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White.
The only thing Simon could see was white. White walls, ceiling, floor, near blinding. He hadn't seen anything so clean in his life, not even medical bays on Eden. He wonders if he's dead, if everything is finally over. There's a strange relief in his chest at the thought.
Only it didn't make sense. Only Heaven was supposed to be this wholly white, and if he truly knew anything, it was that he would never make it into such a place, no matter how many times he begged for forgiveness.
"Eye movement detected." a female voice says, much too loud for comfort. "What is two plus two?"
He can't find the source of the voice. He appears to be completely and utterly alone. Again.
Even if he wanted to answer, he couldn't. Something smooth and tasteless is filling his mouth, solid between his teeth. It sits uncomfortably against the walls of his throat.
"Endotracheal tube removal to begin in ten seconds." the voice begins to count down, and a hatch in the ceiling opens like a maw. A mechanical arm unfolds, then another, one finding a spot against his chest and the other grabbing hold of something he can see in his bottom peripherals.
When it begins to pull the object from his mouth at the count of one, it scrapes against his throat painfully, choking him, and for a few unbearable seconds, he can't pull a breath in. Then, it's over, and he gags violently, twisting over onto his side once the claw releases him. Nothing but yellow-ish mixture of stomach acid and bile comes up.
"What is two plus two?" it repeats.
Simon coughs and spits. "Fuckin'- four, or something." his voice sounds wrong even to himself, hoarse and lifeless.
"Correct." the arms disappear back into the ceiling. "Please refrain from leaving the bed. Muscle function has not yet recovered."
Begrudgingly, he lays back on the cot, despite his want to check his surroundings, be completely sure that he's safe. He takes this time to do a mental scan of his own body.
There's no pain, oddly enough. He can't remember the last time he didn't feel some small spark of pain, and it puts his teeth on edge. When he sits up slightly to look over his body with his own eyes, it becomes apparent that he should be in a lot of pain.
His body is almost completely wrapped in gauze, skin peeking out between the white fabric. A thin blanket is draped across his legs, obscuring his vision, but he can guess the rest of his body is the same as his upper half. And, more importantly, his left arm is all but a stump of bandaging. An IV drip of some kind is pierced through the skin of his remaining arm.
It's not difficult to stay in the bed. His limbs feel like lead, heavy and uncooperative, he couldn't stand even if he wanted to. He wonders vaguely where he is as he slips back into sleep.
=====
John was examining the Astrophage fuel tanks when Mary's automated voice blares over the ships intercoms.
"Medical room door open. Medical room door open."
He's immediately in motion. He hadn't expected the stranger to have enough strength to leave the medical cot, much less walk far enough to open the door. He shoots down the halls, stumbling over equipment scattered on the floors.
His eyes lock with a pair a few meters down from him, one chocolate brown, one bloody red. The rage in his expression isn't the only thing that makes him flinch.
He's seen the fangs growing out of his cheeks, the gills, the scarring, the missing arm, all of it before. But seeing the gills flutter with heavy breaths, his bared teeth turning into points the farther back his jaw they go is something that no normal person wouldn't wince at.
"I know you're not real." the stranger snarls. "You can't keep fucking with me. I know your tricks."
John barely manages to squeak out a "I don't know what you're talking about" before there's a hand around his neck and he's being slammed against the floor.
"If you want me dead so badly just do it." those teeth are inches away from his face, the pressure against his throat tightening and his airways closing up. He chokes, trying to get a word out between the collapsed walls of his windpipe, but the stranger speaks up again. "I'm not gonna be your fucking play thing. I'll kill myself before I become that."
"RILEY SAVE JOHN!" the musical voice announces, as what appears to be a spider made fully out of tiger's eye barrels down the hallway, feet scrambling on the surface of the transparent hamster ball they're encompassed in. They slam their ball into the stranger's shoulder at full force, knocking him off John and onto the floor.
