Chapter Text
The first thing Simon's traitorous brain spits out is the man is pretty.
The next thing is that he's clean. Very clean. The whole room is too.
Simon is clean too. He doesn't know how, given the last thing he knew he was drowning in blood. Did they hose him off or something?
Wait. Wait.
He was being eaten by the Blood eel. He should be dead. He was dying, from the blood loss, whatever the hell the Blood was doing to him, probably radiation poisoning and god knows what else.
He was dying in that cramped, dark, sub and had gotten the black box to the surface with his final moments.
What the fuck happened?
There's a movement in Simon's peripherals and the man swings his head to follow it. A robotic arm extends from the ceiling, dropping into his face.
What is two plus two?
What.
The look must show on his face because the man looks almost embarrassed for a moment, then mutters, "Cognitive test, sorry."
He moves to look at a screen beside him, humming oddly under his breath.
"Your vitals look..well not good, but better than expected. You've been clearly thrown around a lot, and don't seem to be in great shape, but you're not actively dying anymore which is good!"
The man is rambling, clearly a bit nervous.
He makes a whistling sound of sorts and clicks his tongue.
"I'm Grace. You're on the Hail Mary. We found you and your ship? Submarine? And managed to cut you out of it. Your ship was completely un-salvageable though, sorry."
Hail Mary, full of Grace.
Very Fucking Funny, you hell creature. Ocean. Whatever.
So either he's died and went to heaven (Simon knows who he is. He knows that he's not that lucky.)
Or this is some fantasy hallucination by the blood ocean.
He looks at the man, or what looks like one.
He's rocking back and forth on his feet, humming. It is one of the more beautiful things Simon has ever heard.
Siren.
Why the fuck not. Blood oceans, giant eel monsters, blood that mutates people, sirens. Simon misses his prison cell. At least life was simpler there.
This one doesn't seem actively hostile? The black box is gone so it's not like the ocean needs anything from him anymore, so all that's left to do is to kill him.
Why isn't he dead?
Why would anything in that hellscape of a ocean keep him alive?
He was already being consumed so it's not like they needed him to walk to his death, so why? Why make something appealing?
"I-I'm sorry. It's been a long time since I've talked to a another human. Do you understand English?", The man hum-hisses another chord before, "I should have led with that, sorry. I am out of practice. Isolation tends to do a number on uh, remembering proper social norms."
Isolation. Out of practice.
Is it lonely?
Oh. Oh.
Is this a creature tied to the light? The thing at the bottom of the ocean?
The thing that might not be the eel, might not be the Ocean but they might all be one and the the same.
(Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. )
Simon opens his mouth to speak, and chokes on whatever he was going to say. He coughs, then tries again. His voice is wrecked, harsh, nothing like the soothing tones of whatever is in front of him.
"I-I understand."
The being slumps over in relief, and starts muttering, either to Simon or to itself. Simon doesn't hear what it says, too wrapped up in his own mind to hear.
It, whatever it is, is lonely. It is clearly trying very hard to be pleasant. The naming is a bit on the nose but Simon might know the source of that. Simon had prayed in his last seconds, mostly out of habit.
(The sky had long gone deaf to his prayers after all.)
Hail mary, full of grace.
If it wanted him dead, he would be. He was no position to fight back and was already dying when whatever happened to him happened. As far he can tell, it genuinely healed him. His body hurts but well, like the being had said, he's not actively dying.
If it wanted to consume him, it had it's opportunity.
It is lonely. It wants companionship, based on all the effort to try and make him comfortable. To try and be human.
Simon is so tired. He just wants to live. Just wants to survive.
Fuck it.
Simon is being held within the teeth of much larger creature and just needs to convince it not to bite down. If going along with whatever this (Hallucination? Spell? False reality?) does that?
He'll do it.
The being (siren) is currently writing things down on a small whiteboard, singing quietly to itself all the while. From what he can see, it looks like a medical chart, with the space for his name left blank.
"Simon."
It lets out a whistle-yelp of surprise and looks at him confused.
"My name is Simon."
The being grins widely at Simon, brightening up, beaming at him.
"It's great to meet you, Simon!
He is completely and utterly fucked.