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So, when I initially opened this link, I saw that the only tag to this fic is, uh, "face-fucking". Now, don't get me wrong, that's fine and dandy. I like my smut as much as the next guy, but I totally thought you just sent me some filth for a minute, so... I hesitantly began reading, because I had faith in you, dear anon.

But the more I read, the more I got pulled in, because the first thing this writer did was ground their audience in sensory experience, with the best thing possible: food. Because food shapes a person. It shapes culture. It shapes the entire environment. That is a great foundational worldbuilding feature to lay down, always.

Ryland cries the first time he makes a loaf of bread. He tells himself it’s not because of the bread, because that would be – well, that would certainly be a new low. But with the house smelling like warm heat, the round loaf cooling on the counter, and a bag of wheat berries just waiting to be milled to make more. It’s at least sixty percent because of the loaf of bread. 

How do you come up with this? Using the sensory experience of bread to evoke lonely emotions that are seemingly unrelated? Is this author a fucking psychologist? Superb.

I won't lie, the plot premise isn't unique ("mysterious man in submarine discovered by Eridians in space"), but this is executed in a way where it's not boring. This author captures Ryland's level-headedness, his snark, his brilliance, emotional underside, and uplifts all that with some goofy-yet-subtle imagery that just repeatedly blew me away.

And then you have Simon, who's very first scene is:

Ryland sees his mouth twitch. Sees the riot of emotions fly across the rest of his face. First shock, followed quickly by hope, crushed by suspicion. It soon locks down, expression by expression, into nothing. A cool look takes over, hardened and unrelenting.

This told me that Simon's first instinct around another human is to stay hyper-vigilant, the thing he does secondly is become desperate in proving his own hope correct, but... he was repeatedly called stupid for being optimistic, so he puts on a poker face.

The blood on his face is streaked as if he’s been crying.

They made Simon a crier. Oh yes.

Rocky's first order of business is to start comparing Simon's physiology to Ryland's like he's another specimen to add to his human terrarium. It gets wildly inappropriate in a silly way, and that moment slows the "meet-scary" emergency down with a laugh. Both Simon and Ryland repeatedly look at each other like they are both aliens to each other. It's like the "meeting Rocky for the first time in the tunnel" scene all over again. It's Simon believing Ryland to be an alien in his own right, and vice-versa.

It's, "what the hell am I doing here?" versus "what the hell are you doing here?" and then having that clash in the middle with abject confusion from both parties. All the while, Simon is watching Ryland painstakingly collect items to address his injuries as if he's watching an elephant try to balance on a football. It's absurd!

He's also very good at moving/interacting with things completely unnoticed. Giving Simon that air of stealth makes total since, since he was a soldier and would have been trained for that/would fall back on that in a fearful scenario.

Simon's no brute. He has his episodes, yeah, but he's no brute. He'll choose not being noticed over anything else, if the situation allows for it.

Remember how I jovially complained earlier about how decompression sickness was an underused concept? This author does that!

They also make him a mute, at first, and in shock. Which is what I've been preaching about for a hot minute, now.

“Go see human now.” Ryland drops his dishes in the sink for later. [...]. “Let me get some stuff together first, then we’ll go.”

They made the Eridians more excited to see Simon than Ryland is. Ryland isn't fawning, he's taking his time and being methodical about the introduction. He gives Simon lots of space and lots of time. Simon dresses his own wounds, and does it well. Because this is a skill Simon is good at; what most people post-Quiet Rapture would have to be good at: being a field medic.

Simon accepts help (food items, water), but he also seems to treasure-hoard it in a corner. Completely fair. Simon also doesn't go for the sweet things offered, such as applesauce. It's not nutritionally important. It's foreign.

He begins backspacing his last message, but Simon beats him to it. From Eden? Ryland shakes his head, unsure what or where Eden is, ducking to type quickly. California. Simon just stares at that, blankly and without seemingly any understanding.

Simon doesn't initially think anyone helping him would be from the COI, no shit, so he has been trying to rationalize Ryland as an Edenite this whole fucking time. What's best about this, though, is that Simon takes the initiative on asking questions. Yes, yes, yes. Simon is the one interrogating Ryland. Simon's the one making the informational demands!

But, then...

COI? he writes. Ryland squints at it, trying to catalog what the acronym might mean. Not a space institute he knows of, not a deep sea exploration company, nothing that would relate to Simon. He eventually shakes his head slowly. With a flash, Ryland falls backwards onto the sand in shock. Startled but unhurt, he looks back up at Simon, who's glaring down at him with a sudden and bright anger in his eyes. He'd punched the xenonite. He'd punched at Ryland. Simon runs a hand roughly through his hair, agitation obvious. He writes again, words accented by choppy letters and an underline. Don't fucken lie

The punctuated underline on the whiteboard they are communicating with is a silly little flamboyant trait of Simon's. I love that.

Simon has those erratic moments that create a sense of unease around just how fucking chill he is most times. This is where the nuance comes to play. This is why nobody from the COI trusts Simon.

