driver’s passenger , 🦂

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.”

He hasn’t learned much about you. What is there to learn? You two were co-workers, and it’s not like you had any crazy secrets he’d just be dying to know about.

It’s clear he wants to know something, anything, because you’ve been catching his eyes a lot these past six days.

After you came out the shower with Simon, he’d been sort of iffy about it. He obviously didnt say anything to you, why would he bring that up? You’re a grown woman, you can do what you want. You ended up being the one to bring it up.

You finally got a moment alone with Dr. Grace while Simon slept, and Rocky watched him. He was sitting in the pilots room, where he’d steer the ship and check their collision course. There wasn’t much room to walk around. He was double checking the course, he had some paranoia about getting off track, you guys only had so much astrophage after all.

When he saw you, his eyebrows rose, a surprised expression on his face, wondering why you’d be in there.

“This is the pilot’s room.” He said. Like you didn’t know.

“Wow thanks.” You sneered, walking over, crouching down. You get a little closer to him, just to see what he’s doing. He can’t deny that your closeness is a little surprising to him.

Especially given that he assumed you and Simon had something going on.

“Did Stratt not consider maybe two people would like to sit down in here?” You jokes.

“There was only one pilot… so.” He bit his lip, looking away at some of the controls.

You glance down at him, his face is somewhat flushed. His lips are red from biting. He’s clearly been stressed, he and Rocky are really the only ones on this ship who know a lot about the mission, and about how this ship even works. 

“Mind if I sit?”

“What?” He looks at you, confusion in his eyes. “There’s no chair for you to sit, and I don’t really trust you to pilot this thi-“

You gently lower yourself down onto his lap, sitting sideways on his thigh. You can fit on just one, considering he’s manspreading right now. You’re not straddling him or anything, no matter how much you may want to.

He inhales sharply, surprised at the sudden move you’re making. Is this a move? Does this count as a move? He has no clue. 

His hands raise a little, not knowing what to do. Eventually, he decides to grip the arm rests of the chair. You can see veins bulging in his arms.

“What’re you doing?” He grunts, peering up at you.

“Sitting. Want me to get u-“

“No, no.” He blurts out, immediately turning a slight shade of pink, he goes back to looking at the screen.  

Bringing a fist up to clear his throat, he manages, “That’s not what I said. I just didn’t know what you were doing… is all.”

You shuffle in his lap, getting comfortable, which earns you the privilege of hearing him breathe heavily. Normally, he doesn’t breathe this loud.

Is it because you’re so close, that you can hear it? Does he always breathe this loud and you just… never hear?

Or are you doing that to him?

“What’re you doing… exactly?” You turn your head, putting your arm around the back of the chair to stable yourself.

He zooms in on… well, you’re not sure. It’s just space. To him these graphs and random numbers must mean something but, to you, the screen is just black with white dots (which you assume are stars).

“Our course. We’re headed for Erid, I was just making sure we were still… y’know. On course.”

“That’s good, you’re the only one on this ship who knows how this stuff works, anywho.”

Dr. Grace laughs softly at that. “Rocky knows.”

You can’t help but roll your eyes. “Okay. Rocky is watching Simon sleep right now.” You giggle, hitting the back of his head lightly. “Can’t exactly do both.”

His laugh continues, but it stutters at the mention of Simon. His fingers tap against his seat with impatience, and his hand flickers up every now and then, building up the courage to eventually place it on your lower back.

“Uhm… what exactly were you two doing in the shower together?” He asks quietly, pulling you ever so slightly closer, looking up at you with hesitance, like he doesn’t even want you to hear his question.

You raise your eyebrows at the question, looking at the entrance, and back at him. You have a lighthearted expression, but he doesn’t. Is he jealous?

Who is he jealous over?

“The welts on his arm.” You gesture to your own forearm. “From radiation poisoning. I was treating them, it was easier to use the water in there than a cramped bathroom.”

His expression softens, he looks embarrassed. “Oh, yeah. That makes sense.” He fumbles, looking away at a screen.

Avoiding your gaze.

You place both hands on his shoulders, standing up and stabilizing yourself to straddle him. Whatever was on that screen doesn’t matter anymore, because he’s looking up at you in shock.

“What’re you-“

You place yourself down right on his crotch, and he gasps, hands immediately flying to your waist to hold you, to keep you still. He’s surprisingly strong.

“Were you jealous, Dr. Grace?”

“N-no, I mean…”

“Be honest.”

He sighs, trying to find his words, he’s more-so concerned about you being so close to a growing boner. He had a halfie the moment you sat on him, but at least you weren’t right on it. He doesn’t care about Simon right now.

He looks around the room, mouth opening, closing, a couple of ‘ahs’ and ‘uhms’ come out as he confusingly tries to find the words.

He doesn’t even know the answer for himself, truthfully.

“A little?”

“Is that why you’ve been avoiding me?”

“I haven’t been avoiding you!” He looks up at you, shocked that you’d say such a thing, losing his focus.

His grip on you loosens, and you finally get a moment to grind against him. He gasps, hands tightening on your hips again, and his forehead immediately finds itself towards the crook of your neck.

He grits his teeth, “What’re you doing to me?” He pants. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“Why are you lying to me?”

He looks up at you through his falling glasses. “What, so you’re gonna torture me like this because you think I’m… I’m lying about avoiding you?”

You bite your lip. “Maybe. Want me to get up?”

He thinks about it.

It doesn’t take long to find his answer.

“…Mmmph… No. I don’t. I don’t want you to get up.”

“Then start being honest.” You emphasize your point with a sharp thrust of your hips, feeling the cock in his pants starting to grow.

His breath stutters, and he hisses through gritted teeth. “Okay- okay, I’m sorry. I’ve been avoiding you.” He moves away from the crook of your neck, leaning back onto the chair.

“Good. An answer.” You keep a steady rhythm with your hips, each hump earning you a tiny moan, gasp, or breath from him.

