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This is a sad story.
The stranger that Ryland Grace had found, stranded in an impossible submarine in open space, didn’t wake up for two days.
Ryland had left him in the good hands of Armando, held back by his own ignorance on the matter: what to do with an unconscious body covered in blood, missing an arm, not even sure if he was going to make it.
When he woke up he didn’t want to talk at all, or he could not. And once he got completely clean, Ryland offered him some clothes and with a quickly vanishing smile, the stranger showed gratitude, his eyes still dark as a storm.
Ryland had the impression that he had always known this person, that he could recognise his voice among thousands, although he hadn't spoken yet.
He found himself observing him, trying more or less not to show how obsessed he was with the presence of another human being, being extra curious about the bruise on his face that didn’t seem to heal at all.
He couldn’t help but form a lot of theories and questions. Maybe this person could not talk, maybe he spoke another language entirely, maybe he was dangerous.
But the way he would sit for hours in front of the big porthole, looking outside, it reminded Ryland of something like a child seeing stars for the first time. He was hugging his knees too and he simply looked troubled by something Ryland didn’t have access to.
Some nights they would sit together and eat, sharing the view and, eventually, Simon started speaking.
Armando had given him a prosthetic arm and he was learning how to deal with it, practicing with Ryland as they would play catch with whatever they could find.
Simon’s first real genuine smile, a hidden sun born within, happened when he caught a falling cup of boiling coffee that Ryland had accidentally elbowed off the table.
The liquid had splashed on his arm, but he found it incredibly funny that since it was a prosthetic he didn’t feel pain.
Coincidentally, that was the moment Ryland would replay in his head nonstop, before sleeping, trying to linger on how Simon’s smile had reached his eyes.
Ryland found it curious how deep down he had known for days and there had been signs, now that he was able to recognise it.
What was there to lose?
There was a black out once and Ryland was worried Simon could get scared.
He went to find him, who again was next to the porthole and barely noticed something was wrong.
The green planet outside was reflecting its star’s light and the module had a melancholic feeling of extraterrestrial bliss.
Simon’s hair was usually so soft looking that Ryland had to keep from running his hands through it, but now, with the green glow from the thick glass, no other light and every noise completely silenced, time was non existent and Ryland found the courage to touch it.
Simon backed away slightly, caught off guard, he took Ryland’s wrist and lowered his hand. Still learning how to dose his strength, the grip was too tight and it hurt Ryland.
“I’m sorry.” Ryland said, not mentioning the pain. “You were beautiful in the light.”
They started sharing the bed because Space was too dark and empty and silent and Simon’s nightmares scared Ryland as well.
Truth be told, Ryland needed to feel someone else’s warmth and Simon too.
Every night Ryland thought that Simon would finally start to be better, that his presence was going to be enough for him to heal, but every night Simon still shivered.
Sometimes the dreams didn’t wake him up, but they still made him cry in his sleep and Ryland was there to hold him tight, scared that Simon might get trapped in the dreams and stay there forever.
It was one of those nights where Simon had fallen asleep first and Ryland was hugging him, rocked by the rise of his chest. He drifted to sleep and felt like he had just closed his eyes when Simon woke him up, with eyes like wells.
“What’s wrong?” He asked, startled.
“Am I alive?”
It wasn’t at all like Ryland had pictured it, maybe after a laugh, a hug, watching the stars.
Simon was drinking a cup of tea, apologizing. He was emotional in a way that Ryland had never seen him.
“It’s okay,” he kept saying. It really was. At that point they would only have each other for years to come. Ryland was more than willing to take care of him, he could not express in words how happy he was not to be alone anymore.
“You will be better, I promise.”
Simon put the cup down, face shiny with tears and entered Ryland’s personal space, which they did every night, but not like that.
He put a tentative hand on Ryland’s chest and he promptly held it and he thought his own heart might kill him breaking through his ribcage, overly aware of every cell in his body, of how he was sitting, of the way he was breathing; but then he forgot and it was all about Simon: his warm lips, his tears-wet cheeks, his wavy hair in Ryland’s hands, his tongue and his hands on Ryland’s chest.
They hugged afterward, carrying the weight of the potential that their first kiss held, wondering if it was the beginning of something.
