No one’s ever come back.

Tears stream down his face. He buries them in the sheep.

***

He stays there, unmoving, drifting in a half conscious state of misery hoping the fleece will grow around him, until he is unceremoniously yanked up, rough gloved hand in his hair. It buzzes underneath the hurt, like all of the vikings do, a low level hum that vibrates his teeth inside his skull. He grits them as he’s tugged, swaying on his knees, unable to stand without pulling away from the rough hand, but uncomfortable regardless, grip too tight and high.

“What do you reckon?” The voice comes from the one pulling. Simon reaches up fruitlessly with his bound hands to his head, trying to do something to make it sting less.

A shape resolves itself in the gloom, a different viking, a tall one with dark curly hair. He’s got the iridescent green lenses on. In the depictions Simon had seen, the eyes glittered like an insect’s. From up close, Simon can tell these are goggles, there’s a strap around the back of the head securing them; it doesn’t make them any less unnerving. The steady, unblinking gaze, no pupil, no humanity. 

The hand in his hair moves left to right, shaking Simon like a piece of paper. “It’s a pretty one, could go for a high price.”

The tall viking stares at him. “You’re not wrong, Vincent. Maybe I’ll keep this one for myself.”

Vincent guffaws. The laughter shakes his body and Simon by extension. Tears of pain prick Simon’s eyes but he refuses to cry in front of these monsters.

The taller viking takes a step towards him and Simon braces himself for the next horror. Then a dark shape blocks his view entirely. “You won’t.” The voice is slightly raspy, quiet, but it carries. Or maybe it’s the way that everyone went still and quiet as soon as he spoke.

“Wilhelm,” The tall viking says, a startled laugh curling the words. “You decided to join the appraisal?”

“I’m taking him,” Wilhelm says, not acknowledging the question. He isn’t facing August head on, body angled slightly to the side. Simon can see that he has his hand on his chest, pressing hard enough to compress the armor slightly.

“We haven’t calculated your share yet.”

Wilhelm doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t move. The circle of vikings standing around starts to mill and look at each other uncertainly. 

“You’ve never taken a thrall before,” August says. 

Wilhelm says nothing.

“We’ve always taken inventory first and then separated the spoils. It’s unfair for you to jump the queue.”

“August. I outrank you. I pick first. I pick him.” Wilhelm speaks like the words are forced from a sore throat, scraping their way out.

The hand in Simon’s hair goes lax and Simon drops forward without the grip keeping him up, reaching out to catch himself, hands clanging on the metal of the deck. No one reacts.

“Are you challenging me?” Wilhelm’s voice is still quiet, shoulders coming down and away from his ears. August speaks with an edge, pitched to carry, but Wilhelm speaks directly to him, like a knife.

August closes his mouth, then tilts his head. “You may outrank me, but I’m in charge of the resources here.” There’s the smallest shake in August’s voice, but underneath it Simon can hear hunger. It makes Simon shiver. 

Simon edges towards the sheep, moving just enough that he can see when Wilhelm pulls out the knife sheathed at his thigh. It has a curved black handle and the blade buzzes and hums like everything else the vikings carry. When he squints he can almost see the way the electric edge of it forms a line all the way down to the base of Wilehlm’s glove.

A lot happens then, vikings moving and shifting, clearing a space. Even the other captives take notice, different people looking over at Simon before their eyes dart back down to the floor.

August stands across from Wilhelm, breathing hard. He has his own knife out, held at his side. Wilhelm takes a step forward and so does August. They both cross their daggers over their chests and then raise them to each other before handing them to someone else, a viking who scurries in and takes it before sliding back into the crowd. Neither of them take their eyes off each other.

Wilhelm tilts his head to the left, then the right, and then without tensing or coiling at all he charges at August, crashing into him. August skids a step back before he’s able to get an arm up, trying to box Wilhelm’s ear. He’s taller than Wilhelm, Simon notices, not sure if that’s a good or bad thing—it feels awful to try and pick sides in the fight of who gets to own him, but there was something craven in August’s voice that made him instinctively want to get away. Wilhelm is a blank slate. More of that picture is filling in, though, when he watches Wilhelm easily intercept August’s strike, wrapping his hand and forearm around August’s arm, driving it back and up into the socket until August is forced onto his tiptoes. Wilhelm uses the moment of unbalance to drive a knee into August’s solar plexus.

