Chapter Text
“Fuck–Fuck!"
The dark haired male slammed the rusted metal walls encasing him, actually trapped would be the right word in this case. Damn C.O.I fucking stuffed him in here and to wherever the fuck he is to die. He glared at whatever he's seeing on the screen, the horror flashing again in a blink and he heaved in a broken gasp in shock. His eyes quickly flit over at the warning signs of the oxygen levels, shit. He tries to calm down, his heart beating erratically, and lets out a shaky, long sigh to center himself.
Furrowed brows, head pounding in hurt, but his heart and soul tries to remind himself of the only source of comfort he had, his mother, one hand moves to feel the harness underneath his suit in reflex. But, the submarine sings its death hymn in a chorus of breaking metal as if to mock his attempt to be more coherent in his situation.
The blood has started to rise up to his knees, the metal cage moves and sloshing the red liquid around as Simon bumps into the walls in response. A deep groan rolled through the hull like the lament of a dying deity, weeping under the crushing weight of judgement, of the impending doom.
The oxygen wheezed their final, ragged breaths, as if a failing heart stuttering its last, rivets popped like breaking bones, the alarms wailed in agonising cries. Beneath it all, the blood ocean beat against the weakening walls in slow thuds, like a thumping heart, or knocks from an unwelcomed visitor.
Then the cabin filled only with red, without warning.
“I-In sanguine...circumdatus–!"
The prayer shattered out of him in a wet, broken gasp, the blood clinging to his skin like it knew him. Thick, warm, hungry–forcing its way like its clawing into his sinful body to claim him, like fire licking where it touched his bare skin.
“L-Lux mea...Lux me s-serva!"
Surrounded by blood, my light protect me.
But there was no light. Only red.
Fear crashes into him like a tide, he uses one of his arms to ram into the failing sub in an attempt to do something, to fight back whatever it is outside (A giant eel? He doesn't fucking know anymore), and the red liquid inside carries him and violently whacks him to the creaking metal in response, like it angers them.
He curled to himself tight, his instincts to protect his vital organs, the black box he managed to retrieve, and the only thing that grounds him, one hand shakily thumbing over the harness he smuggled in the metal cage for comfort. He screwed his eyes shut when the blood whispered against his ears, his neck, his wrists with the voices he knew of, but he did not know them. It keeps telling him that this was the final trial, his last purification before the True Light.
Simon knew he wasn't the kindest person ever, the Butcher, the Convict, no last name. No mercy for the murderer, the killer, every breath he takes tasted of iron and sin—maybe this is his punishment. Maybe the red sea that's embracing him is the judgement. Maybe whatever is burning his lungs and his arm is the purification.
Father had warned them, the blood always claims its sinners, painfully. For those who are unworthy. For those who questioned. For sons who failed their Family. His mother's face flickered behind his eyelids–fading, sad, swallowed by red. Right. He deserved this.
Does he?
He only wants to be free. He only wants to live. Why does no one let him? If he's so loved like Father had said, why has he not experienced it? Why does violence is the answer to anything and everything around him?
“M-Miserere mei..”"
Have mercy on me.
He pleads, whimpering, everything hurts and painful, but the words are meaningless here, there was no mercy, there was no light, and he didn't die in glory, but drowned by the very thing he was supposed to be cleansed by. Borned by blood, lived with blood, and he could only hope to be buried in the sacred soil. Well, he can't even have a proper burial, beggars can't be choosers, he's not a saviour after all, he laughs darkly to himself, then it turns into a broken sound, a sob.
“M-Mea culpa, m-mea–maxima culpa..”"
Through my fault, through my grievous fault.
His words half garbled by the noises around him, the blood invasively tries to enter his wretched body, by the pathetic cries wrecked from him. The sub groaned, a new leak hissed somewhere above him, eyes looking into him, he felt his breath stuck in his throat as he tried to scream, yell, anything, as he thrashed around in the sea of blood, the fire licked across the left side of his body, his arm, his face, his neck. His brain warns him to get away, escape, run. Just before everything went red, something shifted, a light, white.
Strange.
Wrong.
He's supposed to be swallowed by the red.
Have his prayers been heard?
A blurry figure comes into his view, golden halo above their head, a hand stretched towards him, as if to aid him out of this predicament, his punishment, his own Hell. He tries to blink his eyes again and again, he thought it was just hallucinations, his brain trying to keep him safe, but then he hears voices, he feels something, someone attempts to pull him out.
“A-Angel...?"
