driver’s passenger , 🦂

Though, even when they were alone with each-other, they were awkward, quiet, and stand-offish. You couldn’t help but feel guilty, and like it was your fault.

Your interactions with Ryland turned awkward in the six days of no physical contact. He wanted it, he knew he needed it, but he was way too scared to ask verbally. And his subtle hints were dismissed, you’re not sure why you ignored his tiny brushes or subtle lean ins.

Maybe it’s just because you felt bad. Not just for him, but for Simon.

He’d been blatantly staying out of your way, probably embarrassed from having been caught masturbating into your panties, which he now somewhat regrets. He’s glad you were into it but… nothing has come out of it since. So the initial adrenaline and stamina has slowly shifted to embarrassment and shyness around you.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, Simon and Ryland had been arguing. You weren’t sure how long this had been going on for, they did it behind your back. You only found out because you were about to go into the lab, and hid behind the doorframe the moment you heard yelling.

Simon’s voice was the first you heard, loud and rough, a slight growl in his tone. “Don’t act like I don’t see you trying to hold hands with her and kiss her and shit!”

Oh no.

Ryland retorted with an obviously shaking tone, “You completely avoid her! And yet I’ve seen her panties in your laundry pile, so what the hell is that about!?”

Shit.

None of them are explaining themselves, but they keep testing the waters. Seeing what they can call out the other for. Seeing what they can reveal.

You can’t tell if they’re arguing over you, or about you. If they’re jealous of each-other or jealous of you.

Rocky comes out, he was hiding behind a corner too. He quietly rolls over to the other side of the doorframe, both of you are hiding now.

He gestures to you with a slight wave of his claw, like he wants you to follow, but he knows you have to be quiet.

You don’t really want to hear any more of this arguing, so you decide to follow Rocky, the only person who’s not arguing on this ship at the moment.

Rocky leads you to the bedroom, you shut the door of the dormitory and start talking, “How long has this been going on?” You ask with obvious worry in your tone, you try to stay somewhat quiet.

“Too long.” Rocky states, shifting from side to side in annoyance. “Rocky is very tired of it. Rocky cannot sleep because they argue so loud.”

You grimace, how long have you not noticed? You can’t help but feel guilty, especially because they’ve been doing this in front of Rocky.

Rocky talks over your silence, “Rocky have solution. Doctor, Simon, and Grace need to…” He rocks back and forth, trying to find the human word for it, “Mate.”

You choke, and he keeps talking. “Rocky knows that Doctor has been intimate with Grace and Simon. Simon and Grace like each other, question?”

You stutter slightly in your words, “I… I think so.” 

“Rocky solution.” He rumbles around, you shudder uncomfortably. “Doctor gets Simon and Grace to mate so they are no longer uncomfortable.”

“That’s easier said than done.”

“They both want it.” Rocky states. “They just need persuasion.”

Persuasion.

You think you understand what Rocky is… trying to say. With the limited vocabulary you know he has. Ryland definitely hasn’t taught him certain words like sex.

Rocky decides to leave, and go off to God knows where just to leave you to consider your options. And you have a feeling he doesn’t plan on coming back until someone—you, hopefully—tells him it’s okay to.

You stand up, following him out after thinking afterwards. You head to the laboratory where Simon and Dr. Grace are, surprisingly, still arguing.

Though you make your presence a lot more obvious this time, walking through the door with heavy footsteps, catching them mid insult. You had no clue what the hell was even going on, what they were saying, but it was obviously getting heated.

Both their hairs were messy from fingers being run through it, you could see a prominent aggravated vein in Simon’s neck and you could see the blatant shade of pink Dr. Grace was turning.

“Both of you.” You didn’t have to say those words to get their attention, but you figured it was necessary, “Bedroom. Now.” You turned away, storming off to the dormitory.

You had no clue if they were gonna follow you, at first it was false confidence, but you heard scurried and shuffled footsteps behind you. It was hesitant, and it took them a while to follow after you.

But they did.

Maybe Rocky was right.

Walking into the dorms, you close the door behind them. Making sure you lock it. They’re both pretty frazzled, probably still shocked that they got caught arguing by you. Dr. Grace is fiddling with his fingertips and looking at you for some sort of guidance.

You walk over to the bed, sitting down at the edge of it, they come closer until you put your hand up.

“Stay.”

Simon starts to argue with you, “What the hell is this about Doct-“

“I said stay.”

He stutters, closing his mouth. Holy shit, you honestly can’t believe this is working. Inside your heart is working loudly, your arms are shaking ever so slightly. They can’t say anything, because not only are you in charge, but they’re shaking too.

You think of what to say next. They’re both standing, next to each other, you can almost see electricity between them from how heated their tension is.

“Strip.”

They both let out chokes and unsure noises in shock, Ryland almost starts protesting but Simon gets right to work. You add, “Keep your underwear on.” because you have a feeling Simon is willing to go the entire way right now.

Dr. Grace is a lot more doubtful, watching Simon thoughtfully while he takes off a borrowed t-shirt and tosses it to the side. He slowly unbuckles his pants and lowers them fully. His gray boxers don’t do much to hide his boner.

You don’t know if that boner happened just now or when they were arguing, but with how fast it made itself known you’re willing to bet it happened when they were fighting.

And Dr. Grace is staring at it.

“Grace.” You click your tongue at him, like he’s a dog. Simon glances over at him, catching his stare. He doesn’t react to it, but he definitely sees.

He nods. “Sorry.” He whispers, lifting his shirt over his head, and taking off his slacks. He does it with a lot more uncertainty than Simon did, probably because he’s more embarrassed of…

“Nice boxers.” Simon grins at them.

Space themed boxers, with planets and stars on them. Yeah, no wonder he hesitated.

“Shut up.” He glares at Simon, and his dick.

Dr. Grace isn’t doing much to hide his own boner. Even if the space boxers distract anyone who looks from it, they’re both extremely hard.

You cross your legs over another, they half expect you to strip as well, but you don’t. They haven’t earned that from you yet, no, not at all.

“Why were you two arguing?” You ask, looking at them as if they weren’t almost naked in-front of you.

Neither of them reply first. And you raise your eyebrows at Dr. Grace.

“Uhm.” He starts. “I- it was over something stupid.”

“Yeah.” Simon adds. “Nothing you should be worried about.”

You squint at them, at them ever so obviously lying to your face. 

“One more time. Why were you two arguing.” You cross your arms. Neither of them want to reply. You can see Rylands cock twitching in his boxers from the tension.

“Was it over me?” You tilt your head at them, and they both have visceral reactions to it. A hitch of the breath, a flinch. “Or was it over each other?"

Simon rubs his face. “That’s ridiculous. Both of that- that’s insane, right, Ryland?”

Ryland nods. “Mhm. We weren’t arguing over either of those thi-“

“Why are you both so fucking hard then? Why did you cum in your pants from the idea of Simon seeing us dry hump, Ryland?” Dr. Grace shudders, a soft noise coming out his mouth. “Why did the arguing start after I did shit with the both of you? The only explanation is that you guys are jealous.”

They go quiet.

They’re.. embarrassed. 

You got your answer though. It’s written all over their faces. On Simon's teeth between his lips, his gaze focused on the walls. At Rylands hand covering his face, the visible shudder in his hands.

“Come here.” You say. Patting the spots next to you.

They hesitantly walk over to you. Their weights shift the bed softly. Simon carries himself with heavy weight, Ryland carries himself with more unsureness\, but they’re both considerably fit people. 

Simon’s bicep graces you, he flinches and you even hear him mumble an apology. Like he hasn’t jerked off in your panties. Ryland’s hands are over his underwear, trying to hide the obvious precum that’s starting to show through, right on planet Saturn.

You lean over, slowly. Grace’s eyes flutter at you leaning, he even backs up, thinking he needs to make space for you. It takes him a moment to register that you want to kiss him. Even when you were grinding on his lap you didn’t really do that. 

His mouth opens for you, lips slightly parting. It’s uncertain, his breath falters into your mouth as your lips close around him. They part ever so slightly, you can hear a noise come out as your hand lifts to tighten your fingers around his hair.

He leans in, he’s so hesitant. So scared. His hand finds your hip, he didn’t think he’d get a chance like this again. His kiss is soft and tender, and he falters when your tongue finds his mouth, unknowing what to do with it.

His tongue brushes against yours, he whimpers softly into your mouth at the new experience. For someone who went to college he’s a very shy kisser, but you don’t mind. He was probably a nerd considering he majored in molecular biology.

Your hand moves from the back of his head to the side of his face, tilting his head as you continue to makeout with him.

You pull away with a soft bite of his bottom lip, and he chases you for a moment before realizing you really are pulling off. And, oh, the sound he makes, a soft, a disappointed whine.

You turn your head around, looking at Simon who’s grown even harder than he originally was. He adjusts his position to better face you on the bed, knowing that his mouth is next for you to press up on.

And it’s clear that he didn’t mind watching you makeout with Dr. Grace, no, not at all. In fact, it’s clear he enjoyed watching it. Maybe he was thinking of what his lips would feel like on either of your faces. And truthfully, if you’re being honest with yourself, you find that extremely attractive.

You put your hand on his chest and he can’t help but sit up slightly, leaning towards you in anticipation. His hand stays close to his side, knuckles almost white from how much pressure he’s gripping the sheet with.

You press your mouth against his, his facial hair is a lot more grown out than Dr. Grace’s, who tries to keep it somewhat trimmed. Your lips press against his softly though, he pants into your mouth.

He’s really putting his all into this kiss, his shoulders shift and his back arches forward as you run your tongue across his lip softly. His kiss is a lot louder, surprisingly, you would’ve figured that Dr. Grace would be the louder one when it came to kissing. 

He brings the arm that’s not gripping the bed up to your face, holding your jaw as he gradually becomes sloppier with the kiss. You can see his cock visibly twitch in his plain boxers and it does nothing to help the heat pooling in your own core.

He leans forward so much that you can practically feel your back pressing against Dr. Grace’s chest, who hasn’t thought to back up. He still has a bit of saliva on his chin from where you kissed him just as passionately, and he’s watching you kiss Simon with such awe.

With a soft peck finishing your makeout with Simon, you pull away. He does the same thing as Grace, chasing your lips before realizing it was fully over. The two men had a somewhat puzzled expression, wondering what happens next in this scenario.

You’ve come to the conclusion that these men haven’t acted on their attraction for each other, you don’t think they’ve even admitted to it. You’d think Simon would, he seems like the more dominant one between them. 

You, however, know Simon well enough that you realize he won’t say anything to Grace. And Ryland definitely won’t say anything to him. You’re sure that Simon has touched himself in Ryland’s boxers and you’re sure Ryland has thought of Simon on top of him. Or maybe him on top of Simon?

You’re just theorizing, you weren’t one to look at two men that way, but being presented with these opportunities has only made your mind wander so much. 

You cross your legs, looking at the both of them. You stretch your neck out slightly, pulling your shoulders back to reveal the curve between your neck and shoulder blades, the crooks where Ryland’s forehead rested a few nights ago when you were grinding on him.

Both of them seem to get your implications at the same time, and they may have even shot each other a look. You feel their hands pushing your hair aside, Ryland’s hands are shaking against your flesh, and so are Simon’s.

You feel Ryland first, his glasses clash against your skin slightly, but it’s not painful, no. His lips hesitantly kiss your neck, you can feel how unsure he is in it. Simon follows, the rough texture of his beard pushing up against you as he takes your neck with more pride than Ryland does.

You can’t help but smile as the two vigorously begin making out with your nape, their noses and mouths only separated by you in-between them. They push up into you, your body shifts with each suckle of Ryland’s lips and brush of Simon’s tongue. 

You shift your head slightly, leaning your jaw on the side of Grace’s forehead, tilting into his affectionate kiss, which earns you a slight gasp of held-in air from his lips. You turn the other direction to coo against Simon’s hair as he works a hickey on the side of your neck.

The more you shift your head side to side, the more they follow. Ryland lifts his head first to affectionately kiss your jaw, it’s fearful, you can see his eyes peek open to judge your reaction, and in the brief moment of eye contact you give him a loose smile to show your affection.

He shifts his thighs a bit to hide the precum that’s starting to make itself noticeable in his underwear.  

Simon follows his direction, after he leaves a mark on your neck he lifts his face up, pushing himself up on the bed to better reach you, and kisses your jaw and the side of your face as well. Normally, makeout sessions are limited to the neck and the mouth, but this is a situation where both of these men have held everything in for so long, you don’t think they care what they kiss.

As long as their mouths are on you.

You decide to test the waters a bit, you bring your hands up to hold both of their faces. You open your mouth and catch Ryland’s tongue slightly as you bring the both of them ever so close into the middle. Your touch isn’t forceful, it’s guiding and suggestive. If they wanted to keep kissing your jaw and your cheek, they could’ve.

But both of them follow your guidance, lips mostly hitting the corner of your mouth, tongues only occasionally interlocking with yours, wetness mostly coating your chin and philtrum. 

The two of them awkwardly catch each other's lips, rough facial hair obvious in comparison to your soft skin. They immediately pull away, all the progress of slowly pushing them together reversed by one slight touch of chins.

Simon seems a bit caught off guard but he definitely isn’t turned off by the contact, his mouth remains somewhat open as his attention is fully focused on Ryland, who’s a nervous wreck at the contact.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to do that…” He wipes some saliva off his chin, he’s unclear if it’s his, yours, or Simon’s at this point. 

The two of them laugh awkwardly as they shuffle their positions, Ryland putting one of his knees on the bed while the other hangs off of it. His arm goes in between his legs to hide his own obvious signs of pleasure. 

You laugh with them, breaking the tension that temporarily removed you from their line of sight. You grab their faces again, looking at both of their eyes for some sort of confirmation, and gradually bring them both to your face again to resume where you three left off.

You bring them to your lips, not the corner or your jaw, but your lips. You kiss them, you don’t have a specific aim, but you simply kiss them and they kiss back. Now, they don’t care about who brushes up against who. 

They can feel each other’s facial hair, the different noses that grace their cheeks occasionally. They’ve made an unspoken connection that it’s okay, that it’s going to happen if they’re gonna do this. 

Your hands come up to grab both their faces as you make out with them, feeling the different ways their lips and tongues dance with yours, how hesitant and whiney Ryland is in-between gasps and how sloppy and desperate Simon is. 

Your hands run down to the backs of their necks, which earns you a soft moan and flinch from Ryland, and almost no reaction from Simon, who’s too focused on eating your face.

Ryland moves down to kiss your neck passionately, your lips awakening something nervous in him, anytime he peeked his eyes open from behind his glasses he’d see your face and it’d simply make him too anxious right now. He sucks on your neck hungrily though, building the courage to move back up to your face. 

In the opportunity your hands cup Simon’s face, you kiss him tenderly and properly in the mix of everyone. He kisses you like he’s been dying for Ryland to get out the way, he grunts and his hand moves to your thigh, not in any implications, but to simply steady himself.

As Ryland eats your neck, you move to cup his face, turning your head slightly as Simon begins to move down to the nape of your neck, licking and kissing a spot underneath your ear. You turn your head to give him the room and to also push your lips against Grace.

You grab his face quickly and briefly, everything seems to be happening so fast compared to earlier. Your makeout with Ryland individually is brief because your hands find Simon’s face again, and guides him to the very middle.

As your lips catch Simon’s, they catch Ryland’s just as easily. It’s a switch, you can feel Simon's facial hair pressed against you as you catch Grace again, then Simon, then Grace, his glasses cold against the side of your face. Then they catch each other.

And they don’t stop catching each other, because they don’t have anyone else to catch.

You’ve leaned back slowly as you watch the two of them press their lips against each other, still with the same hunger that they’d touched yours previously. With the same consistency of saliva around their tongues. 

And you know that they know. The feeling of strictly manly unshaven hair against their lips is a lot more apparent now that your gentle skin isn’t separating them both.

You can’t help but smile at the way they turn their heads to the side as they kiss one another, noses awkwardly shifting against each-other and teeth catching lips in anxious bites.

Tongues pressing against the corners of their mouths and veins popping in necks from the pure hunger and starvation that they feel for each other's mouths.

They can’t get enough of each other.

They’re both extremely hard during this entire thing as well, Simon is still gripping the bed trying to keep himself from touching his aching cock right now and Ryland is doing the exact same.

“Okay.” You say. Which is enough to break them out of whatever makeout trance they were in. 

You hear the soft break and smack of their lips as they both pull away in surprise at the interruption, and they look down at you, leaning back on the bed.

You shift your thighs slightly, using your elbows to prop yourself up between the two, who are sort of just staring at you. Breathing heavily and avoiding the other’s gaze in silence.

You simply can’t wipe that shit eating grin off your face, it’s impossible. You just accomplished something that neither of them would’ve been able to fully do without, or without a lot more work than needed at least .

And you still wanted in on the fun.

“You’re both hard.”

Ryland brings his hand to his mouth to wipe some saliva. Simon watches, looking back at you, down at his cock, down at Ryland’s cock, back at you.

He clears his throat in Ryland’s silence, “You would be too given… the circumstance.” He waves his hand around.

“Oh, trust me.” You shuffle your thighs again. “I’m really wet right now. I’m loving this.” You sit up fully again, breaking the space between the two. You grab Simon’s face, kissing him softly, you look back at Ryland.

He closes his eyes in expectancy for a kiss, but you don’t give him it. “Do you guys want me to stay? Or do you wanna have fun without me?”

Ryland’s the first to speak, he opens his eyes quickly, “No, no. I- right, Simon? We don’t want her to leave, right?”

“God no.” Simon agrees, his hand finds your lower back, it’s a gentle touch, and it’s so light for someone with such burly arms. “No, we need you here, Doc. Who’s gonna guide us?” He asks with a smirk.