“What- are you… rewarding me for… ah, avoiding you?” He asks, gripping your hips like you’ll go flying if he doesn’t. Trying to slow you down.

“No. I’m rewarding myself for finally being able to get my hands on you.”

He doesn’t reply, he just stares at you through half closed eyelids, with an open dumbfounded mouth.

You place your hands on his knees, leaning back as you move. “No smart ass comment, Dr. Grace?”

“No, no-fff… I- I don’t want you to stop.” He admits. “We’re already in… in it now. If we stop I… I won’t be able to focus.” His hand finds its way to his face, dragging it down his cheek. 

He can’t believe what he’s seeing is real.

You purse your lip. “Really now?” You can feel just how hard his cock is under his slacks, you wish you could actually see it, but right now may not be the time. “You poor thing.”

He nods, looking around, “Mhm.. uhm… can I… can I touch you?” He blurts out, shyly, like he’d been building the courage to just say it.

You think about it.

Really hard. The silence is deafening.

“No.”

He whines, like it physically pains him to be refused by you. He even lurches forward, either at shock or because you hit an extremely sensitive spot on his dick. 

You lean in, putting your hands back on his shoulders, pressing your forehead to his.

“Wh…whyy?” He whimpers, looking up at you.

“Because you’ve been avoiding me, and you lied to me.”

“I’mm sorry. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” He shakes his head, you gently push his glasses back up. 

Your fingertips press on his chest, making him fall fully back into the chair again. “I was jealous… Is that what you wanna hear?”

“Maybe.”

“You and- ah, Simon, were getting so close and… laughing, I could never get you alone…”

“Yes you could, you just never tried.”

You speed up, he can practically feel the slit of your pussy touching his cock. He whines. “I couldn’t, I can’t- I-… slow down… or I’ll cum, please…”

You don’t listen. “Just think, we could’ve been doing this the whole time if you would’ve just talked to me.” You can’t deny how good this feels, how every now and then you can feel the tip of his cock touch your clit.

Though, this isn’t about you. It’s about him. All him.

He moans, and you cover his mouth, because he’s starting to get loud.

“Shhhh, you don’t want Simon to come in here and see this, do you?”

He looks up at you with tears in his eyes, shaking his head pathetically. 

“That’d be really embarrassing for you, wouldn’t it Dr. Grace?”

He nods, hips jerking up into you. 

He’s close.

He’s getting off on the thought of being caught.

Caught by Simon.

You’re starting to understand.

And he can tell that you’ve realized it, you can hear his muffled ‘no, no, no’ from under your hand.

“You pervert, Ryland.”

He gasps, and you move your hand away so it’d be loud. It echoes in the control room. 

“No- I’m not-“

“You’re getting off thinking about being caught, aren’t you?”

“I’m not, I promise I’m not- I-“ He leans his head back, letting out a dry moan. “Right there- pl- oh my-“

“You want Simon to see us like this, don’t you?”

That sets him off.

He grabs your thighs, humping into you. You hear him cuss, which is really rare for him. Tiny ‘fucks’ come out of his mouth as he buries his face into the crook of your neck. His hips stutter into you, almost lifting you up off the seat.

He cums in his pants.

Hard.

His hands are shaking on you, and 

 you pet his hair gently while he rides that high.

He stays somewhat quiet, besides his shakey breaths.

He finally gains the courage to look up at you, wincing at the wetness in his pants.

“To… to clarify, that’s not what made me cum.”

“Yes it is.”

“It’s not.”

“Do you really wanna keep lying to me, Dr. Grace?”

He opens his mouth, before you hear footsteps. Heavy ones.

Shit.

You quickly stand up, he gasps sharply at how quickly you got off him, and you can see a wet spot in his pants. Fuck. You feel bad.

He looks at you, a yearning look in his eyes. But he waves his hand, shooing you. He’d rather Simon see you with frizzy hair than him with messed up glasses, a disheveled face, and wet pants.

You don’t know what to do, you should kiss him, give him some aftercare, but instead you walk off down the hallway.

You turn the corner to see Simon, this time you don’t run into him.

“Woah, what’s with the rush?” He laughs, looking at you. He even places his large hands on your shoulders to slow you down.

He’s eying you up and down.

“I just heard you coming- walking. Heard you walking.”

You’re acting weird.

He nods his head slowly, “Uh-huuuuhhhh…” he bites his lip, as his eyes move all over you. It starts to click, ever so slightly, in his mind.

“Where’s Ryland?”

——

Whatever you did to Dr. Grace, he needed. The man hadn’t slept in days, and right after he came in his pants he walked into the dormitory, and slept for twelve hours.

Those twelve hours were painfully awkward between you and Simon, even Rocky. Something told you even he knew what was going on.

You ended up just telling Simon that Dr. Grace was busy in the commander, pilot room. He didn’t really believe you, but he wasn’t going to go check. His expression looked like he didn’t really wanna know. 

He ended up just grabbing a protein bar and eating it in the dome with screens, looking at videos of Earth, he’d been doing that a lot lately.

Meanwhile, you immediately decided it was time to go to bed. You would’ve touched yourself to the thought of Dr. Grace’s face moments prior, but Rocky insisted on watching everyone sleep.

Nothing could get done in the dormitory without Rocky seeing, at this point.

A few days had passed, if you had to bet on it, it was probably three days. Everything seemed to happen in three days intervals.

It looked like the tables turned, Simon was quiet around you, but Dr. Grace just could never get a moment with you.

It was always the three of you in awkward silence. And honestly, even when Dr. Grace did get a moment with you, he couldn’t get any words out. He couldn’t even think about that night without getting hard again. It’s like he wanted more but wasn’t sure if he could handle it.

You were in the laboratory with him and Rocky, just talking about Erid, what it’s like.

Rocky explained that the eridians could make a dome of some sorts for the three of you, and that you could each have your own little houses. For privacy.

