Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Simon woke up groaning and bleary-eyed. He felt sluggish and as though he slept awful, his head and body throbbing gently with aches. Wait…where?

It clicked. Right, this…

…this nightmare. He sighed, remembering what happened. It still felt so surreal. Ever since he woke up at Upsilon, he couldn’t quite shake that feeling that he was just spectating everything from a distance, only connected to his -- this body in the sense that he controlled it. But wasn’t he supposed to be in another body by now?

Simon hauled himself out of the pilot seat, making an assortment of mumbled, frustrated noises at both the effort and the teasing of soreness that came with it. His recollection of what happened before he blacked out was muddy, but it started coming back to him in bits and pieces. He was at Omicron, and just a bit ago he was talking to Cath about getting himself into a new body so they could make the plunge into the abyss. Save humanity and all that. There was nothing but restless queasiness over that issue. It felt weird and unnatural to just be borrowing dead people’s bodies like that, graverobbing from people never put in graves. And the feeling of just…changing bodies like you change what clothes you wear. But…they had to do it right? Cath kept saying so. Didn’t make him feel any better.

…so why did he wake up in the pilot seat instead of the new body? There was this itch in the back of his head that made him feel like something was off. There was some impression of a memory of asking Cath why the transfer didn’t work. A dream…?

Simon snuck a paranoid glance at his arms. Yup, it was still just the ductile suit, that familiar brown and black. Definitely didn’t just end up in the new Haimatsu suit and somehow got lugged over into the pilot seat for a prank, or…something. Why isn’t Cath--

“--euchh. Day…-- maybeIdon’tfucking --4. Don’t trust me on this. Timekeeping isn’t an exact science at the bottom of the ocean, and despite plenty of time to practice on Mars (fuck you Mars), I don’t get the joy of hunger or sleep deprivation. It’s an upside of being a zombie cyborg, until arriving at the problem of timekeeping. Oh, hey Simon.”

“...oh…uhhh hey, Mark.”

There was Mark Watney, the astronaut-turned-diver. Same spunk as ever.

“Caught me in the middle of making a log with this piece of plastic.” The other diving suit waved a tablet around from his spot seated at a table on the opposite side of the room. “You…doing alright, scuba gear?”

Simon never felt more confused. “I uhh…yeah, yeah I…think so. Where’s Cath?”

Mark Watney, the man who never took everything completely seriously, for once deadpanned. The closest thing to a deadpan, at least. His arm holding the tablet lowered, and he stopped leaning back in his chair, scooting it out as he silently walked up to Simon. Mark’s optics dimmed, as he lowered his head, breathed in, and replied,

“I…Simon. Look…they’re…she’s gone .”

“Wh-what? No, you…you can’t be serious! Cath -- she was just here! That…that’s impossible, you’re--”

Mark’s optics widened and he started waving his hands in a crossing motion.

“Calm down! She isn’t dead. I mean she physically left . With the…other Simon.”

A lead weight dropped in Simon’s gut. He heard his own voice raising, “...the…what do you mean ‘other Simon?’ Mark, what the fuck happened. There--there can’t be two Simons!”

“...it wasn’t a transfer , Simon. I tried to tell you. The coin toss is bullshit.”

“...nonononono I -- Cath said it was a transfer, she was going to put my brain into the new suit and we’d head down--”

Mark’s shoulders bunched as he, exasperated, raised his arms, “Fuck, Simon! How many times do I have to tell you!? This isn’t a sci-fi novel, just because we look like we walked off a movie set doesn’t mean you can just yank out and put your brain wherever you want it, there’s two Simons now, you’re gonna have to suck it up. You got the ‘good end’ of your shitty coin toss anyways. Sim-two is down in that mega-death shithole when you’re not.”

Simon blinked. “Sim…two?”

Mark waved it off, “Just a name. Easier to tell you apart that way. You know, Sim-one and Sim-two. Besides the point. You’re stuck here, and unless Sim-two and Cath royally fucked up, we’re sitting ducks until they get back. Nothing new for me.”

Simon had a disorienting mix of incredulity and despair at what Mark said. Which was unfortunately becoming routine with him. Mark would say something horrifying, and say something silly enough to cancel it out right after. But…

“...fffuck. Fuck this. Fuck...she lied to me.” Simon leaned against the wall, plopping to the ground with his head in his hands.

Mark sighed, pulling up his chair and sitting in it. “...yeahhh. ‘m pissed at her too. So was the other Simon…he was a lot more pissed than me.”

Simon laughed weakly, wishing he had a jaw he could clench. “Yeah, as if they aren’t having a party on the ARK right now, laughing off how stupid they think I am.”