The stranger groans. "What the fuck is that-"
Riley doesn't let him finish his sentence, ramming into him again, this time into his head. Nothing happens for a solid few seconds, the both of them waiting to see if he moves the slightest bit. "Riley do good, question?"
John coughs and sputters, slowly pushing himself up into a sitting position. His hand massages his throat. "You- You bloody killed him!"
"Is still breathing, statement."
=====
Never before has John had to tie someone down to a medical cot.
It's not a difficult task, just loop the rope around the stranger's wrist and then through the bars at the base of the bed and tie it off. It's just awkward. He does the same for both of his ankles, and then ties his left arm — or lack of — by his armpit.
Now that he had a second to look at the guy, he's quite a pretty man. Even with the scarring and fangs, he's dazzling. Sharp nose, strong jaw, blonde hair curling around his ears, muscular body, as if built to be a human tank.
He wonders what happened to him. What could have possibly made these marks, these mutations. Even Riley, the esteemed scientist from an alien planet, hadn't been able to figure out much. His blood told them he was human, but not much more.
They'd found him in something that vaguely resembled a submarine of sorts, that was way too small and too badly made to be much of a use. Even stranger, it was welded shut there was a grapple at the front of it, a large chunk of bone clutched in it's grasp. But nothing quite topped the fact it was filled with fresh human blood, congealed to the piping of the submarine.
"John stare at stranger a lot."
He nearly jumps out of his skin, whipping around to stare at the Eridian. "Holy hell, Riley, you can't just sneak up on people like that!"
"Apology. Forget human have bad bad hearing." they roll their ball up to his side. "Stranger wake up soon, question?"
"That's a question for Nanny Bot."
As if on cue, the metal hands fold down from the ceiling, spinning it's little grabby hand. "Patient wakes up in two hours and forty three seconds."
"Got a lot of time to waste, then." he tells Riley.
"Riley analyze stranger blood again." they stick their claw into the flexible hexagon of xenonite in their ball, taking a vial of blood from Nanny Bot. "See if anything new."
=====
Simon wakes to white walls and blinding lights once again. His ribs ache, and his vision swims. Dull pain throbs in his head, like his brain is swelling against his skull.
A groan slips between his cracked lips before he can think to stop it. He lets his head fall to the side, burying his face into the plush pillow beneath him.
"You're awake!" a voice startles him into a sitting position, immediately defensive. He shoves himself as far away from the voice as he can, which ends up being only a few inches to the edge of the bed. "Riley, he's awake!"
The man before him parts the sharp beams of light as if he were the Final Tree from the stories Simon's mother told him years ago, a rift between the radiance of long dead stars.
He has hair the colour of mud, shaven down the sides, leaving the strands to pool like a river down to the nape of his neck. Sparkling blue eyes are set into his sockets, a missing tooth leaving a gap in his wide grin. His shirt is peculiar, made out of a single piece of fabric instead of several multicolored scraps sown together. There's some kind of stupid physics pun stitched across his chest, one Simon can't make sense of.
Then a five legged thing rolls down the hallway, encased in a rough sphere of glass. It looks like a living brown rock, lighter in some areas and darker in others. It titters notes like his mother's music box, clicking it's claws against the floor of it's ball.
"Holy fuck!" Simon's voice doesn't come out as loud as it should've, his throat scratchy and painful, making the sound come out hoarse.
The creature chirps again, spinning around in their ball. They lift their leg closest to the other man, tapping one of their three claws against the glass.
"Yes, yes, introductions, yes." he claps his hands together, seeming to have more energy than Simon's ever had in his life. "You're on the Hail Mary, which is a space ship in the Tau Ceti solar system. I'm John MacTavish, the engineer of the Hail Mary. This is Riley, they're an Eridian, and also a scientist. We are currently heading to their planet, which we call Erid but is technically called 40 Eridani but it's a mouthful."
Simon just stares.
"That was a lot of information, I know. If you want, we could leave you alone to process? Or I could give you a tour?"