You can’t help but feel your face warm, putting your hands in your lap and wiggling your shoulders at the kind words. “Jeez, I didn't think I was that needed here. But you’re right.” Your hand moves from your own lap, to Simon’s thigh. It graces in a spot so, so close to his cock, and the breath leaves his lungs at the touch.

“Who’s gonna guide you both?”

“You, you are.” Simon replies, quickly. Anxiously.

Your hand stays on his thigh for a moment, eying him before leaning back. “Stand up.”

He does, Ryland goes to follow before you place a hand on his thigh. “No, you stay.”

“Okay…” He whimpers softly, biting his lip.

Simon stands up, and he walks over to stand in front of both of you. He’s not sure what to do with his hands, they go to cover his boner instinctively before realizing that’s probably what you both want to see.

He’s obviously very big, you’ve seen his cock before, but Grace hasn’t. He’s blatantly staring at the ginormous dent in Simon’s pants, and it’s only making Simon break eye contact with the both of you.

The outline of his tip can be seen through the thin fabric. He's so hard that the strap of his boxers has lifted a bit, pulling off at the tension of his boner.

You lean over to Ryland, the both of you still looking at Simon as he stands in front of you, like a piece of meat. You whisper in his ear. “Dr. Grace?”

“Yes?” He whispers back, like he has to keep this a secret from Simon.

“Have you seen Simon’s cock?”

His breath hitches, his eyes widen as his gaze is broken momentarily from Simon to your eyes. He looks almost fearful, like the question is an interrogation. But he bites his lip, shaking his head. “No, no I haven’t.”

“Do you want to?” You ask, your fingers dancing over his own boner, and the tip of your index presses against the tip of his cock through his silly boxers. A string of precum follows the connection as you lift your finger back up. 

Ryland’s breath falters and his back arches softly into your touch. “Yes, I do. I do.”

You lean back, sitting up to face Simon again, and you raise your eyebrows at him. You raise them because you know he heard that whole, not-so-silent whispering of conversation.

“Simon.”

He nods, putting his thumbs around his own waistband. It’s slow, he pushes his hips out ever so slightly as he slides the gray boxers down, letting them fall to his ankles after a certain point. His cock bounces softly after being freed from the tense fabric.

And Ryland can’t stop staring at it.

You’ve seen Simon’s cock, obviously, you walked in on him pumping it into your panties. But you won’t deny that he has an insanely attractive sex. Its length is certainly impressive but you think his girth is all the more striking, how thick it is, the veins that throb in it. It’s a very porn-worthy cock, if it weren’t for the situation he were in you’d honestly recommend he make some money off of it.

You turn your head to look at Ryland, whos own cock twitches in his underwear at the sight.

“It’s big, isn’t it?” You whisper against his ear, leaning against his shoulder.

You hear him gulp, literally, you hear him swallow his own saliva down his throat. “Very.”

Your hand runs down Ryland’s leg, rubbing his thigh softly. “He’s so hard, isn’t he?”

“Very.” Grace nods.

“Extremely.” Simon adds.

You smile, you kiss Ryland’s cheek. He doesn’t take his eyes off of Simon’s dick though, he’s in a trance.

You bite his ear softly, and he whines at the overstimulating thoughts in his head right now. 

“Have you sucked dick before?” You place your hand on Ryland’s chin, turning him to look you in the eyes slightly. He seems shocked at your question, his eyebrows raise and his mouth opens slightly. He gives you a dry silence before he works up the courage to even speak.

“N-no. I haven’t.”

“Do you want to?”

He thinks about it. He looks over at Simon, at his dick, at you.

“I think so…”

“We can’t have an ‘I think so,’ Ryland. You either want to or you don’t.” You place your hand on his cheek.

Simon clears his throat. “You don’t gotta. This is a lot, I mean-“

“I want to.” Ryland sighs, the words come out with a rushed breath of air. “I just- I was embarrassed so I said I think so but I really want to, I do.” He brings a hand up to push yours away from his cheek, and rubs it down his face.

You smile, and you hear a soft ‘oh fuck’ leave Simon’s mouth at the admission.

No other words really have to be said, you stand up. Ryland stays sitting, just to see what you’re doing. You walk over to Grace’s bed and take one of his pillows, throwing it on the floor at Simon’s feet. Your hand graces Simon’s shoulders, looking at him.

“You good with this, big guy?”

He nods, biting his lip. “Fuck yeah. This is really hot.”

You turn around where you stand, looking at Grace. “Grace, hun’, get on your knees right here, please.”

He nods, standing up slowly. He looks at Simon in the eyes, looking to see some sort of reaction, maybe hear some words. They’re both silent as Ryland lowers himself, face to face with Simon’s cock. Looking up at the both of you staring down at him.

He looks pretty like this.

The idea of Ryland Grace on his knees in general is a very attractive thought, but this entire situation is extremely beautiful.

Simon’s hand finds itself in Grace’s hair, pushing his bangs out of his face slightly, but they’re so trained that they fall right back into place.

You kiss Simon’s cheek, biting his jaw a bit as you whisper. “Isn’t he pretty like this?”

“Mhm…” Simon utters.

“Tell him that then.”

He lets out a shuddered breath, his hand still in Grace’s hair. Ryland’s hands have found themselves touching Simon’s thigh, bracing slightly. “Ryland you’re… you’re so pretty like this.”

He squirms, looking up at the both of you. “Thank… thank you.”

You walk around, because you can tell that they’re both not sure where to go from here. Simon is too scared to push Ryland, and Ryland seems to be too scared to even touch Simon’s cock.

You lower yourself onto your own knees, behind Grace. He turns his head over his shoulders, anxiously asking, “What’re you doing?”

“Helping you, you’re okay. I’ll talk the both of you through this, okay?”

Grace lets out a relieved sigh, and you can see Simon let out one too by the way his abs move.

You put your hands around Ryland’s waist, rubbing them up and down gently. “Just put your hand at the base of his cock, hold it.” He does. “There we go, like that.”

Simon shudders at the contact, Grace holds his pent up cock into place. 

“Now,” You whisper into his ear, hands traveling down his waist, rubbing the spot above his cock. Fingers running through a soft and subtle happy trail. “Guide his tip to your lips. Just kiss it.”

He shakes as he leans in, looking up at Simon as he kisses the tip lightly. You whisper soft praises into his ear, telling him to kiss the base and the sides, to lick it slightly.

Obviously, this isn’t sucking his dick. You know that, but you also know that Ryland has never done this before. You don’t think he’s even considered this as an option for a while, you’re just working him up to it. You know that. He knows that. Even Simon knows that.

Your hands go under the waistband of Ryland’s boxers, and his breath shudders against Simon’s cock. You feel around, running your hands through the hair he keeps well trimmed, his hands shake softly.

You don’t touch his cock, not yet. It seems like just putting your hands near it would be enough to push him over the edge.

“There we go.” You coo into his ear as he gets into the groove of licking Simon’s cock, a lot more comfortably. Simon lets out light gasps and soft moans. “He’s doing so good, isn’t he, Simon?”

“Yeah, yeah, fuck..” Simon groans, running his hand through Ryland’s hair tenderly.

Your fingers come out of Ryland’s boxers, and he whines for a moment before you put your thumbs around the waistband. Slowly, you lower it to free his cock. It’s longer than you would’ve expected and the girth is pretty impressive too.

You got really lucky ending up on the ship with these two.

You keep whispering into Ryland’s ear. “You think you’re ready to take it, Ryland?”

He bites his lip, leaning back and kissing Simon’s tip. He stares at it for a while, and pushes his glasses up to the top of his head like they’re sunglasses. He nods and lets a soft ‘mhm’ out.

“Mkay.” Your hand finds the tip of Grace’s cock, rubbing your thumb on the precum that’s been pooling. You use that as a slight lubricant to wrap your hand around him from behind and slowly pump him.

“Open your mouth.” You instruct. He does. “Slide his tip into your mouth.”

He follows your instructions, Grace is a smart boy, he could figure out how to suck dick without you in his ear instructing him.

He likes this, he likes being told what to do, he likes the soft praise in his ear that he gets when he follows your instructions right.

The more of Simon’s cock that he manages to get into his mouth, the more Simon groans. “Fuuuuckk…” He forces his eyes shut, fist clenched by his side at the feeling of Grace’s mouth.

Your hands pump Grace a bit faster. “Now go back and forth, here, actually, let me help.”

Your free hand lifts to grab his hair on the back of his head, and you guide his head back and forth on Simon’s cock. He gags a little, not because he’s taking too much, no, you haven’t even pushed him that far yet. He gags at the surprise, but his hands grip Simon’s thigh, holding on as you guide his head back and forth.

Simon bites his lip. “Fuck, look at that, he’s doing so good.” 

You feel Ryland’s cock throb under your hand at Simon’s words. You smile. “I know, right. D’you hear that, Ryland? Simon thinks you’re doing good.”

He nods his head.

“Think you can do it without my hand?”

Ryland nods again, and you take your hand off his head, moving it to stroke his cock with both of your hands.

The stimulation only makes him moan on Simon’s dick, sending vibrations up his spine. Simon shudders. “Holy shit this is so fucking hot.” He spurs out.

His hips falter a bit into Ryland’s mouth, it scares him slightly, you know Simon’s cock is huge, especially for someone who’s never done this. But you shush him in his ear as you run your palm over his tip.

“It’s okay, it’s okay Grace. You can take it. Go on, try to take a little more.”

He hesitates, but he pushes his head down further, getting half of Simon’s cock in his mouth. Tears well at the corner of his eyes, but it’s worth the groan that comes out of Simon’s mouth. He tilts his head back, looking at the ceiling as his hand moves down to the back of Ryland’s head.

He pushes his head subtly, not forceful, just guiding. Grace chokes around his cock anxiously as he slowly takes more of it into his mouth.

“It’s okay.” You purr, pumping his cock faster. His hips buck into your hand. “You got it, you’re taking it just fine.”

Ryland eventually gets used to choking on Simon’s cock as he takes it somewhat faster.

You lean forward, still jerking him off, you look up at Simon, smirking at his wrecked expression. Then you turn your head to Ryland, kissing his neck. “If you can take him all the way to the base, I’ll sit on your face.”

He has to physically stop himself from cumming, because he grabs one of your hands and forces you to stop stroking him at the mere thought, but he nods, and Simon moans.

“Fuck, yes. Yes please.”

You don’t know if Simon is saying yes because he wants to watch you sit on Ryland’s face, or if he wants to feel his whole dick to get buried down Ryland’s throat, but either way he’s getting what he wants.

Ryland picks up the pace, with Simon’s hand still on the back of his head, pushing him closer and closer to the base of his cock. The sounds are dirty, tiny gags from his mouth, Simon’s moans and your praise in Grace’s ear. It’s so, so perverted.

Eventually, Ryland gets his mouth to the base, nose touching Simon’s stomach. He goes to lift his head up but you place it on the back of his head, holding it. “Hold it, c’mon. You got it.”

Simon moans, holding the back of his head with both hands. “Fuck- fuck. I can’t- I’m gonn-“

You grip the back of Ryland’s head, pulling him off of Simon’s cock before he can cum down his throat.

Simon moans and whines at the loss, his orgasm was so close and you just took it from him. He whines. “Fuck- why’d you do that.”

Grace backs up and leans into you, you kiss his forehead softly as he coughs. It was unexpected, you should’ve warned him. You wipe some of the tears from his eyes. “Because we’re not done. That’s why I did that.”

Simon grunts, and you slowly stand up, reaching out for Ryland’s hand, who you lift up. He slowly removes the rest of his boxers from his legs, disregarding them on the floor.

“Go, lay down.” He nods at your instruction. Walking over to the bed and laying down on his back. You look at Simon, who seems unsure. He wants to pump his own cock but honestly doesn’t know if he’s allowed.

He mumbles a shy, “What am I gonna do?”

And you can’t help but giggle at it, you walk over to him, brushing a strand of hair out his face and kissing him softly. “I’ll jerk you off.”

Simon doesn’t seem to be opposed to that idea, because he simply nods with pursed lips. You begin unzipping your pants, before Simon comes up behind you, he doesn’t ask, but he starts helping you.

He kisses the crook of your neck while he does it, even glancing at Ryland on the bed, who has his neck craned up and is touching himself at the sight.

He slowly lowers your pants, helping you step out of them, then slowly takes off your panties. His breath shudders at the sight of how wet you are, because it’s so obvious. He continues kissing your neck, but this time you can practically feel him smiling against you.

You crane your neck to look at him as you step out your panties, he tosses them gingerly to the side. “What’re you smiling about?”

“How turned on you are by this.”

You scoff, kissing him softly on the lips before walking over to the bed, you climb on top of Ryland, he holds onto you wherever he can so you don’t fall before you stabilise yourself.

You hover over his face slightly, and you watch as he admires your core. Simon walks over, standing to the side of the bed as he jerks off to the sight. 

You look down at Rylands face, pushing his hair out his eyes. “Want me to hover or really sit?”

He lifts his arms up to wrap around your thighs, trying to pull you down. He pleads. “Sit, please sit. Put it all on me, I want it so badly.”

You don’t need to be told twice, his arms bring you down fully and you immediately feel his tongue connect with your clit. Fuck, he’s a teacher, a teacher of science. He knows where everything is.

You let out a tiny gasp at how quickly he got to work, tongue running along your slit as he sucks your clit tenderly.

Simon puts his hand on your lower back, guiding you to slightly hump his face. “C’mon, ride his fuckin’ face.”

You like the way Simon’s thinking. You hold onto Ryland’s hair as you slowly grind on his face, you can hear him whimper softly under you. Your clit brushes up against his nose, you can feel his tongue go inside you momentarily.

You keep thrusting on his face, with the help of Simon’s hand. That’s right, fuck. Simon, you need to take care of him too.

You look over, smiling at him and his worked up expression. His hand is wrapped around his own cock, albeit he’s pumping pretty slowly, waiting for your hand to replace it.

Eventually it does, it’s kind of tricky, but as Grace eats you out your hand finds Simon’s cock, he shivers as your hand finally covers around it. You bob your hand against it nicely, smoothly. He leans his head back, groaning. 

“This is amazing.” He sounds.

“I agree.” You say in between moans and strokes.

Ryland would give his two cents if he weren’t so focused on circling his tongue around your clit, trying to keep up as your pussy moves back and forth against his face.

It’s an extremely hot thing to see, to watch. Simon grunts, almost leaning over. 

“Fuck- wait- I’m gonna cum-“ He gasps, half expecting you to stop.

“Go ahead.”

He whimpers as your thumb circles his tip in just the right way, his hips stuttering into your grip and cumming onto your thigh, narrowly missing Ryland’s face.

You continue stroking him for just a few moments before he whines and backs up, which you giggle at.

You feel yourself almost pushing over on Ryland’s face, but you don’t really want to finish yet, so you slow down on grinding on his face. You back up a bit to look down at him, and he’s looking right up at you.

You didn’t even realize how hard he was gripping your legs, you couldn’t get up even if you wanted to (unless you told him to let go, obviously).

Simon quivers as he backs up, wiping sweat off of his forehead. “That was- holy shit. I need a minute.”

You nod, “Go, sit down.” You gesture to a chair that’s facing the bed.

You didn’t intend to cuck Simon, really. But when you turned your head over your shoulder to watch him go sit down in the chair, you caught a glimpse of Ryland’s cock. And god, it was so fucking hard. It was practically twitching.

You knew the ship had condoms but… right now you didn’t really care. Was that bad to say? You were a teacher of children so, you know how important protection is but…

You tap Ryland’s hand on your thigh. “Hey, let go.”

He does, and you back up off of him. You crawl backwards on the bed towards his cock, straddling his waist. He sits up, his facial hair and even the tip of his nose is shiny with your wetness.

“What’re you-“

“Do you wanna fuck me, Dr. Grace?”

Simon chokes as he watches this, neither of them were expecting all of that to come out of this night. But in your mind it’s almost now or never.

Ryland stutters, wiping his mouth and shamelessly licking his lips. “I do- I do but, what about Simon? Should we wait til he’s… y’know?”

You hum, taking Ryland’s cock and lining it up with your entrance, god, his tip is entirely wet with precum.

Simon speaks up. “Yeah, shouldn’t we wait for Simon?”

You giggle, looking over your shoulder. “You can watch.”

You push yourself down on his cock. The combination of you being wet inside (from general arousal and from Grace eating you out like there’s no tomorrow), and the amount of precum on his tip makes it easy to get in.

You turn your head to look down at Ryland, who’s leaning his head back and gritting his teeth. “Crap- oh my god, oh my god you’re so tight.” He grips your thighs, one hand mixing in Simon’s cum.

“Am I?” You giggle, kissing his neck tenderly as you slowly lower yourself all the way down to the base. His cock- it’s definitely huge. It’s really impressive.

“Mhm. Feels so- so good…” Grace whimpers, lifting his head back up, when you pull away from his neck he kisses you tenderly, hands moving up to grab your ass.

You slowly lift your hips up, riding his cock smoothly. You pull away from the kiss to turn your head over your shoulder, watching Simon who’s harder than he’s ever been before. Though, his cock is still sensitive, because he’s just rubbing his thigh, not jerking off.

You turn your head back around to kiss Ryland softly, continuing to bounce and ride on his shaft. Your lips press against his sloppily, his mouth coated in your taste.

In your kiss, Grace moans into your mouth. “I love this- thank you, thank you- crap. Thank you so much.” His hips stutter upwards to meet yours as well. Chasing a high that you knew was coming.