Watney shot him a look. “Really. He said the exact same shit too.” He elaborated before Simon had the chance to ask, “Saying ‘there can’t be two Simons.’ Nicknames or not, you know you aren’t the same person right? It’s just another poor asshole stuck in this mess now, but, y’know, willingly.”

“Mark, we kind of are the same person. He’s an exact copy of me, how are you so calm about this?”

All Mark could do was shrug, doing his best to be sympathetic. “Two different brains, two different bodies. I’m not a psychologist or some shit but I think that qualifies as a different person.”

The crumpled diving suit on the floor snapped, “It’s not that fucking simple, Mark! It’s…it’s fucking disgusting. Cath lied to me and left me here to die so she could go fucking drink martinis and live at large on the ARK with the other Simon!” He slammed his fist into the wall, and recoiled as arcs of pain rocketed up his arm, cursing under his breath until going silent.

“...Simon, they’re stuck here too.”

“They’re out there, in the stars, and we’re down here stuck on a dying planet, they aren’t stuck.”

Mark got out of the seat, sliding down into position comfortably beside Simon.

“You still don’t get it. It’s the same reason our asses are stuck here. It’s not a transfer. If they get on the ARK, it’ll just be copies of them. And then I’ll have to make a nickname for those copies. Cath-two-ine and Sim-three.”

That prompted a laugh out of the other. Simon weakly replied, “What, did you get that because her name is ‘Cath-three-ine?’ You really don’t know how to come up with anything original.”

Mark objected, feigning offense. “I’ve got a theme going! I’d like to see you do better.”

Now, Simon broke into a laughing fit, small raspy huffs of audible smiles. “Pfaha! I’ll…I’ll certainly try. Wouldn’t take much to beat your names, huh.”

His friend returned the insult with a soft punch in the arm. Simon winced, the arm being the one he just used to abuse the wall, and Mark quickly raised his hands peacefully, “Woah, right. That’s not your baitin’ hand! Silly me.”

“Snrk. You’re a real pain in the ass, Mark.”

“I aim to please.”

Chapter Text

Simon huffed. “Still don’t get why we couldn’t put you in there, Mark.”

Mark looked up from his precariously leaning tower of boxes, chairs, and clothes, shrugging. “Too dangerous. Catherine said we risked damaging the cortex chip trying to yank it free from the settled structure gel just to put it in a new body, remember?” He looked back to the stack, Simon handing him a box lid, which he carefully dropped on the top. He continued without turning to face Simon, “You know, it’s funny how the off-chance of me getting hurt scared you more than making another Simon.”

Simon winced. “Please. Can we not…”

Mark waved it off, “Yeah, yeah. You brought it up though.”

Simon changed topic, “You really think playing jenga with the same pair of jeans, shirt, and a few chairs is gonna keep us busy until they get back?”

“You think too small, Simon. We start at jenga, then soon we’ll be playing monopoly, charades, even the world’s most boring game of strip poker!”

Simon took a moment to process it, and snorted, teasing Mark. “God, you’re weird! You ever do anything like that…up in space? With, you know, your…crew?”

“Nope. You and your buddies at The Grimoire got the Hermes crew beat in the department of fun-having. If command was less strict with the schedule, we would be having an entirely different conversation.”

Simon rubbed the back of his neck, gazing up at the ceiling as he reminisced. “Yeah…Jesse was always fun. Heh. Barely kept The Grimoire running though. I dunno what he’d do without me.”

Mark looked around, realizing he ran out of objects to stack, sighed, and plopped to the floor. He faced Simon, head resting in his palm. “So! What kind of comics?”

“Everything really. I never kept huge track of the smaller publishers, but we had Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, Image, that kinda stuff. If a cover looked good, I would read some of them when we had the time. Which was…a lot. We had some D&D campaigns running near the back on weekends, which always made things interesting.”

Mark’s optics whirred as they rolled. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice you were the D&D type.”

“Oh, you say that like it’s a bad thing! It’s not like I even said I played it.”

“But you don’t refute it!”

Simon just looked away guiltily. 

“I KNEW it!”

That earned Mark a playful shove, as he rolled over onto his belly and stifled a snicker. He spoke with his face buried in the floor, “Hr dhhnt hhve any-hhing agghnst ht. Bhtt hts shre es hell fnny hww GHILTY yhh lhhked.”*

“Suuuuure, Mark.”

Watney flopped onto his back, sighing. After a moment of silence, he piped up. “Got a favorite character?”

“... D&D character??”

“Comics.”

