swim the void

It had become a part of their daily routine. They’d get up, get ready, and then Simon would get his check-up. On Dr. Grace’s orders, they’d never missed a day.

See, the problem with getting rescued from a decrepit submarine full of blood by an extremely loyal, extremely anxious scientist is that he’s going to want to run tests. A lot of them. So many fucking tests, at a certain point Simon had stopped bothering to ask what they were for. It was so weird, having somebody care about his well-being. It would be unsettling if not for the fact that Grace rambled the entire time, so he didn’t really have the mental space to think about it. Which was completely fine by him, for the record. He liked to listen to Grace talk, and he liked to not think about his problems. A win-win.

Until today.

It was routine procedure up until Grace went to check his heartbeat. Stethoscope in his ears, the end moving to press gently against Simon’s back. The cold made him flinch, like it did every day, but it wasn’t anything worth worrying about.

But Grace wasn’t talking.

His head was bowed in concentration as he read something off a tablet he’d brought over with him, presumably the results of some earlier test. He gently rested his other hand on Simon’s shoulder to steady him, and this time the touch made his heart rate skyrocket.

At first, he couldn’t really figure out why. Why the image he was seeing out of the corner of his eye made him feel suddenly and completely like he was going to throw up. He wanted to run, he wanted to start screaming. His body was telling him something was wrong.

And then the memory flashed itself to the forefront of his mind.

The Father, firm but gentle hands on Simon’s shoulders. Head bowed, mouth moving with a soft whisper.

Praying.

Tears pricked his eyes, and he tried so hard to remind himself that it wasn’t real. He wasn’t there anymore. He was okay, Grace was not The Father, Grace was nice and cared about him and —

And so had The Father. Hadn’t he? He’d cared for him, loved him and nurtured him like a son. Ushered him towards safety, towards salvation.

Put an axe in his hands and told him to swing.

“Hey, are you alright? Your heart rate just got really —” Grace’s head finally moved, looking up from the tablet to look at Simon and cutting himself off midsentence. “Oh. Woah, okay. Simon? What happened, what’s going on right now?”

He shook his head. All he wanted to do was run. To curl up in the corner, to not have to explain all of this and instead just be able to scream until he felt safe again.

“I… I have to go,” He said, standing suddenly from the exam table (which was just a lab table Grace had cleared off so he could sit on it, but that was semantics) and turning in the direction of the ladder which led down to the crew dormitory.

“Simon, are you okay?” Grace asked, following quickly behind him in a flurry of concern. “Did I do something?”

“No, no it’s not you,” Simon explained, even as his voice grew distant in his own ears.

Grace’s hands had left his shoulders already, but that didn’t matter now. His mind had already set the show in motion, he wasn’t going to be able to stop it until the curtain closed. He was seeing the Hail Mary in his eyes, he knew where he was. But his body didn’t. His mind didn’t.

He started down the ladder, single-mindedly thinking about sitting on the floor in the corner of the room like a child. That was his only goal at this point. A space where he could pretend that nobody could see him and where he could see everything that could possibly be around him.

He hoped to God that Grace wasn’t following him, but he knew that wasn’t very likely. Sure enough, he heard footsteps behind him, and he almost didn’t have the energy to tell him to go away.

Almost.

“I’m fine, Grace. Please,” He choked out, surely not sounding very convincing.

“Is there anything I can do?” He asked, watching in concern as Simon holed up in the corner. He shook his head quickly, opening his mouth to tell him that he was fine again before a new memory overtook him. 

More hands replaced The Father’s. 

One of the nights he was purified, brought before the Tree to promise his devotion again.

Hands, all over his body. Touching any bit of him they could reach, arms and sides and shoulders and back. Everyone was crying, everyone was crying and they were praying and he was saved, he was saved, he was falling to the ground in tears of pure joy. The hands followed him, wrapping him up until The Father could come to pull him into his arms. He was safe, he was at home, he was good. He was being good.

