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When Rocky and Grace first pulled Simon out of the blood ocean, he thought it was all a hallucination.
No, he didn't think that the eldritch god eel was kind enough to give him such a good dream. And it wouldn't makes sense, because there seems to be no objective that this hallucination is pushing towards Simon. There is no terror to it, either.
But he thought that maybe his own brain was trying to trick him. Like a… "seven minutes," thing. You know that idea, that right before you die, your brain 'replays' your best memories, and you get flashes of everyone you've ever loved?
Lord knows that Simon doesn't have a seven minutes. He barely has enough happy memories to fill out thirty seconds. So maybe, this kind-eyed scientist and this strange-but-sweet rock alien was his brain's way of filling that out, you know? Seven minutes of a kind universe, one where he gets rescued from his own personal hell-hole, one where he gets away and doesn't die in that iron death-trap.
The problem? Simon is coming up on 12 minutes rescued, and there's no end to this hallucination in sight.
"Do you think you can get a scan, Mary?" The kind eyed scientist asks. After a second, he adds, "Without touching him, Mary, he doesn't seem very receptive to that."
"Biological scan incoming, Dr. Ryland Grace," A woman's voice, apparently named Mary, says.
Maybe not a scientist. A doctor. The ship's doctor, maybe, for medical emergencies? Eden had one, but she wasn't nearly as kind or patient when she had to see Simon for his yearly check-ups.
"Thank youuuu," Dr.Grace responds. He turns towards Simon. "Hello, there! My name is Ryland Grace, and you're aboard the Hail Mary. There appears to be a lot of… blood, but I can't tell if there's any coming from you. Does anything hurt?"
Simon shakes his head, hesitates, and then nods. He tries to say everything hurts, but his voice must be shot from all the… screaming, because it comes out as a croak and nothing more.
"Hm," Dr.Grace tilts his head to the right. "Hey, Mary, how's the scan going?"
"Seventy percent done," Mary reports.
"Can you tell me if the vocal cord damage is permanent or temporary?"
"It will be in the report," Mary responds to the man.
Simon can't actually seem to see this elusive Mary, but he is on his back, and he hasn't tried to sit up yet. She might just be out of his eyeline. She must be in this room, or maybe…
Maybe she is just another hallucination.
"Thank you, Mary," Dr.Grace says again. "Okay, just yes or no questions until we can get your voice back, yeah?"
Simon doesn't have current capabilities to point out that Dr. Grace doesn't know if they can get his voice back, as he just asked Ms. Mary about it, but even if he could, he doesn't know if he'd want to point it out. If this hallucination is the last thing he'll see before he goes to his final resting place, he'll let the kind doctor be optimistic.
What harm could it do- being optimistic- if he's already dead?
"Look, I want to get you cleaned up, but…" Dr. Grace sighs. "I really want to know what that blood-looking stuff all over you is. If it's okay with you, I'd like to take a sample in order to determine what substance it is. This would require me getting close and touching you. Is that okay?"
Simon thinks about it for a second, before nodding. The angelic stranger can touch him. He's probably taking Simon to heaven, if it's real, so what does it matter?
"Okay!" Dr. Grace smiles at him. He turns, and Simon finds himself turning his head to keep the angel in his eye line. Dr. Grace snaps on two medical gloves, moving back towards Simon. "With one hand, I'm going to hold your face steady, and with the other I'll get a swab with this-" He makes a motion with a cotton swab. "-and then I'm going to pool a little bit of that substance into this glass vile, and then we'll be all done! Still yes?"
Why is he being so kind? Simon thinks to himself. Why am I allowed a choice?
Simon nods again, and Dr. Grace moves forward towards him.
"You can say no at any point," Dr. Grace says, his voice a little low because he's closer than he was before. "Well- you can't speak, but if you pull away, or even push me away lightly, I'll immediately stop and we'll go from there."
Simon feels some kind of emotion well up at the base of his throat. What is that? Sadness, melancholy, maybe?
Simon nods again, and Dr. Grace moves towards him again. He- very gently- holds Simon's jaw in one hand. Simon thinks about… a muzzle, though that would make him a dog (and maybe he is, to this angelic thing). But Dr. Grace's hand is kind and warm, unlike how Simon imagines a dog's muzzle, all harsh and cold metals.
Simon lets Dr. Grace tilt his face to one side, first getting a swab with the cotton swab, as he said he would. He puts that cotton swab into one glass tube, before sealing it and grabbing another one.
"Very good," Dr. Grace says, with the kind of kindness you show a fragile child or a kicked dog. Simon feels his cheeks start to warm under Dr. Grace's fingertips. He wants to, funnily enough, stomp his foot and tell Dr. Grace to stop treating him like a child, a very child-like response to the embarrassment.
He can't bring himself to pull away, though.
It's been so long since he's had touch, through prison and his welded together hell-hole, and he doesn't know if he's ever had kind touch before, Eden frowning upon kindness and focusing on survival. So, he doesn't pull away from the hallucination, the sunny smile or the patronizing gaze the man holds towards Simon, even though Dr. Grace said he could.
Dr. Grace presses the edge of the second glass tube to Simon's skin, scraping some of the viscera off of his face and sliding it down the tube.