August jolts, curling in. Wilhelm does it again, knee strike to the same point and August crumples. He doesn’t go down easy, grabbing the straps on the front of Wilhelm’s armour and pulling. It stops Wilhelm from taking the step back he’d been trying to, but that doesn’t slow him much. He scrabbles on top of August’s body and for a long moment Simon can’t tell what’s happening, two dark bodies moving on the ground.

Then they steady with August on his back, kicking ineffectually while Wilhelm is mostly beneath him, legs locked around the top of his torso. “Yield,” Wilhelm says. He doesn’t even sound winded. August kicks again, one hand pinned at his side, the other up above his head, fingers scrabbling at Wilhelm’s thigh. Wilhelm lifts his hips and August groans, his shoulder going up but his elbow staying down. He doesn’t yield. Then there’s a pop like the vacuum seal on a jar opening and a sick, wet, groan. “Yield.” Nothing. Wilhelm leans up again and August lets out a wet, high cry, so wretched it activates an involuntary empathetic response in Simon, all of his hair standing up. That’s a creature in real pain.

There’s some signal that Simon can’t see and August slumps to the deck. He’s sobbing now, shaky breaths. Wilhelm stands up. He puts out his hand and his dagger is placed in it. 

He walks away from August without looking back, even when August tries to push himself up and collapses down.

There’s a sound like the wind through trees as Wilhelm walks past other vikings and Simon thinks he can pick out one word in the chorus of mutters: berserker. He doesn’t know what it means. There’s an uncomfortable edge of awe to the sound, but Wilhelm doesn’t react to that either. He only reacts when Vincent whistles and says, “Wille, you’ve still got it, damn,” and claps his shoulder. “But I guess you were properly motivated,” he says with a leer. Only then does Wilhelm flinch. He shakes Vincent off, who lets him—but then, what could Vincent do? Wilhelm took August apart like he was a puzzle toy, interlocking rings to be worked apart. “I never knew you had the taste, but that is a fine one.” Wilhelm doesn’t respond.

He drops into a crouch in front of Simon. Simon grips onto the sheep again, even though it didn’t help him before. And it isn’t going to help him now, Simon thinks, breath speeding up as Wilhelm draws his blade again. Did he do that entire fight for the simple pleasure of killing Simon now? Before August could do whatever their usual plan is? 

He reaches for Simon and Simon flinches away, but there’s nowhere to go. Wilhelm grabs at the binding on Simon’s wrists and slides his knife against it. It buzzes horribly for a second and then Simon is free. He rubs his wrists. Wilhelm does the same to Simon’s ankles. For a second Simon’s mind races with possibilities. He could get out. He could run. And then he looks out the window. Run where? There’s no air out there. Does it matter if his hands and feet are tied or not, he can’t run. If August, trained, armored, couldn’t do anything to Wilhelm, what could Simon do?

“Did he hurt you?” Wilhelm asks Simon’s knee. Even though his goggles are up against his forehead, Simon can’t see his eyes.

Simon stares at him, uncomprehending. Of course he did. He kidnapped him. Or… was it Wilhelm? Simon peers at him in the low amber light. The raid itself is mostly a blur in his mind. He was finishing up his set in the small hall when the alarm went up, the mechanical wail that started as a low note and grew to a piercing wail. Everyone ran, and Simon, shocked by the sound, followed them on instinct. He’s not a runner, and he didn’t know the area and he fell behind as others disappeared into shelters or made for the edge of town. He was stumbling out in the open, like an idiot, when he was taken out at the knees and pushed into the dirt.

The hands on him buzzed and stung as they wrapped rope around his wrists and between his ankles. When he was yanked to his feet the first thing he saw was the eyes, buglike and green as had always been described, but this close he could see that it was goggles, strap wrapping around a dark head of curly hair. And the insignia on the black straps on the armor were curling and overlapping like the branches of a bush, but there was an animal in there that Simon couldn’t quite recognise, with horns and a long nose.

So, not Wilhelm. The goggles are off and his eyes look so human, light brown to match his hair, pale skin marked with some smears of dirt on his cheeks. 

“Did he?” Wilhelm asks again. 

He’s been staring and his… owner… has noticed, eyes flicking around and always settling back on Simon; there’s something written on his face but Simon doesn’t have the literacy to interpret it. Simon, nonsensically, doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeming interested, so he looks out the window, and gasps.