“I’m…not sure. I mean, I guess Rorschach is kinda cool. Never really thought about it though. I’ve uh, got a favorite comic at least. There’s a…book author named Robyn McConnell, her book Hooked got famous enough to get its own graphic novel. I pre-ordered it and read it five times the night it arrived. Heh. Can’t tell I don’t like her work.”

“Alright, what the hell, I’ll bite. It any good?”

“Yeah, yeah it’s uhh…about this monster pulling people under the sea, kidnapping them from the beach. The two main characters are married, and their son got pulled in. It’s…pretty dark. I won’t spoil it for you though, it’s really good. I think the comic left out some important details, though. Definitely read the book first.” It hit Simon around the same time it hit Mark. 

“Not as--”

“Not as fucked as this ? No shit. This entire misadventure would make big bucks as a horror book, I bet. A horror movie , maybe. Let’s hope it doesn’t end up as a movie adaptation of a book though, those are the worst ,” he groaned, pulling his limp hand to the top of his helmet glass in a dramatic pose that got Simon giggling like an idiot.

“Not all of them are so bad, I think your standards are too high.”

“ Yours are too low!”

Simon was the one to roll his eyes this time. “Sure they are.”

They sat in comfortable silence again for a few minutes. The white noise of the water constantly reminding them they were hundreds of fathoms under the sea, and the whirr of electronics reminding them they were only pretending to be human.

It quickly got uncomfortable.

Mark, as always, was the first to make conversation. “...bit difficult for that.”

“...for what?”

“Reading the book first.”

“...oh.”

“You could try explaining all of it to me, if you want.”

“Huh. Maybe. Then again, talking about a horror book with being trapped at the bottom of the sea isn’t such a good idea.”

Mark did finger-guns from his spot on the floor. “Smart move there, Jarrett.”

The room returned to silence…again.

“Hey, Mark.”

“Yeah, Simon?” His hands were folded comfortably on his chest, his diving helmet turning only slightly towards the other suit.

“...do you ever think about what happened to the real you?”

“...the original me? Well, now I am.”

“C’mon, you said you were here for a while before I was. You had to have thought about it by then.”

Simon wasn’t sure Mark even heard him, with no response for a long while. Then,

“...yeah. I did. I have.”

A sigh. “You think he ended up alright? Maybe he somehow managed to live up until…the comet…”

“I don’t know, Simon. Can’t lie and say I’m not jealous. Bastard got away with all my awards and Nobel prizes and big clunky checks they hand you on Family Feud.”

Simon gave a short laugh. Mark’s hand slipped from his chest, and he readjusted as he moved his head to look away.

“...really. It’s…phew. It’s a lot to take in. I think this is a walk in the park compared to…that clusterfuck of questions about Mark Numero-Uno. This shit is straightforward. Don’t die, kick ass, save humanity. Whatever happened to the original me…who knows. Sure the recordings at Theta were helpful, but they were just the highlights.”

“You think this is what your crew felt like? When they thought you were dead?”

“...nah. They felt guilty. No damn reason to, we all would have been dead if we didn’t get the hell out of dodge. This is more…when that family member you didn’t know died and you went to their funeral.”

“Oddly specific.”

“It’s a universal experience.”

“I don’t think it is.”

Mark finally laughed, a sudden puff of air that Simon would have missed if he wasn’t giving Mark his undivided attention.

“...yeah. Fair enough, Jarrett.”

The sound of rubber and fabric grazing the floor accompanied Simon as he pulled his knees up to his chest, hugging his legs.

“You wanna spill the beans about your original counterpart?”

Simon’s eyes searched the floor for a decent response. “...I…don’t know if I’m ready. To think about it at least, the whole…this. I got my brain scan done because I had brain damage. It was part of a whole experimental treatment, Mr. Munshi was going to use the scans to see what would work best to…well. Make me not be dying. Guess it doesn’t really matter now.”

Mark was slow to respond, “The meaty Simon would beg to disagree. He lived a perfectly boring life because of that scan.” Simon froze. Mark scoffed, not noticing, “The real mystery here, Watson, is ‘why the fuck is Simon Jarrett’s brain scan out in the middle of the ocean?’”

Simon gulped without a throat. The room felt too small. “...there was a…Cath said it was a legacy scan. I found files of it on her lab’s computer, the same one you found yours on.”

Mark slowly sat up, hearing something in Simon’s tone, “I didn’t see them.”

“...I deleted them after I found them. I…I didn’t want to think about the WAU getting its hands on it. D-didn’t want to--”

“--I get it. Don’t worry. The shit with Wan…yeah.”

“...the original Simon, he…” Simon rubbed his thumb on the inside of his index finger nervously, “...he died. The treatment didn’t work.”

“...I’m sorry.”

“...yeah. Me too.”