They took each other’s faces in their hands, Ryland’s thumb caressing his cheek where a thick hard scar had finally replaced the open wound.
Simon’s twin planets had never looked so sweet.
Once they kissed, they never wanted to stop, so they didn't. They kissed while brushing teeth, upside down, spiderman style, laying in bed, on the pilot’s chair. They clashed their helmets trying, when they were having fun going out for EVAs.
They had all the time in the world, and no reason to waste it. Suddenly, sharing the bed had another meaning.
Simon was sleeping on his stomach and Ryland noticed a long, very light scar on his spine, he was not so sure it was not there before, maybe it was from the space suit, he didn’t know.
He placed kisses along it and then traced it with his tongue and Simon was awake.
Simon’s left pupil was changing color. Ryland spent some time looking into it, questioning the reason and tried to ask him about his past. Ryland had kept a sample of the blood, from when he had found Simon, studying it in secret, but it was nothing he had ever seen.
No reason to worry, Simon was in good health. Who knew what that blood had in it, he just needed time.
Oh, he was in love.
He knew from the things he wanted to give Simon.
An August sky as a frame for a falling star, a set of wings, the infinite itself -whatever that meant.
He wanted to negotiate with the stars, convince them to arrange themselves into something that looked like Simon, just so he could point up and say: that’s how much I love you.
He would have turned himself into snow just to show him how warm a fire can be in winter.
It was like living a fairytale, but with a monster under the bed.
Ryland, laying on his back, Simon by his side, holding his hand. They were stargazing.
Simon’s face appeared on top of Ryland, hair falling on the side of his face, ticklish.
His red eye never went back to normal and the scar on his cheek had gotten bigger, pulsing sometimes. Simon had complained about the pain lately.
Ryland closed his eyes and Simon kissed him lightly.
It was so easy to pretend.
The kiss was turning into something else, their thoughts conflicted between anticipation and being present.
Ryland loved the familiar weight of Simon. Closer and closer.
Something sharp cut his face, Ryland gasped and pushed Simon away.
“What was that?” he said, touching his cheek. There was blood.
“Let me see,” said Simon and got closer and Ryland saw a white spike poking out from the scar.
A week later Simon had a new set of sharp teeth, along his face.
Simon wandered like a ghost through the Hail Mary, finding excuses not to be around Ryland much, who was spending days in the lab, trying to figure out a cure, or anything.
Simon’s skin was changing too, getting pinkish, colder, but still beautiful in its deformity.
Ryland hid to watch him change, once. Simon didn’t want to do that in front of him anymore.
Along Simon’s spine, a series of little, but definitely there, spikes followed the curve of his back. That’s why he was sleeping on his side only, it must hurt.
If Simon’d let him study the changes, maybe Ryland could do something about it. Make it lighter, more bearable.
Seeing him putting on a t-shirt, knowing the feeling of his skin, that warm hood between hair and neck where Ryland had hidden his face so many times and not to have access to that secret place anymore, filled him with anger that immediately collapsed in sadness for the guilt.
He knocked. Simon turned, his eyebrows crossed in mistrust, like the first days he had arrived. Ignoring the pain to see him like that, Ryland shortened the distance between them.
“It’s okay,” he said and his fingers caressed along the spine where he knew the spikes were. “You are beautiful.”
Ryland really meant it. He told him to let him help, that nothing would change, that he loved every version of him.
Then he started worrying about being contaminated.
What if it happens to me too? I have been more than exposed.
Simon would usually remove the prosthetic arm to go to sleep and he had already noticed something was wrong. At first it looked like the wound got open again, it was bleeding and it was so itchy it didn’t let him sleep.
Ryland noticed and he treated it, confused.
By the third day, the prosthetic arm wasn' t fitting anymore, but Simon tried anyway just for it to pop out and fall on the ground.
By the fifth day he had to accept he was growing a limb. It wasn’t painful anymore and he had sensitivity there. He could move it. It looked like a tentacle.
In the lab Ryland cut his finger by mistake because his hands were shaking. Simon was next to him in a flash and took his hand to his mouth and sucked the blood away, placing a kiss on Ryland’s fingertips. Ryland watched him walk away.
Simon seemed not to notice the weirdness of that gesture, but Ryland was ready to let that go.
