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When Simon wakes up, he isn’t alone.
He can make out that much, even with bleary eyes and a thunderous pounding inside his skull; there’s a figure standing beside his bed, or perhaps perched on the bed next to his. He doesn’t recognize them.
Simon tries to wiggle his fingers, but only his right arm responds. It takes an astronomical effort to look down, his eyeballs protesting every movement, but once he manages it, everything stops for a moment.
Below the shoulder, Simon’s left arm is gone. Bits and pieces of his memory return to him at the sight, but the majority is still drenched in fog and congealing blood, making them difficult to sort through.
In a dry, raspy voice, Simon croaks, “Fuck.”
Immediately, the blurry figure’s head snaps over to look at him. “Are you awake, or just talking in your sleep again?” an unfamiliar voice demands—low, with a twitch of an accent that Simon doesn’t recognize.
Simon blinks, but his vision only clears minimally. The ceiling is an off-white blur that smears as he turns his head to look at the stranger. He doesn’t recognize him; bandages obscure the details of his face. “I talk in my sleep?” he asks.
“A lot. It’s annoying.”
“Sorry,” Simon mumbles. He tries to sit up, and is surprised that neither the stranger nor any restraints attempt to stop him. He knows that he used to be a convict. Isn’t he supposed to be a convict? His head pounds with the effort, but he eventually finds himself upright. He takes a deep breath.
Then, his stomach churns, and he chokes out, “I’m gonna throw up.”
“Don’t,” hisses the stranger, and Simon is so startled that he reflexively swallows the bile building up in his throat. “Don’t you dare. Not unless you can get to the bathroom or clean it up yourself. Otherwise we’ll both be stuck smelling it until God knows when.”
Simon’s gut doesn’t settle, but fear keeps it from roiling again. “Where… where am I?” The endless white paint and thin mattress beneath him says sick bay, but if that were true, he’d expect a doctor, or at least some kind of beeping machine monitoring him. Even in prison, even when there weren’t any professionals to spare, there was always someone.
“Quarantine zone,” says the stranger.
“Quarantine—” Simon starts to repeat, then stops. “Why? Why am I here?” He glances back down at his missing arm. “How am I even alive? And who the fuck are you?”
The stranger suddenly grabs the railing of his bed, as if he’s going to lunge towards Simon, and Simon flinches back, raising his hand defensively. “You know who I am, convict,” he snarls, and his voice is ragged, almost animal-like. “You’re the one who put me here.”
Realization flashes through Simon’s mangled brain like a bolt of lightning. “You’re… the welder,” he breathes. “I… fuck, I don’t know your name.” A heavy blanket of guilt smothers all else in his chest as he takes in—really takes in—the bloodstained gauze packed over the man’s eyes, and the mingling of old and fresh blood on the peeling bandages all over his upper body.
“Of course you don’t, why would you?” he spits, before breaking off into a coughing fit. A few dots of blood speckle his hand, and Simon winces. “It’s Jack. Not that it really matters anyway.”
“I’m Simon.” It’s the only thing he can think to say.
“Do I look like I give a shit what your name is, convict?” Jack snaps. “You’re a dirty Eden rat, and when I die it will be your fault. Yours. And you get to sit here and watch it happen! Congratu-fucking-lations!” Jack’s arm shoots out, reaching for the front of Simon’s tattered and dirty jumper, and Simon panics.
Adrenaline shoots through Simon’s veins, and he jerks backwards, out of range of Jack’s grasping fingers. “Get away from me,” Simon warns.
One of Jack’s nostrils has collapsed, but the other flares as he stares in Simon’s direction with covered eyes. Simon’s sure that Jack can’t see him, but it’s nonetheless unsettling to feel as if he’s being glared down by an expression he can’t read. “I’m not going to hurt you, idiot.”
“I don’t trust you.” Simon watches Jack’s outstretched hand slowly ball into a fist, and swallows thickly. As quietly as he can, he begins to shift himself towards the far end of the bed, further away from Jack. “Don’t fucking touch me.”
“You took my eyes,” Jack hisses. “The least you can do is let me figure out what you look like.”
“I didn’t know, okay—” Simon reaches behind and grasps the railing of the bed with his sweat-slick hand. “And I don’t know that you’re not going to— fucking— claw my eyes out in revenge or something!”
Jack pauses, then begins to make an unpleasant gravelly choking sound as Simon stares back at him. After a moment, Simon realizes that he’s laughing. “With what?” Jack extends his fingers again, showing the burned stubs of his nails and the charred flesh warping his hands between ratty bandages. “I’m harmless. I couldn’t even strangle you in your sleep. I tried.”
Reflexively, Simon’s hand goes to his throat. “I never tried to hurt you,” he says. “I swear. I didn’t know it wasn’t just a camera.”
