Chapter Text
It’s quiet in the medbay.
It’s been quiet for a while now. Simon would like to say the quiet is nice, especially after the roaring, screeching escape they just survived, but it’s a tense quiet.
The quiet reminds him of the time before all the other… stuff, happened. That unnerving lack of notable sound while he searched the blood ocean, taking pictures of random bullshit that he can now say for sure that the COI didn’t give a shit about. The quiet from then feels like an echo of what it is now.
He and Grace haven’t spoken a word to one another since they’ve left the SM-13. And they are currently sat about 5 feet away from each other on separate medical cots.
They’re fully within speaking distance, they have plenty of time and privacy to talk, and yet… They haven’t.
Simon can’t think of a way to start a conversation. He doesn’t know if he should be grilling Grace right now about everything he still hasn’t been told about, or if he should be asking how Grace is doing or what he’s thinking. He doesn’t know.
It doesn’t seem like Grace knows either, since he’s been equally refusing to start a conversation and avoiding eye contact with Simon. It looks like he’s avoiding eye contact with anything right now, including his own body.
Simon can’t blame him. They had to take off all their wrappings and bandages when getting looked over by Ava and David— the medical team couldn’t be involved in order to keep up the ruse of Grace and Simon being “normal humans”— and now they’re waiting in the medbay for supplies to be brought back with their open wounds in the open air. Simon wouldn’t call himself a squeamish guy, but he can’t look at the holes where his skin should be and where his muscles are still functioning as if nothing is wrong without feeling a little bit like he wants to hurl.
Not only that, but they’re still covered in layers of drying blood. They wiped off as much as they could from their faces and various bandaged areas, but Ava told them to wait until she could get their allotment of shower water before they could clean off. Water isn’t as scarce of a resource, they found a way to recycle all the water they use in space centuries ago, but on a ship like this they probably only have so much water before they have to run the “cleaning cycle,” so to say.
This means they’re currently sitting in the same clothes they’ve been in for apparently days, covered in dried and drying mysterious moon blood, and with some of their muscles and veins and whatever else lies just beneath the skin in the open air.
So, it’s gross, and Simon understands why Grace is looking only at the walls, floor, and ceiling of the medbay and pursing his lips.
Simon should stop calling it a medbay. They’re in some sort of extra meeting room that Ava and David dragged cots and basic medical supplies into.
The room is square-ish, about as long as the SM-13, but thrice as wide as it. Their cots are placed on the wall opposite to the door, feet facing the door-wall and heads against the opposite wall. The door isn’t centered, instead it’s further to the left of the wall, on the side Grace’s cot is on. Simon assumes he was placed further from the door because he was a higher flight risk. Which might be true, but whatever.
A pile of clothes and supplies taken from the submarine sit limp between their two cots. It still stinks of blood and rust.
It’s fine. It’s a fine room, definitely better than any cells the COI have thrown him in.
They were allowed some food and water, too, which tasted… worse than usual. But that’s alright, he never expected it to taste good.
It’s just quiet right now.
Yup.
…
“Y’know, I kinda thought they wouldn’t let us out of their sight for a while, huh?”
It looks like Grace does want to start a conversation.
Looking back over at him, Grace is sat cross-legged on his cot and has his hands in his lap. He’s been massaging his right palm with his left thumb and is still very pointedly not looking at anything organic. Currently, he has his eyes over to the far corner of the room from himself, staring over Simon’s right shoulder with a strained-looking smile on his face.
Simon considers not responding, he really does.
“Yeah. Guess they don’t have the manpower to care about that right now.”
He can’t help it, the quiet is grating on him.
“Ahah, yeah. Yup…” It’s the most forced little laugh Simon’s ever heard. “Just, uh… yeah. We coulda walked right out those doors! And, uh… hopped on an escape pod!”
Simon hums, “Mhmm. And where would we go?”