“Humans do not seem to enjoy sleeping next to each other, statement.”

Of course he could tell, you rub your mouth subtly.

“It’s definitely weird, I mean, speaking as a girl.” You look at Dr. Grace, who nods immediately at your gaze.

“I… I can see that. I think different houses would be good… I mean, I- we could always come by and visit each-other, yeah?” He asked.

You knew what he was implying.

“As long as you knock.” You shrug, trying to tell him that as long as he didn’t avoid you, it was fine.

Before he got the chance to reply, Rocky said your name, which was odd because he normally calls you ‘Doctor.’

“Can Rocky and Grace have moment alone, question? Private discussion.”

Dr. Grace looked pretty surprised, like he didn’t know about this private discussion. Which, he didn’t. He also looked a bit frustrated, because you were finally starting to talk again 

But before he got the chance to protest, you gave Rocky a thumbs down (which is his version of a thumbs up), and made your way back to the dormitory.

The Hail Mary had a ton of laptops on them, and on those laptops had so many articles and information, stuff it shouldn’t have due to copyright, but when you were sent out here, you were expected to die.

Anyways, you kept a laptop under your bed for boredom, and you were currently on page 49 of a PDF explaining every single bird on earth. It was so boring. Yet, you were determined to finish it. 

When you open the door to the dormitory, you’re met with a shocking sight.

Your bed, Simon, and your cutest pair of panties that Stratt had packed.

He hadn’t even noticed you yet, too focused on covering his own moans, the neck of his shirt was between his teeth as his hand moved the red laced panties up and down his shaft.

You could hear your name slip out of his mouth, you can’t deny that it was an extremely hot sight. This is the second time you’ve walked in on Simon naked, but this time was obviously very much different.

Both of them, Dr. Grace and Simon, they’re pervs.

You shut the door behind you, making sure it not only locks but makes a loud click.

Simon shudders, an embarrassing moan comes out of his mouth as he locks eyes with you. He can’t tell what your expression is trying to convey, his hand is still subconsciously moving up and down his shaft.

“Fuck- I’m sorry- shit.” He looks down at himself, at his cock, at your panties laced with precum. “I’ll wash them, I, God, you weren’t supposed to walk in.”

You stay silent, because it’s kind of endearing. You have the entirety of this ship wrapped around your finger, two boys so desperate for you that one would cum in his pants and the other in your panties.

It was attractive. And their jealousy was starting to make more sense by the second. 

You sit down in a chair infront of him, pulling it a bit closer, you’re surprised this room even has a cuck chair.

“Keep going.” You state, crossing your legs.

“No, no this is wrong, I’m sorry I shouldn’t have done thiiisissss…..” His words trail as your shoe presses against his cock. “Stop, stop..” He moans, but he holds onto your leg, keeping it there.

“Wow, Simon. You’re shamelessly perverted, huh?” You smirk.

He whines as your shoe moves slightly against the tip of his swollen cock. “I’m feeling a lot of shame right now…” He whimpers, closing his eyes and bucking his hips slightly at the friction.

You move your shoe away, crossing your leg over the other again. He frowns at the loss of contact.

You point at his cock, your panties are still drooped over it. “I said continue. If you’re gonna do this you need to go all the way.”

He could get up, he could walk out if he really wanted to. He wants you to see him like this.

So, he takes a shaken breath and moves his hand to his cock, pumping it once more. Now, instead of closing his eyes and imagining whatever it was he was thinking about earlier,

He’s looking at you dead in the eyes.

His mouth is open, heavy breaths come out with each pump as he holds eye contact with you. He isn’t even concerned about your body, the way your clothes drape over your figure.

He just wants to know that you’re looking at him.

“I’m so sorry…” He says in-between jerks.

“You enjoying this?” Is your reply, head turning to the side.

“Mhm….” He nods, biting his lip. He thrusts his hips up into your panties ever so slightly, imagining what it’d feel like to buck them under you.

Just like Ryland did the other night.

“Say it.” You lean closer. “Don’t mumble, say you’re enjoying this.”

“I-…” He gasps, a weathered look on his face, furrowed eyebrows as he looks at you, stroking his cock with an erratic and non-rhythmic pace.

He whines as he rubs his own tip with his thumb through the lace, “I’m enjoying this…”

“What’re you enjoying about it?” You ask, fighting any urge to touch the throbbing in your own pants. No. You hold the power in this situation, if you touch yourself that puts you on the same equal footing as him and that’s not what you need right now.

He groans, looking away, it hurts to admit just how pathetic he is. 

“Don’t do tha…that…” He moans, and you grab his face, turning his head to look at you.

He looks pathetic, sad, there’s so many words you could use to describe it, but which one is the right one?

Needy.

He looks so needy.

“I… you looking at me, that’s what’s doing it for me. Okay?” He shakes his head out of your grasp, looking down at your panties. “And these— obviously. I’ve been… imagining what they look like on y-“

You interrupt him, standing up and taking the panties from his cock. He whines. “No… no-“ but you shush him, before he gets the chance to look you take off your pants, throwing them and covering his eyes with them.

He’s still pumping his cock, he knows what you’re doing, and if you’ve decided his eyes should be covered then so be it.

When you pull your pants away from his eyes, he sees you wearing the panties. Panties that he’d just been humping, leaking precum all over.

You pray that you don’t get pregnant this way, but it’s not the time to worry about that. That’s a problem for the future, surely Stratt packed some pregnancy tests.

He gasps, words getting caught in his throat at the sight. 

You walk over to him, standing over him, inbetween his legs, thighs dangerously close to his cock. His head switches from looking at you, to your panties, he doesn’t know where to look.

That seductive gaze looking down at him,

Or the wet panties he was just humping.

“Fuck- I’m gonna cum- gh-“ He chokes and leans his head on your stomach, cumming onto your panties without thinking. He didn’t even realize how pent up he’d be, because his cumshot is quite impressive. 