On the floor of the Hail Mary, his entire body was shaking. He could feel sweat starting to bead on his hairline, heat crawling up his back in a way that made him want to scrunch his shoulders. He felt his stomach turn, and he dug his fingernails into his palms, trying to calm himself down. To bring himself back to reality.

Grace reached his hand out again, moving toward Simon in comfort before Simon smacked it away. So many people were already touching him, heads bowed in prayer or supplication or something else. He wanted to rip off his skin just to get the feeling off of him.

“I need…” He started to speak, to ask for some kind of help, but there was nothing that anyone could do. There was nothing he could do to make it better. He wanted his mom and he wanted The Father and he wanted everybody to take their hands off of his body.

“Simon okay, question?” He heard Rocky’s voice as he entered the room, but it was muffled in his ears. He held up a hand, trying to wave him away, continuing his fruitless efforts to try and convince everybody he was fine. He wasn’t supposed to do this. He was supposed to be a light, a beacon of hope and positivity for the rest of the world, to encourage them to understand the truth of Eden. He was supposed to cry for the Tree, and nothing else.

Of course, Rocky also didn’t go anywhere. He just rolled up behind Grace, who was staring at Simon with a mix of confusion and despair.

“I don’t know what you need. What can I do?” He asked, despite the fact that Simon had already failed once at answering that question. He muttered something else to himself under his breath that Simon didn’t quite catch, and then took to pacing back and forth in front of him.

“Grace Simon both elevated heartbeat. Bad, question?”

“I’m fine, Rock. Just worried.”

“I’ll…” Simon tried to speak, even as his voice sounded distant in his ears, “... I’ll be alright.”

He was grabbing his legs now, gripping the fabric of his pants in his fists as he tried to wrench himself back into the present. The hands were growing less aggressive, less visceral, but the prayers they’d been uttering still bounced around in his head like a damning symphony.

“Simon leaking. Heart fast fast fast. Not alright, statement.”

“Mmm,” He just hummed in agreement to Rocky, squeezing his eyes shut as he tried to purge the sounds from his mind. Praying and crying, praying and screaming, praying praying praying and asking him to promise. Asking him to give himself up, give up his right to choose. It was good, it was necessary, and it was divine. His life belonged to the Tree, and it was selfish to think otherwise. And every time, he had agreed.

Every time.

Deep down, he knew that he hadn’t been given any other choice. But on the surface, all he could remember was how badly he had wanted to.

“Simon, you’re safe. I promise, you’re safe here. Nobody is going to hurt you,” Grace said, clearly putting effort into steadying his voice.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” He mumbled, manually forcing air in and out of his lungs. He had no clue who he was apologizing to.

“You’re okay, Simon. You’re okay. It’s okay,” Grace continued, kneeling down to be on his level, softening his voice in a way that reminded him distinctly of his childhood teachers. “It’s going to be okay.”

The cacophony was slowly starting to clear itself from his mind, and he felt himself becoming more and more present. He reached up to touch his cheeks, mortification racing through him when his fingertips came away wet. His entire body was still shaking, and he shook his head at Grace’s statement.

“They… they were praying. There were hands all over me, and all I could feel was fear; fuck, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to —” He let his head fall back against the wall behind him, willing the tears back into his eyes.

“Hey. You have nothing to apologize for, okay? I’m sorry that happened to you.”

Simon exhaled a slight laugh. “You don’t have anything to apologize for either.”

“I mean, it was my fault, wasn’t it?” Grace asked, his voice remorseful. Simon hated that he had to nod.

“Not really though. Just the way you were standing reminded me… reminded me of someone else.” He didn’t really want to explain, not in detail. The longer he spent on the Hail Mary, the more he came to realize that the way that he was raised wasn’t as loving as he’d thought it was. 

Yes, he’d renounced the religion. He still agreed with that, as much as a large part of his brain loved to scream at him for it. But he was finding it much much harder to renounce the people.

“You said they were praying,” Grace said. “Praying for you?”

Simon winced. “Praying over me.”

“Is there a difference?”

“Well they had to be touching me, for one.” As he said it, a hand crept up his shoulder again, and he rolled it to shake the feeling. “And it’s emotionally much more… intense. More ritualistic, I guess.”

