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The last thing Simon remembered was too large teeth piercing the SM-13 as that thing screamed in his head, and then somehow, impossibly, he was waking up. Tears welled in his eyes because he'd felt his body breaking, mutating, fusing, and he knew it had been real, he was so sure of it, and yet, there wasn't a scratch on him, aside from the bandaged stump of what remained of his left arm and the old, warped flesh where his tattoo had been burned off.
There was no pain. There should have been. Everything should be aching, burning, but he only felt exhaustion.
He was too angry to sleep.
The COI had saved him. Pulled him from that Godforsaken ocean, patched him up, and then locked him in a cell. It was different to the one he'd gotten used to before being sent on his suicide mission, the walls dark and patchy, one side completely clear, but leading only to blackness. They'd had the decency to give him one measly lightbulb, at least, the warm glow illuminating a large robotic arm with several hands mounted to the wall, at the head of the bed he'd woken up on, and a small screen mounted to the wall on the opposite side.
What? Were they hoping if they give him comfier accommodations he'd be more willing to go back to that Hell? To forget everything they'd put him through and go frolicking along like the dumb little sheep they wanted him to be?
Well, he wouldn't. The fury that had been bubbling underneath his skin boiled over, fist connecting to the glass wall of his cell. "I'm not going back there, you hear me?" He screamed at whoever must be listening, "I'd rather fucking die than get back in another sub for you! I'll do it! I'll kill myself before you ever take that choice from me again, fuck you!" His fist found the small screen next, over and over, smashed it until his knuckles were torn to shreds. When he could no longer hit, he simply shouted, hurling every insult and swear word he could think of until his voice was hoarse. Then he simply paced, bloody knuckles leaving a trail behind him.
He didn't think that getting too close to the robotic arm would be a mistake, until a needle was piercing his neck.
-
He awoke again slowly, awareness coming back to him in bits and pieces. No pain, but there was a bone deep weariness, fresh bandages wrapped tight around his knuckles and the stump of his left arm. Whatever they used to knock him out must double as a painkiller, or they were dosing him while he was out. The thought made his skin itch. Who knows what else they were injecting him with? Keeping him complacent while they decided what to do with him.
"Spineless fucking cowards!" Simon hissed, voice still rough from the forced sleep, "Get in here and deal with me yourself! I'll tear you to fucking shreds!"
A hatch in the wall popped open, making him jump.
He glared at it.
A small platform slid out from the wall, and on it was a tray containing a cup and a plate. In the cup was a thick, grey substance, and on the plate was a slab of meat.
Simon eyed it wearily, slipping out of the bed and taking a few tentative steps closer to inspect the contents of the platform. It was food, obviously, but nothing like what he had on Eden, and certainly nothing like he'd been given as a prisoner of the COI. He picked up the cup, sniffed it, grimaced. It wasn't bad, but not exactly appetising either, with an odd, chemical sweetness to the scent.
Despite that, his mouth watered and his stomach grumbled. He didn't know how long it had been since he'd had a proper meal, but he was starving.
He didn't trust it.
The COI were not his friends.
"Fuck you." He hissed, and knocked the food to the floor.
The platform slid back into the wall and the hatch clicked shut. It was almost seamless. Almost. If he looked closely, he could see the outline.
It occurred to him that they had to get him in that cell somehow. He couldn't see it now, but there had to be a door hidden in the wall somewhere. He stepped over the mess he'd made and began feeling along the wall for any crevice. He didn't know how long he was at it, but the tips of his fingers had started to bruise and bleed from the constant rubbing on the rough wall. He refused to stop. There had to be a way out. If they thought he was just going to lay down and go along with their plans, they could think the fuck on. After what they did, they were lucky he didn't plan on killing them all.
He just wanted to be free-
A speaker tucked into an upper corner crackled to life, making him freeze.
"Why not eat, question?"
Simon whirled around, searching for the source, but stopped when his eyes passed over the glass wall.
Behind it, just barely visible with the dim light, was a rock.
Or something.
A sculpture?
No, it moved. Tilted the bulk of its brown body and tapped one of its five legs on the ground. Another leg, that ended in a three fingered hand, was holding a small device that looked similar to the portable radios they used to communicate long distance.
A robot then? Some new invention of the COI? He didn't recognise it. They probably considered him too dangerous for human interaction and were throwing prototypes at him, testing their effectiveness for dealing with unruly prisoners.
He snorted, "You think I fucking trust anything you're giving me?"
The robot tilted its body again, let out a series of chirps and trills that the speaker translated as, "Human need to eat. Why not eat, question? Are hungry."