Grace’s mouth clicks shut and his shoulders bunch up. He looks away from Simon, staring at a new corner. He doesn’t respond.
Fine. If he can’t handle a simple prod then whatever, Simon won’t push for now.
They’re back in the quiet. Great.
…
Maybe he can try to start a conversation?
…
Yeah, it’s probably best if he leaves it for now. Grace’s stability looks to be balancing on a hair’s breadth, anyway. He can push more when they figure out how to put all their skin back in place.
The image of Grace’s skin closing over Simon’s wounds flashes in his memory and he shudders.
Ok, they might have a solution for that but he really doesn’t feel like trying that right now. It feels weirdly selfish, but he’d like to keep his skin on his own body.
Didn’t realize that was something I’d have to consider in my morality system, he ponders, “Is wanting to keep your skin selfish?” God, I should’ve stayed rotting in that cell instead of—…
No, actually. He shouldn’t. He can’t imagine letting himself rot in a cell like that, just giving up. If given the choice, he’d go back down. He’d hate every second, he certainly wouldn’t make it out the same man, but if he could get his freedom? He’d go again. It scares him how certain he is of this.
It’s still quiet.
That makes sense, he basically shut down any conversation he or Grace were going to have.
…
He kinda misses talking with Grace. Kinda.
Out of everyone he’s ever met, Grace is probably the only one he knew didn’t judge Simon before he knew him. He couldn’t have, the man could barely judge himself.
Maybe it’s the fact they were trapped in a room dying together, but he felt like he and Grace had some sort of friendship building. He tried to help Grace as best he could, and Grace tried to help him the same. Simon could have almost trusted him.
The argument is still fresh in his memory.
Yeah, right, trust. He needs to stop getting his hopes up. The universe tells him over and over that he’s a damn moron for getting played so many times in a row, and he just keeps falling for it.
…
He thinks he’d rather take the arguing over the quiet right now.
…
Thankfully, Ava saves him from the decision.
The door to the room bursts open and Grace squawks in surprise. Grace was staring right at the door, Simon saw it, so it’s a miracle the action startled him at all.
“Convict, Butcher, you’re still here I see.”
Ava has various bags held in her hands and some briefcase-sized boxes under her arms. David has a few of his own, plus a couple buckets, while standing behind her looking a bit miffed.
The only thing Simon knows about David is that he’s “a bit miffed”. He really considers apologizing for telling the guy to “shut up” over the speaker all those days ago, but he honestly doesn’t think David remembers the interaction. The guy is probably just pissed to be working with The Butcher and his Suddenly Appearing Blood Man at all.
“What, you wanted us to escape or something?” Simon huffs out.
Ava raises a brow, “No, I wanted you to stay. I expected you to try something stupid.”
She’s been a bit more laissez faire with the insults since they escaped. He suspects it’s because they lost the black box. Jesus, if we had just left the stupid thing attached to the ship we would’ve still had it. It feels too much like karma to be a coincidence.
“Uh, we’re here! I guess.” Grace pipes up. “Do you need help with that, or…?”
“We’re fine,” David grumbles, “though it'd be real nice if we just let Council Authority handle all of this…”
“Not right now, David.” Ava drops some bags on the floor and places the boxes down a bit gentler. She places her hands on her hips. “David can set up the basic supplies here, you two can go through your new things later. You need to be briefed before anything else.”
Simon blinks and glances at Grace, but Ava continues.
“Right now, the story is that Simon did his duty as he should have and has been set free, earning his place in the COI and as a member of my team.”
Simon curls his lip at that, but doesn’t comment. It’s not quite what he wants, but it’s fine. He’s freer than he was.
“Grace is part of an extra experiment otherwise not reported to the mission crew of the SM-13. He was someone who was hidden on the ship in order to test how multiple people might learn to complete a mission without prior training or information. It’s part of how you two survived; Extra rations were packed in with Grace in order to sustain the both of you for the mission. The rest of the crew was kept uninformed in order to make sure the test subjects were equally uninformed.”