"There," Dr. Ryland Grace seals the second glass tube. "All done! Mary?"
"Report is generated, Dr. Grace," The woman's voice says. "The man is human, though he has significant mutations."
Simon feels his new teeth, a whole new mouth on the side of his face, clench together, and he starts to laugh.Yeah, He thinks, still laughing, even though he's lost his voice. Significant mutations. It's one hell of a fucking understatement, so much so that he can't help but laugh.
"…phrasing, Mary," Dr. Grace says, but he also seems to be holding back laughter.
Dr. Grace crosses the room, grabbing a whiteboard and marker before sitting in front of Simon once more.
"Okay, We're going to turn on the gravity for you in a minute pal, so I can get you standing and in the shower, but, uh, for now…" Grace hands him the whiteboard and marker. "Do you know how to write?"
He mimics writing and Simon raises his whiteboard. Simon raises an eyebrow, before he uncaps the marker and writes something down, before turning it around to Dr. Grace.
"Yes," Dr. Grace reads Simon's answer, before blowing out a breath in relief. "And, oh good, it's english too! I was worried I was going to have to learn another new alien language, and frankly, doing that once was enough for good ol' Ryland."
Simon tilts his head in confusion.
"Long story," Dr. Grace says, as if he can understand Simon's face perfectly enough without words. "Okay, well, If I'm going to help you shower- and I'm going to have to, sorry, I think you're very hurt- I feel like I should at least know your name, first."
Dr. Grace turns the whiteboard back to face Simon.
Simon frowns, answers Dr. Grace's question, and hands the whiteboard back.
"I am a convict. I'm not supposed to have a name," Dr. Grace reads out, then frowns and furrows his brow.
He looks back at Simon for a second, and Simon sees his assessing gaze. He's doing the math, trying to decide if Simon the Butcher is worth the trouble. He knows that face well, and he knows the answer to that question well enough, too.
But than Dr. Ryland Grace surprises him. He tilts his head, and he gives Simon a shaky, but still bright, smile. Simon does a double take at that, not expecting Dr. Grace to give him… well, grace on this subject.
Nobody else ever has.
"I don't know about your planet, or wherever you come from," Dr. Ryland Grace says, carefully choosing his words and not letting his smile drop. "But here on the Hail Mary, we don't do that. Do you have a name? If you can't remember, we can find a temporary name that fits you, Okay? You're a person, so you get a name."
Simon writes on the board again, before turning the board around to Dr. Grace. The edge of Dr. Grace's smile turns up into something warm and genuine.
"Simon."
-x-
"Simon!" Ryland calls from the front door, swinging it closed and immediately toeing off of his shoes. "I'm home from the Lab with Rocky!"
It's been about a month of being on Erid, though Rocky, Simon, and Ryland spent several months aboard the Hail Mary to get there. Since they've been back on Erid, they've established a surprisingly domestic routine, because Rocky says routines are good for 'Human Enrichment' and thus, requires it of both of his humans.
"I was thinking maybe we could do lasagna for movie night," Ryland suggests, stripping of his iconic fox cardigan off and laying it on top of one of the kitchen's chairs. "I know, I know, it's not a classic movie night food, but I feel like the nostalgia of it- we could get away with it, you know?"
Simon feels his breath hitch. This whole thing feels too… too good to be true.
"But I'm not saying we can't have buttered popcorn," Ryland continues to speak, filling the space with his words and not requiring Simon to speak with him. He loves that about Ryland-
He loves Ryland.
No. No. No, No, Nononono- This is a trap, the net finally trapping him and dragging his dead body across the floor of the blood ocean-
"I think if I tried saying that, Rocky would throw a fit of epic proportions," Ryland continues to speak, not knowing of Simon's silent spiral. "I'm just saying we could have lasagna for dinner, because popcorn is really a snack-"
Ryland finally turns around to face Simon, in the middle of a sentence. Something on his face must give away his current internal anxiety spiral. Because immediately, he sets his stuff down and approaches Simon quickly, cupping Simon's face in both of his hands.
"Si," Ryland says, "Please breathe."
In the month since he's been on Erid- or the months he's been hallucinating- Ryland and Rocky have figured out that when Simon has a panic attack or a PTSD attack, he is triggered into an extreme freeze response. As in, freezing so much that he holds his breath until he passes out.
Ryland's warm hands cuping Simon's face, his mutations and scars, so sweetly, makes Simon stutter in a breath.
"You're safe, okay? I won't let anything happen to you," Ryland promises him. "And I think that Rocky would fight the sun- his sun, my sun, hell, maybe even your sun- if something happened to you."
Simon stutters another breath in, a little bit of amusement breaching the vile terror in the back of his throat.
"Are you okay? What happened?" Ryland asks, his eyebrows furrowing in concern for Simon. "Is it something I can fix for you? Can I fix it? Please let me help, Si, I'd do it-"
Simon's hand comes up to cup Ryland's hand on his face, holding him there and keeping him where he is. He needs the touch, needs the reminder, needs the warmth.
"I don't want you to be a hallucination," Simon manages to choke out. "Just please be real, be real, I can't handle to loose anything more. Please, Please, Ryland."
Ryland throws his arms around Simon's shoulders, pulling him in tightly for a hug.
Simon can only hope that it's real.