It’s big, so big Simon can’t quite take it in, like a large silver cylinder with petals and a white tail of ice and rock. It’s not natural, undoubtedly, and suddenly Simon gets why none of the telescopes and probes they sent out could ever figure out where the raiders came from. It’s moving. No one will find this, no one can stop this. The tiniest sliver of hope that Simon had for escaping flickers out like a candle flame.

The presence behind him shifts, close enough that Simon can feel that unsettling buzzing. “That’s the home ship,” he says, mistaking Simon’s reaction. 

The ship they’re on falls into the shadow of the home ship long before they make contact with it. Red covers the window. “The solar sails are furling, we’re almost docked.”

It’s like this guy is trying to soothe Simon’s worries which is so ridiculous that it makes him feel like the top of his head is spinning off. When the ship docks it judders for a second and Simon rocks back. The viking reaches out a hand to steady him. That hand almost beat a man to death less than an hour ago. He throws it off and belatedly thinks it was not a good idea to do that for the same reason. 

When the hull opens, Simon and Wilhelm are among the first off. He looks over his shoulder for the sheep, but Wilhelm’s hand is on his shoulder now, pushing him forward inexorably. At least his feet aren’t tied, a small mercy he is grateful for when he sees one of the other captives stumble and fall to his knees on the metal floor before he is yanked up. But after the display Simon saw, he supposes Wilhelm is right to be confident that he doesn’t need to.

Where they disembarked is sort of what Simon expected, grey metal and echoing cavernous space but Wilhelm leads him to a small door at the side and when he steps out Simon blinks against the change in scenery. 

Simon knows they’re on a ship, he knows that. He saw the giant petalled bullet from a distance until it filled his whole field of view. But when he steps out it’s onto a path surrounded by grass, trees and bushes bordering the sides. There’s a tram track visible beyond the barrier of greenery. Simon stares at a leaf like he’s never seen one before. Then he looks up and experiences vertigo so strong he isn’t aware that he’s fallen until Wilhelm catches him, lowering him to the ground. “Put your head between your knees,” he says. Simon, feeling contrary, looks up again and then has to take quick sips of air and do what Wilhelm said. 

Simon knows how the world works. There’s ground below and sky above and that fuzzy bit where they touch and it’s not clear exactly which is which, sometimes, when he’s on the road and it’s flat as far as the eye can see. But here… he looks up and it isn’t blue. He looks up and the world is mirrored, reflecting back at him, grass, river, low buildings. Not just once, but five times. It’s like he’s standing inside a mirror room except it’s the size of the world. His brain struggles to piece together the information from his eyes, but he puzzles it out in his mind. He saw it, coming in, that the ship had those petals, and so it must be that the inside of each one is its own strip of land. Where does the light come from? He doesn’t understand it. Between each petal he can see darkness and stars where they are bright enough to fight the light pollution of each of these small worlds. It’s as inside out as his stomach wants to be.

He looks up again, but before he can cast his eyes to the sky, which is the ground, he startles. Wilhelm is so close to him, crouched in front of him, face barely a breath apart. Simon can see the slightly red lines the goggles left on his temples. Wilhelm’s expression is intense, searing and unflinching and fixed on Simon. Wilhelm’s hand hovers with the stillness of a dragonfly, almost touching the collar of Simon’s shirt. Simon swallows around a dry throat. He can’t help but think of Vincent saying he was pretty. That Wilhelm had the taste for him, was willing to hurt one of his own people to have him.

There are worse things here than this hollow earth.

***

Simon doesn’t pay attention to how they get to Wilhelm’s home. There’s a train with no windows that moves so silently that Simon knows it must be going impossibly fast, and they ride that for some amount of time, the silence ringing in Simon’s ears. And then they get off and get inside a fucking gondola that swings them up into some hills. Wilhelm has to whisk Simon out of the clear bubble before it loops around and brings him back down. It’s the closest they’ve been. Simon can feel the whipcord muscle in Wilhelm’s forearm bunch when he grips Simon’s waistband; his fingers are strong. It’s a casual display of power and Wilhelm doesn’t seem to notice the way that Simon can’t move when he lets go, Wilhelm’s phantom grip holding him in place.

“It’s this way,” Wilhelm says, like not knowing where to go is Simon’s problem. When Simon doesn’t move, he says, “Hey.” Then: “What’s your name?”

