TheGarbageBin

It’s life.

At first they don’t believe it’s intelligent, it’s a plant after all, but it is still life living in a literal ocean of radiation. Maybe it has a defense mechanism they can try to replicate, maybe an organism that keeps it alive as such, It’s a start, maybe. So they try to take a piece- except something happens, the machine detects movement and when it slowly shifts the Eridians are made aware of the fact that some of the cracks and curves of the plant move as if opening, as if something has opened. They think it’s a defense of the plant, maybe it’s how the plant even survives in the radiation but still, they try to take a piece and then the Eridians hear something they hadn’t expected, a painful moan.

It was hurt, they hurt it.

One part of the tree seems to shift and they can make out a strange limb of the plant, incased and withering, as if trying to reach where they’ve cut into. Almost as if an arm but the shape is too strange. It has the Eridians worried they may have hurt it too much but they slowly watch as the limb finally reaches into the cut and begins to tear more of itself off, piece by piece and they slowly make out more and more and suddenly they are aware of many things.

They had found life in this ocean of radiation- and it may be intelligent.

So they quickly work their way on making a fourth one, larger then the last three, all with communicative devices they hadn’t thought to implement in the last three but they slowly wait in watch as the fourth is sent off and the third machine still watches the life they’ve found. It’s strange, the creature.

Maybe it’s still part of the plant, after all it seems to have stopped tearing pieces of itself off but they can slowly make out a strange difference in material, sound doesn’t bounce off the peeled parts in the same way they do in unpeeled parts. But the life has stopped moving so they only hope for the best.

And the fourth comes, and it slowly finds its way to the plant? The creature? The life form.

It makes low hums and chimes, as many of the Eridians tech does to ‘see’. But it’s strange because now with the communication, when they use it to speak through, higher and much louder sounds the last thing they expect is for it to mimic it.

Horribly and maybe not exact, but it seems to mimic it to the best of its ability and that is enough for the machine to attempt to see if the self peeling caused it harm or if it’s needed as a help, they touch the peeled sections, they watch as it jumps at the contact, hear a humming sound come from the touch and realize they are close enough where the life form can mimic the sound of their machine. They step away and slowly touch the unpeeled ones but the life form makes no sound, so in a similar way as the life form, they peel off another section and are met with a painful groan and the limb returns but they watch as the limb still only tries to peel off more and they then realize it is not pain- it may be relief, the thick layer that grows on the life form may be what’s keeping it in pain and so they start helping the limb, slowly they peel off more and more and they can now make out more limbs, a shape separate from the plant.

And well, it doesn’t move after it’s been freed. It stays floating in the ocean and they already have the fourth machine built for retrieval, it wouldn’t do much harm to see if they can help it anymore where they can hear it better.

So they capture it and it’s slowly taken back home.

Then during the four years Rocky and Grace go to Erid, Simon is on Erid slowly being nursed and experimented on so they can learn of his needed environment. They slowly learned that Simon could not survive in their atmosphere, whilst the radiation that makes the ocean is one of its livable environments, it can also live in a oxygen filled one- it’s a far safer solution then the radiation so they transfer Simon to air, to oxygen.

Slowly Simon gains conscious, all that was happening before he wasn’t conscious, it was a subconscious move when his body felt relief and so kept searching more for it, like moving a blanket off from you in your sleep to feel the chill better. But the fic would start with Simon in total darkness, hearing the movement, chimes, bells, and hums of something all around him. He’s freaked out and thinks this is his Hell. He can’t see but he can feel his arm is missing, can feel the radiation on his face that the Eridians had tried to heal him from, covered in a rough cloth. He’ll only learn about the stuff before when his communication with the Eridians gets better so it’ll be way farther into the fic but anyways they attempt the same thing, with the different textured walls to see what Simon may hear through better but Simon can’t see anything, he’s not in Grace’s situation of having light on his side- he has no light. So he only feels different textured materials on this one wall but the Eridians understand after trial and trial that Simon may not hear in the same way. So they go back to the blood ocean, another machine meant to scour all around near where Simon was found and there they find the remnants of the SM-13, all horribly rotting and very much just bad but they take small pieces, take anything that seems to at least do something????