You look down at the mess he’s made on you, and you bite your lip. It’s… hot. You hate to admit it, but looking at how far Simon’s cum managed to get on you, it’s really turning you on.

Before you get the chance to say anything, he takes his shirt off, without being asked, and wipes it off of you. He doesn’t look up at you, he’s too embarrassed.

“I’m sorry.” He says, wiping his cum up, even off your panties, not even registering how close he is to your core.

How hard he still is.

“I didn’t mean for you to walk in on that it- it was just a moment for me. I… it was frustration, I needed to get it out, I-“

You grab a handful of his hair, he gasps, a tiny ‘ow’ falling from his lips. You force his head up to look at you, and he turns red.

“Did it help?”

“Huh…?” He manages, star struck.

“With your frustration, I mean.”

He takes a few deep breaths, setting his sticky shirt down on his thigh.

“It did… I, yeah. Thanks. Twice you’ve helped me now.” He brings a hand up to wipe the sweat off his face. “I need to make this stuff up to you, somehow.”

You were never supposed to be on Project Hail Mary, it was an extremely last minute decision on Stratt’s end. You met her maybe… three days before you were induced Though, she made you feel as if you didn’t have a choice but to be in this project.

You were the only nurse at Grover Cleveland, well over-qualified for your position. With a Master’s Degree in Biology, completing and passing the MCAT—essentially you’d completed every step to become a proper doctor at the hospital near your house.

And you hated it. God you hated every part of it, all the responsibility, disrespectful patients, nurses, staff, just generally a displeasing job for you. You’re sure that other doctors loved their job, but you loved this area much more. You weren’t willing to move in order to find a better job at a hospital, it wouldn’t be home.

So, you compromised. You believed it was better to be happy and poor than miserable and rich. Your family believed otherwise, as hard as you worked for your degree, but you really didn’t care.

You get paid extra just for being a technical Doctor, though some staff who don’t really know you still refer to you as a Nurse. It doesn’t bother you with staff, no, you care more about the children.

All the kids in school call you Doctor, so any staff member that’s going out of their way to push down your hard work is simply just trying to be disrespectful. It’s best to ignore.

You didn’t speak much to Dr. Grace, but he respected your title highly, you think it’s because people don’t respect his. You’d often hear him talking to students;

“That’s Dr. Grace to you, Kevin!”

Sometimes, when kids would ask to go to the nurse, you could hear him reply that this school didn’t have a nurse, only a Doctor.

You found it amusing, especially considering you two didn’t talk much. His classroom was on the other side of school compared to your office, he only came into your office once to ask for bandaids.

You remember the faint knock on your door. “Come in!” You’d reply, working on your computer and still using your ‘student voice.’ When Dr. Grace walked in, you continued typing a report from a kid that scraped his knee pretty badly.

“Just one second hun’.”

“Take all the seconds you want, I get paid by the hour.” Dr. Grace replied, closing the door behind him. He had never been in your office, so he really took in the comforting atmosphere of it. 

Your head jolted up at the blatant voice of a grown man, seeing Dr. Grace smirking at you. You couldn’t help but laugh at the misunderstanding.

“Oh, sorry Dr. Grace, thought you were a student.”

“I didn’t think I was that short. Shot my ego straight down, Doctor.”

You giggled, pushing your rolling chair aside, away from the computer to better talk to him. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Do I?”

You crossed your arms. “What do you need?”

He walked over to the counter of your desk, crossing his own arms on them and leaning over to peek at what you may have on your desk.

“Bandaids. Like a pack, my kids are pretty violent so we ran out.”

You’d nod your head, standing up to walk to the corner of your office, and opening a drawer. “I can give you a map to the nearest Walmart.” You replied, searching for some band-aids. Preferably ones with cute designs on them, biology themed?

“Hardy har har.” 

You tossed him the pack, he caught it. “Will that do?”

They were bandaids with planets on them, he rubbed them with his thumb, looking at them pretty intently. “Yeah. That’ll be fine.” He put them in the pocket of his suit, and you couldn’t help but think about how different your work attire was. Yours was much more calm, much more casual.

“Alright, tell your kids to stop falling or cutting themselves on paper, Band-Aids are expensive.”

“I think if I told them that they’d just wanna do it more. They’re menaces.”

“Right, bye Dr. Grace.” You sat back down in your rolling chair, typing on the computer.

He gave you a slight wave as he walked out.

Most interactions with people coming into your office were… boring. Everyone was scraping their knees, or needed packages of bandaids. Again, overqualified.

After school had ended, you were finishing up some paper-work, well, procrastinating on it. When someone knocked on your door, you assumed it was George Rams’ mom, he had a fight today and you were the one who got stuck with fixing him up. You were sure she had some concerns, most parents aren’t used to actual doctors working in schools, you’ve had parents complain a lot about a ‘nurse’ handling something that a proper doctor should handle.

“Ma’am, I am a doctor.” You’d say. It was often just met with an ‘Oh, thank you for your time.’

The woman who came in was cold and had a stoic expression, she had the vibe like she commanded a room. You were surprised that such an authoritarian figure would have a child getting into fights, but it’s also expected for children to have a rebellious phase in Middle School, better than High School at the very least.

“Hi Mrs. Rams, is this about your son?” You sat up, giving her your attention.

“I have no son. My name is Eva Stratt, I am working with the United Nations to solve the growing Patrova Line problem with Astrophage.”

You stare at her, not saying much. Because what did this have to do with you? Did she confuse your office with the front office? Was this a mental health issue?

You open your mouth to reply before she states your full government name, which makes you pause your words in slight surprise.

“You are a Doctor right, overqualified for the position as a Middle School Nurse?”

“Maybe.” 

“It seems to be a theme with this school to hire those overqualified to work here. Please stand, Doctor.”

You do, you don’t know this woman, but you stand.

“I hereby grant you clearance to know all information about Project Hail Mary.”