He croaked out pitifully, coughing out the blood that intrudes his body, and he hears a soft laugh follows, not to mock him, but amused. He feels his weak heart flutter at that, he manages to get a Messenger of God singing in delight, but before he could register what the figure—the angel is saying, everything turned black.
Ryland Grace was supposed to be asleep.
He was just on his way to Erid with his alien best friend, (Scratch that, he's also an alien best friend, so cool!), as they finished releasing the needed amount of chompers to eat the Astrophage–He thought it was funny to call Taumoeba that nickname, he was reminded of Pac-Man but in space! Rocky had not been amused, though. Now the stars were slowly waking back up around them, tiny pinpricks of light returning to the blanket of ever expanding universe. Rocky trilled happily from the pilot station beside Grace, a bright melody of victory, and he smiled in return, eyes blurry.
Back to the topic, Grace. Right. He was falling asleep moments ago, as a consequence of his actions, but he can't help it! He has to be moving along with his brain or else he gets too fidgety and gets emotional if it gets extreme.
Grace is leaking, again.
He hears Rocky's voice chide, familiar annoyance laces with concern, but he knows Grace couldn't help being... human. Aside from his secondary gender that he has a hard time to face, since it complicates everything, and the stress, being alone does affect his omega side negatively. Hail Mary was not equipped for an omega, since originally they had betas onboard to make things easier to handle, and he was thrown in here regardless of his choice, anyways. He only could find heat suppressants and scent blockers (Not that it has any uses since he's the only omega around, but he does have the blockers on anyways).
He does struggle to get by sometimes, surrounded by spider rocks (Lovely bunches of them, mind you), but he's so far off from any other human civilization that he knows he has come to terms with it.
But, but. He missed people. He can't help but want to socialise with one since he still has problems with communicating with Eridians about human customs, mental health, secondary genders, movies, etcetera. And touch, oh, how Grace missed the touches. Real, warm, human touch.
Don't get him wrong, Rocky gives the best hugs in the galaxy, he especially loves it when Rocky gently strokes his hair and pat his back whenever they hug, but it doesn't seem to replicate the feeling of an actual person. It doesn't replicate skin on skin, the weight of another person, the simple comfort of being held by someone who understood what it meant to be one.
Poor Rocky tries to understand his human feelings, but there are days the ache got so bad, Grace just refuses to interact with anyone or do anything, his depression and feeling of isolation kicked him in the butt. He would weep pitifully under the covers, the pillow wet from his tears and drool, arms wrapping tight around his aching body in a pathetic attempt at self-soothing, the only thing he could think of that mimics a person hugging him. On those days, Rocky would sing sad, mournful songs to Adrian, the ever patient mate, who would try to comfort Rocky and give reassurance that Grace just needs time, and that he will be okay.
Grace hated putting them through it. So, he decided to put himself to force his secondary gender away, living as a beta in an omega body, refusing to nest, and couldn't start up his motors to purr, anything. Not that it matters, it hurts but whatever–he's the only human in Eridian, he'll get over it, he busied himself into not thinking much about it after all.
He's derailing now.
Anyways, Grace was just dozing off, it was his turn to sleep and Rocky's to watch, he was catching up on all the sleep he'd lost–don't blame him yet, the moment his body tried to shut down, his brain would kick into overdrive again. Before he knew it, he started doing something again, pacing back and forth and disappearing into one room then another through the Hail Mary to get his mind coherent and in control.
"Grace, wake up, wake up!"
"Wha-What? What's up buddy?"
The scientist jolted awake, wiping drool from the corner of his mouth as his glasses nearly slid off his face again and he quickly got up when his best friend started pushing him to move, all six limbs clicking with urgency, his brain was booting up like an old Windows XP computer.
"Okay, okay, I'm moving."
He chuckles, still half-asleep but already amused by his best friend's antics, properly standing up to stretch his worn-out muscles till he can feel his joints popping audibly, his back hurts still (and glasses askew) but that's just the norm now. He can't go to a massage parlor or whatever, wait, he can ask the Eridian scientists to make one! Or the heat therapy thing for sores! For science, of course! Not for his personal gain.
"Sensing a human life sign."
Ryland immediately stops moving, frozen in complete shock hearing the calm voice from Mary.
"Wait, wait. Huh?"
"Grace, stupid, stupid!"
Rocky stomps in frustration of his slow human best friend.
“Human discovered, statement!"
Well, no one can blame him for being surprised, or gobsmacked if you will. His brain finally gears up to catch up to the current situation.