And, for some miraculous reason of which I wouldn’t know how to explain but I need it because I have no other clue as to how the Eridians will learn of light and Simon being able to see when inside a very small dome for him of which is inside a building, of which no light can even come inside to, but the flashlight survives- somehow.

And the Eridians don’t know what it does, they can’t see what it does only that there is a button and it does nothing but the Eridians notice that when they press it nearby, Simon does seem to react- specifically it seems to react to a specific textile each time the Eridians press the button.

And thus they work with this, make a somewhat larger dome around the small one made of that one textile, made of glass and when they press the button again Simon has a horror movie view of the Eridians and what little light the flashlight actually gives because it’s still covered in rust so it’s not the best.

Simon is petrified, he genuinely thinks he’s dead or has gone through such a hard hallucination that he doesn’t know wether it’s better to be hunted by a extremely large alien fish or captured by a multitude of medium sized rock aliens of which he has no idea what they want from him. But this is also Simon, who had known he was gonna go down fighting, this is Simon who accepted he will die but that he will not die without a fight, that if he will die it will be against the monster, it will be for at least something greater then him even if he didn’t want to die for something greater then him. This is Simon who is slowly going hungry.

He is tired.

So he’s kind of just- numb. Not accepting, but he isn’t fighting anymore either.

Sometimes he doesn’t even know if this is all real.

So he hides and deflects to the best of his abilities due to how off balance he is now, stays as perfectly still and silent as he can but slowly the time is coming to him because he’s thirsty, he’s hungry and he’s tired and that’s slowly killing him now too.

The Eridians, too, also notice this and begin to worry. They try to give it their own food to see if it’ll take that but to Simon it’s just giving him dirt and rocks. They recheck with the multiple machines they now have on the ocean and they have it scour more and more, trying to find for any other life that the life form may have needed to keep itself alive and they do find something! Strange creatures that they quickly capture and take back home.

Simon one day wakes up to a raw bloodied fish, it’s a shape he can recall because he’s seen its bones in photos. It’s from the blood ocean and it’s warm still but it’s dry and Simon is starving.

He eats it raw, down to the very bones he had known it by.

It’s still filled with radiation but that does little to his body now, a mutation too close to something other and far too little human.

The Eridians cheer at the fact he has eaten, they bring him more and more, have a multitude of ships to be sent out and to return just for fish alone, they even slowly learn how to lure and capture them for easier time to bring them back. Simon quickly learns about the different fish because they don’t just capture one kind.

It’s not a lot but it’s enough, and it’s enough for it to in some way slowly gain Simon’s trust. It’s clearly trying to keep him alive, unlike the monster, the aliens saw his slowly dying form and thought to give him food.

So when an Eridian is close by, enough for him to hear the sounds of it speaking, he mimics it back because he doesn’t know if it’ll understand English. The best he can do is show that he can learn patterns, maybe enough for them to make a pattern they can both understand. He’s done it before, it’s how the prisoners communicated, their own code and pattern. He can learn.

And they make small puppets too. In the light where they are now beginning to understand is the only place Simon can see them, because they learned through him now that Simon can’t hear to see, he needs to actually see with a organ they don’t even posses. So they try to mimic the flashlight, Simon has to live in complete darkness for a few months before they’re able to replicate it and have a multitude of them around the small building they’re in. Simon can see everything in the building for the first time after that and it makes things easier, even if his head hurts from how bright it all is.

And more time passed but it’s enough where Simon and the Eridians do slowly seem to make a pattern of their own, the small science team that works closely with Simon all having to make their words more minimized, make it with one of their vocal cords so that Simon can replicate it easily in turn. It takes longer for Simon to learn but he can make the difference in the tones, he can replicate them in the same ways he was taught to sing hymns in Eden and prayers with his Brothers. It just takes a bit longer but the Eridians do have some puppets nearby on hand just in case Simon does forget and they need to have a reminder for it. They even try to teach Simon their own language, they give him a small sand tablet and they try to teach him and Simon seems to pick up on this a little more quicker, more complicated sentences being able to be made unlike before with their ‘baby talk’.