“That’s…” Grace trailed off, exhaling deeply. “Wow. That’s… a lot. I’m so sorry, Simon.”

“It’s fine. It was a good thing, you know?” Simon supplemented, trying to brush off the sympathy. It made his skin feel itchy, guilt poking at his sides. He wasn’t supposed to make it sound like Eden had been bad.

“Was and is are two different words,” Grace said, and Simon chuckled again.

“Yeah, I guess they are.”

The room lapsed into silence for a moment, before Grace finally broke it.

“Simon?” He started.

“Yeah?”

“What can I do to help right now?”

He didn’t want to ask for anything. He still hadn’t really shaken the idea that every action must be equally reciprocated. But Grace clearly wanted to help, and Simon did actually have an answer.

“... Can I have a blanket?” He asked, his voice quiet. If he had something over his shoulders, nobody could touch them.

Grace nodded immediately, moving quickly across the room to grab the brightly colored quilt from Earth off of his bed. He held it out, before asking, “Can I? Or would that make things worse right now?”

He was taken aback for a moment. It wasn’t like they’d never touched before; they were the only two people around for light years. They’d hugged. Sometimes on long nights in the lab Grace would fall asleep with his head on his shoulder and Simon would have to carry him back to his bed. But this was different.

Simon had never been comforted by someone outside of Eden before. And he sure as hell had never been comforted by someone about Eden before.

Plus, he did have to consider that it was Grace’s hands on him that had brought him here in the first place. But that feeling was very different from what was going on right now. It had been more controlled, more formal. This was… relaxed. Or as relaxed as it could be, in the wake of everything that had just happened.

Also, it was really fucking hard to do that kind of shit with only one hand.

After a moment’s deliberation, he nodded, scooting slightly away from the wall so that Grace could drape the blanket around his shoulders. 

Fuck, he was so careful. His touch didn’t linger, it wasn’t firm. Nobody had ever been so gentle with him before. Treating him like a person instead of a pawn to be played.

“Grace?” He asked after scooting back against the wall.

“Yeah?” Grace replied, still crouched in front of him on the floor.

“Will you sit with me?” His voice trembled a bit when he asked it, the anxiety of repercussions racing back through his veins. But Grace just smiled softly.

“Of course I will.”

As Grace joined him up against the wall, he heard the sound of xenonite on the floor and realized that Rocky hadn’t left the room. He’d been so quiet he hadn’t really thought he was still there.

“Rocky? Are you here?” Simon asked. Rocky rolled back into view, seeming more hesitant than Simon had ever seen him before.

“Simon okay now, question?” He asked, and Simon made something in between a smile and a grimace.

“‘Okay’ is a strong word. But I’m still here.”

“... Rocky Simon hug, question?”

Simon smiled for real this time, and nodded. “That would be really nice.”

Rocky joined the two of them up against the wall, and Simon let himself lean up against the xenonite ball as Rocky moved within it to be as close to him as possible. He was warm, and it helped to soothe the last of the residual shaking in Simon’s limbs. He could feel Grace moving to be closer to him as well, though he was still leaving a safe distance between them.

“Grace. You can join the hug too, I promise I won’t freak out again,” He joked. It was more so Grace didn’t feel like he was being left out, but Simon was surprised at how good it felt when he curled up against him. He wrapped one arm around his middle, resting his head on Simon’s right shoulder after a moment of hesitation.

Simon reached out to grab Grace’s left hand with his remaining right one, letting their fingers tangle together on instinct. He felt tears welling up in his eyes again, but it was for a different reason than before. He wasn’t feeling fear. He didn’t want to run. He felt… safe. 

He wasn’t sure how long it had been since he felt truly safe.

“Thank you guys,” He said, his voice barely audible in the still air of the dormitory. Rocky hummed a response, and Grace squeezed his hand gently.

Nobody spoke for a long while after that, but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t awkward. He was surrounded by people who cared about him. He wasn’t sure the last time he could say that, either.