Simon thinks he should lie, should keep something back for himself, he shouldn’t put the name his mother gave him into Wilhelm’s mouth, but his brain is slow with exhaustion and dread and he isn’t quick enough. “Simon,” tumbles out of his mouth, grumbly and low.

Wilhelm nods. “Simon,” he says, tentative, and then again, “Simon.” Simon swallows, eyes focusing on a bird’s nest in a tree. Do they ever try to fly to the other world above their head? Can they make it? “Hi, I’m Wilhelm.” Simon stares at him. Of course Simon knows that? Wilhelm’s cheeks colour. “This way.”

This time, Simon follows.

***

Wilhelm lives in… well, a hut. It’s made of wood, crossed beams and pointed roof of slats. It would be extremely basic except that the door and lintel are intricately carved with the same knot and animal designs that are on Wilhelm’s armor. Wilhelm opens the door and gestures Simon in ahead of him. When he steps inside a low amber light turns on, casting some shadows around the main space. Wilhelm follows him and then turns to the side, sliding open a panel and flipping some toggles. Brighter, but still warm, lights come on, taking the space from ominous to cosy instantly. There’s a round wooden—there’s a theme—in the middle of the room, a hearth against the wall covered with a grate, a counter against the wall with more wooden panels above it that Simon suspects open to more switches or something, and two doors off of the room. 

Wilhelm walks over to the counter and pulls out a tray that Simon hadn’t seen. There’s a deep rectangular basin there. Wilhelm reaches for something Simon can’t quite see and then water starts to fill it. That’s obvious. Simon is being so stupid. That’s a bath. He keeps expecting everything to be more alien than it is and it’s tripping him up. “It’s not voice activated?” He doesn’t know where that came from.

Wilhelm looks up sharply and Simon takes a step back. Wilhelm turns back to the bath, pulling out small baskets from other trays, Simon sees petals and salts. “Is that what you have at home?” he asks and that bowls Simon over. They’ve been stealing people and things for generations and they have literally no idea about what the world is like, do they? Why would they, the scavengers. 

“No,” Simon says, but they do in stories, he doesn’t add. That’s the future that is promised, AI solving problems.

Wilhelm casts petals and salt into the bath, rubbing his hands together to get them all off. “We had that, once, centuries ago, but there was a—” he fiddles with the tap, lips pursed like he’s searching for the word, “—AI uprising,” he settles for, “and then it was banned. Mechanical things work just as well. The pipes that bring this water don’t need a mind attached to them.”

Simon thinks that could be nice, to be those pipes, to not have a mind attached, because then he wouldn’t have to hear Wilhelm’s next sentence. “You take a bath here.” Simon locks up. “Do you have baths, down there? You take off your clothes and get in the water.” Yeah, Simon got the implication. This is it, it’s happening. Wilhelm looks at him expectantly. Simon has a choice in this moment. He remembers Wilhelm’s grip, he remembers that there was no warning before he put August on the floor. He can shake his head and have Wilhelm strip him, bruise him, or he can do it himself. Which is better? There’s an appeal to making Wilhelm do it, so he can comfort himself that he didn’t go easy, didn’t roll over. Every hurt could be a badge of honour, a sign he protected his dignity. Wilhelm keeps watching him, silent, steady, waiting, and Simon knows the calm is deceptive. It could be any second before Wilhelm lunges at him.

“What if I don’t?” Simon whispers.

Wilhelm cocks his head. “There’s a shower outside.” Outside. There seems to be a fair amount of space around Wilhelm’s house, but Simon saw other structures dotted around, close enough to be shouting distance, and definitely visible. So that’s the choice. He can undress here, inside the walls, or he can do it out there. In front of anyone who walks by. 

Simon caves. He reaches behind his head and pulls off his t-shirt. The room isn’t as cold as he expected, but Simon feels his skin pebble up regardless, nipples drawing tight when they’re exposed. 

He takes a breath, shaky exhale, before he opens the button on his trousers and pushes them down, taking off his underwear and trying to get his socks off in one go. He tries to get into the water as quickly as he can, sloshing a little over the edge as he slips a bit on the way down.

“Good,” Wilhelm says and Simon wants to throw up, the way it makes him feel relieved. “There’s soap in the alcove. Uh, soap is—”

“I know what soap is,” Simon snaps. Then he cringes.

Wilhelm smiles, which Simon doesn’t get at all. “I’ll use the shower outside,” he says, and then takes Simon’s clothes with him when he goes. 