Simon grunts at the sight of Ryland’s hips bucking, he spits on his hand, picking up the pace as he strokes his cock. “He’s about to cum. You can- shit- you can hear it in his voice.”

Ryland whined at Simon's words, now fully and sloppily meeting your hips halfway. “I am- ah- I’m gonna cum, I’m gonna cum seriously.” He warns you, he can’t control his own hips thrusting inside you.

You place your hands on his shoulders, bracing as you continue riding him. You kiss the corner of his mouth. “Cum inside.”

Ryland whimpers, shaking his head, narrowly missing your kisses. He’s trying to remain rational. “No- no are you crazy? You’ll get… ngh, you’ll get pregnant.”

You shake your head, grinding your hips onto his cock, which earns you a pathetic held back whine. “I don’t care. Really, it could be a- fuck, a scientific miracle, first… first baby in space… or something…” You bite your lip. “First space abortion, I don’t care just- fuck, just cum inside me Ryland.”

Ryland whimpers, but he no longer has it in him to resist. To argue with you. His arms are too weak right now to even try getting you off of him. No, his body is telling him to cum inside. So he does. After a few plaps he moans loudly as fucks himself deep into you roughly. spilling his warm load inside you harshly.

Simon keeps stroking his cock, gasping. “Fuck- I- this is so fucking hot.”

You turn your head over and smile at him, you obviously haven’t finished (though you’ve gotten extremely close), and you feel bad that Simon hasn’t experienced this either. You lift your hand, waving at Simon. “C’mere.”

Ryland shakes his head. “I can’t- I can’t do anything else. Sensitive…” He whimpers, and expects you to send him to the chair to watch Simon make you cum.

You slide Ryland’s cock out of you, you haven’t felt his cum dripping out of you yet, which means he definitely came extremely deep inside you. You shuffle off of him. “Stand up for me.”

He stands up slowly, getting off the bed. Despite his cock being coated in his own cum and your juices, he’s still incredibly hard.

You shuffle on the bed, stretching slightly and getting on your hands and knees. You wiggle your butt a little as you look over your shoulder at Simon, and glancing at Ryland.

You smirk at him, "In front of me, on the bed.” Back at Simon. “You get behind me.”

Simon scurries over to you, getting himself on the bed. His cock is glistening with his own precum and spit from jerking off to the sight earlier. He lines himself up with you. “So fucking pretty.” He grunts. “Thank you, you’re so gorgeous.”

Ryland hesitantly goes over to you, sitting on his knees in front of you with his cock in your face. “Be gentle. It’s really sensitive.” He warns, as you wrap your hand around the base of his cock.

His breath shudders as you slowly push his tip into your mouth, it’s wet and salty with precum, but you push him down to the midway of his shaft. He shudders, and chokes a soft whimper. “Gentle… please, I- I can’t-“

Simon rubs his tip along your slit for a moment, groaning. He forgets that he can slip it inside for a moment, but eventually he does. Earning a soft moan from you around Grace’s dick. He fills you up nicely. 

When he pushes himself fully inside you, you can truly feel how girthy he is. It’s one thing seeing it, but it’s another thing feeling him fill you up and stretch you fully. You gasp softly and he comments, “You’re so fucking tight, shit.”

The deeper Simon’s cock pushes into you, Ryland’s cum begins seeping out of the crevices, Simon’s dick is so big that it’s pushing Grace’s cum out of you, and you can fucking feel it. “Would you look at that…” He gasps softly as he watches.

Ryland whimpers loudly, his arms are shaking, he brings a hand up to cover his mouth. Tears begin to seep down his cheek and he embarrassingly tries to wipe them away.

“I ca- I, I can’t take it…” He whimpers, hyperventilating. “‘s too much, can’t… I can’t…”

“Fucking take it, Ryland. You can do it.” Simon grunts, gritting his teeth.

Rylands moans get louder at that, you hear a quiet ‘okay, okay I can take it’ leave his mouth. Simon smirks and begins to fuck into you a bit more rough, which makes you gag on Ryland’s cock unexpectedly.

Simon’s hand gently feels your ass as he fucks into you, it’s firm, his hand has sublte calluses on it from hard work.

You feel Ryland’s softer hand shakingly grip your hair in-between loud whimpers.

Simon leans his face in, Ryland meets him half way. The two share a loud, messy and sloppy kiss. Simon kisses Ryland through his overstimulation, maybe even licking some tears off his face. When they pull away, Simon looks back down at you.

Simon leans down, right over you. His large arm reaches under you and finds your clit, rather quickly. He rubs his fingers over it, starting gently but eventually circling it rather roughly to get you to the edge,

As he rubs your clit, his hips smack against you a bit harder, because he can tell that he’s found that sweet spot in your pussy by the way you’re moaning around Ryland with tears in your eyes.

Ryland whimpers as you continue sucking his dick, his hips are stuttering, thrusting subtly, but not face fucking you. No, it’s more like little twitches from how overwhelmed he is, because you can see him visibly shaking. “I- ah, I can feel you… mph…h… moaning on me…”

“C’mon, c’mon.” Simon grunts between thrusts and rubs. “You can do it, come on, cum on my cock, I know you- fuck, I know you wanna. Can fuckin’ feel it.”

Ryland moans softly as his hand finds its way running through your hair. “Please cum, please. Plleasse….” He whimpers.

Simon keeps hitting you just right, at a spot no one has ever hit before. They’re both right. You’re close. He rubs your clit thoroughly as he pushes you to the edge. When you finish around his pummeling cock, you finish hard. You moan loudly into Ryland, who whimpers at the sudden vibrations.

Your mind goes blank for a bit as he fucks you through your orgasm, you forget to suck Ryland’s dick, but he doesn’t seem to mind because your moans are keeping his cock twitching.

You only come back to reality when Simon starts pulling out of you, figuring he’d finish by hand. You push your hips back to meet him, keeping him inside of you. Insisting that he keeps fucking you til he cums.

“God- okay, god that’s- that’s attractive.” He nods though, meeting your hips back and fucking you. His pace is a bit rougher, sloppier, he’s no longer focused on trying to make you cum, because you just did. No, he’s trying to make himself finish.

Ryland whines, a soft whimper escaping his throat, tears are falling down his face. He doesn’t care anymore, he just wants to cum through this overstimulation. “I- I, g-ahh, fuck. I’m gonna cum, Simon I’m gonna cum.”

Simon grunts in between heavy thrusts, “I’m not… I’m not far behind you…” he growled, feeling himself tighten in your pussy.

Ryland leans in first over you, and Simon follows. The two of their lips meet as Simon continues fucking into you, and Ryland keeps letting you suck on his cock. They both finish at the same time, which you find extremely satisfying.

You hear Simon moan loudly into Ryland’s whiney mouth as he spills himself inside your pussy, he fucks himself through his orgasm, and Ryland holds your head down gently as he cums down your throat, his hips shaking at the worked-up orgasm.

The two pull out of you relatively at the same time, you feel the mix of their cum drip from your pussy, a small glob that makes you shudder. You managed to swallow all of Ryland’s cum though, and you wiped any drip from your chin.

Both of them watch you sit up on your knees, as you continue to wipe your mouth. You can’t believe that just happened, you’re practically cock drunk right now and your ears are ringing from how hard you just came. You hear Ryland’s voice first, “Are you okay?” He asks, worried, hands placing themselves on your thigh. He also wipes up Simon’s leftover cum while they’re there.

You nod, a soft ‘mhm’ spilling from your throat. You lean back into Simon’s arms.

You feel him kiss the top of your head as you lean back into him, his hands finding your hips. He whispers sweet words into your ear. “You did so good, so fucking good.”

Ryland joins, leaning forward and kissing your cheek. He’s smiling so hard right now, and his eyes are half lidded. “Thank you, so so so much for this.”

You nod sweetly into Ryland’s kiss, grabbing his face and kissing his lips properly. “You’re welcome. Can you get me a uhm… a change of pajamas?” Ryland nods sweetly, pulling away from your face as he gets up.

You giggle and sit up somewhat, looking back at Simon. “Honestly you guys should thank Rocky. He recommended I do this, he got pretty sick of you guys arguing, statement.” 

The two awkwardly look at each other, laughing in shock, like they can’t believe what you just said. Because truly, they can’t, they can’t believe this was Rocky’s idea.

Simon rubs his face, hands through his facial hair. He groans softly. “I guess we really needed this.” He sighs, standing up and finding his gray boxers. He lifts them up over his hips and over his softening cock.

After putting his own boxers on, Ryland finds a comfortable pair of pajamas and hands them to you neatly, along with a clean pair of panties, judging by how wet your other pair got. He smiles softly as you get up and start changing into them.

While you change, so do they. Grabbing their discarded shirts and putting them back on, despite all the wrinkles they’ve acquired from just laying on the floor.  

You watch as the both of them start putting their pants on, and you sit back down on the bed. “Wait, c’mere. Lay with me. I deserve a reward for finally solving your issues.” The two don’t need to be told twice, walking over to the bed in their boxers and t-shirts, how they usually sleep.

Simon crawls in beside you, and Ryland on the other side. It’s a very tight fit, they’re both big guys. But you make it work, because it’s warm, and it’s cozy. Despite the perverted things the three of you just did, it truly just feels like you all really needed this. You can shower and do any of that other stuff when you wake up.

You don’t even know where the guy came from, but before you knew it you were pressed up against a pillar with a gun to your head. You knew some shit like this would happen, especially parking in a spot that’s not only dark, but you’re pretty sure is out of view from the cameras.

If you make it out of this you’re gonna kill the person who took your spot.

The man smells of expensive cologne and beer. You wouldn’t put it past someone who robs people in parking decks to be drunk, but you don’t expect him to smell rich. Otherwise, why would he be robbing people.

You snap back to reality as the cold barrel presses further into your head. He’s feeling your pockets, this isn’t an assault case, no, that’s not what he wants. He just wants money, which you’re happy to give if it means nothing worse will happen.

Still, you can’t help but utter small pleas.

“Please- stop, I won’t call the police just st-“

“Shut the fuck up bitch.” He whispers with gritted teeth, pushing the barrel even further. That’s when you notice that his finger is on the trigger. Holy shit.

He’s serious.

If you try to fight he’s gonna pull that trigger.

At the thought of that you can’t help but tear up, just out of fear. It’s a bodies natural reaction. He finds your wallet in the pocket of your diner apron, smirking as he tries to flip through it with one hand.

“My ID is in the-“

“I’ll take that too.” You whine at that, a helpless beg filled with tears. He shakes the gun around recklessly as he threatens you. “If you tell anyone what I look like, what my car looks like, where this happened, I’ll personally come find and ki-“

His words are cut off by something- someone, smacking him harshly in the back of the head. A loud thud, you might’ve even heard a crack if you were a bit more focused.

His gun fires, but you’re lucky he was waving it around, because the bullet hits the concrete far off, and bounces off of another pillar.

You feel your heart race as you hyperventilate, the adrenaline pumping through you. You clench your heart and watch as the scene goes down.

Is that your neighbor?

You can’t see well through the tears, but he immediately gets the robber far from you, knocking him to the ground with the hit of a… is that a hammer?

The robber crawls away, and now he’s the one whining helplessly as your neighbor walks slowly over to him. The thief shakes his head, saying no, no, that he just needed money. 

The blonde, quiet, stoic man quietly walks over to him. The man he just hit is bleeding from the back of the head, but you don’t think he’s done. He crouches down, grabbing the man’s forearm, preventing him from moving.

With tight leather gloves he grabs your wallet from his hand, keeping him pinned down as he tosses it leisurely to the side, in a direction where you could safely go grab it.

Then, without another word, he lifts the hammer up and stabs the claw right into his wrist. He lets out a blood curling scream that doesn’t last very long because his hand covers his mouth immediately. 

You can’t help but look away at the sight, blood immediately begins to pour out from the man’s wrist. A deadly amount, you have no clue how hard your neighbor hit him but it was clearly enough to kill.

You don’t really understand why he didn’t just injure him and call the police while he was down. He’s resorted to literally killing the guy.

You don’t know how, but the gun ended up next to you on the ground, you’re guessing the robber dropped it when he fired it- when he got bludgeoned. 

You hastily pick it up, looking at your neighbor who’s still holding down the squirming robber, whose screams are muffled under his hand. Under the tension, the man’s blood is spirting into the air, it’s gross, and it seems like a long death.

“Do you need the gun?” You ask, the words come out fast. If you didn’t get it out immediately you weren’t sure if you ever would’ve been able to.

He looks over his shoulder, somewhat surprised. It’s not surprisal at the offer of the gun, but surprised that you’re still there. He would’ve expected you to run. He nods quickly without another word, holding out his free hand for the gun.

The robber screams, you can hear the words ‘no’ trying to escape his mouth into the glove as he takes the pistol from your hands. You immediately back up when it’s out of your hands.

Instead of immediately shooting the guy, he lifts the gun up and pistol whips him in the face, repeatedly, you’re sure you see a tooth chip. As the man cries out with blood running down his nose and teeth, your neighbor replaces his own hand with the gun.

Before he can even plead for his life, he fires it into his mouth.

The bullet goes through, and it doesn’t come out, that’s not what you notice though. The shot was obviously loud, all gunshots are. But this one had a silence to it.

Your eyebrows raise. The gun had a silencer on it. That man intended on killing you tonight.

You back away farther, away to a totally different pillar, and at an even darker spot of the parking garage.

The man stands up slowly, making sure that the robber is very clearly dead. He then looks over his shoulder, seeing you. He drops the gun and grabs the wallet you never picked up, he’s coming over to you. You have no clue if he’s safe, but judging how you offered him a gun and he just dropped it, you don’t think he’ll kill you.

He rushes over to you, handing you your wallet, his face is less serious, it looks worried. He whispers sweet nothings at your heavy breaths.

“I’m so sorry…” He gasps, looking absolutely upset that you seem so… so scared. “I didn’t want you to see that, I’m sorry.” Before you can think, his hands shakily find your waist, a not-so-subtle attempt at pulling you into a hug.

It’s hesitant, unknowing, like he doesn’t know how you’ll react, giving you plenty of room to push him away.

And you don’t know if it’s the adrenaline, how he looks with a bloodied white jacket and veins pulsing from spots like his neck and one spot on his forehead, but you kiss him. 

It’s messy, and shocking at first. His feet stumble, his grip on your waist tightens. And his eyes stay open for a shocking amount of time. For a moment, it’s just you kissing, his lips are still.

You’re beginning to second guess this whole thing until he kisses back. Roughly. His hands grip you tightly on your sides, feeling you up and down. Blood getting on your apron, but it’s okay, you can wash it. You don’t care.

His lips are hungry against your timid ones, your hands are shaking as they hold his cheeks, and his arms hold you surprisingly firmly for someone who just killed someone.

He pushes you up against a column, turning you in a way that you won’t have to see the cold-growing corpse of the man who tried to rob you. In your mouth, he moans apologies. You’ve never heard him speak this much.

“I’m sorry…” He whines into your lip, “I’m so sorry…” You can’t tell if he’s apologizing because of the fact that you watched him kill someone, or if he’s just sorry that this happened at all.

You bite his bottom lip softly, and you swear you can hear a whimper leave his lips, because his fingers tighten on your hips. When you let go, you whisper. “It’s okay… it’s okay, I’m okay. You saved me.”

He almost buckles at your last words. He saved you, that’s right. He did. He feels honored to have been the one to save you, too. His head leans down, finding the crook of your neck and kissing it hungrily. He’s been craving this, you can tell. And he doesn’t care about the circumstance, if he doesn’t act with this adrenaline now, he never will.

As he gets closer to you, you can feel how hard he is in his denim jeans, you swallow, and he can tell you noticed it, because his kissing falters shyly.

“It’s not from… it’s not from killing him.” He struggles to say it. “It’s, it’s the adrenaline and the kissing. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” You speak quickly, moaning into the parking deck. “No, don’t. Please. I- I like it.” You admit in a soft whimper. 

His head tilts up, and he leans back to look at you. His expression is one of shock, he can’t believe your words. The fact that you like him being hard, from adrenaline and a little bit of kissing?

He doesn’t know what to say, so he goes back to kissing you. This time, on the lips again. It feels different, because his hands are exploring you. Feeling the curvature of your hips, it almost doesn’t feel sexual. 

It feels like he’s trying to memorize you.

With just his touch.

Fuck, that’s hot.

You move your hips slightly against his knee that’s conveniently found its spot against your legs. The action catches him off guard, but he’s not turned off by it. No. No not in the slightest.

He can feel his cock throb at the small action.

You hear a car drive into the parking deck, and your heart drops a bit. Lucky for you, this is literally the darkest spot in the deck. Infact, the dead body is just out of view too.

Your neighbor covers your mouth, with a now bare hand (you’re not really sure when he slipped the glove off) waiting for the car to fully drive away, before he gets closer to you, whispering. “Are you sure about this?”

You nod your head, pushing his hand away softly. “Mhm.”

“Okay, we can go back to your apartm-“

“No.” You whine, grinding against his leg again, which makes him moan loudly just at the concept. “Here. I want you now I, I can’t wait.”

He looks unsure, he bites his lip, hard, you think it may bleed. It’s risky, not only is it public indecency, but the dead body of the man he just killed is… in his view. Which doesn’t really do anything for his arousal.

“..Okay. But we have to go to a different spot.”

You blink for a moment before it registers, you don’t have to turn over your shoulder to understand why.

The two or you sneakily look around to make sure no one’s around, before walking to an area of the deck where there’s… shit, there’s only one car here. You didn’t even know this part of the deck existed.

“I park here.” He states. “No cameras, no one comes here.” He states firmly, as if reading your mind. You nod your head, you don’t really understand why he does park here, but you don’t wanna know. Not after watching what you just did, you can only assume the worst like him being a psycho killer or something.

