Chapter Text
Simon still tastes blood in his mouth, and this new guy on the radio won’t stop talking.
Really, he expected to be more pissed with this guy than he is. He’s talking about the Captain with pretty genuine-sounding fondness, even if Simon thinks the trust and empathy he’s giving her is misplaced. He’ll listen, though, to appease the guy. He’s learned the hard way it’s better to have shitty allies than no allies at all.
Simon rolls his shoulders a bit before starting to spin around, to face the speaker as though it can maintain eye contact. “Yeah, right. Can you at least tell me if this thing’s blasting me with radia–?”
There’s something else on the ship.
Simon both can’t get enough of a glimpse of the thing, and gets too much of an eyeful. He thinks he sees teeth, boils, maybe some charred bits or blackened veins. He definitely sees the deep, familiar red of blood and open wounds. He swears there’s something wrong with its face, maybe too long or placed too far to the left, but before he can figure it out the Thing slides behind the only turn in the ship.
Simon gets up, slowly, and another piece of the Thing shifts behind the wall. He grabs for the knife that should- isn’t there anymore. He needs a weapon. Something sharp, or heavy, really anything to keep a level of distance between himself and the Thing when one of them inevitably attacks.
A quick glance and his answer is right where he’s already locked his eyes onto. Fire extinguisher. That works.
The guy is still talking. Says something about the radiation not being an issue, which in any other circumstance would be comforting to hear, but he’s still talking and that Thing was right there.
“…We need this!” He keeps yammering on through the shitty speaker, “Not just the COI, all of us! We need this! It’s the first shred of real hope we've had in twenty f-”
“Shut the fuck up,” Simon hisses out
“Excuse me? Hey, fuck you, man! I don’t even know why I tried talking to…”
He isn’t listening anymore. Simon placed himself just behind the wall, shimmied the fire extinguisher off its holder, and readied its weight in his hand. Should be good enough. Or, he hopes it's good enough for whatever that Thing is.
Simon’s earlier prayers are answered, and the speaker gets out of range. The guy’s voice finally cuts out completely, and Simon takes the opportunity.
He jumps out from the corner, prepared to brain this Thing or die trying-
It’s not a thing. It’s a man.
It’s a very RICH looking man.
Passed out on the floor of the SM-13, a ship made of blown up iron and second- third- sixteenth-hand mechanisms, is a man covered in bright, clean clothes and zero visible marks or blemishes.
He’s flat on his back, yellow coat scrunched up and draped under him like a blanket rolled around in one too many times. He’s got on some completely non-patchwork jeans, the cleanest white shoes Simon’s ever seen, and a comfortable looking dark blue knit sweater with stripes. His head is tilted to the side, a bit of scruff on his chin and his hair short and messy underneath a soft looking beanie and his glasses- holy shit, his actual, bonafide, seeing glasses.
Simon hadn’t seen anyone with their own pair of spectacles in a while; the COI usually left those for only the most blind of their crew and Eden tended to do the same. His glasses are pushed up to his hairline, barely hanging on, and Simon can’t help but want to put them properly back on his nose.
Jesus, he looks like he’s straight out of an old Earth commercial for coffee supplements or something.
The clang of the fire extinguisher against the floor of the ship makes Simon jump. He hadn’t noticed his hand dropping until it’d let go of his makeshift blunt object. His eyes dart to the extinguisher before checking back on the yellow coated man. No movement.
He realizes he never actually checked if this new stranger is alive. Or real.
Simon drops to his knees to the right of the man’s torso. Just kneeling on the guy’s bright yellow coat is enough to dirty it, but Simon can’t bring himself to feel guilty about it. He dirties more of the man by placing his fingers to his wrist, but Simon’s hands are shaking too much to differentiate a pulse and his own stubbornly trembling hands. He tries again with the man’s neck, before swiftly giving up and placing his right ear to his chest.
Simon has to take a few deep breaths before he can get his answer.
There’s a slow, steady thump thump underneath the knitted sweater beneath his ear.
Simon gasps in relief. There’s actually a real person here. Next to him. In this stupid fucking submarine. He hadn’t even realized it until he saw the man’s face, but Simon was beginning to believe this ship was some completely different universe no one else could enter. A world built specifically to isolate him.
Now with the confirmation he wasn’t wasting time on a teleporting corpse, (just how did a full human man appear on the SM-13 without anyone noticing, anyway?) Simon began checking for extra injuries or anything of note on the man. He needs to use the camera's flash a few times to get a better view of the guy, he’s still a bit covered in shadow.
