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They’re mostly civil, now.
It’s been a couple weeks since Simon’s healed up enough to be able to traverse the Mary with no supervision. If you don’t count Rocky’s super-hearing, that is. They’re lucky for civil, actually, what with Ryland’s overall wariness about humans and Simon’s overall wariness about everything. Civil is good, civil is tolerable.
Sometimes, though, sometimes Simon slips up on Ryland’s name. He says something with the shape of ‘angel’, instead of Grace. Ryland doesn’t know what to make of it, but what he does know is that he refuses to touch that with a ten foot pole.
During nights when he’s clutching Rocky’s xenonite suit with the desperation of a dying man, he’ll wonder if maybe Simon gets nightmares too. He’ll wonder if Simon will ever let Ryland comfort him the way Rocky comforts Ryland.
That’s purely hypothetical, though.
///
For a second, Ryland can’t figure out how he’s woken up. He just knows that one second he was asleep, and now he’s just- not.
It takes him horrifically long to recognise the ragged breathing in the bed near his - the one Simon occupies. It takes him even longer to scramble off his own cot and run over to Simon’s bedside. He can see Rocky now, moving frantically side to side behind the xenonite barrier. His usual melody is at a high, panicked pitch; Ryland’s sleep-stupid brain can only catch his name and the words ‘help’ and ‘Simon’.
What does it look like he’s trying to do, Rocky?!
Suddenly, he wishes he and Simon were closer. That they’d had time to talk about what worked for them and what didn’t, because Ryland is very out of his depth right now. If he doesn’t do anything, though, that’s crueler.
Ok, he’s a scientist. He knows hypothesis testing like the back of his hand, he’s got this.
For now, he’ll go off of what Rocky does for him - after all, that’s the only experience he has for helping with nightmares. He puts a tentative hand on Simon’s shoulder, and gently shakes the man awake. Or tries to, at least.
Nothing. He thinks he hears Rocky yell ‘useless’ but he’s choosing to ignore that.
Okay, that first test was a fluke. Let’s call it his control, so he doesn’t feel too self conscious about it. He shakes Simon’s shoulder harder this time and-
He’s on his stomach, with his face in the grass. His hands are scrabbling for any kind of handhold; he’s going to die here. There are people grabbing him, pushing him harder into the ground - holding him down.
“Don’t do this, please don’t do this!” He heaves, tears falling as he begs for his life. He thought she was his friend. “You’re murdering me- you’re murdering me! I don't want to go!”
He blinks away tears. There is no grass here, he’s on the Mary. With Rocky and-
Simon.
There’s a stream of swears behind him, and when Ryland turns around he meets Simon’s gaze head-on. There’s anger there, but also an emotion that Ryland has only ever recognised on his own face. Guilt.
He supposes Stratt never had time for guilt, especially not for him. The man who was too much of a coward to die for his planet.
“Si-“
“I knew it, you think I’m a monster too - don’t you? Of course you do, I was so stupid to think-“ His face is defeated, and his speaking is rushed.
Ryland feels something in him shatter. He’s so dumb, God why couldn’t he react normally, this was about helping Simon.
“No, no I could never think that Simon, you have to believe me,”
“How can you expect me to believe you when you were just- begging me to not fucking kill you!”
“No! That’s not it!”
Ryland finally notices the high pitched shrieking emanating from Rocky, and taps his finger four times against the floor in a specific pattern. It’s their signal for privacy, they’d come up with it a couple of months into the trip to Erid - for Ryland’s peace of mind. He finds that he doesn’t use it nearly as much as he thought he would. Only for emergencies. So, his use of it now kickstarts Rocky’s composure; he shifts left and right in what Grace knows is indecisiveness. He feels his chest warm at his friend’s protectiveness, but eventually Rocky leaves. Clearly soothed by the fact that there technically wouldn’t be ‘privacy’, since he can hear everything that happens on the ship.
“Simon, I- I have to tell you something,”
“Spit it out, then,” the harshness in his voice makes Ryland wince, but he holds it together.