A human life in space? Lightyears away from Earth? Human existence is out here? How did they survive? His thoughts started spinning threads at full speed, questions piling on top of each other–before he immediately got to work and sat down to gather any information about this new Human. Eyes darting across the readings, muttering under his breath as his hand moves in sync with the speed of his brain, then he gets up to rush towards the front console of the Hail Mary to pilot, with Rocky following closely behind, trilling “Excite, excite, excite!"
He tries not to dwell on how darn red everything outside is, or how it doesn't look like the natural color of how it was formed, more like some kind of thick, foreign liquid covering the whole moon. A moon in a red liquid. Nothing about it made sense. He shoved those thoughts away to the some nook of his brain to store it for later, focusing on what seemed to be a metal shape... A submarine? It barely made its appearance before it was swallowed by the red liquid again as it fought against the crashing waves.
He has to move fast, then. Everything became a blur of motion after that, Grace barely registered the specifics–he could only think about saving the person stranded alone in the red sea. He maneuvered the Hail Mary to hover as close enough (and safely!) for him to personally get down to step on the submarine's hull, and it creaked dangerously under his weight, groaning like it was made of scrapped metals on the verge of collapsing. That shouldn't be right. He barely gets his full weight on it, a submarine isn't that fragile. Even a normal person would know that.
He had cut the metal open, it was rusting and crudely welded shut, he didn't have a choice. Gosh whoever built this deliberately sent this person to trap inside, to die. Who the heck would do that? He tries not to think about it. Focus, Ryland. Someone's in there. A person. A human. Right. When he finally tears a section of it open, he is greeted by the view of someone almost drowning in the dense red liquid (Why is it so dense?). Grace can barely see how or what the figure looks like since he was covered in red from head to toe, except for those wide, blown-out dark eyes staring back at him in shock.
"Give me your hand!"
Grace stretched his arms out as much as he could, the submarine was bucked around violently under the aggressive waves, he would fall over if it wasn't for the harness and the tether supporting his clumsy human body. A fingerless gloved hand reached up through the red sludge, and Grace immediately lunged forward, grabbing it with both of his hands to pull him out, using every ounce of adrenaline he had in him. His muscles screamed, blood pumping, heart pounding in his ears to drag the human drenched in what he can only deduce as blood (God, no, he hoped his brain turned off from trying to describe the most horrific part of this situation).
"G-Got you, you're safe now."
He heaves out in relief when the weight settles against him, heavy and limp. He turned and gave his best friend that's peering out in the corner worriedly a frantic signal to pull him out, to which Rocky instantly disappeared to start the winch. He now remembers that Rocky had stomped angrily earlier, worried sick about Grace going down alone, he's afraid of the possibility of him getting injured, again, and they both had enough of that, obviously. The burn scar on his side itched at the memory.
"A-Angel...?"
The person in his arms croaked out, voice cracked and barely human, he sounds very wounded, his throat is probably dry or had some intake of the red...liquid. Grace winced internally at that. No, he doesn't want to think about what it is. Not right now.
Ryland blinks at that, before letting out a startled laugh at the sheer absurdity of the situation. He wasn't laughing at the injured man, no, no. Not laughing at the fact the man was welded into a metal cage, never! He wasn't expecting the first word coming from the first human he came across light years away to call him some sort of a Holy Messenger.
"N-No, not an angel. I-Oops!"
The scientist started to ramble before stopping to pull the man closer to himself on instinct, passing out cold from...everything going on most likely. He noticed he's clutching a battered box tightly to himself, like it was something important that even in the face of death, he shielded that. Ugh, he's getting emotional now.
Before his brain spirals any further due to the fact that the man in his arms is warm, so warm, like a furnace in the wintery storm, and he's very close to his scent gland, push him off! (He tried, thankfully the man lolls his head elsewhere, phew!), Ryland was yanked back up. As they rose, he watched the ruined submarine beneath him slowly sink in the crimson waves, then something else, something unknown–heavy, unnatural shifts that he's very sure weren't just the tide. A chill crawled up his spine, fear started to raid his emotions, and he could feel sweat prickling his skin. He refuses to look at it, quickly snapping his head back up to focus on Rocky's cheerful victory song and moving enthusiastically at his return with another human.
Happy thoughts, Ryland. Think of happy things, Ryland Grace! You just saved a human. From a blood ocean. Totally normal.
He has many things to think about in the 'deal with this later' section of his brain.