He clicks his car keys, and you whine as he leaves you untouched. He throws his gloves and bloody hammer into the backseats, not even caring about the blood on his carpet floors. Then he starts slipping off the white jacket covered in blood, and you have to speak quickly before it slips off.

“No- no leave it on.”

He stares at you blankly, before you explain. “It’s hot… especially with the blood and stuff.”

You don’t have to tell him twice, he walks back over to you quickly, pushing you up against a third different pillar this time. He immediately gets to work, he locks his car again as his tongue is exploring your mouth. His keys find their way back into his pocket, and his hand rubs up against your groin softly.

You buck your hips into the touch, showing him that yes, you do want this. He reaches up, lifting your apron above your head, and untying it behind your back as it arches into him. He slips it off onto the floor.

In the proper conditions, he’d be more of a gentleman. He’d kiss you tenderly, he’d undress you slowly and softly, but right now all he can do is rush. He fears being caught, even though he knows nobody will come back here. They never do.

He rubs his fingers against your jeans, hands veiny, and much bigger than yours. It’s almost intimidating, you can’t help but shudder at the touch.

They inch up to the waistband of your jeans, looking at you intently. “Can I..” He whispers against your mouth, and before he even finishes his sentence you nod, pursing your lips into a line.

Despite the conditions, and with shaken hands, he unbuttons your jeans slowly, zipping them down. He’s supposed to be rushing, he’s supposed to get this over with, but he can’t help but treat you delicately.

His hands slide underneath your panties, you definitely weren’t expecting this to happen, so it’s not like you’re wearing your sexiest pair. He doesn’t care though, he doesn’t even notice.

He’s staring at you, intently in your eyes as his fingers slide up and down your slit, he watches your eyelids widen, how your eyebrows curve, he looks at how your mouth opens, and the tiny gasp that comes with the warm touch of his fingers.

“You’re wet.” He says. You don’t really know what to say to that, because of course you’re wet? With him touching up on you like this?

His thumb presses neatly onto your clit, rubbing soft and subtle circles. It’s not enough, you feel like you want more of him already. You want to study the curvature of his-

Your thoughts are interrupted by a finger, pressing into you slightly. It doesn’t last long, but he takes it out. It’s like he noticed you zoning out, and did that just to make you refocus. “What were you thinking about?” He whispers against your mouth, almost possessively. 

You swallow, hoping to get some saliva in your dry throat. “You.” You choke out.

His thumb moves a bit more intently against your clit. “I’m right here.” He states, matter of factly.

“That’s not what I meaa-ah-…fuck.” You gasp, holding eye contact with him as his finger goes into you fully, curling into that spot behind your clit. 

“What did you mean then?” He asks quietly, his velvet voice sounding like music to your ears.

You whine, turning your head to the side, against the cold concrete pillar. You don’t wanna answer, not with his finger inside you like that, pressing against you. Your hips can’t help but betray you as they grind softly, feeling his thumb press against you harder.

“Tell me…” He gasps, still trying to hold your gaze, looking a bit disappointed as you look away from him meekly. “Please tell me.”

You glance his way, he looks… you can’t put a finger on it. Whatever expression he’s giving you is one of arousal and desperation, his eyebrows are furrowed with a quivered lip. He’s getting off on this, 100%, he loves seeing you like this. He loves the adrenaline of being in a public place doing this.

But he’s so needy, he’s desperate and he’s definitely greedy. 

He wants you to tell him. He wants you to look at him so fucking badly.

“Your…” You choke on your words, looking away from him at first, but it hits you that looking in his eyes while you say it would probably earn an extremely sexy reaction. So you turn your head back to him, lips almost touching. He backs up a little so he can get a good look at your face while you say it, his fingers continuing to work.

“Your cock. I was thinking of your cock.” You admit, a shy expression on your face but still doing your best to hold his eyes. His breath falters, you can hear it, you can almost hear his heart stop briefly.

His hands pause, and you whine at the temporary loss of rhythm, until he sticks another finger in. Just at the thought his hands are shaking, moving at a faster pace against your clit, going in and out of you as they curve.

“Really? You were… you were thinking about that?” He asks, almost in disbelief. He needs to hear you say it.

You nod, biting your lip to stifle a moan. “Yes- yes I was.”

He gasps again, his free hand finding the pillar wall to hold himself up. For the first time his eyes move away from yours, because his forehead finds itself in the crook of your neck meekly. 

“Say it again.. please…” He whines softly.

You can’t say it as clearly as you did earlier, because his hands are moving so rapidly now against your wetness. “I was… I was thinking about yo-your cock….”

He makes a high pitched noise, a whimper? It’s stifled by the crook of your neck, and by him biting his lip.

He lifts his head up, you grind against his hand again. His mouth opens to say something, he can’t think of anything super sexy to say right now. You notice his lip is bleeding from how hard he was biting it.

You shakily bring your hand down to his crotch, he moans loudly in the parking deck as you touch him, palming him softly as he fingers you.

In the exchange of touching eachother, you lean in to kiss him. You can taste the metallic wetness of his lip, how hard he was fighting to stifle a moan only made him bleed. You aren’t turned off by the taste though, for whatever reason.

“Fuck me.” You whisper into the kiss. “…please.” You add meekly.

His fingers pause, he backs his head away, looking you in your eyes. “Really?”

You appreciate his need to get double confirmation, but you don’t really have the time for that. You squeeze his cock through his denim jeans. “Yes. Now.” You say.

His movement stutters, but he slowly pulls his fingers out of you. “I have to take your jeans off.” He whispers. 

“I know.” You whisper back.

He nods slowly, hesitantly. How could a man with so much concern and thought not only kill someone in a parking deck, but be willing to fuck you in that same place?

He crouches down, unzipping his own fly just to give his boner some relief. But right now you’re the priority. You can see the bulge of his boxers poke out through the opening, you can’t help but bite your lip at it.

He crouches down, gently lowering your jeans. You lift one foot up, he slowly takes off the shoe simply to make it easer to pull your jeans down. When they’re off, he tosses them with your apron, tossing the shoes on top of them.

It’s awkward, it’s kind of cold. The cold air hits you even harder when he starts pulling your panties down, you shudder at the rigid air that hits your already wet core. He must hear you hiss, because you hear him whisper softly. “I know, I know.” against that spot.

You can feel his hot breath against you as the last opening of your panties goes over your foot, and he sets that aside with your other clothes.

“Should…” He stands up again, fully, getting ready to take his cock out. “Should I take my pants and underwear off too?”

It’s a genuine question, he seems really unsure. You stifle a laugh, you know he’s just asking because he feels kind of bad. “No, no. It’s better you don’t, if someone drives by they’d just see your bare ass cheeks.”

He doesn’t really react much. It just looks like he doesn’t know what to say. He palms himself through his boxers before thinking about how to go about this. He mumbles a brief ‘hold on’ before taking his cock out. You don’t get a chance to look at it before you feel him lifting you up.

You don’t really know how he does it, you feel his hand on your thighs, your legs instinctively buckle up to wrap around his back, your arms were already around his neck because you expected a kiss, but now they’re gripping him tight as hell.

“I’ve got you, I’ve got you.” He says, pushing you against the concrete a bit more firmly. “Brace.”

That’s a weird way to tell you, but you feel his tip press against your entrance. He pushes himself into you slowly, so slowly. He’s thick, he’s fucking thick. You gasp at the entrance, as he pushes and spreads you open.

“Fuck-“ You hiss, and he pushes his lips into yours. He gets himself all the way to the base, and you realize just how big his cock in general is, bigger than you would’ve imagined.

You feel squished, pressed into a wall of concrete and penetrated by—what you would later describe to your friends as—a huge fucking cock.

“Gonna move…” He whispers as he pulls away from the kiss, you nod and he begins thrusting in and out of you. They’re slow and subtle movements, he doesn’t pull out entirely and slam into you, no, it’s like he’s slightly shuffling inside you. Like he doesn’t know how to do this.

He’s studying you. He’s trying to learn.

And you realize.

“Have you…” You bite your lip. “Have you done this before?” His hips falter subtly. And he shakes his head no, pursing his lips.

You’ve caught him, and he doesn’t know what to do. You lean in, kissing him briefly and softly. “It’s okay, it’s okay.” You reassure him. “Was just curious, you can-you can move a bit more.”

He nods quietly, bringing himself back and pushing himself inside you slowly. His hips find a steady rhythm, moving in and out of you, hitting spots you would’ve never been able to hit with just your fingers.

You gasped into him as he sped up, you moaned softly, and you decided it’d be best to just hold on tight and bury your head into the crook of his neck. He continues with that exact pace because of your reaction. 

You hugged onto him tightly, almost like you were gonna fall, or you were simply trying to process how much dick was inside you.

Between his calculated thrusts, you heard him whisper. “Mm- you okay?” He asked, clearly unfocused to his own pleasure, no matter how good this feels for him. No, he’s worried about you.

“Yeah- yeah, can you… ah- can you go harder?”

He pushes you up against the concrete wall harder, God, it’s so fucking cold on your back but he’s starting to hit spots deeper than you thought you could go.

You whine and break softly under his sharp hips. His head dips at your shoulder, lapping at the crook of your neck. He began sucking your neck softly as he fucked you, but remembered that you have a job to be at.

When he pulled away there was only a faint mark, so nothing obvious. He moved into your mouth, kissing you messily.

His hands gripped your legs tightly as he held you up, you’ve never felt so secure in the embrace of a man. His adrenaline is still pumping, the closer he gets to run his tongue against your lips the harder you can hear his heartbeat against his chest.

His hips made a soft slapping noise every-time they hit against your thighs in the echo of the parking deck, fuck, you forgot you were even in public right now.

When he pulled away from the kiss, there was a thin string of saliva between you both. His eyes were focused so intensely on you. On the way your face looked when you let out soft moans into his ear.

Something about the way your face, your eyes looked at him, tears building up from him hitting you just right. He could cum just from looking you in your eyes.

That’s when you heard the sound of cars.

His thrusts slowed, his head perked up. Normally, nobody comes around here. If he got caught like this- fuck, if you got caught like this. He’d never forgive himself.

Despite the threat, he still grinds his hips slowly into you, which honestly makes you want to moan even more. You wanted him to speed up, you didn’t even care if someone saw you. 

He whispered against your ear. “Shhh…” Oh he was so hot.

His head peeked around the pillar as best as he could. His breaths were heavy with each slow grind, each agonizing pull and push of his shaft.

You heard the noise of a car door open and close. His face was a lot more focused, it seemed fearful. You wanted to know what he was seeing to make this expression.

You heard a voice, in the fogginess of his tip grinding against your g-spot every now and then, you couldn’t really make out the man’s accent. “Fuck, he killed him.”

Your breath hitched, your neighbor kissed you softly to cover up the gasp. It was hot, why are you so turned on? You should put your clothes on and leave, but you can’t help it. When he pulled away he whispered against you, so quietly, you don’t think you could even hear. “It’s okay. I’ll explain everything when we’re done. We’re safe.” He hopes.

You hear the sound of dragging against rough concrete floor, whatever leather jacket the robber was wearing is getting torn up by it. A soft thud that matches up with your neighbor’s cock hitting you just right, and it covers up a soft gasp that leaves your mouth.

He’s getting you to the edge, so slowly.

“I can’t, I’m gonna cum-“ You moan softly. He kisses you again, whispering against your mouth.

“Hold it, they’ll leave soon. Then you can cum on my cock. Just hold it.”

His words would’ve made you cum if this weren’t the circumstance. You whine softly into his mouth, he can’t just say things like that to you and expect you not to finish.

You hear the men in the distance continue to talk. “I swear.” One of them says, you think there’s multiple, “When we find that guy I will make sure he never walks again.” The car door slams shut. The wheels skirt and grow more distant.

He picks up the pace, the further the car gets the harder he fucks into you. You gasp.

“Are- were they talking a-“

“They won’t get me.” He assures you in between sloppy thrusts. “That’ll never happen. I’ll be fine.” He pushes himself all the way to the base. “You’ll be fine.”

Now is not the time to be assuring you, but he fucks into you with such sloppiness and presumably adrenaline that you don’t have time to worry about the apparent criminals on the hunt for him.

You hold on tight, gripping his jacket. “Fuck- I- I’m gonna cum.”

He nods, continuing. His thrusts are slowly becoming less calculated and more ragged. He leans in as he pushes you to the edge, catching you in an open mouthed kiss. Your tongue missed his lips half the time, brushing up against the corner of his lips. He didn’t care though.

Your legs wrapped around him hard, best they could, you hugged him tightly and moaned into his mouth as he pushed you over, finishing all over his thick cock.

He didn’t stop though, he didn’t slow down as you came hard around him. Legs shaking as your ears ring slightly, you’ve never came that hard. You can’t believe the hardest you’ve ever came was in a parking lot.

He still pumps into you harshly, chasing his own orgasm. He’s mumbling apologies, probably because he knows how sensitive he’s hitting certain spots inside of you.

“I- fuck-“ You moan against his ear, tears streaming down your face.

“I’m sorry- I’m sorry.” He actually whines, that stoic voice of his cracks softly against your ear. He grips you so tightly, like you’ll disappear if he doesn’t hold onto you as he fucks you into overstimulation.

“I’m gonna cum…” He admits, fucking you. “I’m- ah-I’m almost done where… where can I-“

“Inside.” You moan into his ear, and his thrusts grow faster as he moans a soft ‘oh fuck’ at your words.

“I can’t- no I ca-“ He gasps, holding his orgasm in slightly, he doesn’t wanna get you pregnant, but the idea of burying his cum inside you sounds extremely appealing to him right now. “Pregnant…” Is all he can manage, but you get the point.

“I don’t care right now.” You gasp, it comes out in a moan but he still hears it. “You- you killed a guy to-fuck-today, and, and you live next door so…” You wince, whining softly as he picks up the pace at your words, “It’ll be fine, just- please, I need it…”

You don’t have to tell him again, you don’t even have to say anything, because he ends your words with another sloppy kiss. It’s barely a kiss, he just presses his mouth against yours, tongue and hot breath feeling on you as he fucks into you with a few more sharp thrusts.

Eventually, he lets out a whine, a moan, you don’t even know what to call it, into your mouth. He buries his cock deep inside you, all the way to the base. He feels your pussy pulse around him, and he pumps you to the core.

He winces, hissing into your mouth at the pleasure. He gives you a few soft kisses as he slowly grinds his cum into you. His breath comes out in shuddered pulses as he slowly pulls out of you.

You feel so empty, feeling him leave. your pussy had just gotten used to how thick his cock was that it feels empty without it. You feel his cum almost pour out of you, you brace to stand on the concrete but he continues holding you.

You’re not sure how, he’s incredibly smooth and quick, but he continues carrying you with stumbled legs and pulls his keys out his pocket. He opens his passenger seat and with shaking arms, he sets you down to sit. Sitting on a nice leather seat feels amazing after that, you think your back may have a few scratches from the rough column he was fucking you on.

His cock is still hard too, you get a glance at it as he walks off to get your clothes from the floor. It’s dripping with your wetness and his cum, he must’ve come a lot because you can feel a glob of it drip from you.

You look down as it gets on his leather seat, you’re not sure what to do about it.

You scoop it up with two fingers, he comes back with his boxers on, pants (albeit unzipped) on, and your clothes in his arm. He watches as you scrape his cum up from the leather seats.

“You don’t have to worry about tha…” His words trail off as you lick it off your fingers. It tastes salty, like a man with a good balanced diet. It doesn’t taste amazing but, cum isn’t really supposed to.

His breath shudders as he watches, and he gets on the ground, on one knee and holding your panties.

He lifts up one of your legs, pushing it through the hole as he redresses you. “I’m sorry.” He said.

“Why?”

“I don’t think you expected your night to go like this.” Is all he manages. “Lift your hips, please.” You do, and he slides the panties back onto your hips. He clears his throat. “I would change when you get back to your apartment I just… I don’t want you walking back naked or anything.”

You nod in understanding as he begins putting your pants back on in the same manner. You think of how to respond to everything.

“I didn’t, but I liked everything. Besides getting robbed.”

“Right…” He nods shyly. “I’m sorry, those guys they…” He hisses, trying to think of how to put it.

“You don’t have to tell me details, y’know.” And he nods, letting out a soft sigh of relief.

But you continue talking. “I assume you’re involved in some shady shit. I just… why’d they come for me?”

He shrugs, “I don’t know. Because every time they come for me it doesn’t work, I guess.” He sighs, feeling like he said so much. You’ve never seen him talk this much. He looks back up at you. “You don’t… you don’t have to worry. I’ll make sure you’re safe, this won’t happen again.”

His words hit you harshly, they’re less hot and more… romantic. You physically can’t help the blush that creeps up on you, so you cover your face as he zips up your fly.

He starts putting your shoes back on. “You don’t want your apron do you?” You shake your head. This is extremely romantic, how he dresses you after this. You’re glad he didn’t just walk off.

He stands up fully, pulling his pants up more and zipping his own denim fly over his now half-hard cock. He opens the car door wider. “Can you walk?”

“I think so,” You say, he holds out his hand—that’s now gloved—for you to grab. You don’t know when he put the gloves back on, but you can hear the leather squeak softly as you grab it.

Your legs are definitely shaking, but you think you’re okay to walk.

He takes you around the parking deck to the elevator after he locks his car, going a way where you won’t have to see the blood ran through tire tracks from the man who tried to hurt you. It’s a long walk, and neither of you say anything.

You don’t say anything in the elevator ride, or on the way back to your rooms. You dig into your apron pocket for your wallet and key, it feels like a normal walk with your neighbor.

