace is just an angel who clearly wasn't given Simon's backstory before he set out to pick him up.
Speaking of the angel, he's currently holding a steaming cup of something that smells both appetizing and nauseating at the same time. Grace has sympathetically offered to eat any kind of solid food outside of the room until Simon is able to stomach solids but Simon has told him every time that it's okay. He's more bewildered by the newly discovered fact that yes, angels eat food like humans, who knew?
"What's the question?" Grace asks, glancing up at Simon, curiously.
Oh, right.
"Uh...when do we get to hell?"
Grace chokes on his bite of noodles and looks at Simon like he's insane. "Excuse me, what?"
Simon frowns. "Hell. When do we get there?"
"I'm not taking you to hell, Simon! Where did you-?" Grace starts to laugh. "How did you even come up with that?"
Oh, well I didn't think I was heaven worthy but okay, Simon thinks, bitterly, watching Grace, who's still chuckling as he sets down his cup.
"Am I'm going to heaven then? I didn't think I was able to," he admits once Grace has calmed down.
"Okay, first of all, you absolutely would be able to go to heaven, if it exists, that is. And second of all, where in the world did you get the idea that I was some kind of, I don't even know, transport guy?"
Grace is laughing again as he speaks. He seems to find the whole thing overly amusing.
"Angel of death..." Simon mutters.
"What?" Grace just about giggles.
"I thought you were a fucking angel of death, okay?!"
It sounds silly once he's said it because he knows now that it can't be true. Grace is laughing so hard Simon thinks he's actually going to fall out of his chair. It's not mean laughter; it's the best kind that's full of mirth and hysterical giggles and comes from someone who's genuinely found something funnier than life. It almost makes up for how embarrassed Simon is right now. Angel of death, my ass.
"Simon," Grace manages to say, in-between fits of laughter. "Do you wanna see the rest of the ship?"
Yes. Yes, he does.