She places her hands on your shoulders, her words imply that she knows someone else overqualified to work here. Dr. Grace, right? That’s the only option, he’d be gone for quite some time, with constant substitutes. Normally a teacher would get in trouble for that but the principal seemed pretty lenient, almost scared to say anything about it.

“Come with me.”

She begins walking out, but you don’t follow.

“Uhm, Ms. Stratt thank you for this… whatever this offer is but-“

“It is not an offer. You will come with me either by willingness or force. I would suggest following me.”

She stares at you for a moment, until your feet automatically move. You follow Stratt, you leave your computer open with George Rams’ medical information on it. You don’t know why—well, yes you do. It’s fear, you’re scared of what Stratt is gonna do to you if you don’t follow her. 

Over the next three days, you don’t ever see Dr. Grace. 

Stratt tells you the purpose of Project Hail Mary, that this is a suicide mission. 

She tells you that you’re not her top candidate, and that you’d only be sent if Dr. Grace is sent.

“He’ll only be sent if something happens to our two scientists, but we know he will not want to be there at all. We aren’t sure if he will cooperate, or if he will do self harm in the hull in order to escape the responsibility.”

That doesn’t sound like Dr. Grace, but at this point you don’t know if you really know Grace at all.

“Not only do you know him, but you’re an extremely qualified Doctor, so you’ll be the ship medic if he is sent up. If he does harm to himself, or others, you will be in charge of that situation. Or if any mishaps happen where someone is wounded, we need this Project to follow through.”

You slowly rose your hand during one of these meetings. “What if I… don’t… want to go. This is a suicide mission, I-“

“We don’t care. Grace will not want to go. So you two can bond over that.”

Awesome. 

And with your luck, after a deadly explosion of Astrophage, the two scientists were rendered useless before launch. Pronounced dead at the scene.

And you were forced to be put into a medically induced coma, and to go aboard the Hail Mary, all so you could be a medic.

——

When you woke up, everything was hazy.

“What is 2+2?”

Four. You thought.

“Aughhr…” You say.

“Incorrect.” The voice restates its question. “What is 2+2?”

Why can’t you talk? You smack your lips, not wanting to open your eyes yet, because you’re still trying to remember things. You make loud noises, groaning continuously. You roll out of bed, before feeling an edge, okay, don’t roll over there. You open your eyes slowly, seeing you’re very high above the ground, with several empty ‘hospital’ beds below you.

A robotic arm grabs you and moves you back to the center of the bed. “What is 2+2?”

“Fruckc.. off…” You groan, trying to sit up, to look around. The lights are bright and fluorescent, and the gravity feels unreal. Your arms feel stronger, you don’t feel unhealthy.

You feel tired. You feel gross.

You can assume it was a coma, your memories are hazy, you have no clue where you are. But you know that you probably just got out of a coma.

“What is 2-“

“It’s four!” You yell at the arm. “Four! It’s fucking four!” You rub your face.

“Correct!”

The arm takes several IVs out of you, you assume a feeding tube was taken out of you moments before you woke up, because your throat feels really weird.

You look on the other side of the bed, seeing a floor and a ladder that leads to a hatch. This room obviously has nothing of importance to provide you, so you sit up, slowly standing. Now that you’ve answered the question, the robot helps you up, guiding you to the hatch.

When you begin climbing, the robot arm holds onto your back to prevent you from falling, and when you get the hatch door open, you can’t help but say “Thank you,” to the arm.

When you step out of the hatch, you enter a hallway— and you smell blood. It’s so much blood, it’s a nauseating smell. You cover your nose with your hospital gown.

Is this a hospital? Hospital gown, smell of blood, coma, seems like a hospital. But why would a robot arm be taking care of you? That doesn’t seem right in the slightest.

You hear loud thuds, like a ball rolling down the hallway. You turn your head in fear, maybe a cart or an emergency patient is being rolled. You step to the side to make way.

But you see a… rock… crab? In a clear… low polygraphed ball.

What the fuck is that?

“Human! Human is alive! Three humans on ship! Grace friend!” It begins rolling towards you, you have no clue what it is. You don’t want to know.

Ship? You start to wobble down the hallway, in your mind you’re running, but you’re actually walking quite slow. You turn the corner, looking behind you as the rock shouts ‘Amaze Amaze!’

You bump into a wet figure, gasping, and backing up to see blood on you.

You quiver in confusion, you look up. A bearded man with longer hair looks down at you. He’s muscular, he has frustration in his eyes, and he’s covered in a lot of blood. You think you hear him ask if you’re okay, but it doesn’t fully register.

You begin shaking your head, about to scream.

But behind the man, is Dr. Grace. You remember him, his face, his name, that’s about it.

“Dr. Grace!” You shout, walking over to him, again, imagining yourself jogging much faster towards the only person you know.

Dr. Grace accepts you into his arms, registering that you just woke up from a coma. Regardless, his embrace feels safe.

“You’re awake!” He screams, happy as can be despite the blood now on his shirt. He seems to have been worried about you, because his arms are shaking in your tight embrace.

“I don’t- I, what’s going on? I don’t remember anything…”

“It’s okay, It’s okay. God, you’ve been out so long, the mission is basically done.”

“Mission?”

“Project Hail Mary.” He says, memories come back faintly at the mention of the name, and you rub your head slightly.

“Human does not remember!” The rock states the obvious. It goes slightly ignored.

“Okay…” You push yourself away. “That doesn’t explain the… rock, or this guy covered in blood.”

He blinks at you, despite being covered in blood, he’s pretty reserved. The blood doesn’t seem to be… from him. It’s like he took a bath in someone else’s blood. He ignores you entirely, and looks at Grace.

“Who’s is this?”

“Gosh, so many questions! This is Dr….” He repeats your last name. “She’s the Doctor at the school I worked at, I… I’m not sure why she’s on this ship. I’ve been wondering that since I woke up.”