Ryland immediately goes into science mode about the concept of an ocean of blood, but also generalizes it in his head real quick, and doesn't panic about it. He's not squeamish and puts on his serious face because there's another human being on the line. He strides straight into the crashed hemorover for answers, only to realize he's bit off more than he can chew, and has to step outside to take a minute.

Then, he goes straight back in, after making adjustments to his equipment.

"[...] I didn’t even see any food – or water! It’s like they didn’t even want him to –” Ryland cuts himself, all too familiar with the hole that statement would open in his chest. “Bad bad bad,” Rocky says, shrinking his body to half its size. “Bad bad bad,” Ryland nods.

Ryland also picks up very quickly a lot of what Simon was up to, with zero communication with Simon, just from context clues. They made him incredibly observant.

[..] he looks down and sees Simon there. He's not at the back wall, but hovering near the laptop, closest he can be to where Ryland would come from. 

Simon's engaging, Simon's talking, Simon's the one meeting Ryland at his own level. I'm gushing over that.

Simon blinks down at Rocky, in his xenonite suit and exuding excitement despite the monotonous nature of the simulated voice. “lo, Rocky,” in the same uncertain voice. Rocky trills.

I just made a post talking about Simon and aliens; Simon wouldn't outwardly be stunned at the existence of aliens, so his first interaction with Rocky being an awkward "hi" fully checks out.

[...] Rocky hadn't left Ryland's side. Had watched over him sleep with a worried trill, both of them unsure if Ryland would wake up. It took a long time after that to feel comfortable without each other. Like if they looked away too long, the other would disappear. Ryland's grown to appreciate his privacy since.

Oh, yeah. Hell yeah. Ryland spends the majority of his time with Rocky upset about his privacy being infringed upon the Hail Mary, so this is good stuff.

Simon hoards food for a while. A small stash in the bottom drawer of his dresser that he thinks Ryland doesn’t know about.

Oh, god. As someone who used to do this (and who still does during PTSD episodes over scarcity), this is an accurate representation of being pulled out of a food crisis like this.

You keep the stash small and unnoticeable, just keeping barely enough around to soothe your own mind, just in case the next meal doesn't happen, even though you can logically tell yourself it most likely will, the "contingency plan" urge doesn't just go away. Non-perishables, like granola bars, or beverage cans. This line just hit me like a truck.

“Can you tell me about Eden?” Simon looks up. Brown eyes and understanding. “Yeah,” the low reply, “‘course.”

I love it when Simon is the rational communicator. All Simon does during Iron Lung is try to get people to listen to him and be fucking normal. My god. What a breath of fresh air, this line.

Now, hang on a second, because I just caught something. This author has made Simon really jittery, having given him a peculiar, and rather specific habit:

The only movements the man makes are his deep inhales and a continuous pattern tapped between his thumb, pointer finger, and middle finger.

He’s tapping that same pattern with his fingers.

Simon’s chest is rocketing, fingers tapping that same rhythm around the uncapped marker.

Simon’s fingers tap that constant pattern, his knee bounces up and down between them.

There's a tick in his jaw and he's tapping his fingers.

The tapping of his fingers ceases, [...]

Simon’s started tapping the rhythm with his fingers again.

Now I've sat here and tried to figure out where the hell they picked up on this. Because, they've gotten everything so crystal clear... So, I went and looked at the movie, and...

I can only assume they pulled this habit from Simon patting the SM-13 repeatedly, and that when there's nothing to grab onto, he does it to himself as a grounding tactic he learned to chill himself out.

I do not mind this little quirk. It's also a very common symptom of agitation before an IED episode / anxiety attack, racing thoughts or general discomfort.

Other small detail tidbits I enjoyed:

Ryland opens every question he asks Simon with, "you can say no," even when the questions are very small.

Simon enjoys that haircut, almost to the exact degree I said he would:

“Just a couple inches, I think. It –” Ryland clears his throat. “It looks good long.” Simon just nods, so Ryland starts.

Simon gets to plant TGWTYTCW's sapling in the biodome, but leaves most of its care to the Eridians (this would make sense because Simon's not a gardener, he's a soldier). It's a maple tree, which is implied to be the species of the seed in the pendant. (If you've been following my story on Michael, you'll know this got me choked up a bit. That's his brother's tree. Simon's running with the baton. Ugh.)

They write a detail in where Simon is self-propelling his own education and really gets into learning things. This is something I've been screaming from the rooftops for ages! [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] Boredom is something that Simon struggles with, if we apply that little smidge of Markiplier's ADHD to him.

Simon looks up from the laptop, deep in whatever he’s been researching blindly for the past two nights. [...] There’s an ever-growing list written up on the whiteboard in Simon’s bedroom.

The way Ryland starts to live more like Simon, rather than the opposite, where Simon "learns to live normally by Ryland's standards," has blow me the fuck away. Ryland picking up on space-station living habits just from Simon being around is insane work. I wish to see more of this:

His bedroom door is open, a habit he'd picked up from Simon.

And then... and then.

To top this all off. To put the cherry on the cake. I see this:

I've never seen Iron Lung.