He glances at you, and you catch his eyes. Both of you want to say something, and for once you wait for him.

He clears his throat. “I would like to do that again. Properly. With a date and a…a bed. I want to treat you right.”

His words come out hesitant, like he understands if you don’t want to. But you just nod, you might as well get used to the idea of dating him, because his cum is dripping into your panties right now.

You glance over at The Convict, who isn’t worried about you anymore. His eyes are stricken with fear as he shakes, you hear him mumble “You can’t send me back there.” between heavy breaths.

A loud thud can be heard, and you both feel yourselves rising into the air. She really meant it when she said to drop you both.

You go down faster than you went up, for a moment it felt like you were flying, like you could get away from this place and maybe to heaven.

Then your face hit the ground.

Ringing is all you hear, you landed right on your stomach and your cheek, you’re sure it’s about to turn a new shade of purple with the amount of bruises you’re withstanding. Sure, The Butcher was wrong for blasting them with radiation, and you were wrong for not telling him about the radiation (which wasn’t your responsibility).

But do you deserve getting thrashed around in a container like trash?

After the initial hit, you feel nothing but throbbing in your stomach. Your face hurts too, but the pressure of having it pressed against the cold floor is relieving it somewhat. You don’t want to lift your head, your torso, any part of your body. You think you hit your knee a little hard too now that the adrenaline is wearing off.

You wish the first aid kit on this sub was useful for bruises, there’s not much you can do for that. You can apply pressure, or get ice. But ice wouldn’t stay frozen in the slightest down here. The floor that was once cold against your cheek is slowly turning hot from the bubbling blood.

As the silence and ringing fades, you hear groaning. You know it’s The Convict. As you lie still on your stomach, you watch him roll over on his back, shoulder to shoulder with you. Though, he’s not paying you any attention.

You see the pain in his eyes, and figure this must all be more painful for him, he’s somehow managing to get hit in the worst spots. He brings a hand up to his mouth, and when he pulls it away you see a vibrant shade of red over his palm.

Your eyes widen, that can’t be good. It either means internal bleeding (not much you can do with a first aid kit) or… something busted in his mouth? Blood on this ship isn’t good anyway.

You’re already surrounded by it, you don’t want to add to it.

You’re both still registering sound, like deaf people experiencing it for the first time. While looking at The Convict, you see the speaker light up. For a moment, you have no idea what Ava’s saying. You just know there’s someone talking.

Then, you realize it’s not Ava. It’s David.

Like this expedition couldn’t get any fucking worse.

You roll over slightly, hesitantly, pins and needles on every little bruise.

“Come on Convict you can’t be too upset.” David says, you can hear his fucking smirk. You watch The Convict turn his head to better listen to him. “Kind of a fair play after what you did.”

You lie on your back, catching your breath, seeing The Convict wipe blood from his mouth made you pretty paranoid about internal bleeding yourself, but you don’t taste blood, and you don’t feel the need to spit any up.

The Convict rolls over completely onto his stomach, pushing himself, hands on the floor, knees bent slightly. He’s hunched over.

“Ah shit are you still alive?” David hesitates to ask, not seeming genuinely worried.

“Fuck off.” The Butcher replies, his mouth wet with the blood he spits onto the floor.

“Ahhh, there you are.” David replies cockily. You miss Ava so much.

The Convict glances over at you, he’s breathing heavily as blood drips down from his mouth, glistening on his beard softly. You think he’s gonna help you up, or ask if you’re okay. But he doesn’t. The two of you spend a moment staring at eachother, heavily breathing.

What does he think of you?

“Beginning the descent.” Is the last thing you hear before the sounds of metal shifting all around you begin.

The Hull tilts as the depth meter lowers, and you hear David say ‘huh…’ over the microphone.

“Uhhhh… you uh, you gotta close the porthole shield man.”

You lift your head up slowly, you can’t be hearing this right. Is the Hull having connection issues? If so that’s like, the worst thing right now. One connection issue means the possibility for a lot more. You’re still dizzy, which you shouldn’t be, you’re not the one who spat up blood.

But you look at The Convict, and he’s standing just fine. He’s not looking at you anymore, that moment has passed. If you had told him about the radiation, maybe he would’ve helped you up. But he’s starting to realize you’re not his friend, and that you’re just another cog in the machine.

“Hello?” The man over the microphone repeats, “Convict!”

You start to sit up on the floor, glancing to the puddle of blood and up at The Convict. “You need to close it Convict.” You add your two cents. “Otherwise there will be a Hull bre-“

David interrupted you, “I got it. I’m filling in for the Captain, not you, Engineer.”

Damn. You rub your head, mumbling a tiny apology. You forget that your job isn’t to help The Convict, it’s just to make sure the sub runs smoothly, and to make sure you write everything down. Maybe even assist in medical where you can.

Not sure you can do much about internal bleeding.

“This is serious.” David repeats to The Convict. “Close the shield!”

“Is this David?” The Convict asks, and you whip your head back around to him. He’s not really supposed to address them by their names, the only reason he knows David’s name or who he is because you told him.

That’s your ass right there. Your job. Your life that he’s playing with.

“Who told you that?”

“Where’s the other one?” The Convict asks, no emotion in his tone other than curiosity.

David is stunned into momentary silence, “The- the other one, you talkin’ about Jack?” No, he was talking about Ava, he doesn’t even know Jack personally, Jack has never spoken over the speaker. “The guy you eradiated?”

“The Captain…” You mumble, rubbing your head. “Not Jack, where’s the-“

“Captain is taking Jack to medical, you would know that if you would just let me speak. Engineer. So now I’m in charge, and my first order is for The Convict to close the fucking shield.”

You hate him.

The Convict glanced to you, before stumbling over to the desk, bending over and looking for the button. “Why can’t you do it?” He asks David.

“It’s not responding.” He says, and you can hear him practically grit his teeth through his words, “Which is why we have you, is it closed?”

You listen to the metal gears shifting, “Yes… it’s closed.” The Convict whispers, falling down into his pilot chair.

“Now we’re gonna give you about thirty minutes to go get that sample before we pull you back up. Don’t worry, I know ramming it sounds scary but that sub can handle it, isn’t that right Engineer?”

“Yes…” You reply softly, standing up slowly and moving to sit down in your chair.

“Exactly. Because Jack is good at his job, atleast, he was. Engineer, you’re gonna have to be the one in charge now, y’know?” He laughs, like it’s funny. But The Convict clenches his fist, you look at the veins that are popping through his skin.

“You didn’t think that it was important to tell me that your camera radiation gun?” He’s talking to David, but he turns his head to look at you.

You can’t look at him, but his gaze is strong. You want to tell him. Convict I’m sorry they ordered me to only say what I had to and to not tell you anything! I’m sorry! That’s what you want to say, but you don’t, because David is listening. And so will Ava. And you will always be listened to, until you die.

“That wa…” He sighs, loudly into the speaker, “That shouldn’t have happened at all. The camera’s wired into the black box but the… the engineers must’ve wired it into the backup battery, I don’t know. We were in a rush.”

“Things are somehow faster when I don’t know what I’m doing.” The Butcher says, sarcastically.

You want to tell him to maybe read the fucking manual they gave him on how the ship works.

But you don’t.

Instead, you write.

“Honestly if I were in charge you would know more.” David spits, and God you’re glad he’s not. “That’d actually get us some results, but I’m not. I’m just another cog in the machine. But, y’know…

This is bigger than us.” He finishes.

The Convict can’t help but let out a small chuckle at the same line he’s heard over and over since he got captured. “So I’ve heard.” He scoffs.

“Look.” David spits into the microphone, “Can’t we just agree this is important? Filament Station was a bad loss but, imagine if we could actually rebuild it. Even you could be a part of that!”

The way he says it, with such passive aggressiveness, like The Convict is subhuman in his voice. You can tell that he’s thinking the same thing, in the way he furrows his eyebrows, in the loss of light in his eyes.

“I read your report, you surrendered. You weren’t fooled by Eden’s bullshit. All their talk about ‘the last tree.’”

The Convict turns his head around, facing the speaker, giving it a look like David could see his face. “It’s not about the tree. I…” He pauses, turning back to the control panel. His voice is quivery, unsure, “Eden gave me a tattoo, the COI made me burn it off.

I didn’t choose either of them.”

You don’t write his words down, because you don’t feel they need to be documented. You look up at him, he refuses to look at you. If only he knew that you understood him, his perspective. Not choosing either of them.

You’re not patriotic towards the COI, you didn’t choose it.

Neither did he.

“But I still get a scar.” He pauses, no longer facing the speaker at all, just focused on speaking. “Since the Quiet Rapture, none of us got a choice.”

“Hey look at that, there’s at least something we can agree on.”

David agreeing with The Convict, and unknowingly you? You want to barf in your mouth at the idea of being on the same page as David of all people. But it’s somewhat comforting knowing someone you hate so deeply has the same opinion and… sort of perspective as you.

“The Captain’s had a stick up her ass since the Quiet Rapture but… she cares about her crew. Some more than others but… y’know.”

The Convict glances at you, mumbling a ‘yeah, right,’ because he knew it was true. She favored Jack over you, sparing his life and his talents and sending you down to die.

The Convict pushes himself up, turning around. “Can you at least tell me if this thing’s blasting me with radia…” He pauses. Staring at the back of the sub. Fear invading his pupils.

“Nooo, the Hull’s thick enough, the blood will suck it up anyway.”

You glance to the back, trying to see what he’s looking at with such fear, you see nothing.

David keeps talking, but The Convict isn’t listening. Neither are you, you’re scared for whatever he saw in the back. While he slowly walks to approach it, you rise slowly, following far behind, curious but just as scared, if not more.

He keeps talking.

And talking.

“Shut the fuck up.” The Convict whispers through gritted teeth to the speaker.

David is silent.

“Excuse me?”

The speaker starts cutting and glitching, you can hear curses leave David’s mouth, telling The Convict to go fuck himself as you two go deeper and deeper into the blood.

His hand finds the fire extinguisher, tugging at it a bit before ripping it off the wall. Is he gonna use that as a weapon?

“What’re you..”

“Shh!” He turns around to look at you, and you jump slightly. His vibe is completely different, but you understand he thinks he’s in danger.

Nothing should’ve been able to get in here. The Hull is welded shut, what does he think he sees? Some sort of monster?

It’s the radiation and the pressure getting to his head, you’re sure.

It’s taking longer for you, because the COI feeds you well balanced meals. You’re sure the prisoners get scraps that the COI has left, he’s running off of little food and most likely little water, unlike you.

He breathes heavily, turning back around. After a few moments of him building up his courage, he jumps out, looking into the dark corner of the sub.

You’re aware of what’s back there.

You didn’t say anything because, well, you didn’t think it was important.

He continues to breathe heavily, he sees no creatures or monsters. He clicks the radiation photography button to bring some light to the small corner, he stares at the computer for a moment, and looks at you.

“What is this?”

Now that you’re thinking about it, you glance to your chair. You pause when you see the clipboard isn’t on the seat anymore, it must’ve fallen somewhere during the submarine shaking. Your eyes land near The Convict’s leg.

“Convict.” A whisper falls from your lips. His head turns slightly at the title, but he doesn’t say anything, just giving you his eyes to know he’s acknowledging your words. “Can you hand me my clipboard and pen?”

“Uh, yeah. Sure thing.” He picks the clipboard up off the floor, and leans over to grab your pen that had rolled under the instrument’s desk. He passes it to you, and you nod your head as a thank you. Choosing not to verbalize it, as to not make too much noise.

While the submarine slowly rises to the surface again, you write down everything that’s happened so far, as well as you can remember it in the best details you possibly can. It’s all a blur now, your job was to write things down when they happen, you assumed, because now that it’s only been a few minutes, your memory is getting fuzzy.

While you write down the blurry details of what just happened, you can hear The Convict’s breathing fasten, and you look up. Maybe he thinks that they’re being let out, so he’s seeing now as the time to freak out. But you know Ava will send you back down. This isn’t the first sub she’s brought back up just to send back down. It’s like she gets off on the false hope she gives Convicts.

Still, The Convict is breathing and gripping onto his thigh like their oxygen is renewable. They didn’t put any back up oxygen on this ship. Once it’s out, it’s out. The COI doesn’t care about you two anymore.

His shaken breaths echo in the quiet submarine, and for a while it’s the only sound, until Ava speaks.

“Bringing you in now.” She states.

The Convict glances around, waiting for something to happen, to hear a chainsaw so they’ll break you both out of this submarine. Instead, he just hears sounds of metal shaking and creaking.

“Okay…” A gasp escapes his lips, chasing oxygen, “Okay… Uh… so now what?” He glimpses from you to the speaker, and a thud interrupts your thoughts.

The shield slowly opens, blood covering the glass pane. You stand up along with The Convict to see Ava on the other side, wiping the blood off to get a good look at you two.

The Convict has forgotten about you, now there’s a window to the outside. His saving grace is no longer you or the button, it’s Ava. If he can just convince her to let him out, and maybe you too, then he’s free. “Hey..” He says to Ava, “So, uh.. so what’s the deal, am I done?”

Do you need to write down the conversation? Since you’re in direct line of sight with Ava, you decide to, just to look busy.

“How’s your oxygen?” She asks, completely disregarding his question.

Like you knew, you both aren’t getting out of here, you’ll be sent back down.

“Uh.. uhm…” He stammers, shocked that Ava just completely ignored his question. But instead, he replies. “Uh, yeah, I’m down a leg… and there’s… there’s some kind of liquid building up on the walls.”

You chuckle softly in the background, and he glances back at you, like it’s funny. Ava replies. “It’s just condensation.” There’s no laughter in her voice at all, but you can tell she thought it was a dumb thing to be concerned about.

He stutters, tripping over his words as he turns back to the shield. “Look it doesn’t matter. You need to tell the next person who goes down what I found, there’s something alive down there.”

You peer up. So he does know?

You can’t get a read on this guy. Is he stupid? Is he secretly intelligent?

As Ava opens her mouth to reply, a co-worker catches her attention. Calling her over to look at the photos. The Convict turns to you, and it breaks your heart to see the hope he has in his eyes.

“Do you think we’re gonna be let out?” He asks you, so so very optimistic. You know The Captain better than he does, he figures you should have a good read on her.

You can’t bear to tell him the truth. “Maybe…” The pen clicks under your thumb.

You can’t tell this man any of the truth. Why is it so hard for you to spill information to him?

He smiles subtly, and you grimace. Not because his smile is disgusting or anything, no, it just hurts to know you’ve been doing nothing but lying under the guise of the COI.

His head turns around, pressing his ear back up to the shield, trying to eavesdrop and hear if they’re even considering letting you both out, or trying to hear any information about what he found down in the Blood Ocean.

He furrows his eyebrows, turning to you. “Is that guy David?”

You lift your head up from the clipboard, peeking to the right. It’s blurry behind all the blood, but you can hear how he’s giving Ava a hard time. “Yeah, it is.” David is the only person who gives Ava an attitude and lives.

The Convict nods his head, like he’s keeping a mental note of what David looks like.

Ava comes back over, wiping the blood from the window again. The way it drips over reminds you of prison bars, it’s pretty symbolic how Ava wipes them away, like she really is your one key to being freed from this prison.

The Convict’s voice quivers as he sees her, his ticket to liberty standing infront of him, inbetween a pane of glass. “Hey, hey so I found something right? Something good?”

“We downloaded the pictures. It sure looks like a skeleton to me.”

You look up from your clipboard again, your mouth slightly agape. You can’t believe you’re the only one out of the three of you to really notice the fact that it may not have been just a skeleton, but a living fish. You can’t help but stare at Ava, is she hiding the fact that the camera is an X-Ray from The Convict?

Is she letting him believe it’s a skeleton so he doesn’t back out of the mission even more?

Or does she genuinely believe that gas bubbles caused your submarine to flip around, and that that photo is really a skeleton?

That answer scares you the most.

The Convict gasps softly, catching his breath, trying not to sound like he’s begging, “So come on, get me out of here.”

You can’t help but deliberately notice how he’s only begging for his freedom, like, you can tag along if you want to. Sure. You see where his morals are.

Ava turns her head, you can see a smile forming on her lips. She’s in disbelief. “We can’t.” She states firmly. “You’re both welded in, by the time we get you guys out of there we might miss the opportunity. Another slip, it might go somewhere where we can’t get it.”

You furrow your eyebrows at her inconsistencies. Skeletons don’t just ‘go places,’ she has to know it’s alive. God please know it’s alive, Ava. Your Captain can’t be on the same level of delusion as the war criminal she’s assigned to pilot this ship.

But of course, The Convict doesn’t notice the inconsistency. He doesn’t really care about whatever alien life-forms lie on this moon, he cares about his liberation.

“We’re gonna give you something to take a sample.” She utters, turning around.

The Butcher raises his voice, he yells at the Captain. It makes you jerk up, in fright.

“HEY!” His voice echoes so very loudly, so much so to where the Captain whips her head around in startlement to look at him. “YOU’RE NOT LISTENING TO ME! There’s… THERE’S SOMETHING ELSE.”

The Butcher catches his breath as she stares at him, trying to collect his thoughts, trying to come off across as more rational before she sentences him to death, “Okay…” he backtracks, steadying his breaths, “It’s not like I don’t want the deal alright—I want the deal, I wanna make…” He pauses, stumbling on his own words again.

“It’s not worth it.” He forces out, it almost pains him to say. It scares him to say. He purses his lips together as he shakes his head, “It’s not… It’s not worth it for me, it’s not worth it for you.” His palms open, as if he’s negotiating like a normal person.

Like this is a normal thing to negotiate.