You push yourself off of him, not realizing you’d been hugging him so tightly for so long. He didn’t seem to mind, it actually looked like he needed the brief human embrace.

You rub your eyes. “Who is he? Why is he asking who I am?”

“Because I was curious?” The bearded man turns his head at you.

“Okay, okay everyone calm down please. Uh, Rocky.”

“Yes Grace, question.”

“Can you take Simon to uh… the showers where he can handle the blood situation? And clothing situation? I should probably talk to the Doc here privately. Catch her up, you guys are throwing her off.”

“Understand. Come Grace blood friend to bathing center.” Rocky rolls away, and the burly man named ‘Simon’ follows it with heavy footsteps that squelch against the metal floors.

The silence is heavy in the room, your brain is foggy, fuck, your eyesight is foggy. You have the rest of your life on this spaceship, and you can’t even remember what you’re on it for.

Dr. Grace guides you into the laboratory, simply because it’s an easy room to get to in that moment, he helps you sit down.

He reexplains the entire Project Hail Mary mission, the issues with astrophage and the Patrova Line. The more he speaks, the more you remember. The more you remember why you’re on this ship.

You interrupt him mid-sentence. “How long have you been alone, Dr. Grace?”

He blinks at you, shocked at the interruption, but he considers it. “I have no clue… maybe eight months, if you’re asking how long you’ve been out since I’ve been awake.”

“…I’m sorry. Stratt sent me as a… medic for the ship. I was supposed to be the one handling any issues. But from the looks of it you seem to have gained injuries.” You gently take his hand, looking at a scar, running your thumb over it. He lets you.

“None of that explains the rock, or that random guy— seriously, who was that? Eight months is not that long, and I’ve missed so much.”

“Well, that rock is— Rocky. He’s from the planet Erid, making him an Eridian. I taught him our language, and he’s helped a lot with solving the Astrophage problem. Perfectly healthy, it’s just we can’t survive in each-other’s atmosp-“

“You solved the Astrophage problem?” You perk up, eyebrows raising.

Dr. Grace perks up with you. “Yes! Uhm- Tau Ceti, the star, it has a Patrova line to a planet we named Adrien. On that planet was basically um… microorganisms, to put it simply, that were a ‘predator’ for astrophage. Then all I did was send those back on probes to Earth.”

You sigh, leaning back in relief that the problem had been solved. 

“That means I’ve missed it all, we’re all going to die out here.”

“Not exactly, Rocky gave us some astrophage as fuel, we have enough to make it back to Erid. So, not back to Earth right now but… maybe in the future?”

You sigh again, taking it all in, you originally thought you had no choice but to die. Hearing that’s not the case? Extremely relieving. You rub your head, the brain fog clearing.

“As for the man, he actually arrived like… four hours ago? It’s really complicated but we think he’s from an alternate dimension, and accidentally managed to enter a wormhole. His ship is designed for water, like an extremely thick submarine. We managed to get him out of it and bring him in, as the ship didn’t look suitable enough to survive out in space.”

You blink. “That doesn’t explain the blood he had on him? Is he an axe murderer?”

“He says that in his world- or, dimension, all the stars have died, all the planets are gone. There’s just space stations, and he was a Convict for… something he doesn’t wanna talk about. They basically had him go into an ocean of blood, but he was being used as a sacrifice? Or bait? Either way he’s pretty shocked about being alive still.”

Dr. Grace fidgets with his hands and fingers, you can tell he’s been really thinking about this the past four hours. “We’ve spent a lot of time getting him alive, with CPR and feeding him liquids. But he recovered quickly. My hypothesis is that he’s from a dimension that didn’t solve, or didn’t realize the astrophage problem, leading to planets and stars being eaten by them.”

“…Or it’s completely unrelated to astrophage.”

The brain fog is coming back, but you get the general idea. “Is he nice?” You ask, rubbing your head intently.

“He doesn’t seem like a butt.”

That’s not a very direct answer. He may just be closed off though. Your stomach grumbles loudly, it’s almost embarrassing.

Dr. Grace shows immediate concern. “Oh! Gosh, I’m so sorry. Stay right there!” He runs out the lab, and comes back with a small pouch.

“What is that?”

“Liquid food, your body isn’t used to solids so you have to work back up to them. I know it sucks.”

You groan, begrudgingly opening the satchel and taking a sip. You’re met with an immediate flash of flavor and deliciousness on your tongue, it tastes like chicken, several healthy vegetables mixed in. It’s the best thing you’ve had in… what, four years?

Dr. Grace chuckles at your expression, and how quickly you down the food. Immediately you feel better, your muscles feel somewhat better. Mentally, you still feel gross.

“Uh… shower? Is that possible?”

Dr. Grace nods. “Yeah! Come, I’ll show you.”

You follow him down the hallway. “Originally,” He starts, “The ship wasn’t gonna have a shower room, but I had to beg Stratt. Saying it’d be inhumane to make a person bathe without a proper shower.”

You nod. “Were you and Stratt close? She barely talked to me.”

He glances at you over his shoulder, shrugging. “I’d like to think she trusted me more than others, but I wouldn’t consider us friends. She had a mission that took priority over any friendship.”

Dr. Grace points down a hallway. “That room is the shower room, let me know if you need anything.”

The offer isn’t perverse, it’s genuine.

You walk over to the door, unthinking, and nudge the door open. The shower room is relatively large, like a mini-locker-room shower. There’s several unopened bars and packages of soap, conditioner, all sorts of stuff. One of the showers is already running.

The floor is red.

Oh.

“OH I’m SO sorry I-“

“It’s okay.” Simon says. “It’s a locker-room shower, other people are expected to be in here.” He looks at you with a cold look in his eyes, you can see several burns and welts on his arm, something you should definitely treat under different circumstances.

Until then, you close the door. “Just- let me know when you’re done, I’d prefer!”