He didn't really want to be left alone, not that he'd ever admit that. "A-a tour. Please."
=====
Out of all the rooms he had shown the stranger, he obviously liked the "Don't Go Crazy" room the most. Once the tour was over, John left him to explore on his own and joined Riley in the lab.
Despite his reaction the first time he woke up, John gave him the benefit of the doubt and trusted him to be on his own. Riley didn't seem as forgiving as him, murmuring annoyances under their breath.
John spent the next hours fixing the computer that was once used to translate Riley's chirps and titters. The Eridian begins to pester him about eating dinner eventually, so he prepares two packets of mac and cheese and goes off to find their company.
He comes upon the man sitting in the Don't Go Crazy room, staring up at projections of trees and sunlight filtering through leaves. His eyes sparkle in the beams of light, brown like freshly brewed coffee.
"Mind if I join you?" he asks, just before he steps into the room. He doesn't want to startle him, not keen on having that hand around his neck again. The bruises have turned from a greenish yellow to a deep purple, in the perfect shape of fingers against his jugular.
The stranger turns his head, gaze lingering on him cautiously. A curl of blonde hair falls across his forehead as he gives a small nod. John sits next to him, leaving a few feet between them.
He holds out the packet of mac and cheese. "Brought you dinner."
The stranger tentatively takes it, giving it a small sniff. "This poisoned?"
"I promise it's not. We wouldn't get anything out of killing you. Just a corpse, and I'm not eager to jettison another body out the airlock."
The two sit in silence, John eating while the stranger takes tiny, suspicious bites. The sound of a bird's chirping and the rustling of leaves comes from the small speakers settled around them as the trees sway on the projection.
"What's your name, anyway?" John finally asks.
The stranger seems to contemplate for a moment. "Ghost."
"Alright, Ghost," it's an odd name, but nothing about this guy has been normal so far. He shouldn't be so surprised. "Any idea how you got here?"
He slowly shakes his head.
"You and me both, my friend."
"The stars. They're projections." he says suddenly.
John's fork freezes an inch from his mouth. "The stars out the windows?" he watches the other man nod, confused. "Why the hell would they be projections?"
"The stars died a long time ago." Ghost speaks slowly, as if he can't believe John doesn't know this. "The planets too. There's nothing left but space stations."
John can't find a single thing that would've made him think such a thing, but he files his questions away for another time. "Well, the stars were dying for a bit there. But Riley and I saved them, so no stars will be dying on our watch."
Ghost gives him an odd look, and doesn't reply. He quite obviously doesn't believe him, that much is for sure.
"How about once we get to Erid's solar system, I show you their star? Up close and personal, no ghost light. A living star." he finds himself offering.
"I… would like that." the other man eventually agrees.
=====
Simon had kept himself scarce around the ship, constantly uneasy. Voices whisper in his head that this is all the eels doing, that none of this is real and soon, this world will be yanked away from him. This world with food to eat and clean clothes to wear and warm blankets and plush pillows to sleep with.
John constantly assured him that he wouldn't be hurt here, that there was enough food to go around, that Riley wasn't waiting to kill him when they wanted to watch him sleep. Riley themself hadn't seemed to forgive him for "hurt hurt hurt John" when he first woke up.
After the brunette had found him in the projection room for the hundredth time, he lead him to a room dedicated to a large shelf of tiny seedlings. At first, he didn't believe they were real. But after a few days of watching them, a small stub of leafy green had grown from one of the sprigs.
They were real. Real, live, growing plants.
Before he can stop himself, he begins to sniffle. His vision blurs with tears, and he finds himself weeping on the floor of the plant room. He's learned that Riley has an incredible sense of hearing, so he presses a hand to his mouth to muffle his sobs.
====
Simon has been aware of the other twos "movie nights" since the first Friday he was awake for. He wasn't quite sure what a movie was, and he had been feeling incredibly overwhelmed by the sheer amount of new things he was learning of, so he'd avoided Friday nights like a plague.