“Like a double-blind experiment?”
Ava looks at Grace, and Grace’s mouth shuts.
“Yes. Kind of. If my crew asks who put you on the ship, say it was the Council. If the Council asks who put you on the ship, say it was me. Right now we’re going to do a lot of lying, and a lot of betting on the fact that the Council likes communicating as much as they like distributing rations.”
David chuckles from where he’s setting up a table of some sort in a corner. Ava glances at him, but doesn’t comment. She keeps going.
“So, right now, you two are new members of my crew who now live on the ship. In this room.”
Simon speaks up this time, “Wait, this is our room?”
“Yes, Butcher. This is your room.” She glares at him. “Is there a problem with it?”
“No, it’s fine, but… That’s the science equipment, right?” He points to whatever thing David is setting up on the newly constructed table. “Are we doing the experiments in the same room we’re sleeping in?”
“Yes. You are. Some of them, at least. If we’re doing experiments in private then we need them to be in a separate room from where any prying eyes will be. I took some equipment from medical and analytics, I told them we’re setting up a private lab for Grace to use as our new science expert.”
“Wait, I’m what?!” Grace points to himself, incredulous.
“Our science expert. You have a PhD, correct?”
During their semi-sneaking semi-walking to this makeshift room they now have, Simon and Grace explained to the best of their ability what Grace remembered. That he had no idea how he was put on the SM-13, that he woke up with amnesia, that he has memories of Earth and general living on it, and some of the bare minimum facts on astrophage and the project to save Earth from it.
When they got to explaining the “project to save the Earth” bit, Grace got a lot quieter and basically forced Simon to explain what he remembered from Grace’s already very basic description. Simon tried leaving spaces in his description to allow Grace to explain further, but Grace wouldn’t budge.
During the whole explanation Ava was silent. Guessing from her reaction— “We can cross check all that during experimentation”— she doesn’t quite believe it, but doesn’t have a better explanation currently.
Grace blinks a million more times before responding. “I- I- I- I guess! Yeah, maybe- No! No, I’m not a professional at all science, I was a school teacher!”
Simon rolls his eyes, “Grace, all colleges disappeared 20 years ago. The best that most people have anymore is a bachelor's degree. You’re a professional.”
The thought doesn’t seem to give Grace any pride. Mostly, he looks horrified.
“Right, that,” Ava grumbles, “You need a new backstory. ‘Sent from another universe’ doesn’t fit the bill. Right now, we’re saying you are from one of the smaller stations that never joined the COI or Eden. If asked, try to avoid stating which one specifically. Make it seem too personal to ask about. Cry, if you have to.”
Grace somehow looks more uncomfortable, but Ava continues.
“You got an unofficial PhD from a professor on the station, and ended up teaching kids for a while. Something tragic happened, you got picked up by a COI ship, and it was decided you’d go on the mission with Simon. For science. Your memory is still spotty, right?”
Grace blinks, and nods.
“Good. Whatever was used to knock you out and stuff you into the SM-13 also messed with your memory. It was part of the experiment to keep you uninformed. If you fuck up the story, blame that.”
“I, uh, do I get a say in the story?” Grace looks a bit overwhelmed by everything, Simon almost feels bad.
“Do you have a better idea?” Ava presses.
Grace looks down at his hands, seems to spot another open wound, and looks at a wall again.
“… No, I don’t.”
“Good. Then that’s the story. Butcher,” She turns her attention to him, “Your story is the same. Only thing that changes is that this is the same story Grace told you when you were on the sub. Copy?”
“Copy,” Simon grumbles.
“Good. That should be all for now. Currently, you have no tasks to complete. For today you’ll stay in your room while David and I sort things out. Once we figure out how to fix the… the flesh holes.” Stoic as she is, the existence of un-bleeding gouges in their bodies also seems to unnerve her. “Then you two will be given jobs to complete around the ship besides your experimentation duties.”