They learn a few more things because of it. They learn Simon isn't originally from that moon, he had been sent down there and something went wrong- that he looks nothing like what his species looks like now. That they saved him and he's thankful. Thankful to the small team of scientists that he sees on the daily that played a part in his survival. The Eridians try to learn more about Simon's species and learn very little but they do learn as time passes.

Simon keeps being fed the raw fish but one day Simon gets the guts to ask for a fire, something that can cook the fish. Even for more water once they gave him what he needed to make a fire. It’s how the Eridians learn a little more about Simon’s own needs, that he needs way more water than them, he needs to cook the food before eating. He needs so many little things for his health, baths and new clothes. He needs so many things that he hadn't brought up but they are trying to have him tell them because they want their new friend comfortable.

They slowly, through the first two years as Simon learns to communicate with them more and more, Simon comes to learn of the team that cares for him and has given them names they slowly come to respond to as well. Especially one, Simon sees them the most around the lab, always nearby tinkering and always the most curious in how Simon is doing with his learning in their language.

He’s come to call them Asa, it’s the name of a Brother he once knew, who had dark blue eyes everyone made fun of him for, Asa is the only one of a blue shading so Simon quickly associates the name to them as well.

Asa is not the largest of those there, but they do stand out because of their color. And they seem the most curious on speaking with him, on teaching him so it’s enough where Simon knows more about Asa than any of the others on the team.

He learns they have a mate, one who had gone on a mission to save their home. One that’s been gone for years but that they still keep hope alive in them that they’re alive. Most stories they tell often lead to them talking about their mate.

Asa is the first to notice how slowly Simon is going depressed because of a lack of activities, nourishment for the brain that the language learning and other Eridians communication with him simply isn’t doing anymore. They’re the first that has the plans to make the dome larger, bring different kinds of toys or maybe devices that Simon can find that nourishment from and that’s when Asa quickly learns that Simon was shown/taught similarly to the engineer/mechanics of his species. Asa has Simon play a part in the making of his dome, the layout and engineering that may be needed for it. Has Simon fitted with his own tools to play with. They slowly even made their own suits because they notice Simon soothing himself in places he seems to be most comfortable in. Always a hand on the wall between he and the other Eridian he’s talking to, always leaning as close as he can to the wall and Asa is the first to bring up that maybe Humans are in need of a pack, in close touching proximity, as some of the creatures Erid has on its surface. So they make the same suits, enough for them to travel in and out of the environment and Asa thinks something is wrong when Simon simply curls around them and just- doesn’t let go. He’s crying, something they saw often near the beginning of it all.

Simon still seems down some days but otherwise, he does seem more alive now, more happier.

Again, it’s not perfect but it is enough.

Asa, in Simon’s third year there and now a far better understanding of the language, is the one to ask him about space, about the disease.

And Simon may not have been the most educated in the way those in space are educated, but he was born on Mars, raised on a Space Station, he’s been taught more about radiation, gravity and many other things that come with living in space then any other person on Earth because it’s the basics of living in space, it’s as if asking someone who’s lived on Earth for their whole life what makes up the oxygen they need to breath and what atoms make up water, it’s basic knowledge even if not deeply understood on how it works.

So Simon can explain it to them, what he’s been taught because teens are always taught how radiation works enough for them to be aware of a possible malfunction in the ship or if someone seems to slowly be dying of it. It’s enough knowledge at least for the Eridians to understand that it’s not a disease, it’s something else entirely. And time relation is also taught to them through Simon’s little knowledge of it because he’s lived in space his whole life, he may not know how to calculate the time difference or explain it well but he knows enough to do the math on how much fuel they’ll need on a mission, enough to know the little things that he most often used it for. He’s just hoping it’s enough for the Eridians to understand.