Simon sits in the bath for a while. It’s a good temperature and the petals smell soft and nice and the longer he sits there the more tense he gets. He eyes the soap, a yellow bar sitting there, flecked with what look like the same petals that are in the bath. Wilhelm wants him clean. The dilemma strikes him again and so do the tears, running hot and salty down his face, hotter than the water, mingling with the steam when they drip off his chin. 

His hand wraps around the bruises on his arm from where he was grabbed. They’re turning dark already, four thin, finger shaped bands, and the round button of a thumb.

And then he picks up the soap and starts to scrub. He doesn’t want to hurt.

***

Simon is still in the bath when Wilhelm comes back in. He’s changed and Simon stares. He’s wearing a blue belted tunic over soft brown looking leggings, and he has slippers on. His hair, smudges of dirt removed, reveals itself to be a light brown, smooth enough to catch a halo from the light. He tucks a piece of hair behind his ear, which immediately falls forward, and sighs while running his fingers through the short hair of his beard.

“Your room,” he says, pointing at one of the doors without looking. His eyes are fixed on Simon’s collarbones, sitting just above the water. He doesn’t understand Wilhelm. He was so casual with the violence, so relaxed, and he moves Simon around like Simon is made of paper, but then he won’t look at him or he looks at him too much; it’s like he’s shy. Simon can’t figure him out. “My room,” he says, pointing at the other, and then goes in there and shuts the door. 

That’s… what is Simon supposed to do now? He sits in the bath a while longer, until his fingers and toes shrivel up, and then he levers himself out. He’s not sure what to do about the water, which is disgusting now, dirt from the ship and Simon’s fall into the dirt turning it brown. 

Is he… what is he supposed to do?

He’s totally naked and alone in this alien space. It’s a level of exposure that goes beyond nudity. He takes a hesitant step, then another, towards Wilhelm’s room. He touches the door, fingers snatching themselves back like it was burning hot. But it isn’t, it’s just wood, but Simon knows he doesn’t have it in him to walk in there, without any clothes, and offer himself up. He took the bath, isn’t that enough? Why is Wilhelm torturing him?

He goes into the room that’s his, apparently, though of course it isn’t. He has a room. It’s back home, at his mother’s. It has his favourite instruments in it, the ones too big to travel with. It has the sheets he’s had for way too long, threadbare and worn at the corners, it has his books. That’s his room. This is Wilhelm’s space, all of it, and he’s designated this corner for Simon to… what? Lurk in?

The room itself is simple like the rest of the house, carved along the beams. There’s a bed and a trunk at the foot of the bed, and on top of the trunk a similar tunic to what Wilhelm was wearing. His clothes are nowhere to be seen. Without thinking too much about it he throws the tunic on, and the leggings. They’re deceptively soft, sitting on his skin like the touch of a cloud. 

If Wilhelm wants him, Simon thinks with a burst of energy he can only attribute to no longer being naked, he can come in here. Simon won’t go to him, no way. He crawls into the bed, which, again, is surprisingly comfortable, and lies down. His body is stiff like a board despite the best efforts of the salts in the bath. The bed keeps trying to suck him down into it but Simon doesn’t let it, clenching and staying on top. The moment he relaxes, he rationalises, then it’ll happen, and it’ll be worse if he isn’t expecting it. 

He lies there long enough that it gets dark outside, room turning grey, then black. He lies there until his body won’t let him and his eyes close and his brain shuts off.

***

Simon wakes with a jolt, eyes snapping open, unsure what woke him. Then he hears small shuffling sounds in the main room outside. The light—Simon isn’t sure if it’s the sun—has returned. 

Abruptly, Simon can’t stay in here any longer. He throws the covers off, and pushes open the door with too much force. Wilhelm is out there, in the same outfit, doing something with one of the other panels.

He turns around, looks Simon up and down with what Simon swears is satisfaction and then hunches over, turning back. “I, ah, heard that this is very precious, very important to your people,” he says and then pushes a ceramic mug along the counter towards Simon.

Simon picks it up suspiciously, inhales, and then stares. It’s a fucking cup of coffee.

“I thought,” Wilhelm continues, one hand running along his jaw, against the grain of his beard. It’s slightly redder than the hair on his head. “I’ll show you around today, show you how the garden works. Stay at home.” He looks up. “What do you think?” he asks.

Is Simon allowed to think? 

Wilhelm looks down again, mumbling. “I thought it would be good. To take it easy.”