Today, though, he can't help but listen in on the movie. Something about it has caught his attention, and he can't seem to focus on snipping the dead limbs off the seedlings. John has assured him about fifty times that he's welcome to join them, but every time he spends time with the other man and his rock companion, the whispers creep into his brain again. Murmuring of hallucinations, of the eel lurking in the depths of the blood ocean, of the mangled figure in the submarine that he has begun to resemble.
He leaves the plant room, lost in his thoughts, to wander to the lab and find the jug of fertilizer Riley had made for him. It felt like a way of them forgiving him, understanding that he was only afraid and didn't mean any harm that day he awoke.
When he walks past the dormitories, where the two are watching their movie, John speaks after him. "Oi Ghost! You ever heard of Halloween?"
He pauses, backtracking a few steps to peer into the dormitories. He shakes his head in reply.
"Come on, sit down."
At first, he isn't eager to comply, but those sky blue eyes lure him in. He comes into the room carefully, finding a seat on one of the empty beds.
"Halloween is an Earth holiday where people dress up for fun and kids go what's called trick or treating, basically going door to door and getting candy. People usually dress up as the undead or horror movie characters." John explains, face animated. "It's also mixed up with the Day of the Dead, or Día de los Muertos, which is celebrated to remember, honor, and welcome back the spirits of the dead."
"Sounds like Eridian holiday, ♫♪♪♫." Riley chirps, thankfully hooked up to the translator.
It seems a little odd to Simon. On Eden, the dead are just dead. Yes, they have funerals, very short ceremonies before the body is buried bare between the roots of the Last Tree, but that was simply the end. They would rarely even be spoken of after that. With the C.O.I., one day someone would be there, and the next they would not, as if they had simply been erased.
He begins to get up and leave, having heard what John wanted to tell him. He would water and fertilize the seedlings, then watch the "stars" out the window. Maybe he would spend the night in the plant room again.
"Ghost, man, wait." John speaks up before he can leave. "Stay and watch the rest of the movie with us? Please?"
"Ghost friend stay, demand." Riley chimes in.
They make it awfully hard to refuse, though Simon isn't sure if he wants to refuse either way. He resumes his spot on the empty bed, before Riley commands him to sit closer. He sits next to John after that.
"Is Nightmare Before Christmas." the Eridian tells him. "Christmas is Earth holiday about Jesus." the translator pronounces Jesus like "Hey-soos."
=====
John spent the next few days next to giddy. Finally, Ghost had stopped moving around the ship like a scared little mouse, like one wrong step could put a bullet in his head. He ate with them, occasionally joined their movie nights, and had even switched from sleeping in the medical bay to sleeping in the dormitories.
They still had a little less than a year until they would be at Erid, and about half a year until they would be in the solar system. They had lots of time for Ghost to get more comfortable and maybe open up about what on Earth happened in that blood filled submarine.
They're about to have another movie night when Riley proposes an idea.
"Ghost pick movie this time, question?"
The man's eyes widen, looking between the laptop, Riley, and John. He shakes his head slowly, nudging the computer away with his foot.
"I think that would be nice." John agrees, watching as Ghost gives another firm shake of the head.
Riley perks up. "Idea! John Riley pick three movies, Ghost pick one from three!"
"That's a great suggestion, Riley!" John claps his hands together, making the other man jump. "How's that sound?"
Slowly, he nods. "That sounds okay."
Riley and John find three movies, Avatar, Spirited Away, and Twilight, before turning the computer towards Ghost. He reads the summaries, before hesitantly pointing to Spirited Away.
=====
"Ghost friend heart beat dropping." Riley announces around two thirds of the way through the movie.
John jolts, quickly looking to his right. The man's eyelids droop, lips parted gently. Then, he slumps against him, head resting on his shoulder.