A basic run through of visible discoloration or bumps came up negative, though he thinks something like a puncture wound is on the man’s neck. While running his hands along his pockets, he was disappointed to find no identification cards or documentation. Hopefully the guy was trusting enough to explain what the hell he’s doing here to the dangerous convict he’s sealed in with.
Wait, Simon’s thoughts finally kicked up. Fuck, someone else is sealed in with me. In a blood ocean submarine. Where I need to ram a ship, full speed, into a skeleton.
Simon shot to his feet, spinning and moving back fast enough to cause himself to stumble. His eyes lock to the speaker.
“Hey, HEY! CAN YOU HEAR ME!?” He steps closer to the speaker, checking the light for any hint of a flash. “There’s someone else on the ship! If you can hear me, don’t ignore me! This isn’t a fucking joke- SOMEONE ELSE IS WITH ME! You fuckers didn’t plan this, right!? Didn’t forget about some guy you locked in the closet?!”
Simon’s pretty sure the SM-13 doesn’t have a closet. Though he’s also realizing he never really checked. Something to do later…
“HELLO!? Please be in range- HELLO!? IT’S NOT JUST ME-”
“Hghk… Mmm…”
Simon’s mouth clicks shut and he whips his head to the noise. The man’s foot moved. From where he’s standing now, he can only see up to the man’s hip and a bit of his right hand.
The man’s feet move more, same with the hand, curling up past the wall where Simon can’t see.
He takes a breath. A couple of them, really. He tries to be as delicate as he can with his steps, which is a bit impeded by his thick boots and the echoing metal he’s walking on.
He turns the corner.
The man is curled up on his side, back to Simon, one hand on his head while another clutches his stomach.
Simon watches him, looking for evidence of… something. He’s not sure what he wants the man to do.
For a moment, his eyes glance back to the fire extinguisher forgotten on the floor. If there was a time to smack the man over the head, make sure he doesn’t do anything to Simon, now would be the time.
He considers the risks.
The thought of sitting with a dead body in the SM-13 while looking for a skeleton seems haunting. He decides to try talking things out first.
Simon tries to feel bad for thinking about killing a presumably innocent man, but he can’t quite seem to get there. It’s not like he's known for his graceful forgiveness, anyway.
He takes one final breath before lowering down to sit on his heels, leaning a bit to get a peak of the man’s face. His expression looks scrunched behind the hand half-hiding his face, which now moves to rub at his temples.
“Hey,” Simon tries. The man pauses, but otherwise doesn’t move.
“Hey, uh, you awake?”
Wow, Simon, great question. Ask the obviously conscious man if he’s awake. Real genius over here.
The man responds anyways, tucking his head to look under his elbow at Simon. It’s always dark on this damn ship, so he can’t make out much, but he’s pretty sure the man’s eyes are on Simon.
Alright, good. Responsiveness. And he can see. Means he can hear, too, or he wouldn’t have looked.
“You hurt anywhere? I don’t have…” Simon takes a quick visual sweep of the ship where he’s crouched on the ground, “Well, anything that could help. But, uh, I know some first aid. And have some clothing we can pretend are bandages.”
The man stares, blinks, and opens his mouth.
“Wh- Urg- Cough, cough-”
He curls up more, falling into a coughing fit, before splaying out. He seems to reach for nothing and kicks his feet out enough to force Simon to shift a bit to avoid a pristine white shoe to the face. The man continues to slowly roll around while coughing, before ending up back in his original position; arms splayed out and laying on his back.
He moves a hand to his throat, and Simon really wished he could offer the guy some water. He really looks to be struggling. Instead, Simon picks up the glasses that were lost during his sluggish writhing, next to the equally lost beanie, and hands them to him.
The man is distracted for a second, rubbing at his eyes and face, before noticing the offer. He takes them and gingerly places them back on his nose. He opens his mouth again.
“Tha- Hnk-... guh, Tha- ank. Youhh…”
Simon calls this progress. He almost wants to pat the guy on the back as congratulations.
“Yeah, uh, no problem. Throat hurts, I guess. Anything else?”
The man blinks a couple times before shaking his head. It’s immediately followed by a wince and a hand to his temple. Headache, then.
“Alright,” Simon hums, “Then, before anything else, how did you get here?”
This gives the man pause. For a second, he just stares at Simon. After a few moments, he brings his hands back and to his sides, then pushes himself up. Simon instinctually reaches out to see if he can help him up, but the man has already scooted himself up and back, now in a sort of sitting position with his back against the wall. It’s the wall that’s shadowed by the corner of the ship, so the man is now obscured up to his chest.