You’ve all gone way past the definition of ‘normal’ at this point.

“Fine, there’s a skeleton, yes—but you’re not HEARING ME when I say there’s something else…” he grits his teeth, because he’s truthfully scared.

You are… a little confused. You’re biting your lip, but it seems like The Convict is on the right track. It sounds like he just mistook the rattling of the submarine and the ‘skeleton’ to be two different entities, when most likely the skeleton was… never a skeleton in the first place.

“Something alive.” He states finally, looking her deep in her eyes, hoping that those words make her spare your lives.

Ava leans closer to the shield, blood dripping down, prison bars encapsulating your ship.

“There might just be.”

She turns around, grabbing something that looks similar to a chainsaw. She holds it up to the window. “We’re gonna put this on the sub, right up front. All you gotta do is point it in the right direction. Once it makes contact it should be able to grab onto something and hold on tight.” She looks back at The Convict, nodding her head, making sure he understands there’s no escape for him.

He pants heavily, still trying to come to terms with everything. “So what am I supposed to do, just ram it?”

“Pretty much.” She finishes, wiping the blood endlessly.

The Convict glances back at you, looking for some reassurance. But you barely notice, you’re too busy writing the conversation. You built the submarine, and you know the front is a lot sturdier than the back, Ava factored the idea of a ‘sample’ in long before a skeleton (or fish) was even found, so she instructed you engineers to make the front extremely sturdy. You know it can handle at least one ram.

The Convict turns back to the window, “You can’t be serious.”

“I am.” Ava states, nonchalantly. She wouldn’t be this calm if it were her in this sub. “You’ll have to hit it hard too, hard enough to make sure that it catches—you won’t be able to see if it works, so no second chances.”

The Convict’s breathing quickens, rapidly, the gravity is starting to weigh in for him. “Okay.. so, you don’t just want me to ram it, you want me to ram it at FULL SPEED?”

His voice quivers as he stares into her eyes, “Why play games? Why go through all this trouble? If you want me dead so bad, WHY DON’T YOU JUST DO IT YOURSELF?”

“This is the best we have.” Ava replies, getting closer to the window, not enough to get blood on her face, but enough to where The Butcher can see each furrow of her eyebrow in aggravation, “And it’s a lot more than you deserve.”

“This is bigger than any of us, so just do your job.”

The Butcher slams his hands on the desk. The situation is getting tense, and a giant metal wall is blocking The Butcher from getting to Ava. You’re the next best thing, working for the COI. So naturally, you’re pretty nervous and scared to be fully alone with this man. You back up slowly from the front, deciding to just stick as a fly on the wall.

“My job?” The Butcher whispers, “My JOB?” He repeats, to where The Captain can actually hear him. “Oh I’m sorry,” he undoes his sleeves and shakes his wrists, “The handcuffs must’ve confused me, I didn’t realize this was VOLUNTARY.” He hisses at her, his teeth gritting, and his jaw clenched with every finish of his sentence.

The Captain, finally having enough with him, turns her back and walks away. You’ve seen people yell at The Captain, and it never goes well. You don’t get what you want from yelling at her.

“HEY!” The Butcher shouts, “Don’t walk away!” He respires.

You catch a glimpse of Jack attaching the device to the front of the submarine, sparks flying as he does his handiwork. It’s probably best that they kept him outside, because you, neither your co-workers, would be able to efficiently attach the device without damaging the sub.

“IF THIS IS SO IMPORTANT TO YOU WHY DON’T YOU GO DOWN THERE!?” He continues yelling to a woman who’s no longer listening to him. You can hear his rage and anger echo all around you, you’ve stopped writing now. You’re afraid that the scratching of your pen will make him aware of your existence.

He bangs on the window. “HEY! YOU SAID GO DOWN, COME BACK, AND THEN I’M FREE! THAT WAS THE DEAL!” It’s reasonable why he’s mad, they did tell him that. Technically, he did come back, he should be free.

But the COI isn’t fair, you knew this.

“HOW MANY TIMES ARE YOU GONNA USE ME BEFORE YOU RUN ME DOWN!?” The Butcher screams, clicking, turning, pushing every button and lever on the control panel. As if it’ll do something. Everything should be disconnected since the sub is having work done on it. It won’t do anything.

It is kind of messed up that he’s pushing all these buttons, what if it was on, and he just rammed full speed into all these engineers? That’s kind of evil.

He storms to the back.

You know what he’s doing.

What he’s going for.

You decide to finally say something, to stop being a fly on the wall. “Convict what’re you doing!?” You step out, but it’s too late. His hand presses firmly on the button.

You hear it powering up.

You cover your eyes from the blinding light that appears outside the submarine.

You lift your arm to see the photo on the screen, with human skeletons on it. The Convict turns around to look at it, blinking.

There’s a moment of deafening silence, you’ve dropped your clipboard at this point, your pen is still in the process of rolling on the floor. Your hands are over your mouth as you try to wrack your brain with what The Butcher just did.

You hear a slam on the window, it’s Ava roaring. “ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND!?”

The Convict looks over, stomping back to the front. “Oh good, you can hear me.”

He’s fucking dumb! He’s an idiot! An absolute dumbass is piloting this submarine!

He tries to begin another rampage, “Now get someone else for your suicide mission because I’M NOT—“

“YOU JUST BLASTED US WITH RADIATION YOU PSYCHOTIC FUCK!” She screams at him, swearing him to hell, spitting on the window. Her flawed eye looks even more damaged from the radiation, her pupil has faded slightly. Or maybe that’s just in your head. Still, you’re covering your mouth in disbelief, shaking.

“…What…” Is all he utters.

“It’s not a NORMAL CAMERA, YOU CAN’T SEE THROUGH BLOOD SO WE NEED X-RAYS TO GET THROUGH.” She taps her skull, insinuating he has no brain.

The Convict looks regretful, sorrow and apologies written in his eyes. He looks back at you, almost with a look of betrayal, and back at Ava. “I didn’t know that…”

You hear Jack whining, groaning in subtle pain but telling Ava that the device is on securely to the submarine, how he manages to still do his job when being blasted with radiation is remarkable.

“I.. I.. I didn’t know that.” The Convict repeats during their conversation. And he turns back at you.

“Why didn’t you tell me..?” He asks, heartache interweaved in his voice.

And you can’t reply. Because you don’t have a good excuse. Realistically, he should’ve read the manual in it’s entirety before going on the expedition, you know for a fact that it’s mentioned. This entire expedition you’ve been 50/50 on if he knew or not, if he was suicidal or dumb.

He turns back to the shield after no response from you, after too long looking into your fear stricken and regretful eyes, and he meets Jack’s eyes. His skin is red, he was right next to the blast. There’s no way he’s not going to die from radiation poisoning in the next week.

You have no clue how good the medical team is, you’ve never been to the medical area, and you’ve never heard anything about it. For Jack’s sake, you pray they have some sort of radiation treatment.

The Convict looks at Ava, “Look, look I’m sorry but maybe if you would talk to me this wouldn’t have happened!” He has a point, if someone would’ve told him this wouldn’t have happened.

If you would’ve told him.

Is this your fault?

She lifts her head up to look at him, once understanding eyes are now filled with nothing but hate for The Butcher. “Just get the sample.”

The Convict stands there silently in disbelief, in regret. Wishing he could go back and stop himself from pressing that button.

You hear Ava talking to David.

“Drop them.”

Those other reasons cloud your mind, maybe she’s hoping for your death down there, maybe she just hates you as a person.

Though, you and The Convict stay quiet. Writhing in the pain of the pressure. As the submarine settles, so does your adrenaline, and the aching hurt kicks in on the bruises that both your bodies have just withstood. Your back and your arm throb, you don’t even want to push yourself up because that’d require using the limb. You really just miss your bed, even if it was a shitty mattress you’d give anything that had some cushion to it.

A blanket, a pillow, and any temperature that’s not the temperature of this submarine. You hope you can survive just so you can cherish your bed again, if anything.

You’re not extremely worried about replying to Ava though, she’s very specific in her wording. If she’s asking for The Convict’s status, she’s asking for his status, not yours. You turn your head to him, he’s still lying down, like you told him to, catching his breath and trying to relax. His mouth is open, like he’s trying to get something out, but he can’t even manage. You can’t even imagine how confused he is right now.

You don’t really have an opinion on him yet.

He’s shown so much attitude, rage, and aggravation, but in-between those moments are the ones where you look into his eyes.

You don’t see The Butcher, or The Convict when you do. You see an unnamed man, fighting for survival with you.

Ava shouts again, “CO-NVICT, ARE Y-OU READING ME? WHA-T’S YOUR STATUS?”

You tilt your neck up somewhat to look at the front of the Hull, and you see the depth meter rising. They’re pulling you back up, some hope flashes back into your vision, especially as you hear Ava’s microphone get less and less garbled. Your sight find The Convict again, hoping he realizes this good news as well, but instead you notice a man whose face is crowded with nothing but confusion and fear.

“Uhgm…” He pushes himself up narrowly, you think about telling him to stop, but realize that you can’t be all buddy-buddy with him now. You can’t talk to him and build any sort of friendship or relationship with this war criminal.

Ava can hear you.

He grunts, hunching over the floor. “Yeah, yeah we’re here.” He gasps, a moan coming out of his mouth from the pain that’s assaulting his back. The damage he took was all on his back, so it must hurt 2x worse than yours right now. Because you hit your arm AND your back, so yeah, it hurts like hell, but at least it’s spread out?

The Captain’s voice calms down with his reply, “Is the sh-ip damaged did you f-all?”

The Convict pushes himself up more, heavily gasping. You stay on the floor. You want to stay there forever. He sits on one knee while he desperately chases your rapidly depleting oxygen.

You can’t believe the gall that Ava has to ask the CONVICT if the ship is damaged, does she even remember that you’re here too? The Engineer with the COI Official jacket that SHE assigned to work on this god damn submarine?

“Uh… Uh… did I…Uh I don’t know. Was that you?” He asks, disoriented. God why is he standing up? Lay down!

Why are YOU lying down!? You’re the most coherent one in this situation, you should stand up and speak. But you don’t, and the guilt is infecting you.

“Is the sh—ip okay is the H-ull damaged then wa—“ Ava cuts out vaguely, her microphone getting quite worse when the submarine shakes.

The Butcher stands up fully, his head seeming to get less and less jumbled. Whilst he stands, you figure you should at the very least sit up, you look kind of silly just lying on the ground next to this grown man. You hear his voice rise as he talks to Ava, it shocks you faintly.

“I- is it?” He grunts, gasping softly, “You didn’t.. tell me that there would be anything DOWN HERE!” The raspiness of nis throat makes it harder for the words to come out, how can a room be so dry and yet so humid?

“Just TELL ME if there’s a problem with the ship Convict. We need to know if the ship is damaged before we send you both back down.”

So she does know you’re here. She’s just choosing not to address you directly, great.

The Butcher wipes his mouth, looking at the speaker in shock as The Captain recommends sending you both back. “Back? Back down..? Back..?” He pants, disbelieving what he’s hearing. He’s glancing to you, and back to the speaker. And he is fucking pissed, the veins are popping in his knuckles even as he clenches his fist. “No way… no FUCKING WAY!” He yells, spit flying from his mouth and onto the speaker.

He heaves slightly, a quiver of desperation in his throat, “I’m done, I’m done so just bring me back up and throw me in prison. I’m NOT doing it—“

“IS. THERE. DAMAGE.”

The depth meter steadies.

You’re nothing more than a button on the wall, watching this all go down.

“Just… TELL ME if there is a problem with the sub because if YOU fell the Hull could be punctured which means a leak, which means flooding, which means you both DIE.”

The Convict wheezes softly, the mere thought of death being brought up shocks him to his very core. His footing stumbles, his gullet quivers as if something’s stuck in it. He glances around, “Uhm…”

His eyes find you. He’s looking for help. You know this submarine like the back of your hand, you would know if it was damaged. You’ve been on the floor this whole time, so you’ve had a close eye on the spots where you both fell, there’s nothing more than harmless slight dents.

You open your mouth, thinking to speak. Deciding that you needed to give The Convict some help.

“There’s no damage from the fall we took, Captain. There were minor leaks earlier though before the fall that I believe need to be looked at.”

The Convict sighs in relief at you, not saying it, but the mere look in his eyes is a silent thank you for the mercy you’re giving him.

Ava stays quiet for a moment, most likely because she’s surprised you opened your mouth when you weren’t speaking to her. But you’ve come to realize that now isn’t the time for her to get onto you about something like that. She may give you a hard time for it when you’re on the surface, but if you and The Convict bring back good data, maybe she won’t even get onto you.

“Good.” She concludes.

She takes a breath into the microphone, “…Good. I can’t… see much but it looks like the Hull is in one piece so we’re gonna check on your progress while we wait for the ocean to settle back down.”

You can hear voices in the background, some of your co-workers asking for pictures, and you can hear David. You scoff at his voice, in which The Convict glances at you for but gives no comment on.

As The Convict has your eye, you gesture for him to sit down, mouthing the words ‘sit down’ even with your mouth. He’s dizzy, he’s worked up, and he’s going to fall if he keeps that up. You thought he was going to either not take your advice, or sit down in the command chair, but instead, he crouches down slowly and sits down next to you.

Neither of you say anything about it.

The Convict looks at you, “…Settle, what does that mean? Is… is that why everything was shaking?”

You start your reply but you figure Ava thought he was talking to her, so she replies.

“Essentially, yeah.” Ava grunts. “The bottom isn’t exactly rock just… layers of consh—ld blood and gas b-ubbles. That’s why I said it was un—stable.”

All of that would’ve been nice to know before coming down here. Ava’s last sentence is slightly cut off by David, god he’s pretentious.

You rub your temple, The Convict turns his head to you and whispers. “Who is that?”

You pause, shocked that he’s asking you such a silly question. “Uh…” You take note that Ava and David are distracted with their conversation, but you still whisper. “A co-captain.”

“Do we not like him?” He questions.

You can’t help but grin at the ask, like you have all the answers or like you dictate his opinions. Which, to this question you guessed you do. “Yeah. I do, atleast.”

He smirks back at you, it seems like this is the first time you’ve seem him smile.

This man is not your friend.

“Convict did you find a skeleton?” The question jolts you two out of your short conversation. Reality is back, and it didn’t stay gone long. You almost forgot about the skeleton, but it’s good she brought it up. All the shaking that was going on with the sub definitely wasn’t just gas at the bottom of the terrain, it was definitely a fish.

That wasn’t a skeleton.

But if you speak more than spoken to, especially with David listening, you could be in trouble.

And you STILL aren’t sure if The Convict has any idea that the button is poisoning him with every second he pushes it.

David and Ava bicker slightly over the microphone, The Convict glances at you, it’s like he wants to smile again, he wants to make jokes with you about David being an asshole, but you can’t. He can’t.

The Ocean won’t let you.

“Convict, are you SURE this is a skeleton?”

He looks back up at the speaker, confusion seeps through his teeth. “I- yeah? I’ve seen a skeleton before…” He sounds hurt. “How stupid do you think I am?”

You cover your mouth, because that’s not what she was asking.

Ava’s question was ‘Is this a skeleton or an X-Ray of something else?’

You can’t speak, God you can’t speak, because this is The Convict’s mission.

But now you have total clarification that he has no clue what the hell he’s pressing.

“We’re pulling you up. Standby.”

Still, in his haziness, he doesn’t seem like he even trusts his own judgement. His own thinking, his own memory. Did he remember what The Captain told him correctly? Does that noise really mean that-

“Something’s near.” You blurt. Because you’re both thinking it, the only difference is you programmed this ship to know when something is near. Better than anyone, in fact, You know how close that thing is by each second in-between the clicks. Whatever is close to you both is, well, definitely close, but you’ll probably be okay.

Depending on what it is.

The ocean gurgles, and as soon as you speak The Convict lets go of the lever.

“Wha…What do I do?” He asks, quivering hands finding their home on his lap. Awaiting your next direction, as if you were The Captain, as if this were your expedition.

You don’t know what to say, again, this isn’t your expedition. This isn’t your convict realization assignment. You write down his question, describing his confusion and anxiety very briefly. Somewhere in your notes is a very clear and blatant call out to how much oxygen he’s intaking with every stressful situation.

“Hey. Hey, I know you hear me.” He repeats. “What do I do?”

Frustration, you can hear it. You don’t want to look into his eyes, fearing your own life currently. You’ve overstepped so many times, you only got away with speaking so much because you were both so far in the red. With something nearby the ship, Ava is sure to be alert of the Hull any second now.

You know she could be listening.

He groans, it’s loud, it echoes in the submarine you helped build. His body rises to turn around, and that’s when your eyes follow him.

You know where he’s looking.

When the organism of a saving grace doesn’t reply, he looks to the technological version. He’s nothing more than an animal.

You listen to his heavy breaths coinciding with the clicks of the dial, and the tick of the button. They’re all noises to you, scratching of your pen, pressing of the button The Convict seems to be in-love with, and the presence of whatever is near this god damn ship.

The back of the submarine lights up, you can’t see the photo, his body covers it.

You can see his eyes.

“Come here.” He states. That’s not a request, it’s a demand.

You sit still, why should you listen to him? He’s your enemy right now. Right? Filament station, don’t forget Filament station, he could easily be dragging you back there to… kill you or something.

Maybe that’s wishful thinking in these depths.

“…Why?”

He widens his eyes, turning his head from the gradually fading photos to you. He’s in shock. “Wha- I, hello!? What do you mean why? Just come here! What is so hard about just-getting up, and taking three steps over here?” His hands are moving around as he speaks and you can tell that adrenaline is running through each tip of his fingers.