“The Mary was meant to have a team of three people. A captain, an engineer, and a scientist. They all had backups for if something happened to them before the launch, so it wouldn’t be derailed,”
Ryland is babbling, and his vision is blurred with tears but he needs Simon to understand his reaction, understand that it wasn’t because of him.
“The scientist meant to go up was Martin Dubois, his replacement was Annie Shapiro,”
Simon looks surprised to not hear Ryland’s name, and that reaction alone almost prompts Ryland to stop speaking.
Almost.
“I was the leading expert on astrophage, so I taught them everything they needed to know. When they both died in an explosion-“ the memory hits him like a truck, and Ryland finds himself fighting a fresh new wave of tears. “I was the next best option,”
“They asked me to go, but it was a suicide mission and I didn’t want to die. So I said no, I was asked to go for the greater good, and I put myself above billions of people,”
Ryland takes a deep breath.
“Turns out, I didn’t really have a choice. So I ran, and government officers chased me and pinned me to the ground. I was- pleading with them not to do it, to not kill me,”
Ryland isn’t looking at Simon anymore, so he doesn’t see whatever his face does in response to Ryland’s confession.
“It was three days before launch, and they locked me in a cell so I couldn’t run- and I couldn’t contact anyone, not even my-“
He doesn’t remember who he’d wanted to call so badly, who he even had to call.
“They kept me there before putting me in the coma, and inducing amnesia. Because I didn’t just reject going on the mission, I told them that when I woke up I’d sabotage the whole thing,”
A laugh bullies itself out of Ryland’s mouth, it’s bitter and sharp. Cutting into his gums like glass.
“So it wasn’t because of you, it wasn’t. It’s because I was too selfish, too much of a coward to want to save anyone,”
“Ryland,”
The use of his given name makes Ryland’s head snap up, and he flinches at the clear fury in Simon’s eyes. God, what did he think of him?
Simon catches it, and his expression dies down.
“I was a convict,”
The confession pauses Ryland’s pathetic self-flagellation. It’s the most Simon has ever said about his past, ever.
“They promised that my sins would be erased so long as I got in that submarine and took photos of a phenomenon on one of our moons. A blood ocean,”
Oh, that explains the submarine, as well as the veritable pool of blood that Simon had been drenched in when Ryland finally managed to pry the thing open. It couldn’t have all come from the man, or he would never have been able to heal fast enough to be talking to Ryland right now.
“They lied, though. They welded the door shut behind me, they were never going to let me out,”
Simon laughs, but it’s bitter and devoid of any humour.
“So if you’re a coward, then I’m just as much of one. All I wanted was to be free, but I’d have taken the prison over the sub any day,”
Ryland shakes his head almost instantly, his conviction strong as he vehemently denies Simon’s words.
“You’re not a coward for wanting to be free, no matter what you did - you didn’t deserve to die for it,”
“I killed people, Ryland,”
“Then they tried to kill you, so you’re even,”
“Then you’re not a coward for wanting to live,”
“I put myself above my whole planet, Simon,”
“You saved me, didn’t you?”
“Anyone would have,”
“Sure, anyone would have, but you did it,”
Ryland swallows audibly, letting out a shaky gasp.
“Can I- hug you?”
Ryland braces himself for the tears that will spring up when Simon rejects his hesitant indulgence, when strong arms wrap themselves around his waist and the back of his head.
His nose is pressed into the junction between Simon’s shoulder and his neck, the position could almost be considered uncomfortable if Ryland weren’t getting a heady rush of dopamine from finally being held after so long. He sighs happily into Simon’s neck, wrapping his own arms around the man in turn.
Maybe they’ll be ok, they can improve on civil. This can work.
For now, Ryland is more than content to stay here indefinitely.
“You’re not a coward, and you’re definitely not selfish, Angel,”
There it is again. That nickname. ‘Angel’.
Ryland Grace may be the furthest thing from an angel, he may be just about the furthest thing from godliness, but he can put up with the weighted nickname if it’s for Simon.
He can try to hold up the sky, it’s what he does best. Try.