Simon doesn’t want to tell the guy to move after he put so much effort into sitting up, nor does he feel like manhandling him. Well, here’s to hoping the guy doesn’t mind a bit of a flash.
Simon glances to his left, checking where the button is, before pressing it. The camera takes a moment, but when it hits Simon finally gets a better look at the man.
Simon’s body is blocking some of the light, but he can see the man’s face much easier. It starts a bit dazed, confused, before it scrunches up and he blocks out the flash with a hand. Looking now, the man isn’t leaning against a wall. It’s a sort of terminal embedded into the wall. Thinking back, he definitely saw it before while on his initial trip down. It just didn’t log in his head as important.
“Sorry,” Simon apologizes, “just needed to get a better look. So how did you get here?”
He’s trying to be gentle with his tone, the man is definitely sporting a headache, but Simon’s never been one for quiet words and sweet gestures.
“Where-” the man interrupts himself with a cough, “Where… is here?”
Alright, not great. I’m with a liar or a kidnapping victim.
“Uh, well, largely we’re on AT-5. The moon. More directly, we’re in the SM-13 at the bottom of the blood ocean.”
“Blood… Ocean?”
Simon’s really hoping this man’s just a liar. He’d hate to explain the complete fucking nightmare they’re in right now.
“Yeah. We’re sealed into a submarine by the COI.”
“The.. Seeowai?”
Oh, Simon’s really hoping he’s just a really dumb liar. No one in the remainder of humanity doesn’t know the COI. If I have to deal with an amnesiac in the middle of all of this, they might have to send me back down here to make up for all the shit I’m gonna do.
“The Consolidation of Iron. Please tell me you- Ok, what’s your name?”
The man squints as Simon presses the button again. His face scans over Simon before he opens his mouth and… Says nothing.
The pause freezes the man’s face, before his eyes get bigger. His pupils dart around, closely followed by his hands as the man pats himself down. In the few seconds since Simon’s asked (what should be) a very simple question, the man has gone from tired looking to frantic as he checks himself over.
“Who am- what’s my name- where am I- Who are you!?”
The searching stops as the man’s eyes lock on to Simon. The speed and intensity of his question causes Simon to raise his hands up like a cat burglar who’s been caught.
“... Simon. My name’s Simon. You really don’t remember your name?”
The man stares, blinks, before his face crumples. “No, shoot, no, I don’t. I- I- I- don’t remember-... anything? I don’t know, I don’t know who I am or how I got here I-”
Simon’s liar theory is really going out the window, here. The man is so heavily stressed and, really, what would anyone gain from lying about amnesia in the middle of a blood ocean? Certainly not a happy ending. He presses the button again.
“Alright, ok, it’s alright. We’ll, uh, we’ll figure it out later. You don’t have anything you remember?”
“No- no, I don’t- I can’t remember anything. But it doesn’t make- there’s no moon called AT-5? And it certainly wouldn’t have a blood ocean on it…”
The certainty of the guy’s statement seems to catch them both off guard.
“Ok… Well, there certainly is. We’re on AtT-5. And I’d show you the blood ocean but if I open the hatch then the window’s gonna cave in and then we both won’t be getting any answers,” Simon throws a thumb to his right to gesture to the only window on the ship.
The man follows his hand before his eyes drift everywhere else. He’s gotten used to the flash of the camera that Simon keeps pressing, but now the action itself catches his attention. His eyes seem to focus, and he looks to be taking stock of his surroundings.
The man shoves himself forward, dragging his feet underneath himself and throws himself into an attempt at standing up. It doesn’t quite work.
“Woah- Hey! Careful, man…”
Simon launches to his feet and catches the man under the armpits. He stabilizes after a moment, grabbing Simon’s shoulders, before taking another look around the ship from his new vantage point. Simon takes stock of the stranger with his own new vantage point.
He’s warm, which isn’t too comfortable given the already very hot accommodations they have, and he’s taller than Simon by a good few inches. Definitely around 6ft tall. He’s a bit gangly but there’s a healthy amount of muscle he can feel while holding him.
A moment of balancing, and the stranger lets go of Simon. He doesn’t seem violent or off kilter, at least not any more than Simon himself, so Simon lets him go to allow the man to explore.
He takes a few uncertain steps past Simon, looking over at the control panel and window, before checking on the button. After a moment, he pushes it. He watches the picture appear on the screen, watches it fade, before pressing it again. Same picture, like it should be. Simon realizes the guy likely has no idea what the hell any of this is.
“That’s uh… That’s the camera. Takes pictures of the blood ocean. Kinda what I’m down here to do; take pictures and then go back up.”
The man turns to look at Simon, “Pictures? But the… the ocean is filled with blood, right? That’s not a weird title?”