And it is. It’s enough for them to understand more. On time relation because Simon can actually do the math of how much astrophage they’ll actually need to take their ships both for machines and in the future, for Eridians, on how much they’ll need for their travel. On radiation that if it’s not treated as a disease but as what it is, then the original crew is dead. They try new experiments with this new knowledge, take notes of things they hadn’t noticed or put much thought into and that’s when they start to spot how the mechanics and engineers are often the last, if ever, to die or slowly weaken. It takes time because Simon doesn’t know what astrophage is so he can’t help as much, but they learn that it can help them travel, helps them avoid the radiation and that keeps Adrien going in their hope. Enough where Simon can see Asa working more and more in the labs, speaking more with him because there is hope now.

And then a year passes, of the Eridians slowly learning more and more and finally getting down to understanding how they can protect their travelers and with Simon they can know how much astrophage they’ll need for the journey to and back. It takes time and they slowly work more and Simon is slowly learning more and more, slowly adapting his biome to him but it’s the fourth year there now, he knows the team of Eridians that work on him, he knows he can ask for little things because they’re happy to give it, he has blankets, a few different clothes and a bit more privacy after explaining everything that comes with a bathroom.

Actually, it’s a little strange, a learning curve for not just the Eridians but him because Simon’s lived on a space station his whole life, he’s more commonly used to sponge baths and often enough, with chemicals to burn off the filth then anything. So water? Running water in the way a shower works? In the way a bath works? Insane adjustment to him but not one he’s against learning. He's also learning to eat away from the Eridians and it's strange eating with a group to eating alone but the prison was similar so it's a quicker adjustment.

Then one day a miracle occurs, it’s a signal.

One they don’t recognize at first, one that seems human at first and Simon has never felt more afraid in his life.

They found him, the COI, Eden, it doesn’t matter- it’s human.

Erid is in danger, his small dome he’s slowly making his, is in danger, the small team he’s come to know is in danger, Asa is in danger.

He’s petrified and against all attempts in having Erid contact the human like signal and Simon only breathes in relief, a soul crushing relief, when he’s told it wasn’t human, but an Eridian.

It’s Asa’s mate, a far smaller and brown Eridian. Who, to Simon’s distrust, comes with a dying human. One who they need for him to heal. He's the only one who can without being in a constant danger within the same environment.

It’s terrifying for him, he’s never had to care for something in the way he needs to with Grace, he wonders if it’s the name Asa’s mate gave the human or if it’s the actual guys name. What are the chances that the first and only human Asa’s mate was able to find and not kill him was named Grace.

Near the beginning he did it because he would hope someone would do the same for him if their positions were switched, as time went on, he honestly does it more for Asa than anything, he misses people but that doesn’t mean he’s become naive of them. He’s learned that Grace threw away his life to go back home to save Asa’s mate, saved the stars and planets as he come to learn years ago when first learning to speak with the science team, still existed, but Simon threw away his life to give humanity a chance- it doesn’t mean he was good.

But even for the small amount of time that Simon is in the dome with Grace, Asa’s mate never left.

He hates being watched, but he hates how he can see the tension, over hear Asa pleading for their mate to rest and he’s overheard how the mate had argued back, had explained and to Simon’s own slowly growing hate of both the mate and Grace, how the mate couldn’t keep going if Grace had died here after making it to Erid.

It’s a slow dislike, a slow hate because he can understand attachment, he can understand learning to love another being because he cares for Asa and the small science team deeply, he can understand where the mate is coming from.

But the mate is hurting Asa, Asa’s mate is hurting them because the mate won't be able to live without the man in front of him and that’s enough for Simon to cut that understanding and pick a side. He cares for Grace, he worries for Grace because now it’s the understanding that if Grace doesn’t survive, then Asa’s mate won’t, and if the mate won’t then Asa won’t. And he won’t live through losing Asa just because he couldn’t keep some random man alive.

So he does him damn best, it’s easier now, with the knowledge the human ship has on it, so much easier. And his damn best pays off after close to many months later when Grace slowly begins to wake up.