"Wha-"
"Ghost friend sleep, statement." they add. "Stop movie, question?"
He lets out a heavy breath, relieved that his newly found friend didn't just mysteriously drop dead. "Aye, we better. He chose that one, he'll want to see how it ends."
"John sleep too, Riley watch."
"Yeah, yeah." he shifts carefully, trying to find the best way to move Ghost to his bed. "I'll sleep too, don't worry."
By the time he wakes up the next morning, Riley is situated in almost a loaf like position in their side of the dorm. Ghost's bed is empty, blankets neatly placed on the mattress.
He finds the other man in their "kitchen," preparing two breakfast kits.
"You sleep good?"
He gets a hum in return, and pointedly avoided eye contact. "Simon."
"Hmm?"
"Simon. That's my name. Ghost was just… what they called me." he says the word "they" like it personally offends him.
John can't help but smile. "Well, Simon, I'm glad you're here."
=====
He's shaken awake one morning (what he thinks was morning) by John, blue eyes hovering over his, crinkled by a wide grin.
"We've reached the Erid solar system!" he exclaims, seeming completely unfazed by the punch he just narrowly avoided. "You want to see that star I promised you?"
Simon sits up so fast he almost rams his forehead into John's, suddenly very awake. His socked feet are on the floor quicker than he can blink, already halfway down the hallway connecting the dorms to the lab.
"Come on, we'll have the best view from the control room." John tells him, leading him up to the room covered in control panels.
Riley chitters, following on their heels. Simon finds a spot in front of the window, staring out. At the moment, it just seems pitch black, not a star in sight.
"I'll turn the centrifuge off, so the gravity will be gone for a bit, but we'll be able to see 40 Eridani that way." John calls from the pilot's seat. "Turning it off in three… two… one!"
Suddenly, his feet aren't on the ground anymore. Despite the many times he's been in zero gravity since ending up on the Hail Mary, he's still not used to it. He doubts he ever will be.
Through the window there's a ball of light. An orb of flames, orange and yellow and red and even some blue, just floating there, in a sea of darkness speckled with more lights.
It's gorgeous, and undoubtedly alive.
=====
"Pretty cool huh?"
John's voice is met with silence. Simon just stares and stares and stares, entranced. The light from 40 Eridani reflect in his eyes, replacing his irises with fire.
The star is beautiful in it's blazing glory, but there's something much prettier that John can see. And that's Simon himself.
His eyelashes are blonde like his hair, long and thick. Freckles spread across the bridge of his nose to cover his unscarred cheek. The scars themselves have destroyed everything in their path, his left brow, the muscle tissue of his one red eye. The white of the teeth stand out sharply against the pink of his cheek.
"Pretty pretty star, very big." Riley comments, slowly floating away in their ball.
John manages to grab onto a corner of their ball and pull them to their xenonite tunnels, earning a chorus of "thank thank" as they grab handles in their claws and crawl back to the window. He doesn't want to disturb Simon's moment, glancing back at the man's silhouette against the light of 40 Eridani.
"Friend Simon leaking, statement." Riley tells him.
That sends a jolt to his system, and he's by Simon's side in a blink. Riley's right, silent tears are overflowing from his eyes and dripping down his cheeks. A bead of wetness weaves between the scarring of his skin.
"Simon?" his voice comes out quiet. "You okay?"
"It's real." he hiccups, wiping at the dampness on his cheeks. "The stars are alive."
"Hug, give hug." Riley clinks their claws against the xenonite, motioning to Simon.
"Simon, can I hug you?" John asks cautiously, preparing himself for an aggressive reaction.
Instead, Simon presses the heel of his hand into one of his eyes, and gives a small nod. John puts his arms around him, carefully pulling him closer, leaving a bit of a gap for him to pull away if he changed his mind. The other man bridges the space with little hesitation, putting his head in the crook of his neck.