“Oh, so you’re not malicious, you’re just stupid,” Jack snorts. “Does that make it better or worse, do you think? Would you rather someone killed you on purpose or by accident?”
“You’re not dead.”
“Only because I can’t kill myself,” Jack replies, and Simon goes still.
“Do you… want me to kill you?” Simon asks. He adjusts his grip on the railing, ready to scramble away if need be.
Jack is silent. His tongue darts out after a moment, wetting his charred lips. “I want to live,” he admits, “but I don’t want to live like this.”
Simon lets his words hang in the air for a moment, before he admits, “Yeah. Fuck. Me too.”
“Don’t relate to me.”
“I wasn’t—” Simon sighs. “Whatever.” He turns and slides off of the bed, eager to put as much space between himself and Jack as possible. The soles of his feet ache, and he initially stumbles as his muscles protest at the sudden weight of his body, but he forces himself to stay upright.
Simon crosses to the other side of the room, awkwardly fighting with the new loss of weight on his left side as he’s continually dragged to the right. For the first time, he’s a little glad that Jack can’t see him; he doesn’t have anything against the man personally—or at least he didn’t before he woke up—but the last thing he wants is to be witnessed struggling.
When he looks back, Jack is still perched on his bed, facing the spot where Simon had been. Despite that, he notes, “I can hear your footsteps.”
Simon doesn’t know what to say to that, so he asks another question. “Do we get fed, or are we just supposed to starve here?”
“Twice a day,” Jack answers. “You missed breakfast.”
Simon’s own dark joke snags in his mind, and his brow furrows as he rests his arm against one of the featureless stained white walls. “Why?”
“You were unconscious, moron.”
Simon huffs. “Not why did I miss breakfast, asshole, I mean why are they bothering to feed us?” he clarifies. “I mean, you’re dying, sorry”—he gestures to Jack, forgetting that the gesture would be lost on him—“and so am I, clearly, if I’m quarantined in here with you. And if they can’t help us, why are they wasting resources on feeding us?”
“Just because I’m dying—sorry, we’re dying—that doesn’t mean that the COI doesn’t still need us,” replies Jack. “At least, they need me to train my replacement. I don’t know why they need you, unless they’re planning to send you back down.” He doesn’t need to specify. Simon knows what he means.
“I’ll kill myself first,” Simon says, without hesitation.
Jack snorts. “How?”
“You can smother me with a pillow. I’ll make it real easy for you.” Simon keeps his tone dry, intentionally masking his sincerity. He’s not sure himself whether or not he means it; the only thing he’s sure of is that he’d rather die than get into another sub.
“I won’t help you die. Not if you want me to.”
“You already did,” Simon snaps, and he rounds on Jack, slowly making his way back towards the cots.
Jack visibly starts. “What?”
“You welded me into that coffin. You knew I wasn’t supposed to come back. I’m stuck in here with you because of you.” Simon points a useless accusing finger in Jack’s direction. “I didn’t give a fuck about you before this. I really didn’t. But if you’re going to be such a dick, then let’s be honest about both sides, yeah? I blasted you because I wanted out of the goddamn sub that you put me in!”
For a long moment, Jack is simply silent, and Simon begins to feel foolish as he stands there with his chest heaving, glaring down a half-burned living corpse.
Then, Jack laughs—that same grating, awful laugh from before. “I was wondering if there was anything human left in you. I guess that answers that.”
“Anything human?” Simon repeats, cocking his head slightly, ironically cat-like.
“People don’t come back the same, you know that,” Jack explains, dryly. “If they come back at all.”
“Is that why they started sending convicts?” Simon asks. “So that valuable people didn’t get fucked in the head?”
“Not just the head. But that’s about as much as I know. They keep it pretty hush-hush.” Jack shakes his head.
“How do you know all this stuff?” Simon lifts an eyebrow.
“None of your business,” Jack snaps, returning to his prickly demeanour. “It doesn’t matter anymore anyway. We’ll both be dead in a week at most.”
“If it doesn’t matter, why don’t you just tell me everything?”
A beat passes.
“My wife was on the SM-8,” says Jack.
“I—”
“Don’t.” Jack shakes his head. “Just don’t. I’m fucking tired. I just want to know why you got to come back and she didn’t.” He takes a deep, shuddering breath. “And because of you I can never see her face again.”
Simon has never been good at comfort, especially not comforting people that hate his guts. So, instead, he asks, “Do you still want to figure out what I look like?”
“I haven’t been allowed to touch anyone else.” Jack pauses. “So that’s a yes.”
“Okay.” Simon sits down on the end of Jack’s bed. “I’m gonna take your hand, so don’t freak out.”
“Don’t say it like that,” Jack protests, but when Simon touches him, he doesn’t flinch.
And Simon slowly guides Jack’s hand to his face.