Simon only vividly remembers how inhuman he looks when Grace seems terrified of him when first waking, he calls out to Rocky and Simon had to watch how Rocky has never seemed more alive than in that moment. He can taste the bitterness slowly growing in him.

He still has to help Grace, slowly help him still and Rocky- Grace tells him he’s named him Rocky when Grace tries to have Simon talk- is yet to leave even when knowing Grace survived.

He doesn’t like Grace. Doesn’t like Rocky either but he tries to be less of an asshole because Asa still wants their mate with them and Simon can’t make them choose.

Grace, however, he can be rude to. He can be as much as an asshole as he wants to some extent. So, he gives the silent treatment, makes it seem he doesn't understand English- whatever he can do, because Grace is out of the clear and Simon is still a witness to how Asa’s mate still won’t stay not even a moment with Asa. But right now the only place safe enough for Grace is Simon’s own small dome and Simon does his damn best to avoid Grace and Rocky, its easy at first because Grace flinches at the touch, at him, but after more time it slowly goes away and becomes a fascination, one where Grace starts trying to communicate more, trying to have Simon stay with him longer but Simon won't have it because then he'll be in the room with both Grace and Rocky- and he won't be anywhere near them unless he's needed or if Asa's there. Even then Grace thinks Simon can't understand him, tries to have Rocky write a few things in Eridian- even a few words Grace knew in the 4 year trip- to communicate with Simon but Simon faints cluelessness. Grace learns more about Simon through Rocky explaining what has been explained to him by other Eridians.

Simon can be kind, he is kind. He can care because he's been cared for. He can understand and be empathetic because he is empathetic. But in the same way he can shut off that kindness to be The Butcher, he will shut off that kindness and empathy because purposely or not, Asa is hurt by all this.

Simon doesn’t like either of them but he plays nice when Asa is there, reverts back to the 'baby talk' that they had first used before the writing tablet. He likes knowing that in that moment, neither Rocky and Grace can understand them. It is a code between him and his own small family and one that he can use to explain to Asa that he's only acting strange because he's still getting use to others in his dome and not because he'd rather ignore the people that are causing her hurt.

Asa doesn't believe him, on one occasion when Asa was working on Grace's own dome and wanted Simon to work on some of the engineering they're able to have a conversation about it all.

Simon learns Asa doesn't hate Grace, they can't because they're the reason Rocky was even able to return but that what they feel is far more complicated because Rocky has yet to even come home. It's complicated and Asa doesn't want Simon to hate either of them because Asa has complicated feelings about it all. Tells Simon that Rocky is their mate and that Grace may be the closest thing to a proper pack mate that Simon will find. But Simon is quick to explain how he won't hate them if Asa doesn't want him to, but he won't like them either, he won't befriend them and he won't talk to them because they are causing this all to Asa and he cares for Asa, who he's known for over four years now, far more than two random people he's never even had a proper conversation with in less then a year of knowing them. He won't make Asa pick a side but he's very much picking one. He's picking the side of the one who played a part in saving him, in keeping him alive and not just that but happy. He's picking the side of the one who played games with him and taught him the most on how to speak with the other Eridians, the one who noticed the most about Simon and the one Simon knows the most about and one Simon cares the most about. It's insane to Simon how Asa didn't think Simon wouldn't pick a side. So it settles there, a stalemate.

It continues, he just doesn’t talk to Grace at all, never speaks to Rocky once even when Rocky is slowly picking up on the 'baby talk' and the first argument they ever had is because Grace is trying to give Asa the wrong name. It's how Grace learned Simon could understand him, can understand Rocky, can communicate in some way in either language and just chose not to.

And it's all because Grace had called Asa, Adrien.

He's pissed, he's angry and he tells Grace to fuck off and that the name is Asa, its the name Simon gave them and its the name Grace will call them by because out of everyone in that dome, Grace was the last person who should give a mutual name to Asa.

Grace is in such shock that he doesn't even settle on the fact that Simon is angry over the name but he's more stuck on the fact that Simon can understand and speak English and purposely just lied to his face about it even when Grace had genuinely did try to have a conversation with him.