Simon and Grace nod. This all seems pretty reasonable to Simon, though he really isn’t looking forward to having to interact with the rest of the crew. He’s still the Butcher of Eden, after all.
“Good. We’re leaving, and if I see or hear of either of you leaving this room today then I’m counting it as ‘fucking with my crew’, got it?”
Simon remembers the deal. He wouldn’t want to leave anyways. “Got it.”
He hears Grace let out a breath beside him, “Got it…”
“Then you two can start by cleaning off all of… that.” She makes a general gesture to the buckets— which Simon can now see are full of water— and then to their blood-covered bodies and clothes. “Keep some samples of the blood, in case there’s anything different about it.”
Simon looks down at himself and grimaces. He thinks he’d like to get rid of all of this, too. Grace can worry about getting samples.
Ava nods before turning back to David. David has gotten at least four different science-y looking instruments set up on a table, plus what looks like some sort of dresser. He’s leaning against a wall, an unimpressed air about him, and watching Ava. Ava nods to him and, without a word, both of them leave.
The door clicks shut and the room is quiet again.
Damn it.
He kind of forgot about that.
At least they have something to do this time.
Simon stands from his cot and he can feel the way the blood caked on him cracks and flecks off as he moves. Jesus, this is gonna suck. Looking around the room, he sees a drain in the corner closer to his bed. He’s less sure of this being an unused meeting room, but that doesn’t matter. Right now, he has a chance to get clean.
He walks over to Grace’s side of the room, where the buckets are, and starts to pick one up. Sending a cursory glance to Grace he has to do a double take.
Grace isn’t looking at him, he’s just… staring. Into the wall. Not quite like he was before, where he looked to be intentionally avoiding eye contact with the many gross things that exist in the room. Now it’s like he isn’t seeing anything. Purposefully not seeing? Simon doesn’t know. All he can see is Grace’s blank, listless gaze centered on the wall and utterly unmoving despite Simon being in his line of vision.
He’s tempted to ask, get the man’s attention, maybe try to shake him a bit to snap him out of it. But…
Simon is tired. And still a little bit mad at Grace.
So, he doesn’t grab his attention, just takes his bucket of water and drags it to his corner of the room. Looking over some of the supplies David didn’t unpack, it looks like they both have a basic change of clothes and some of the bare minimum of hygiene, aka soap and a hair brush. He’s worked with less, this will be fine.
He starts by peeling the ratty shirt and torn hood off his back and dumping it on the ground. He would really rather wear it than these new clothes, but he knows when a loss is a loss. He’s had this shirt since he was small, before he was even called The Butcher. Like everyone else he knows, he’s had to repair and reuse and reattach this shirt with everything he could get his hands on, keeping it alive for years and years and years. It has emotional value to him, of course it does. When there’s very few things left to own, everything becomes an attachment.
I can get a good chunk of blood off the hood, he considers, maybe use some more supplies to fix the shirt, make it wearable again. But that’ll take time and resources I’ll have to earn while on this ship.
He unclips his under-harness and throws it to the side as well. It doesn't have as much blood stuck to it, so it should be reusable. He leaves his pants on for now. Grace may not be paying attention, but he’d still rather wait until he can ask the guy to look away before he strips completely naked.
Simon starts the painful process of scrubbing all the dried blood from his skin.
He was left with a towel and a bar of soap, so that’s exactly what he uses. He wets the towel, gets some soap on it, and scrubs his skin raw. He’s avoiding the wound holes for now— God, he hates that all he can refer to them as is “wound holes”— and focuses on making his skin visible past the blood. It mostly reveals more patches of lighter skin that don’t belong to him, but it also reveals extra scrapes and bruises he doesn’t remember getting.
It must take half an hour before the majority of the blood is off, and he is sore. On average, he’s pretty sure he’s in more pain than he was when he was still in the submarine, and that includes the sprained ankle.