You hear a quiet ‘Mkay’ from him, and you notice a ball rolling down the hall again, Rocky turns the corner and looks at you.

“Blood Human is in bathing room, Doctor Human.”

You sigh. “Thank you, Rocky.”

Before the crab has a chance to roll away, you ask; “Uhm… where would my clothes be?”

Rocky rolls around in excitement. “Rocky show! Follow! Follow!” He rolls off in glee, and you jog slightly to catch up.

He stops at a door, there’s four beds, one of them has a cage so you assume it’s Rocky’s bed.

“This Doctor bedroom. Clothes under bed.”

You smile at Rocky. “Thank you, sorry for being scared of you.”

“Apology accepted. Rocky understand that Eridian beauty is difficult for Human brain to comprehend.”

You just kinda… blink at him, but you shrug. “Sure!”

You go over to your bed, pulling out a box. Stratt had, seemingly, broken into your home to take some of your personal clothes and pack them. Which is creepy, but you appreciate it. You search for comfortable loungewear, maybe some shorts and a tank top, something reasonable to wear out of a shower.

You find a black tank top and matching shorts made of silk, they’re somewhat loose on you. You intend to get some real sleep after your shower, not comatose sleep.

You walk out with Rocky, who politely waited for you. You run into the once bloodied man in the hallway, he seems freshened up. He’s wearing a tight t-shirt and sweatpants, presumably belonging to Dr. Grace or the deceased members of the ship.

He’s drying his hair with a towel that rests over his shoulders, and he looks at you. You both pause, Rocky rolls away from you both.

“I’m done showering.” He added blankly, walking away.

You watch him intently, you can’t tell what his tone is. He just seems tired.

You go into the shower room, taking a long hot shower, you don’t even care if the water supply is limited anymore. You use all the soaps they’d given you, taking full advantage of this moment alone. No one walks in, reasonably. 

Afterwards, you put on your black tank top and shorts, you figure you should probably tell Dr. Grace that you’re going to bed, so he’s not worried about your uncomfortably long absence. 

You walk down the hallway, holding a wet towel and the old hospital gown, you peer into the laboratory, seeing Dr. Grace talking to the man.

He’s explaining everything he just explained to you.

“So basically, we’re headed to Erid. I’m not sure if we’re going back to Earth, but we won’t die.”

“That’s all I care about, Ryland. I don’t wanna die.”

Dr. Grace smiles at him. “That makes two of us.”

They’re sharing a nice moment, it feels like you’re watching an old married couple. Supposedly, they’d just met a few hours ago, but they talk to eachother like they’ve known each other quite some time. Simon is obviously pretty reserved, given his situation, but Dr. Grace saved his life, so he seems to trust him more than you.

You hate to interrupt but you knock lightly on the door.

They both look at you at the same time, Dr. Grace’s expression softens, Simon’s stays the same.

“Hey, uhm. Sorry, I guess this is a weird thing to tell you both but I’m going to bed. I need some real sleep.”

“Okay.” Simon says. “We’ll probably be close behind, at least, I will. I think Ryland is a bit worried about the ship and its destination.”

“Yeah,” Dr. Grace agrees, “Mary’s been through a lot, so if anything off collision happens I’d like to be awake but… I assume we can do shifts?”

You yawn. “I don’t really care.”

Rocky rolls around in the lab, you reckon he’d been hiding around a shelf. “Rocky watch Doctor sleep!”

You grimace. “What?” 

Simon’s expression is similar to yours. Being watched sleep isn’t exactly something you’re wanting to do.

“Eridians watch each other sleep, to keep each-other safe. You get used to it.” Dr. Grace says, and honestly you don’t really care after learning that, as long as Rocky isn’t being creepy, right?

You just nod, gesturing for Rocky to follow.

When you lie down in the bed, it’s a lot more comfortable than the hospital one you originally woke up in. You can feel Rocky staring at you in silence, but you don’t really mind, it’s not the end of the world. You find yourself falling asleep relatively fast.

——

When you wake up, it’s dark outside.

Okay. That’s a given. 

The lights are off in the hallway, and you can hear light snoring. You sit up slightly, peering into the pod next to you. The once bloodied man, Simon, is sleeping heavily.

You can see the welts on his arms, even with little to no light. You really want to look at them when he’s awake. For right now, you’re up, you have no clue how long you napped for, maybe four hours? Either way, you feel relatively refreshed.

Rolling out of the bed, you stand up. Rocky shuffles, moving closer to Simon. He doesn’t say anything, but he figures he should watch Simon sleep now since you’re awake.

You trudge down the hallway in search for Grace, you know he’s awake, or sleeping somewhere that’s not the pods.

You walk into the lab, the lights are on, but Dr. Grace has his head down on the table. He’s sleeping.

What do you do? Do you wake him up? 

You stand there for quite some time, feeling through your now dry hair. 

“Dr. Grace?” You whisper, he shifts slightly.

“Mrgmmph…” Is his reply.

That means he’s not in a deep sleep, so you calmly walk over to him.

You rub his shoulder softly. “Hey, you should probably sleep in the beds. You’ll hurt your back sleeping here.”

He puts his hand on you, a failed attempt at pushing you away.

“Mnmoo…” 

“Moo?” You repeat to him.

“No… I said no… I don’t wanna get up…” He grumbles, waking up slightly.

You pause, rubbing his shoulder still.

“Rocky isn’t watching you sleep.”

For some reason, that does it for him. He peeks an eye open under his glasses, and he sighs. It takes a moment, but he gets up. He rubs the eye boogers out under his glasses, flicking them somewhere. Gross, but understandable.

He walks with you quietly to the dormitory, you two don’t say much, but your hand moves down to his back, you don’t really know why. 

You guide him to his bed, it’s comforting, the way you gently open the blanket up for him, taking off his glasses and setting them to the side. He doesn’t say thank you, but you know he’s grateful.

Simon rolls over and faces the other way.