Anyways, it starts a moment of time where Grace tries to have more conversations, to learn more about the humanoid that is on Erid that the Eridians found but Simon still won't budge, most he'll give is a few humms here and there and even then its not an answering one, its just the same hum again and again and again.

Grace gives up at some point and even he starts getting bitter at how he's being treated and its to both of their disappointment that the dome is large enough to fit not just Grace but the both of them. Simon argues about staying in his, he's comfortable in his but Asa pleads for Simon to move the small dome into the larger one, to have a 'house' in the dome they built for them. Reassures Simon that through some of the information they found on the ship and Simon's own ramblings near the beginning of their friendship, found out about forests, recreated it to their best abilities and made two different sides of the dome, a higher and lower level of the dome.

The lower level is an ocean, a beach and rock formations Simon has never seen before and the higher level, the ones a little past the edge of the rock formations is just a forest of different consisting trees that Grace knows couldn't exist let alone live together in the same environment, its a chaotic mess that looks nothing like Earth's forests but Simon's never seen one before, not even fully colored picture of them and this is the closest he's ever been to one so its the perfect forest.

And it's two environments large enough where they won't need to interact with each other. To Simon, it's perfect, especially when he can ask his science team for some windows for he can view the forest, where the team see Grace's comforts and slowly gift Simon with his own, filling the space more and more.

It's months of this, of both of them living in their own levels of the biome.

Then the day finally comes and Simon hears a knock on his door.

He has no plans with anyone, none with Asa or anyone else on the team so it can only be one other person and he may not hate him anymore- may not dislike him anymore, but he's not looking to befriend him either. Simon refuses to answer the door and he has to listen Grace give up and make his way back to his own level of the biomes. Simon quickly makes his way out and takes his time around the trees.

Problem is. It doesn't stop.

Again and again Grace tries, he has his class, Rocky and all but there are days where Grace is alone except Grace knows he isn't alone in the biomes. So he's knocking on the door, waiting how ever long and at some point Grace must realize he's being ignored because he sits outside the door and just talks loud enough to be heard. Throws in comments about how it's an asshole move to ignore him when Grace has done nothing. When it leads to nothing, he talks about the changes they're doing to the ocean, how it's freezing last time but now it's boiling. How they were able to get a steady fog going. How they were able to get Armando into his own house and how Grace learned Simon played a part in that and thanks him for it. How he finally was able to meet Adrien- this leads to Simon for once talking back to correct their name- Asa, it's Asa.- but that's the last time Simon talks but its enough for Grace to keep going the next day.

Grace slowly starts to realize that Simon only seems to make some sound, movement or the similar hums he had made when they were back in that small space, when he talks about Adrien- Asa. So he talks about them, talks about how he's learned that Asa was the leading scientist for Simon before Grace, if that's why Asa and a small team of scientists come to visit him often. Talks about how he's worried Adrien doesn't like him. Grace feels some hope when Simon says Asa doesn't hate them but Simon won't go into it any deeper because it's true, Asa doesn't, it's just a far more complicated thing.

Grace one day tells him how Rocky is staying with Asa- Grace makes sure to use Asa-, how Grace is trying to distract himself at the moment because he's not use to being alone, no students, no Rocky, it's strange and uncomfortable and how Grace is hoping that maybe with Rocky not staying with him for majority of Rocky's time, then maybe Asa won't dislike him.

It's the first time Grace properly ever hears back from Simon. Longer sentences, actual questions. Simon asking more about Rocky and Asa, how Asa is taking it and if that's why Asa hasn't been able to visit, making a side comment that Rocky should have done this a while before- it's been months where he and Grace have been living in the large dome and Rocky only tries now?

He's judgmental but Grace is defensive, that's his best friend. His best friend who was afraid of multiple things and is trying now and Simon wouldn't understand so he shouldn't comment on something he doesn't understand, then Simon starts arguing back and it essentially leads to Simon opening the door for they can argue better, scream better at each other. It's how their communication ends up usually near the beginning of them knowing each other.