I still need to ask Grace about that. Plus, his magically healed wrist.
Looking over again, Grace hasn’t moved. Simon doubts he’s blinked, either. He’s starting to get a bit more concerned.
Finishing up on his face (where he finds another new type of flesh spread across the spot under his left eye and all the way past his brow. It has a much rougher texture than he’s used to), tying some extra fabric around his wound holes, and ignoring his hair for now, he walks back over to Grace.
Standing in front of him, squinting a bit, and waving a hand doesn’t do anything. Grace continues to stare at the wall, breathing in an even, maybe a bit fast, pace.
Something is definitely wrong.
He really considers ignoring it again.
Really considers it.
…
Grace wanted to survive as much as Simon did, and he even saved Simon in the end. He really tried helping, and as much as Simon doesn’t trust him anymore, he has to admit that they will both get through this a lot easier if they keep working together.
So, despite his best judgement telling him he’s not equipped to handle some weird mental shit like this, he walks over to Grace’s cot.
He doesn’t want to try touching him right now, Simon’s not sure he himself would be able to stand more of the flesh-melding stuff happening. Instead, Simon leans into Grace’s vision over the side of the cot, getting his own eyes into Grace’s line of sight as best he can, and looking him over.
“Hey, Grace, you in there?”
No response.
“… Uh, Ryland? Can you hear me?”
He hadn’t considered it, but the blood may have gotten into Grace’s ears. He was directly under the stream of blood coming from the port hole after all. It’s probably not that, though. He was talking with Ava earlier, I doubt the blood dried that much since then.
“Ryland, seriously, are you ok? I kinda need a response right now.”
That seems to snap Grace out of whatever he’s in right now.
Or maybe “snap” is too extreme a word. Grace’s eyes shift and focus to stare at Simon instead, head completely unmoving. Simon thinks he sees a finger or two twitch in Grace’s lap, but nothing else.
Still no response.
“Ah. You’re, uh, you’re here, yeah? You looked at me so… you can hear me?”
There’s a long pause, then Grace shakes his head no. Simon frowns.
“Ok, you can. You just responded. Unless you have some sort of lip reading ability you forgot about, your—“
“‘s not here…”
Grace's voice is so quiet Simon almost speaks over it.
“Uh, sorry, what was that?”
“Not here. He’s not here, don’ trick me again…”
Alright. Not good. Simon’s pretty sure Grace is completely out of it. Maybe he’s sleeping with his eyes open? Or he might be hallucinating or experiencing a flashback or something. If this is like when he found him slumped on the button in the ship, talking about an “Ava Strat” then he may actually have to touch him.
“Ok, uh. Grace, who’s ‘he’?”
Grace blinks. That’s good, probably better for his eyes.
“Stop doin’ that, Simon’s dea— mmm…”
That seems to snap him out of it more. His face scrunches and he blinks a few more times. His vision looks more focused. Good.
“Simon’s what?” Simon would like to know what he is in relation to this ‘he’. Or maybe he is the ‘he’ in question?
“You… you’re…” Grace’s chest is expanding now, in full, deep breaths. Maybe good? Simon will figure that out later.
“I-I’m uh,” Grace licks his lips (getting more blood in his mouth, oh Jesus), “I’m here. I don’t uh. Where… Where am I, Simon? Who— What are we doing?”
Simon blinks. He’s realizing they never figured out what caused Grace’s initial amnesia. Shit, I should have checked on him sooner.
“We’re on Ava’s ship right now, parked somewhere on AT-5. We got here about…” He checks the clock, “two hours ago, and we’re hiding out in this room until Ava gives us the go ahead to leave. We left the blood ocean, yeah? The SM-13, remember?”
Grace’s breathing is deeper now, faster. “Yeah, yeah yeah yeah the ship— the ocean, yeah I know, I. Um. It happened— We’re here? It all, um. Didn’t click— I don’t— I can’t, uh, I’m wrong. Am I wrong? Simon have I always been wrong?”