"I'd rather fucking starve to death." Simon spat, giving the thing an incredulous look, "Let me out of here!"
"Can not do that. Human must eat. Have worked very hard to create human food, Grace assures is good."
"I don't know who Grace is, but she can go fuck herself. I won't eat her poison."
"Grace is male. No understand last word."
Fucking Hell, he was really arguing with this robot about the gender of... who? His captor? Whoever was in charge of this operation now the previous crew were all dead, no thanks to him.
He turned away from the wall and the creature and retreated to the bed. He sat down and pulled his legs up, curling around himself, "I just want to get out of here, haven't I done enough for you?"
The robot was silent for a long while and then, "Can leave, but not yet. Why human not eat? Is human sick? Can help."
"I don't want your fucking help, piss off."
"Human very difficult." It said, and the robotic tone sounded very matter of fact.
It left Simon alone.
-
He managed three days without eating before he finally gave in. That's what they told him, switching between begging and demanding that he eat, that he needed to live and it was stupid to let himself die when he was perfectly healthy. He'd agreed. He didn't really want to die, of course, he didn't survive in that blood ocean with that thing, and by some miracle come out the other side alive, just to starve himself in a cell. He finished the vitamin shake, as they'd called it, but left the meat, and they assured him that the shake was enough to keep him healthy.
They mentioned that Grace again. They seemed to really like him, whoever he was. He wasn't surprised that these robots were programmed to be obsessed with their leader, wasn't surprised that they were determined to convince Simon to love him too.
No thanks. This mysterious captor was going to stay at the top of Simon's shitlist until the day he finally let him out of the cell.
That day came two weeks later.
After fourteen miserable days of pacing a cell with nothing to do but exercise (They'd offered to replace the screen, but he refused) and shitting in a toilet they'd hidden behind a panel that he had to ask to use, Grace finally showed his face, and he was nothing like Simon expected.
He just appeared on the other side of the glass, no warning, no announcement, and stared, jaw hanging open, a pair of thin framed glasses sitting crooked on his nose. He wasn't scarred, or dirty, or gruff, he was what Simon imagined pure, concentrated sunshine to look like. Soft and golden. There wasn't a single hard edge in sight. Round jaw, messy crop of hair, a thick, knitted cardigan giving him a delicate, friendly outline. This is the man Simon had been expecting to fight for his freedom.
He looked on the verge of tears.
"You're real." He uttered in a whisper, so quiet the hidden microphone struggled to pick it up and the speaker spat the words out in a static filled crackle.
Simon stared, unsure how to react, "You're real."
"I thought they were lying, I thought they'd made something for me, I- what's your name? They never told me. You do have one, right? I'm- oh, fudge, I'm Ryland Grace, but everyone just calls me Grace, I should have started with that."
He was struggling to replace the tough leader in his head with this awkward, harmless puppy of a man. There were no dogs on the space stations, but this Grace fit the description of the babies he'd read about.
"...Simon." He revealed, tentatively.
"It's so nice to meet you, Simon." Grace said, and he sounded like he really meant it. "And I'm really sorry about all of this, I- if I'd known, I would have done things so differently. They meant well, they just- they don't have much experience with humans, I'm the only one they've ever met, and they knew enough that they thought they should quarantine you. Apparently you, uh- didn't come from the cleanest place? There was a lot of blood, and you were so injured and they didn't even think you would make it, so they didn't want to tell me they found another freaking human. And what if you got me sick? Then they'd have no humans!"
Simon stared. It was almost too much to process, the words coming quick and unfiltered.
"Who's... who's 'they'?" He settled on asking.
"Oh! Gosh, I'm so sorry! I haven't spoken to another human in years, forgive me." Grace cleared his throat, straightened his back, and then threw his arms wide, "Welcome to Erid, home of the Eridians! And me." He offered Simon a sheepish grin.
"...Right."
The grin faltered as Grace looked around, "Uh, can I come in? Would you mind-"
He was interrupted by a shrill note, one of the rocky robots tumbling in and over to Grace. This time, it was wearing some sort of protective covering, small triangles of something clear - more glass? - pieced together like a mosaic.
Grace gave the robot- no, the... Eridian? A living thing...? He gave it a confused look, "He's not aggressive!"
A little trill sounded from the creature.
"Yeah, well I would be mad too if you locked me in a cell and didn't tell me anything! He must have been so scared!" Grace argued, then he sighed, tugging his glasses down to hang around his chin so he could scrub at his face, "Yeah- I know- I know you were just trying to help. Look. Just let me in and let us talk for a bit."
"I'm not dangerous." Simon muttered, frowning.