It's a very strained thing, they don't talk after that because their both defensive for their Eridian friend, Simon sticks to his and he takes his time to do small projects around his biome because he can and the science team loves learning with him. Grace sticks to his and he keeps teaching the Eridians, talking to his own team of scientists and Rocky here and there.

The first time they come back into contact is when Adrien and Rocky wants to visit the both of them, Asa has to take Simon to the side and try to see if Simon is gonna be rude to Grace and Simon only asks if Rocky has been a good mate recently because that is all that matters to Simon in that moment there, that Rocky is treating their mate, Asa, well. Rocky has to do something similar because from the time he does spend with Grace he's quickly learned that Grace and Simon do not get along and Grace won't say why just yet but it clearly displeases Grace greatly but Rocky also knows Adrien is rather attached to Simon and views Simon as a younger family member at this point so Rocky has to at least know if Grace will be fine with Simon and Adrien with them.

They both agree to be on their best behavior. And they are, tense and more sticking to their respective Eridian, but they're on their best behavior.

If the wiki is correct when Simon is dying the blood mutates not only him but the seed in his pendant- thus transforming his body into a ‘Blood Tree’ which is a mix between a mutated human and tree seed.

Now.

I love me mutated Simon- but what if wasn’t an aquatic mutation? No gills, scales or fishy/amphibian attributes? Nothing like the eel he’s feared in his last moments but a tree? A symbol and life he’s grown up to worship or at least respect to the highest degree? What if his mutations were plant-like? Tree-like.

What if instead of gills Simon simply doesn’t need to breath- not in the way animals do, not Grace, not Rocky, even the eel had needed to breath it’s own way as any creature does but Simon? He breathes- it just isn’t in the way anything close to an animal can, his lungs don’t move, his lungs have stopped working because he did die- he died in that ocean but maybe for Grace to find him, the seed and the mutation with it kept him alive, the seed lived and thrived due to the mutation and because it is a living thing and Simon was mutated with it- so did he. He was saved by the very thing they’ve been taught to worship.

What if Grace looks into his cells and just stares at something completely new, clearly resembling animal cells and plant cells but it isn’t, it isn’t either or maybe it is and this is just mutation speeding along an evolution that would’ve never been possible unless in the circumstance Simon was in.

Because maybe Simon doesn’t need to eat anymore, maybe he needs something else, gas and specific minerals- maybe he doesn’t need to drink water in the same way as either Grace and Rocky and he seems to have some part of his skin in contact with the water for his body to soak it in.

What if he feels less pain now? Or maybe he becomes to highly aware of the pain because his body is doing what it does with two different process and trying to heal.

What if Simon gets two arms again except the arm grows back slowly- painfully, abnormally, a tougher skin, maybe, something darker then his own skin tone and yet it’s similar, it’s his and wrong.

What if the way Grace finds him isn’t because something is swimming around in an ocean or inside a submarine, what if they find something old, something thriving, not a creature but still life.

It wouldn’t be far off to want a sample, to see it closed and maybe they look at the photos and Grace has to clean his glasses because the photos show someone within that tree, sees their arms almost rooted into it and Grace’s hand trembles because what he sees is a human face in agony but his instincts still scream that something is wrong, something isn’t right here, that isn’t human.

But it is, he was.

And maybe Simon as an eel mutation has to live with the horror of being monstrous, but there were still so many things that would still be human. So what if he had gills? They were needed to breath like his nose was. So what if he has fins? We largely get our own balance from small little organs in our ears! So many overlaps that he can convince himself he’s human, even if mutated.

But as this? As a mutated combination of something so highly regarded? So highly worshiped? His inhumanity wouldn’t stop at his views they would travel to the way he can’t convince himself he’s human, he doesn’t need to breath with his lungs and nose, doesn’t need to eat with his stomach and mouth. He feels something brush his skin and it’s as if he can feel it on his fingertips exactly and anything that’s animalistic and human he doesn’t need nor does it seem to function in the same way anymore, not even to something that should make sense.