Oh Simon is not prepared to figure out how to deal with this. “… You’re on a moon station right now. We’re out. We made it out two hours ago. Maybe more, I’m not sure how long we were passed out in the ship before Ava woke us up. We’re waiting in our new room, and I’m cleaning myself up. You should be too, yeah?”
He can help Grace scrub off all the blood, that’ll probably help. That’s something Simon can do.
Grace looks over Simon, looking to have realized more than Simon’s eyes exist right now. His breaths are picking up to a much more concerning pace.
“Si-Simon I’m, um, I’m here. Yeah? If I can be— Was she right? Or is it a lie— Has it never happened? Was I never there?”
Oh fuck he really should have checked on him sooner.
“Uh. You’re here, and everything… happened. Ok? You’re here, man. I swear, I— um…”
This is a bad idea, but it’s the only idea Simon’s got. Sounds like a lot of how he comes up with plans, anyways.
Simon reaches out and places his hands on Grace’s face.
The remnants of Grace’s glasses are pushed up to his hairline as Simon spreads his fingers across Grace’s jaw and up his cheekbones. Their skin molds around one another again, past the layers of dried blood still on Grace’s face, though this time he thinks he feels a separation between his skin and Grace’s. Like oil touching water, it can’t quite mix but it still moves against each other. He tries rubbing a thumb under Grace’s eye like he did before, in the sub. That seemed to help him.
Grace’s breath stutters and his shoulders stop moving.
“You can feel that, yeah? Not the skin moving— fuck this was a bad idea— Uh, you’re here. I promise. You’re alive, and we made it out, and it’s all going to be ok, yeah? We just need to get some of this blood off you.”
Grace stares at him then, ever so slowly, moves his eyes to Simon’s left hand on his face. After a moment, he lifts a hand as though to grab Simon’s wrist. Simon would really like to avoid whatever flesh-bullshit that will cause, but he doesn’t move. Lets Grace get closer.
Grace pauses right before contact, then drops his hand. His voice is a bit clearer the next time he speaks.
“Um. Yeah, blood. You have a shower?”
Simon grimaces and glances to the other bucket on the floor.
“Not… quite…”
Grace hums something like acceptance and nods.
Simon takes that as his cue to get up from where he was half-kneeling on Grace's cot— He doesn’t know when he placed his knee up there— to grab the other bucket and drag it over next to his own. He still has a good amount of water left in his bucket, hopefully to scrub his legs and hair with, along with rinsing off the rest of the shit still attached to him.
Looking back to check on Grace, he sees that Grace has stood up and is slowly making his way over to where Simon is. The guy looks half dead, but not stumbling. His steps are sure but very slow.
Simon gives him as much time as he needs until he reaches Simon, then holds out the other towel he hadn’t used.
“For scrubbing. And stuff.”
Grace takes the towel and stares at it. Doesn’t move.
It’s what Simon feared might happen. Fine, he’ll bite the bullet.
“Do you want me to help you wash off?”
Grace looks back up, a bit more life appearing in his eyes.
“No- no, I can do it. Mayb- No, I’ll do it. I can, um…” Grace starts mumbling to himself, “The hands attach to the wrists attach to the forearm attach to the… elbow? Attach to the…”
It’s what Simon feared would happen next.
Simon sighs and takes Grace by the elbows, leading him to sit on the floor. “It’s alright, I got it.”
Grace follows, something embarrassed crossing his features. He lets Simon start scrubbing at him, though.
It takes longer than it did for himself, since Simon is trying to be gentler with Grace than he was himself (and avoid swapping too much of their skin), but he gets a lot of the work done. Grace’s sweater is removed, he’s scrubbed of a lot of the blood caking his torso, and his wound holes are tied off with more extra fabric. Simon was even able to get a lot of the blood out of Grace’s hair, turning it from a deep red to more of a reddish brown. He thinks it’ll be back to the correct dirty blonde after another wash on a different day.