You stay seated, his sudden rise of tone surprises you, and he glances around frantically, pressing the button again, harder this time, you can feel the adrenaline pass through the submarine, into the walls and amongst the blood ocean with each and every gurgle.

“Please! It’s important! It’s—it’s a fucking skull!”

“What?” You rise quickly, marching over immediately and covering your face when the delayed flash hits your eyes.

When you move your arm, there it is. A skull. Sharp teeth opened wide, an empty abyss laying behind it.

You know something The Convict might not. It might not just be a skull.

You can’t see through blood with a normal camera.

You need an X-Ray.

This thing is most-likely alive. But does he know that?

“You guys didn’t tell me anything alive would be down here!” The Convict shouts, looking at you, boiling with aggravation and no one but you to take it out on.

“I… We didn’t know about this. None of us have been down, remember?” You try to assure him calmly, but he doesn’t believe you. Why should he? You and the COI have lied and hidden so many things from him. You’re not even convinced he knows this camera is laced with radiation, and as far as he knows, this is the first ship that’s explored this ocean.

“Bullshit. You- there’s no way you guys didn’t know that there’s giant—fffucking creatures down here!” He bites his lip, his hand and finger shaking as he points at the photo, fading away.

He goes to smack the button again.

Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.Click.Click.Click.CliCliCliCliCliCliCliClickckckckckckckCliclickick.

Click.

His hand hovers still in time, the momentum he once had to slam it is suddenly gone. Both of you are now staring towards the shield. Shaking where you stand. This is the worst time to be standing.

“What does it mean if it speeds up like that?” His face meets yours, aggression fading away. His hand lowering from the button, his eyes wandering to you.

Because, again. You’re his button. You’re always going to be the button on this ship.

“That means something’s getting closer.”

After the final tick, there’s a silence. The stomach of the ocean gurgles, hull swaying steadily. As if whatever just frequenting their ship has passed. You think to take a deep breath, to relax, your muscles finding their way out of tenseness.

Click. Click Click. ClickClickClickClickClick. ClickClickCliCliCliCliCliClickckckckckckckckc. CliCliCliCliCliCliClickckckckckckck.

The Hull shakes.

The submarine creaks.

The Ocean swells.

AT-5 is hungry.

You and The Convict creak up at the ceiling, praying that these noises aren’t the roof preparing to cave in on you. Your hand attracts its way to the wall, not to holster yourself up, but somehow hoping you yourself can hold this submarine together with one press of your hand.

“Fuck- there’s something out there, there has to be.” You mumble. Trying to plant your footing on the now shaking floor of the submarine.

“Really!” The Convict replies, and you wish you were with someone with less of an attitude, with less sass and less gall. A man who feels he has the right to know everything, who gets confused as to why you’re distrusting of him when he LITERALLY blew up one of the LAST space stations in the entire emptiness of space.

The noise stops, and you feel like you’re going to throw up. Your forehead presses against the wall, still holding yourself up, still planting your feet despite the sudden steadiness of this ship.

You remember your mission. Fuck, you have to write this shit down, you stand up straight, starting to make your way over to your chair that you left your clipboard on. God, what all do you have to write down? A skull (that’s most likely an actual fish that happened to get X-rayed), the shaking and unsteadiness of this Hull.

The attitude of The Convict.

You move your hand off the wall of the sub, wiping the condensation off onto your work jacket.

As you and The Convict begin walking over to your chairs, the clicking starts again.

“God, I am so sick of this clicking.” You mumble, but now you’re standing in the center of this Hull, there’s no wall for you to hold on to, you could try the ceiling but that wouldn’t be very stable. You could hold onto The Convict.

That seems even less stable.

So your arms spread out slightly, preparing to catch yourself if you were to fall at all, or tilt in the slightest. The ticking is nauseating and annoying in your brain, you want to lift your arms to cover your ears, but every noise is important, every lurch of this hungry ocean is a sign that something is near and GOD why doesn’t this Convict sit in his chair and steer this Hull away from danger while he still has ti-

THUD.

And a crash. Not the crash of the ship, but the crash of you, and The Convict.

You aren’t really prepared for how harsh this ship was going to be hit by either this moon-quake or whatever monsters lurk in the ocean, but you never considered it would be hard enough to fly you all the way to the side of the submarine.

Your arm takes most of the damage, as you’re propelled to the right side of the ship, it gets hit and smushed between you and the wall. You groan in pain, but it’s minor. You know what a broken bone feels like, and even if you didn’t, a broken bone would have you screaming a lot more than this. It’s just sprained, or bruised, whatever it is it’s still operating. Even though it’s not broken, you can’t deny the now pulsing acknowledgement of your now-bruised arm.

Though, The Convict fell in an odd, even worse position. His groan comes out relatively after yours, but this submarine isn’t done. This ocean isn’t done.

He seems to have fallen over his chair, landing in a position that put his legs in the air. If this wasn’t such a serious predicament you’d be laughing, but his way of falling may have been better considering he hit the chair before the floor, destabilizing the amount of force that went into his final fall.

Even so, the groan he lets out would have you convinced he’d been stabbed thirty times, and his expression too. He grits his teeth, finding any sort of leverage on the wall to get up.

TikTikTikTik

While he crawls up, grunting and heavy breathing from each step and lift of his knee, you slowly rise with him. You didn’t fall very far, in-fact you just leaned. You seem to be in better condition than he is, but you also just have more training on how to focus and manage your stress. On how to be in survival mode.

You both have different definitions of survival mode.

Yours is by the book training given by the COI that outlines exactly how much time should be in-between each inhale and exhale given any situation.

And The Convict is a war criminal.

You watch his hand grip a pipe on the ceiling to stable himself, but when the ocean croaks again you’re both sent flying to the other wall. This time hurts worse than the first, you both land on your back. Pipes, wires and metal all being pressed against your shoulder-blades at the full force of this submarine. You feel each surface that comes in contact with your back rivet across all your skin and muscle, leaving behind a throbbing surface of bruise and ache.

You both fall to the ground after immediately hitting the wall. Groaning together in unison, both looking over to each other, neither of you are sure why. Are you looking for someone to blame? Or for someone to relate to.

He rises faster than you, you stay lying on your stomach, it didn’t hurt to fall on the floor, not nearly as bad as hitting your arm and back full force onto the rugged interior of this ship. He pushes himself up on his knee, you can tell he’s in fight or flight mode. But there’s no need for him to get up, he has no where to run, and steering this ship will do little to nothing. The best thing for either of you to do is stay on the ground.

That’s what you’re telling yourself, but in reality, you’re staying on the ground because the pain is gradually getting worse. As he stands and looks around, you wonder how he’s keeping his feet planted on this quaking ship.

And with one last lurch of the submarine, he comes falling down on his stomach, right next to you. You feel the pressure of the hull, your face getting pressed slightly into the floor. You don’t take nearly as much damage as The Convict does. He groans loudly into the floor next to you. His eyes meet yours, he opens his mouth but nothing comes out.

He’s petrified.

He catches his breath, pushing himself up, tattered and difficult to understand words come out of his mouth, but you understand one tiny and shaky “What the fuck..?” from him. “Fuck—Help!” He cries, and you really can’t tell if he’s crying or not. Are those tears? Sweat?

Blood?

He struggles to get up, and you place your hand on his shoulder steadily. He winces, looking at you like an animal, it’s unclear what animal he’s looking at you like.

Who is the prey, who is the predator?

“Stay down. We don’t-“ You cough. Wincing in your own pain. “Fuck, we don’t need to push ourselves to the limits. Just- stay on the floor. Stay.”

He breathes densely, but his arms come down. He lowers himself back on to the floor slightly with you. You move your hand away from him.

You catch a glimpse of the speaker lighting up.

“C-ME IN C-NVI-T, —————— WH-AT’S YOUR STA-TUS?”

You continue to write down everything that happens, every coordinate he so much as stops at. Every coordinate he even thinks about. You don’t bother to ask why he even stops, why he glances, why he thinks, but you’ve come to realize that he stops when he hears noises outside in the ocean. It’s bound to happen, even on Earth they say the ocean wasn’t silent. There’s some form of gravity that keeps a planet, even a moon, held together.

The older generations say that the ocean on Earth was only fluid because of the imbalance that occurred with the Earth’s gravity, and the Moon’s gravity. AT-5 is some sort of phenomenon, there’s no opposite to pull the ocean, but it still moves. This moon isn’t attached to a planet, it doesn’t have an Earth.

You wish it did.

You weren’t old enough to remember the planets, you remember the dead stars, the dead. You remember the dead. You remember drawing of trees and life made by those who lived long enough to remember what once was, before The Quiet Rapture. But if the ocean on AT-5 still moves, are any of the planets gone?

That’s a theory almost everyone is hopeful for, except for the realists on the COI, who are more focused on progressing forward than even considering what happened to all those planets, stars, and lives. It’s more-so Eden that focuses on the rehabilitation of life, from what you’ve heard, which has only been negative things.

Though, you’ve always tried to stay neutral, you understand both sides, you just got put with the COI, with no energy to resist. No strength to consider resisting as an option.

Otherwise, you would’ve ended up right in The Convict’s seat.

He stops the ship at another noise, a sigh escapes your mouth while writing the coordinate. You’ve lost track of what any these coordinates even mean, or what you’re writing. Your handwriting is scribbled, and you’re writing lightly as to try and save ink.

The Convict rises, walking to the back of the submarine and clicking the button. You brace, trying to turn your back to it. You’re not sure how all the radiation works, Jack was the only one trusted enough to be in charge of that, but you know it’s obviously not safe. Since no one has come back up, you have no clue if it had any effect on the convicts who were sent down here.

But, assuming they’ve informed The Convict of everything he needs to know, they even gave him a safety manual, then you should both be on the same page about using it to a limited amount.

He takes a photo of what seems to me an empty abyss, walking over and sitting back down at the desk, crossing off a spot on the map.

“One down, five to go.”

One down, five to go.

The submarine ticks.

“OXYGEN.”

The silence weighs heavy between you both, not daring to look up at the now depleted oxygen tank. Neither of you want to. No, you don’t want to come to terms with the fact that this is basically the end. That you both now have 3/4 of O2 to hold you for five more coordinates, to take photos, and escape this Blood Ocean. There’s no fucking way.

You’re going to die down here with a Convict. A Convict who’s killed so many of your COI ‘brotheren.’

Hell, you don’t even consider them your brothers, sisters, barely even co-workers, but what else do you have? You’re a personal enemy to Eden just by wearing a badge for the COI, they’re all you have.

There’s no one else left in this abyss.

The Convict’s breathing gets louder, he’s trying to steady it, but he’s shaking, he can’t help but breathe heavily. He’s going to croak, or have a panic attack or something.

This isn’t the time for either of you to lose your breath or even waste it, hold any of your anxiety or panic attacks for when your foot steps off of this submarine, and onto a spot where oxygen is flowing freely. You can’t afford it. You both can’t afford to waste it.

“You need to control your breathing.” The words just fly out your mouth. But what else are you supposed to do? Let him waste oxygen with each individual anxious breath?

“Yeah?” He looks over at you. Ragged, useless breaths leaving his mouth. “How easy do you think that is under pressure?” His words are harsh, they sound painful coming out his throat. He’s right, Both of your lives are on the line, but you’d rather not make dying easier.

“We have limited oxygen.” You retaliate, the conversation is tense, because you’re both right. “You just… you have to try, we’re splitting it between the both of us.” You scribble down a general summary of the small conversation you’re both having. “Just try. Focus on the mission.”

You hear him click his teeth. “Focus on the fucking mission.” He grumbles under his breath, then pushes the lever on the desk, propelling the submarine forward.

The silence returns. Why couldn’t you just have a civil conversation with him?

Because you’re not allowed to.

Right.

Jack was explicitly told not to be too friendly, not to give The Convict too much information. Don’t do this. Don’t do that.

It’s all getting mushed in your brain, muddled together between what Ava told Jack and what she told you. But you really don’t care at this point, what are they gonna do? Yell at you over a speaker for telling The Convict to steady his breathing?

It wasn’t even a peaceful conversation, ‘Focus on the fucking mission,’ he says, like it was a dumb thing for you to say. Maybe if Ava heard that she’ll have his tongue cut off for the disrespect he gave you.

If you survive. If he survives.

Despite his grumbles of annoyance, he seems to have taken your advice. You watch as he inhales through his nose slowly, exhaling through his mouth. A strategy really only taught to you when you’re young and learning how to manage emotions, it’s not something you do voluntarily unless you’re trying to calm down.

Inhale. 1…2…3… Exhale. 1…2…3… You can count the seconds in-between each flare of his nostril and partial opening of his mouth,

You want to smile. You do, something about the fact that you’re being listened to by anyone, or considered. But you can’t. He’s a fucking Butcher, a murderer, the man who blew up Filament station, the loss of resources and contamination by radiation on most of what’s left. You aren’t sure what happened, you’ve only heard rumors.

You also haven’t heard anything proving those rumors wrong.

Condensation builds on the walls, dripping down slowly, glancing up at the ceiling, watching each individual clear drop fall down onto your lap. You can only wonder why the hue isn’t more red, but you don’t have time or energy to get into the scientific facts of the condensation of blood.

You feel like you’re losing your intelligence with each second you spend down here, air and blood pushing at your brain, you can only think about what’s important.

Survival.

He keeps taking fucking photos.

Each click.

Click.

Buzz.

The flash of light behind you.

You know you’re not living through radiation poisoning. Maybe he knows that every submarine sent down here is a suicide mission, maybe he’s suicidal, and he’s just taking you down with him. He doesn’t care anymore. You probably pissed him off by telling him what to do, so he’s going to see to it that you die.

Radiation poisoning, oxygen depletion, suffocation, drowning, whatever it may be. He doesn’t seem to exactly care how either of you die.

Or maybe he’s just dumb.

Maybe you’re overthinking, maybe the stress and pressure is really getting to your head. He seems calmer than you, but he also had solitude in prison to prepare for this.

You had five minutes.

He stumbles back over to the chair, his breaths are so goddamn heavy, and he wipes the condensation of his map, mumbling coordinates to himself, lining his hand up with the map, pushing it forward.

He treats the button like it’s some saving grace, like it’s his eyes and ears, which it really is, how else is he supposed to see where he’s going?

His hands are wiping his face, taking off his gloves and breathing heavily. Mumbling, “That’s not even on the map…”

You glance over. “What isn’t?”

You take his map from him, he lets you. His notes are… questionable.

“WEIRD ASS TUBES.”

“Hm.” Is all you have to say, you bite your lip.

“What do I do if I find something not on the map?” He asks you, unsure. Like he truly cares about this mission, and you feel like it’s a lie. Why would he care. That’s not his job, his job is to just focus on whatever coordinates he’s been assigned to go to, not find…

weird ass tubes…

“I’m not sure.” You reply, because it’s true. You’re not sure. You only know some partial first aid and the mechanics of this ship. “See if The Captain will reply.”

His face darkens, he’s blatantly more comfortable asking you questions than hearing anything Ava has to say, but he shifts in his chair to the speaker, glancing back at you. “Why can’t you answer?”

“Just ask.” The reply comes out faster than he can finish.

He hesitates, before his eyes move back to the speaker. “Hey!” He yells at it. “What do I do if I find something not on the map!?”

Silence.

“You’re not just pretending you can’t hear me right?”

The speaker drips of condensation.

He turns around to face the desk. “Why is it so fucking hot down here.”

You write down the interaction briefly, it’s starting to hurt your wrist, having to write so many things down, so many useless things.

But you think of some form of answer to his question.

“Any photo you take will be stores on this ships database.” He gives you a side glance. “The blackbox, basically. So if you find something not on the map, they’ll probably give it a look. Just, focus on the mission. We shouldn’t be using too much time on photos.”

“Why couldn’t you tell me that in the first place. Why’d you make me ask the useless speaker.”

It’s not a question. It’s just… his words are laced with disappointment, the little trust he had in you as a COI engineer in the first place is depleting just like your oxygen. It’s down to 3/4.

You don’t reply.

His hand grips the lever, but he pauses.

You can hear a drip.

He stops. The submarine doesn’t mood.

The ocean gurgles as he lifts his hand, breathing heavily, and glancing at the blood that just fell on him.

“Didn’t you work on this sub?” He asks.

You haven’t noticed the blood on his hand, you heard the drip, but every drip before has been simple condensation.

“I helped.”

“What does that mean?”

“Like, I wasn’t the main person working on it.”

You can’t help but lie a little. All engineers helped on these submarines to an equal amount, except for Jack, who had most responsibility when it came to these things. So technically, were you lying? You helped, Jack was the main person working on it, like he does all the submarines.

He lifts his hand up.

“Should blood be leaking in…?”

You glance at it, the fear in his eyes turns identical to yours. For a moment, you feel equal. You feel like animals, predator and prey hiding from a hurricane.

“No, No it really shouldn’t.”

You don’t know what to do, you turn to the speaker.

“Captain! Captain!” You yell, standing up. “We have a leak!” Walking closer to the speaker, having no clue if that means she can hear you better, but what else do you have to try?

You breathe heavily in the silence. Giving up, you turn back to The Convict. “She’s not ignoring us. We’re in the red, she really either can’t hear us, or isn’t at her station right now.”

“Then what do we do?” He asks, looking at you as if you’re his last saving grace. Looking at you like you’re the button.

You stare into his eyes.

Are those the eyes he gave to all those who died in Filament station?

You sit down. “We push forward.”

He takes a few breaths, before steadying his breathing like you told him to, wiping the blood on his leg. “Okay…” He grips the lever again, moving forward.

1…2…3…Inhale.

And after only a few moments of moving forward.