Simon wasn’t that hungry anymore. He refused food most of the time.
“Maybe I’m just sick of this spaceship food. I wish I could have something else.”
He would say with a smile, his side fangs clattering.
One day he had a sudden high fever, he could not get out of bed and was in pain.
The spikes on his back were growing and were cutting his skin.
Ryland stayed awake next to him, holding his hand, hearing every moan while Simon cried himself to sleep.
Ryland had known for a while, but the moment he understood that Simon’s mutations were not curable and that he had no idea where they would take him, Ryland saw himself outside his body.
He was sitting in the lab, the piece of skin he was studying laying on the petri dish, dead. He heard the silence and flew over Simon’s feverish body and then backed off, farther and farther until he was outside of the ship.
All that time…
With a sob he was back in himself. That moment of clarity would haunt him for the rest of his days.
Simon had been retching all night. It was food and water. And whenever Ryland tried to hydrate him, nothing would stay in his stomach for more than five minutes.
It lasted two days. Not even IV’s nutrition and hydration were helping. When Armando had put the needle in Simon’s veins, he started almost immediately to convulse and he spent the next day with a fever that sent Ryland in a pit of darkness.
Was he going to die that night?
He stayed by his side, laying next to him and Simon was lucid enough to hug him. Ryland didn’t sleep and tried to listen to his new weird heartbeat, so fast as his breathing was. The skin on his chest, sticky and purple, slowly cooled down.
Ryland made a simple decision. He was not going to stay there, waiting for Simon to die. He would follow him.
The old, refrigerated sample of blood was sitting in its bottle.
Ryland drew some of the contents into a syringe and pushed the needle into his left arm, pressing the plunger down to the very last drop.
He felt drained. Whatever Simon had, he now hoped he had it too.
He didn’t know if it would work and he knew that if it did, it would be a slow and painful death, but some things in life are not meant to make sense.
He was putting the bottle away, then he had an idea.
Simon drank that blood eagerly and his eyes were full of love.
They had been travelling to AT-5 for a week and the moon had appeared in the porthole, closer and closer.
Simon had drank the rest of the blood, Ryland had gathered all he could find.
They had spent those days in the infirmary, Ryland was living there with him.
There had been smiles, hugs, kisses.
“Where are we going?” was the last thing Simon said, his voice had changed and it had become impossible for him to keep talking.
One last experience can feel like the first one? Will it have the same weight? What will it give you?
If you know it’s the last time you’re kissing someone, what are you taking with you?
Ryland was memorizing. He knew he would never get a new version of Simon’s face or another smile.
He pressed their foreheads together. It was time to go.
That moon didn’t have an atmosphere, or at least, that’s what Simon had said, but everything felt a million light-years away, and the laws of physics didn’t apply to a man who had already chosen to die.
Ryland didn't care about a safe return, nor about preserving the ship. He descended on the AT-5 to see if Simon had a chance to survive.
Ryland held him up, Simon catching his breath, short and quick, gasping.
He put Simon's body on the beach where the blood reached his legs and arm, as if to reclaim him and Simon’s eyes seemed to get back a little life just from that.
He looked beyond grateful, not even sad, whereas Ryland had been fighting tears from his dry eyes.
The side set of exposed teeth, chattered suddenly, his whole body shivering like electrified. He looked restless.
Ryland raised him again in his arms and waded out until blood had reached his waist and holding Simon was not heavy anymore.
All the strength that Simon had lost, he had regained by being in blood again.
He smiled and pulled to leave, but Ryland still had his hands around his wrist.
A memory creeped out, Ryland suppressed it.
The vision was wretched, Ryland thought he deserved a proper goodbye, whereas Simon was impatient to leave him.
He let down a tear and closed his eyes, holding Simon's wrist tightly because the skin was too slippery.
“I’m sorry.” he sobbed.
Simon’s free hand touched Ryland’s face, wetting it with red, catching that tear and bringing it to his new side mouth.
Ryland looked at Simon’s eyes for one last time, before they became unrecognisable. He held his breath, finally letting go of the hand of the man he loved.
He sat on the shore for a long time, watching the red sea settle back into stillness. Then he scratched his arm, where the needle had gone in, and felt it burn.