It takes a few seconds, but soon, Simon completely melts against him, hand clutching the back of John's shirt in a white knuckled fist. His breath hiccups in his ear, and tears make the fabric cling to his shoulder.
"You're alright." he attempts to sooth, rubbing a hand up and down his back. "The stars are here, the planets are alive. You're okay."
"Safe safe safe." Riley assures. "Riley John not let anything happen to Friend Simon."
John nods. "Exactly. No one's gonna hurt you here. Once we get to Erid, we can make sure this star never dies. We'll keep it alive for the rest of eternity."
Sniffling, Simon nods against his shoulder, but doesn't let go quite yet.
=====
Arriving at Erid was rocky, to say the least. In theory, it seemed easy. They simply had to get into orbit, as close to atmosphere as possible, and just wait for the Eridian's to come up in their xenonite elevator to take them down to the surface. Once there, the humans would be temporarily left in a little oxygen filled house while the Eridian's worked on a biodome for them to permanently live in.
Getting into orbit was short but shaky, taking less than an hour but jarringly rocking the ship, causing the hull to creak and bow. John and Riley positioned the ship perfectly, fussing over slight inaccuracies until everything was flawless.
"Where Simon, question?" Riley asks once they're satisfied.
"He's not here?" John looks up from the controls panels, searching the room for the familiar man. "Maybe he's getting the seedlings ready. I'll go look for him."
They trill, no words that the translator picks up. John checks the plant room and the projection room, both empty. The dormitories have no sign of Simon, either. At first, the lab appears to be devoid as well. That is, until he hears a muffled whimper from under a table.
"Simon?" he calls softly, crouching down to peer under the desk. He's greeted by a trembling lump hidden under a blanket. "Hey, what's going on? What're you hiding for?"
Simon looks up at him, blanket pulled over his head with curls of blonde hair falling over his forehead. His red eye glows slightly in the dimness under the table. He looks so very anxious and fearful, fabric bunched in his fist and breath hiccuping.
"Oh, bud..." he feels his heart ache, and he opens his arms in invitation. He'd learned that hugs help Simon calm greatly since the day he was shown Erid's sun, whether it was the touch, the pressure, the warmth, it helped. "Come here, it's okay."
Simon doesn't move from under the table, just staring at him with big watery eyes. He pulls the blanket tighter around himself. John sighs, instead moving to him, scooting under the desk beside him. The other man wastes no time in falling into his arms after that, curled in a tight little ball. It's almost humorous how tiny such a large man can make himself.
"There you are, Si." he's not sure when Simon became Si, but if anything, Simon seems to enjoy it, cuddling closer to his chest. "Wanna tell me what's wrong?"
He sniffs. "The shaking and, um, the sound…" he lets go of the blanket for a second to brush the tears off his cheeks, then tucks the fabric back up to his chin. "Reminded me of the- the SM-13…"
"Ah, I see…" John smooths a hand over his head before settling it on the nape of his neck. "You're not there anymore, you're safe with us. Promise."
"Other Eridian's build elevator now." Riley rolls into the room, pausing in the doorway. "What Simon John doing, question?"
"The shaking scared him a little bit, is all." he assures them.
"Oh, understand." they nod their carapace. "No worry, elevator very smooth. No shaking." they find a spot beside the two, folding their legs under themself like a cat loafing. "Have three thousand six hundred seconds until elevator here, statement."
Simon sits up slightly, letting the blanket drop down to his shoulders. "What's the biodome going to be like?"
"Will have artificial lake." Riley tells him. "Riley mate manage weather, will make rain sun fog."
He blinks, and wipes his nose with the back of his hand. "You have a mate?"
"Yes, yes." they make a short, happy purring sound. "Riley mate atmospheric scientist. Will be in charge of weather in biodome."
The hour until the elevator arrives is filled with facts about Riley's mate — who John has dubbed Merlin — about anything from how they met to how many pebbles they want to how Merlin won an Eridian pie eating contest almost a hundred years ago.