Simon heaves a sigh and leans back from his hard work, sitting on his heels in front of Grace, seeing Grace staring at his hands in his lap.
Throughout the whole cleaning process Grace hadn’t spoken. Simon tried, maybe twice, to start a conversation about something random to no avail. Grace didn’t seem as zoned out as before, but he surely wasn’t all there. He had an air of embarrassment around him through the ordeal.
“All done. Or, half done. I was gonna scrub my legs over in the other corner. You can do the same and we can just, like, look away for a bit. That seem good?”
Once again, Simon receives no response.
Simon’s right about his previous thoughts. He would prefer arguing to this.
“Look, are you going to zone out and make me do all the work or are you going to snap out of it and fuckin’ help me?”
It’s rude and insensitive, of course it is; That’s the goal. Simon may not be good at much, but he knows he’s good at pissing people off.
And would you look at that, it worked.
Grace blinks up at him, visibly startled. “Wha- I can hel- I’m sorry, all of it isn’t…”
He’s closing off again. Fine, he’ll push harder.
“Ryland, we’re currently in a whole new territory that neither of us have been in before. We’re lying to everyone around us, about how we got here and what’s happening to us. This will not be a cake walk. We have to be able to lie and cheat and sneak around to trick everyone else on the ship, along with the COI Council. You put us in this situation, so if you don’t step up then I will step out.”
That catches his notice. Grace’s spine snaps to attention, panicked. “No- NO! I swear I can keep up, I- I know what I’m doing, I’m not just going to-!”
Just as Grace starts raising his voice, he cuts himself off. Quiets himself and shrinks down again. His eyes keep glancing between the side of Simon’s head and his own left hand, which is twitching in his lap.
Fuck. He was so close to a real response.
Simon stands up, looming over Grace. He shifts his voice into a growl. There’s a pain in his chest, but he ignores it. “You’re a fucking coward, Ryland. You get involved in shit you can’t handle, drag some people with you, and fucking give up. Are you going to let someone else take the damn fall for you again? Am I gonna be your new astronaut on Tau Ceti or are you going to go up there your-fucking-self?”
Grace’s breath hitches and his face darts up to look at Simon, glaring. There’s a fire in his eyes, but his mouth is pursed shut. Simon needs to keep pushing.
“So? Are you stepping up or not, Ryland? Because I’d really like to fuckin’ know if you’re gonna be worth the effort to drag across the finish line or if I should drop you like the dead weight you plan to be—!?”
“SHUT IT, SIMON!” Grace has shot to his feet, stumbling a bit. Simon almost moves to catch him, but now isn’t the time. “You have NO idea what happened with that mission, what we sacrificed for it- what I was sacrificed for! You’re just as much of a coward as me and you know it! So, what are you going to do to get us out of this?! What plan do you have, because I was doing a lot of the talking back there! And why are you calling me Ryland—?!”
Simon’s fist cracks across Grace’s jaw, and Grace stumbles back into the wall. He puts a hand to his new bruise and looks back up to Simon, shocked and terrified.
Simon shakes out his hand. It looks like he has a little bit more of Grace in his knuckles now. Not too much, though. He takes a deep breath and looks up to Grace. He holds his hands up in a pose of surrender and Grace looks a smidge less terrified.
“Sorry about that,” Simon begins, “I wasn’t really sure what else to do. That, though,” he points to Grace’s jaw, “is payback for winning the last fight.”
Grace blinks a few times. His mouth opens, then closes, then opens again.
“You- uh- what? Were you trying to get a rise out of me!?”
“Yeah, basically.” Simon puts his hands back down, crosses his arms over his chest.
Grace is paying attention now, and he looks more incredulous than furious, so Simon would call this a success.
Grace sputters, “Wha- Yo- Hu- Ho- Wh- Why would you do that!?”