——

It had been a few days, maybe three? Not an extremely long time, especially compared to how long Dr. Grace had been alone, and for what Simon had to put up with before he came here.

Simon seems to be having a hard time adjusting to freedom, and adjusting to trust. Dr. Grace did say he was a convict, a criminal, so you assume he may have done something wrong? You have no clue what defines ‘wrong’ in his dimension though.

Either way, he’s been through a lot.

One day when Dr. Grace was showing Rocky some more things about Earth in the little TV room, you were left alone with Simon in the laboratory.

It had been awkward, especially since you walked in on him literally showering. God- you felt horrible for that.

Bringing it up again would just make things a lot more awkward, right? So you choose not to. No matter how much you want to apologize over and over.

He’s looking at all the science lab tools, you don’t really understand them, but if anything he understands them the least. You hope he doesn’t ask you to explain anything, because it would be a very botched explanation of equipment only Dr. Grace (and even Rocky) really know how to use.

Just as you’re thinking that, he speaks.

“So what’s your purpose here?”

You laugh a little, being caught off guard. He lifts his eyes to meet yours, and you realize he’s asking a serious genuine question.

“Oh, err, I guess I’m the medic for the ship? I… haven’t really been doing the best job, because I’ve been in a coma. I’m glad Dr. Grace was able to help you.”

Simon looks down at his arm, at the welts that had calmed down. 

“Why are you calling Ryland, Dr. Grace? He’s a Doctor? I didn’t know that.”

“He has his doctorate innnn…” you bite your lip trying to remember, “molecular biology? So technically he has the title. He’s more focused on science and space and stuff, I’m surprised he knew C— well, never mind, he’s a teacher, CPR is a useful skill.”

Simon blinks at you, registering all the new things he’s learning about Dr. Grace. The fact that he has a doctorate, the fact that he’s a teacher. Has Simon been to school, does he know how college works? You really don’t know how different your dimensions are.

“Right.” He states, sighing. “I’m glad he knew it. He saved my life.” 

You nod in agreement, quite awkwardly. “I’m sorry, I… don’t really know what you’ve been through but whatever it was it seemed-“

“Traumatizing?”

“I was gonna say exhausting but, traumatizing could be a word to describe it.” Like you said, you didn’t know his situation.

He goes quiet softly, fingers running over his welts. 

You can’t help but ask.

“Can I see them?”

“What?”

“The welts, I’m guessing they haven’t been treated yet, right?”

Simon considered, it didn’t even occur to him to treat them. He walks over to you, showing you his arm. 

His forearm is covered in tiny blisters, it’s gross. When working in the medical field, this stuff isn’t gross to you. There’s irritation in certain parts, visibly red skin. His forearm is… large, there’s so much room for these blisters to appear, they go all the way down to the palm of his hand. It looks like his arms are the most affected. 

“What are these from?”

Simon bit his lip. “I think radiation?”

You look up at him, eyebrows raising. “How much radiation were you encountering for this to happen?”

He looked away slightly. “On the Iron Lung.”

He doesn’t say anything else and… okay? The medical tool? Wh… what? 

“Iron Lung?”

“That’s what… they… called the submarine I was on. It needed to use a radioactive camera to see, I think. I didn’t really… read the manual.” He admitted shyly, avoiding your gaze. He isn’t as tough as he looks.

That makes more sense. “Well, since you’re not around radiation anymore, this seems treatable. Maybe some scarring but I can definitely work with this, if you’d let me.”

He thinks about it, watching you analyze his blistered arms carefully. You study him, waiting for a reply.

He swallows, his adam’s apple moving visibly. “…Please. It hurts.”

You didn’t need to be told twice. You and Simon calmly walked to the shower-room, you weren’t sure if there was really a bathroom? And even then that may be uncomfortable to deal with.

You pull a stool up, having him sit. Leaving him there for a moment, you find a ton of medical supplies in a closet, and you bring them.

You turn a faucet on to a lukewarm temperature, using a clean rag to gently wash his arm with soap. You do it carefully and softly, making sure you don’t accidentally pop any blisters or cause more irritation than needed. 

“Have any blisters popped?” You ask, drying his arms by patting them.

He thinks. “No.. uh, I think this one? I’ve tried not to mess with them.”

“That was a very smart decision.” You smile softly at him, he doesn’t know how to take the compliment. 

You look at the one popped blister on his palm, digging in your basket of medical supplies, applying hydrogel to protect the area. “Are you okay with taking an antibiotic?”

“If it helps.”

“So yes, okay. I’ll give you some when we’re done here.”

You get some medically safe moisturizer, applying it to extremely irritated areas of his arms. He winces softly. “I know, I know.” You’d say to him. “It’s almost over.”

When you’re done, you give him some advice. “Wash it with this bar of soap and lukewarm water everyday to keep it clean. Pat it dry, don’t rub it.” He nods. 

“If any blisters pop, come to me. Here, take these antibiotics, they’ll help.”

You were surprised the ship had antibiotics to help exactly with what Simon needed, you guessed the hull had everything you guys could need for the short time you would be out here. You even spotted condoms while searching through the closet. 

Stratt definitely… over-prepared.

Simon takes everything you handed him, looking at it, back at you. He looks grateful.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“What do you mean?”

“I just… wouldn’t have known what to do, I guess. Thank you.” He covers his mouth, he looks like he’s about to cry.

You place a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Simon, it’s okay. You’re welcome, I would do it again in a heartbeat. Just come straight to me if you have any more problems, okay?”

He nods, sighing, wiping a stray tear from his cheek. “Okay, okay. I will.”

The two of you get up, conversing slightly. Nothing of importance, he’s asking a little about your life on Earth before Project Hail Mary. You both leave the shower room laughing, running into Dr. Grace.

He looks surprised, raising his eyebrows. 

“Uh… what were you two doing in there together?” He turns his head, double checking around the corner to see that yes, he really did just watch you both come out of the shower room together.