“Yeah. Ocean of blood. Blood ocean. Giant pit filled with blood.”
“Ok, then how can you take a picture? Blood’s opaque…”
Simon’s about to answer before the man’s face shifts. He squints, looking into the middle distance, before turning back and pressing the button again. He gets closer and looks over the image before spinning back to face Simon.
“Are you using X-rays to take pictures?”
Simon blinks. Huh. The guy’s smart, he’ll give him that. Simon hadn’t even wondered how a camera could take pictures in a blood ocean, and this guy figured out how it worked after a couple questions.
“Um. Yeah. Radiation, cuts through most of the blood. Basically our only way of knowing where we’re going.”
“And uh, where are we going?”
Simon moves back over to the controls, grabbing the map. “Well, currently, we’re trying to find a skeleton to ram this ship into.”
“Hold on, repeat that??”
“And we should be…” Simon gives a glance to the control panel, noting the coordinates and where that places them on the map. “Going Northeast. Then North. We’ll get there when we get there.”
“Ok, ok ok ok, so we’re in a submarine in a blood ocean taking pictures with X-rays, and maybe ramming a ship, because of the COI. And I’m here because…?”
The guy looks stressed, which is a shame, because Simon’s definitely going to make his day worse.
“I don’t know why you’re here. ‘S why I asked. I’m sealed in here as some prisoner reformation bullshit, and I should be here alone. Only reason they send prisoners down here is because we’re expendable. You, on the other hand…” Simon gives a vague gesture to the entirety of the guy, who looks down at himself, “are obviously not some random prisoner meant to die down here.”
The man blinks. “What. What? How do you know that- expendable!? Are we going to die?!”
“Not if I do my job right.”
“Well- do your job right! I guess! Can’t you call them, tell them something’s wrong and I shouldn’t be here!?”
“Sorry, already tried. Radio’s spotty with all the blood in the way, the only way we can get back up there is by doing the task and hoping they pull us up enough to start a chat.”
It’s a bit easier being calm about some guy appearing in his submarine when the guy himself is losing it. It gives Simon some task, he guesses, something to do that he can fix. And right now, he can fix this guy’s complete lack of knowledge of the hellhole they’re in now.
The man puts his hands back to his face, mussing up his glasses and hair. He leans backwards, leaning against the wall of electronics where the button sits, just barely avoiding holding the button down with his back. He makes a pathetic kind of groaning, sighing sound.
“OK,” Simon starts, “so you have amnesia. Right?”
The man pauses, then mumbles, “Yeah… yeah, seems like it.” He lifts his face from his hands, peering at Simon. “And you don’t know who I am?”
Simon grimaces “Sorry, not a clue.”
His face drops back into his hands, “No, of course not, that’d be too easy…”
The guy seems to be lost in thought, or at least not willing to continue this line of conversation. Simon takes another look around the ship, checking for any clues on what to do. Nothing.
“Hey, uh, guy.”
The guy looks up. He’s got a kind of confounded, slightly offended look on his face.
Simon scoffs, “Look, neither of us know your name. What am I supposed to call you?”
“I don’t know, just- uh… something? A nickname or a moniker?”
“So you’re telling me to name you?”
“Not name me, just… a title? I guess? For now? Until I get my memories back…”
Simon doesn’t have the heart to tell the guy he’s pretty sure that’s not how amnesia works.
“Alright… then I’ll call you Glasses.”
The man’s hands drop to his sides to reveal his affronted expression. “What? Really? That’s the best you’ve got?”
“Hey- You didn’t ask for my best! You asked for a nickname! So, I gave you one!”
“What about- You… um…” The man, Glasses, puts his finger up to gesture at Simon and seemingly make a point, before dropping his hand and sighing. “Gosh I don’t even have enough memories to come up with a better option. Alright, fine. Glasses. Sure, that’s who I am.”
Simon takes the win for what it is. He grins a bit, placing the map down and walking over to Glasses. Glasses watches him as he moves, but otherwise lets him approach. Simon gives him another once over, one last check for his health.
"Ok, Glasses. I'm thinking you don't wanna be in a blood ocean?"
"There's literally no two words I'd rather not be next to each other than 'blood' and 'ocean'. Yes, please, I'd like to go."
Simon is startled enough to let out a quick laugh. He huffs, before continuing. "Well, alright. Then how about we work together?"
He sticks out his hand, waiting to see Glasses's response.
Better to have shitty allies than no allies at all.
Glasses looks between Simon and the outstretched hand. Something akin to a smile graces his face.
“That sounds like a great plan.”