"No, of course not! I don't think you are!" Grace assured him, waving both of his hands, "But they're hesitant because you put on quite the show when you first got here."
Simon winced at the reminder, "... I was scared." He admitted, "I thought- you're not the people I thought you were, the people who hurt me." They were living, intelligent creatures, so far from his home and the COI and he felt nausea beginning to roil in his gut. He had been so mean to them, but in his defense, they really hadn't helped themselves with the secrecy. "Now I'm just- I'm still scared, but I'm not dangerous." He raised his one hand, palm facing forward. It wasn't bandaged any more, but his knuckles were still sore, "I'm mostly confused, I can talk, if-if that's what you want. I want to talk."
"Okay. Then we'll talk." Grace stated with finality.
More Eridians gathered, all sizes and shapes and colours, and they had their complaints, dancing around Grace's feet and getting in his way, low pitched musical notes filling the air. He ignored them for the most part, shuffling forward, but dared to give one a pat as he passed, as if it were a beloved pet. Simon got the impression it didn't say anything nice in response to that, but soon the human and the aliens were disappearing out of sight.
Then the hidden door that Simon had found days ago, but couldn't pry open, creaked inwards.
Grace slipped inside and shut the door again quickly.
The Eridians couldn't be trapped on the other side, but they respected him enough that they stayed put, let him play out his stupid plan.
He looked at Simon and raised his hands, "Hey. I'm gonna come closer, okay? Do you want to sit while we talk?"
Simon didn't move. Sitting would be a good idea, he could feel himself shaking, though he couldn't say why exactly.
Grace took his non-answer as acceptance and closed the distance between them, coming to a stop just a foot away.
This close, Simon could see that he was a few inches taller, and his blonde hair and scruff was peppered with silver hairs. He was older, but not frail, lithe muscle visible beneath the cardigan, not nearly as much as Simon, but enough. He could say with confidence that this man wasn't a threat to him, and that meant Simon didn't need to be a threat either.
The following question still caught him completely off guard.
"Do you want to hug?"
"What...?"
"I- sorry!" Grace's face turned a deep red and he yanked the glasses from his chin, tucked them into his pocket and proceeded to fidget with them, "Sorry, that was so weird and out of the blue, it's just- I told you I haven't seen another human in years? And I mean years, it's been almost a decade actually and I would really, really, really like a hug. The Eridians are great, you know? Nice and warm and most fit so perfectly in my arms, like they were just made to be hugged even though they had no concept of that until I arrived- but they're not people. It's not the same and it's been so long, so... please?"
Simon had barely dipped his head before Grace was throwing himself forward, enveloping Simon with both arms and oh, he was deceptively strong. Maybe if it came down to it, and they had to fight, Grace might just knock him on his ass, but right now, they were hugging, and it was the best Simon had ever felt.
He couldn't remember the last time someone had touched him just to touch. No punching, no kicking, no shoving him into a cell, into the sub, no clawing, no biting. Just. Holding. Enjoying his warmth and finding comfort there, contentment.
Simon let out a shuddering breath and draped his arm loosely over Grace's shoulders. How long had it been since he'd been allowed to be gentle? Offer nothing harsher than a sweet caress? His hands were calloused, had been since the day he was put to work before he hit double digits, but he could be soft, if he was just allowed. He didn't have to inflict pain or draw blood.
Grace made a choked off noise, squeezed harder, tucked his head right under Simon's chin and breathed deeply.
Simon buried his face in his hair, breathed in the scent of something salty and fresh that he couldn't quite place, but decided there and then that it was his favourite scent. He tried to pull Grace closer, and Grace tried to let him and Simon wished he could part his skin, let Grace make a home right inside his ribcage, between his lungs, under his heart, wherever the man felt it best to absorb all the safety and the peace that Simon had to offer.
He didn't know how long they stood there, how many times they'd cried, catching their breath just to squeeze and set the other off again. He knew that eventually they had slid to the floor, and when he was just beginning to drift off with his arm still wrapped securely around those shoulders and his cheek pillowed on blonde hair, an Eridian had come to interrupt them.
Grace groaned, a warm puff of air ghosting across Simon's skin, "Five more minutes, Rocky."
A harsh chirp.
"Fine!" Grace disentangled himself from the other. He looked rough, face red and blotchy, hair sticking up at every angle, but happy. He got to his feet with the help of the Eridian, no shortage of popping joints and pained wheezes accompanying the movement. Then he held out a hand to Simon and hit him with his widest smile yet, "What do you say we get out of here?"
Simon took it without hesitation, mirroring his expression, and though the smile felt foreign on his face, it was no less genuine.