1…2…3…Exhale.

Click. Click. Click.

Something’s near.

The window of the Hull is red, but you know that last glimpse of what lurks outside will be gone the deeper you descent into the ocean. Why even add a window if it’s going to close later on? You click the pen they gave you, the ink is halfway gone, so you truthfully can’t afford to write unnecessary details. Even though Ava told you to write every detail of what goes on in this ship, you know that’s not going to fully happen.

“Cruising depth in roughly 2 minutes, standby.” Ava says over the speaker, but you’re too much in a haze to even consider listening, or writing her words down. There’s no clock in this submarine, minutes don’t matter anymore. Seconds, days, weeks, months, none of it matters if you can’t even tell how much time is passing.

The only thing you can’t shake is the fact that you can’t believe they would throw you down here so suddenly.

Were you just trash to them? Was your work as an Engineer so bad that they considered you for a suicide mission?

Jack has had such a long time to prepare for this, and yet they send you down here last minute. Do they really think you’re mentally prepared for this? To be sent down here? On a submarine that has a history of never returning, and with a man who’s literally nicknamed ‘The Butcher’ by, what your co-worker says are the, ‘Brothers of Eden.’

“I’m seeing some voltage irregularities on the instruments so keep an eye out for sparks or flames or anything like that.”

Voltage irregularities? Flames? You look at the speaker, maybe if you and your team had better resources then there wouldn’t be sparks or flames on this sub, maybe if you all were given more time to even construct the submarine that wouldn’t be the case.

Or maybe that was your responsibility. Maybe The Captain noticed all the faulty shortcuts you gave this sub, and put you on it to punish you.

“Flames?” The Convict says, looking over at the speaker along with you. “Why would there be flames?”

“I don’t know.” Ava states. “That’s why I warned you both.”

She knows. She has to know.

You rub your forehead slightly. Like you’re trying to massage any anxiousness your mind has about this situation away, but it’s impossible. Your thoughts are running rampant, and you’re staying as calm as you possibly can on the outside.

There’s a silence, he looks over at you with fear in his eyes. A part of you hopes he doesn’t know that you helped construct this submarine, just so he doesn’t ask you questions. But in a quiet submarine like this, you know that questions will come up between you two sooner than later.

You know that he’ll be the one asking most of them though, at least you hope. You hope that the increasing pressure and nausea won’t cause you to ask him questions about Eden, or that the radiation poisoning won’t make you ask how he got his nickname.

He looks away from you, and back at the speaker, his words laced with fear. “You did test this thing, right?”

Ava responds firmly. “This is the test.”

You hold your head, no longer rubbing it, but just stopping it from falling off your neck. Of course they didn’t test this submarine, you were doing last minute touches on it before the two of you even got in here, there was no time to test it. Humanity is on a schedule, a schedule for resources. And you’re all desperately scouring for more, just to make humanity last a few days longer.

She continues talking over the speaker to The Convict, you don’t listen though, it’s suddenly weighing in that you’re going to die. There’s no way you won’t die. She warns him to keep an eye on his depth, telling him not to go too far into the red. That’s the one statement you do hear.

At the sound of metal shifting, you look up to see the porthole closing up. The light of red fading away, leaving the only glow on this submarine left to be from a lightbulb on the ceiling, and the radiation button in the back of the submarine.

Ironic that the button has such a green tint, that’s what you normally associate with radiation, isn’t it?

In the midst of your paranoia, you catch Ava blatantly lying to The Convict.

“You’re the first one down.”

You jolt your head up, looking over at the speaker. She can’t see your face, but God, you wish she could.

Because why is she lying to a man who supposedly blew up Filament Station? A man that’s right next to you? He knows you work for the COI, you’re wearing the uniform, after all. When, not if, when he finds out that she lied about that.

He’s going to take it out on you.

Because he’s not the first one down, and he’s not the last. They won’t stop doing this to people. Not until the Conviction Realization program has no more Convicts to ‘rehabilitate.’

“Approaching maximum depth.”

The sounds of the metal shifting are even louder, you look at the depth meter, and you’re both in the red. A spot Ava herself specifically told you both not to go.

“Captain…” You mumble.

“30 seconds.” She says.

“Hey… uhm.” Simon looks at the speaker with you, you’re both holding onto the desk tightly as you sink deeper and deeper into this pool of blood. “Are you hearing this?” He asks Ava, but he’s looking at you as he says that.

You nod your head, biting your tongue so Ava doesn’t hear you reply. The creaking of metal, the pressure building up on the submarines surface, the sloshing and rattling of all outside noises. Something you aren’t used to in the absolute slightest when it comes to these submarines.

He anxiously looks back up at the speaker. “Hello? Hey!” He frantically glances from you, the desk, the window, and back to the speaker. “You said don’t go in the red! We’re in the red!”

She’s glitching out, something about a radio signal?

“We’re losing her.” You say, it just comes out. But you know that’s what’s happening. She can barely hear the both of you, it happens every-time they send a convict down. She has to do it on purpose, she has to know where the red zone is.

“H-ead to the coordinates g—-ven to you on the map and ca-o—gue as -nstr-cted and we’ll cons-ider your penance served.” She states, ignoring his cries for help, his cries of warning and danger, she’s just focused on whatever mission she has planned for the both of you.

“Be careful, you only have each other.” Is her final fully teligible statement before saying “Good l-“

The final smack in the face of realization that you really only have eachother. You and The Convict react very differently. You sit there in silence, pen shaking in your hand, you’re unsure if it’s your nerves or if it’s the submarine making you shake. You’re at the point where you can’t differentiate it anymore.

His reaction is, well, yelling.

“No- Hey! Hey!!” He yells at Ava, almost standing up before the submarine thuds one last time. Shaking heavily before eventually setting steadily on the ocean’s floor. “You can’t be serious…”

The coordinates pop up on the desk.

[094.10 179.55]

He fully stands up after seeing the coordinates, ignoring you as you anxiously write them down. “You can’t be serious…” He says, it’s not a yell anymore, it’s anxious, it’s desperate. “You can’t be serious.”

His vocabulary seems limited. The gravity of this situation clearly hasn’t settled in for him yet. Because Ava has never been more serious about a mission in her life.

You steady your breathing, you need to relax. You have 4 legs of oxygen, which, between two people, is basically 2 legs. Sure they’ve probably added more oxygen since they knew Jack would’ve been here, but it’s better to think that you have less than more. Just calm down. Control your breathing. If there’s a time to freak out it’s not right now.

As you sit there, calmly breathing, or at least trying, The Convict anxiously continues to look around. He’s in disbelief. But there’s one thing you notice, and it’s that his breathing isn’t very controlled at all. It’s almost like he’s not even considering the idea that taking in more oxygen means he’ll have less of it.

He mumbles.

“Fuck me.”

Before finally sitting down in the ‘captain’ chair, he can’t control his breathing at all, it’s almost a natural instinct for him to be anxious. He digs into his bag, pulling out the operators manual for the submarine.

You can’t help but peek over, and notice how the SM-8 has been crossed out to say SM-13.

That doesn’t make sense.

The SM-8 is an entirely different model, built for those who they intend to come back alive. The COI no longer has the resources to recreate an SM-8, so why give The Convict a manual for it?

Maybe it’s because they don’t have any faith in the SM-13, so much so that they didn’t even make a manual for it.

Regardless, he has someone who knows the submarine almost like the back of their hand. So if this manual is inaccurate, it’s okay.

He has you.

But before he even gives the manual a chance, he puts it back in his bag.

Okay.

This is gonna be a rough expedition.

He takes out the map, confused as to how he’s supposed to even read it. At the sound of a sudden noise, he whips his head around, thudding around the back of the submarine guides his eyes to the green button on the back. Opening the manual, he finds the page with the ‘artistic’ recreation of it, one you’re pretty sure Jack drew.

He glances back at it, and to the manual again, and to you.

“What is that?” He asks hesitantly.

This is the first time he’s spoken to you, at least the first time he’s expected a verbal response.

You’ve been writing down almost all his actions so far, at least the bare minimum of the detail you should be describing it in. You write down his question, forgetting to even answer.

“Don’t just write down what I asked, just answer.” He repeats firmly. It’s intimidating.

You look up at him.

“Uh, it’s for taking photos of what’s out there.” He still looks confused, and you sigh. “The Captain said to catalogue what was out there, correct?”

He nods slowly.

“That’s how you do it. Um… you go to each coordinate marked on the map, take a photo of the coordinate, go to the next one, then you’re done.”

He nods, calming down a little. “Okay… okay. Makes sense.”

He looks back at the map. Pulling out a pen, one dryer than yours, marking his coordinates on it.

He seems a little aggressive, or tense. Maybe it’s the latter. But he doesn’t seem harmful, right now. Probably because he’s just trying to survive.

And you, you’re his only key to survival.

That Earth, Mars, any of the other planets will come back. Come back with their resources, their life, their humans. Bringing an end to this war over resources between EDEN and the COI.

But that’s a fantasy right now, for someone like you, until the day you die you will work for the benefit of the little left of humanity. You will no longer think for yourself, you will take orders, and not following them puts you right in the submarine with those other convicts.

Though, you’re ending up in that submarine tonight either way. Even if you don’t know it.

You make your way to the restroom, doing your morning routine which involves brushing your teeth and splashing water on your face. You put on your COI issued uniform, as an engineer working on the Iron Lung, with limited resources, you had to be there as early as possible to get started on last-minute fixes before today’s descent.

“They’re sending down ‘The Butcher,’ today, you know.” A voice says, zoning you back into your work. The time has blurred between when your toothbrush was in your mouth and a screwdriver was in your hand. You were fixing last minute touch ups on the submarine with a co-worker, a female you couldn’t remember the name of.

“That’s interesting.” You reply, before thinking about it. “Uh, who is that?” You pause your work, glancing over at her. It felt like drama, drama you really didn’t care about. The Captain, Ava, barely cared about the convicts she sent down in the Blood Ocean, so if you had forgotten a screw here or there, you wouldn’t lose your job over it, you hoped.

“He was responsible for Filament Station, I hear. A lot of this metal is recycled from when he and his ‘brothers of EDEN’” She adds air quotes to her sentence, “Blew it up. He destroyed so many valuable resources, I hope he doesn’t come back.”

You raise your eyebrows at the harshness of her words. “I wouldn’t say that, isn’t Jack going down there with him?”

She nodded her head, sighing and shaking her head. “Yeah, I guess you’re right, Jack doesn’t deserve to die down there.” She snaps her fingers. “I know, I hope that everything goes smoothly, but when they get let out of the Iron Lung, ‘The Butcher’ trips, falls and dies.”

And you can’t help but laugh, because it was a ridiculous feat, and it wasn’t your problem, you weren’t going down there. Your job was to fix and repair not only these submarines, but everything on the AT-5 station. “I guess so, as long as we get any information and any resources.” You wipe the sweat off your face. “Any news is good news, hopefully an engineer going down with The Convict reduces the chances of us losing these submarines again.”

Your co-worker agrees with you. “Yeah, I hate these convicts as much as Ava, but if we’re doing the whole ‘Conviction Realization’ program, don’t we need to actually… rehabilitate them? Not ‘The Butcher,’ obviously, he deserves the worst, but we need these resources, we can’t keep letting these convicts die in the void.”

You finish the small repairs left on the Iron Lung, not making eye contact with your co-worker. “I agree.”

Right as you begin to stand up, you hear heavy weighted footsteps. It’s Ava. Your co-worker immediately rises, the two of you stand at attention for the woman coming in. Behind her, in handcuffs, is a tall burly man, wearing way too many layers of clothing, with long black hair that covers the eye-bags that almost weigh his entire body down.

You raise your eyebrows, looking at your co-worker, whispering, “Is that the fucking Butcher?”

She nods, not daring to give you a verbal response.

Ava always intimidated any room she walked into, but right now it was multiplied with the presence of what you could only assume to be a dangerous war criminal.

Slowly, tailing behind them, is Jack, the best engineer that the AT-5 station has to offer, well, for now. If this trip in the Iron Lung goes wrong for him, you lose the most experienced and well versed engineer that all of COI has left, especially with these limited resources.

You hear Ava asking The Butcher questions as she undoes his cuffs. You assume they’ve done test runs, or at the very least taught him how to use the basic controls of the submarine. As far as you knew, Jack was only allowed to take notes and fix things on the submarine that would lead them to near death. Every engineer in the AT-5 station knew how these submarines worked and operated, they almost followed the same code.

Another thing that you and any engineer on the AT-5 station knew was that these submarines had never come back. No one on this station knows what’s down in that blood ocean besides surface scans, but nothing has ever come up.

Until now, everyone assumed Ava was using these submarines to simply execute the convicts, under the notion that they would be ‘freed,’ or that any resources in the oceans would prove useful to mankind. For her to send an engineer, especially one as talented and useful as Jack, down into the ocean with one of the worst convicts encountered on the station…

It makes you wonder if this is more than the Convict Realization program.

If Ava really believes there are resources down there that could benefit humanity, resources that could save humanity.

As your mind is clouded, you hear heavy whirring noises, sounds of metal being broken into, torn apart. It wakes you up from your daydreams, glancing over and seeing Jack opening the once-welded submarine so The Butcher is able to go in.

You make brief eye contact with him, and you can see the fear laced in his pupils. Sweat clinging to his skin, trembles in his arms as he slowly steps into his inevitable death.

Jack doesn’t follow. He walks away.

“Where’s he going?” Your co-worker states, whispering to you, expressing the same fear that you’re feeling.

If Jack isn’t going in, that means one of two things. 1. The Butcher is being sent in alone, to die. 2. Another engineer is going in.

And #2 seems more likely.

Ava talks to Jack over to the side, you can’t hear their conversation, but Jacks eye are laced with the exact same fear that The Convict were. And for better reason, because Jack knows that no submarine has come back up. The Butcher thinks he’ll be freed.

Jack knows that he’ll die.

Ava reluctantly waves Jack off, who walks to the exit, wiping sweat from his face. You shake your head timidly, praying that this isn’t happening, because you see Ava walking over.

She rubs her temple, looking at you and your co-worker.

“I hate to do this to you.”

No. God, no.

“Jack couldn’t go through with it. And he’s our best engineer, so really, it’s not worth the risk to send him down.”

You’re not ready to die.

The way she says your name, you know it’s a binding to your death.

You look over at your co-worker, who’s now looking down at the ground. Say something, please. Tell Ava to just send Jack down, like she said she would.

Ava puts her hands on your shoulders, forcing you to look at her.

“I know this isn’t ideal. But you’ll be fine. This submarine is the best one we’ve made since the SM-8. We only have 2 burner submarines left after this one, we can’t afford to send an engineer down there to die.” She repeats your name. “We’re going to do all we can to make sure you don’t die. Okay? You’re gonna live. We’re gonna get the resources we need, and we’re gonna fix everything up. Okay?”

You try to control your breathing, erratic breathing.

“Okay.”

“Great.” Ava says, before you know it, her hand is on your back, and you’re being guided to the submarine.

You’re gonna die.

You look into the entrance of the submarine, The Convict is standing there, looking around at the walls of the submarine with his back turned to you. He’s touching the walls, looking around at the wires, rubbing his face.

You look over at Ava, who nods to you.

“Here’s your job.” She hands you a clipboard and a pen. Attached to the clipboard are many pieces of lined paper.

“Notes. Your job is notes. Anything The Convict does, you write. Anything that happens on the ship, you write. Any description of the images, you write. If The Convict so much as says something rude to you, you fucking write that down.”

When she says that, you catch a glimpse of The Convicts eyes, a glare given by him to either you or Ava, and God, you’re hoping it’s Ava.

“If anything is to happen, faulty wiring, sparks, if the power goes out, that’s why you’re there. These convicts have never been smart enough to read nor understand the safety manuals. But you, you don’t only understand how this submarine works, you helped build it. With your help, this submarine is coming back up in one piece, with images and all the resources we could ever need.”

You nod, somehow, Ava’s words of reassurance seem to help you. But that doesn’t change the fact that no submarine has ever come up. Her words feel like false prayers.

You hold onto the railing as you step into the submarine, feeling it shift from your footsteps. You look at The Butcher, dead in the eyes. God. He’s terrified.

How could a man, who’s apparently killed so many, be afraid of death himself?

You look back at Ava, who gives you a faulty thumbs up.

“We’re getting ready to seal you two in, so get comfortable. You both know your responsibilities on this ship. So let’s get this over with.”

You nod at her, backing away from the entrance as it’s getting ready to be welded shut again. You take a look around the submarine, after spending so long working on it, you never thought you’d be in here for its descent.

And God, the awkwardness between you and The Convict is heavy. The tension is thick, every noise is audible in your silence.

You walk over and sit down in the co-captains chair, previously designated for Jack. It takes The Butcher a moment before sitting down in the captain’s chair next to you.

God, why did they put these chairs so close together?

He ignores you, or avoids your gaze. It’s unclear if his eyes are cold or nervous, if his mouth is closed and quiet because he doesn’t wanna make friends, or if it’s because he feels some sort of shame.

He’s unreadable.

Suddenly, the submarine is shaking, and the whirring noises begin again. They’re harsh, and you grip the desk from the rapid shaking. Once the two of you are welded in, the speaker on the wall lights up, and you can hear Ava’s voice.

“Convict, Engineer, confirm status.”

The Convict huffs, looking at the speaker. “Here. Not like I could go anywhere.”

“Right.” She replies. “Engineer?”

“Um, all is good. Everything looks fine.”

Ava doesn’t reply. But rumbling can be heard.

“Convict, you ready to do some good?”

He doesn’t reply, but his hand grips his own knee. His knuckles turning white.

“Beginning the descent.”