=====
The house they were kept while the biodome was being built was nothing like Simon had seen before. Riley said it was based off of pictures of houses on Earth they had seen on John's laptop, with a few Eridian twists to it. It made it even more strange to him, but it wasn't unpleasant.
The house itself was the same house they would live in once the dome was built, complete with a front and back door that they were advised not to open until everything was fully set up. The Eridian's were building the biodome around them, then they would fill it with oxygen so the two could roam around safely.
The both of them were on edge, not enjoying being locked in a place they couldn't leave for an undisclosed amount of time. They were barely hanging onto calmness, it only made sense for one of them to snap at some point.
Simon steps out of the bathroom after a shower to John sitting on the couch and staring out the window into the darkness of Erid. It's not an odd thing to do, the both of them enjoy seeing the small flashes of the Eridian's working on the biodome. But something seemed different this time, with the way John held himself.
"Johnny?" around the same time John started calling him "Si," Simon had begun to call him Johnny. It always got a wide smile from the other man when he said it.
John turns, quickly wiping his eyes. "Oh. Hi, Simon."
"Are you okay?" he sits next to him on the couch.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm good." he agrees, shifting slightly. "Just don't like being stuck in here. Reminds me of… back on Earth."
Simon tilts his head the slightest bit, in a way he hopes encourages John to continue. He doesn't remember him ever mentioning being held anywhere, in a prison or a hospital or anything similar.
"I, um, didn't want to go on the Hail Mary." he begins. "The original engineers died in a testing accident right before the launch. And I was the best, uh… replacement. When I said I didn't want to go, they just… forced me on."
Simon pushes the anger simmering in his chest, knowing that keeping his composure will help John feel more comfortable sharing this with him.
"So they kept me in a cell for the days leading up to the launch, and drugged me to get me onto the ship." he fiddles nervously with his fingers. "They lied to the other crew members and told them I asked to be drugged to avoid unnecessary anxiety."
Simon watches as tears well up on the other man's waterline. He takes in a deep breath with a loud sniffle, and wipes his nose with his sleeve. "Being stuck in here is just reminding me of being in that cell. It was more of a college dorm than a cell, but it had a big steel door and iron bars on the window. I hated feeling trapped."
"And now you're trapped again."
He nods slowly. "I don't know what to do anymore."
Glancing towards the clock John had brought out of the Hail Mary, Simon says, "It's late. We could sleep, and figure things out in the morning?"
"Yeah. Yeah, that would be good."
The two begin to part ways, both to their separate bedrooms, when John grabs onto Simon's wrist. His fingers feel as if they're burning away his skin.
"Si, would you… would you stay in my room tonight?"
He raises his eyes from the grip on his wrist and meets his eyes instead. "Of-of course, I will."
After changing into pajamas and brushing their teeth, John tucks himself into bed. Simon finds a few extra blankets and his pillow and starts to set up a bed on the floor, when he's interrupted by John clearing his throat.
He looks up as he pats the space in the bed beside him with pleading eyes. Unable to resist or argue — even if he wanted to — Simon slips under the covers beside him. Silence temporarily settles between them, before John rolls over to face him.
"Have you ever kissed anyone?" he asks suddenly.
Simon blinks, startled. "I haven't, no…"
"Can I kiss you? Please?"
He swallows, feeling his face flush immediately. He gives a flustered nod. Soon, John's lips are pressed against his own.
It's warm, too much and not enough all at once. Simon feels like he's been waiting for this all his life, even before he found himself on the Hail Mary. Like this was the entire reason he was still alive.
It's over in a handful of seconds as the two of them stare at each other for a few seconds, before Simon pulls him back in for a longer kiss. He knows he's probably not doing this right, but he doesn't care, as long as John keeps humming against his lips like that.
When John pulls back a few inches, Simon can't stop himself from blurting out, "I think I'm in love with you."
He grins toothily, enough to crinkle his eyes into slits. "You read my mind, Si."