Simon shrugs, “Didn’t know how else to get you to respond. Plus, I kinda wanted a reason to get you back.” He taps the knuckles of the fist he punched Grace with, just to make sure he knows what part he’s talking about.
Grace sits in the moment, blinking and considering everything that happened. Simon realizes he brought up some pretty rough memories there and he decides he should try to smooth it over before things get dangerous again.
“I uh… I’m sorry. About all of that. Just so you know.” Simon’s a lot quieter now. “I wanted to get you mad, so… I hit where I knew it hurt.”
Grace doesn’t respond, just listens.
“So, yeah. I brought up the shit that I knew sucked. I’m sorry. Again.” Simon thinks a second more, then continues. “And I’m sorry for the stuff I said back on the submarine. It wasn’t the time for that and I really shouldn’t have fought you like that after. It was probably all the injuries and oxygen stuff and heat and… yeah. You know. You were there, and whatever. It sucked in there.”
Simon can’t bring himself to say he didn’t mean it. He did. To an extent, anyways.
He needs Grace to be a person right now and help with this new mission they’re on, he still hasn’t gotten any explanation out of Grace on what happened when he was out, and he doesn’t like the thought of Grace making and sending off his own suicide mission in his past. Not to mention all the shit Grace said back to him during the argument.
So he’s not saying he doesn’t mean it, either back then in the sub or right now. But, he can admit, bringing it up like that wasn’t very good for either of their health.
Grace stares at him a moment longer before nodding slightly. With each breath he slowly uncurls from his defensive position against the wall until he’s properly standing up, taller than Simon as usual, and looking him in the eye.
“It’s, yeah. It sucked in there,” Grace concedes. “I’m also sorry for what I said. I really shouldn’t have brought it up- You didn’t deserve that.”
Simon hums a bit and nods. “Mmm. I don’t think you’re a coward, by the way. I don’t think you’re perfect, but you’re not a coward.”
Grace grimaces, glancing to the side, “I don’t know about that… I don’t think you’re a coward either. I think I just, uh. It’s all I could think of at the time.”
Simon doesn’t remember much of why they let the argument get that bad, just some feelings of betrayal and fear and frustration, but he thinks he gets it. Simon nods, and doesn’t elaborate.
They let the silence sit for a moment before Grace breaks it.
“Simon, are we hypocrites?”
Simon blinks up at Grace. Then Simon starts to chuckle. Then full blown laugh. It doesn’t take long before Grace is joining him.
The two of them cackle, hands on knees or leaning against a wall, laughing like this was the best joke of their lives. It just makes sense to be laughing, the whole thing is hilarious. He’s wiping tears from his eyes and gasping to get more air in just to let out an even bigger guffaw. Grace’s laughs pick up with his own; Simon thinks half the reason they’re still laughing is because they keep seeing how stupid the other looks while laughing at nothing.
When Simon thinks back on it later, he would say it wasn’t really that funny. But for right now, it’s the best joke he’s ever heard.
Simon is able to catch his breath first, putting a hand to his chest and uncurls from where he sits next to the buckets. He can see Grace slowly catching his breath, sitting against the wall and wiping tears from his eyes. Grace catches his eye, and he smiles.
“So, um, I guess we’re in this together?” Grace offers.
Simon exhales again, “Yeah. Yeah, we’re doing this together. Whether we like it or not, I guess.” He waves the arm with the most patches of Grace’s skin on it for emphasis.
Grace winces, but nods. “Hmm. Uh huh, we’re gonna have to figure out how to fix that kinda soon…”
“Yeah, we are. For now, I think I wanna get these gross pants off.” Simon picks up his bucket, towel, and soap bar. “You think you can face the other corner for a bit? I gotta strip. You can clean your legs, too, I won’t look either.”
“Oh! Shoot, yeah, of course.”
Grace scrambles up to get his cleaning supplies and faces into the corner, setting up his bucket and towel. Simon retreats to his own corner and is finally able to peel off the rest of this damn blood.
