@nursewashing // PLOTTED STARTER
Sometimes, Simon thinks that being in space is a far worse punishment than if he'd just stayed on death row like a normal person. Scratch that -- that was a sentiment that he'd felt all the time since boarding this damned ship. He wishes that he'd never even gotten his sentence bumped down at all, that he was still awaiting the death he deserved -- but nooo, Fool Bright just had to push for some other way he could serve his sentence and be rehabilitated. The fact that even his sister jumped at the chance to reduce his sentence if he agreed to do 'community service' trucking cargo across space was not a choice he'd made on his own, and he'd been pissed. The only thing she'd replied with?
"It's better than having a dead brother, so suck it up, Simon. You'll thank me in a year or two."
He SORELY begged to differ, but it's not like he had a choice.
Pony Express willingly brought him on board for a ship that clearly wasn't meant to hold this many people. The fact that they had a crew who agreed to it at all, let alone a corporation who thought this was a great idea, utterly baffled him - but it wasn't long before he was dumped off with the crew, still left in his shackles even when they took off. Someone had the key, here, but he doubted they'd take them off.
The tulpar crew was small, and none of them were particularly pleasant to be around in Simon's opinion. He did his best to distance and ignore them; often, he kept to himself, even in a cramped spaceship such as this. And his distance seemed to do the trick with how cautious they were around him -- Simon liked that he instilled fear in them for sure. Left him feeling like he was much more in control than he actually probably was; even that Jimmy fellow didn't seem to want to fuck with him despite his bitter shitstarter aura -- something Simon had little problem picking up on. That guy seemed to be pretty intimidated by him -- but then, who wasn't? Well, maybe Swansea wasn't -- but the guy obviously disliked him greatly, so c'est la vie.
It doesn't matter if they tried to be friendly; Anya and Daisuke tried in different ways to approach him (and curly was too awkward to really try getting too close), but he utterly refused to bow to them. The potential for them to 'befriend' him and turn him into another pet project to fix like he'd been back on earth? Nah, he was content to be scary dog and stay scary dog, purposefully keeping himself as off-putting as he could so nobody would bond to him. Who cares if it was lonely? It meant less people got hurt overall -- both himself, and the others.
... Still .. that Anya sure was persistent. Even in the couple months they'd been into their journey, she still tried to check on him, still tried to do clinical reports and health checkups. The guy was in awful condition after serving years in death row, of course-- a gaunt, pale bag of bones, hair that was so poorly taken care of it was always matted and unbrushed, tear scars so thick they'd turned into actual black stains upon his cheeks, near permanent eye bags... clearly, he never rested, and he didn't eat enough, either. Doesn't help that he thinks the food here tastes pretty bad, somehow even worse than prison -- but attempts to change this were all fruitless.
Simon prided himself on being hard to work with.
Then comes a day where Simon's getting all in his head again.
It hadn't started that way. Today was a day where he was, honestly, just admiring how much freedom he had despite the shackles that dug into his wrists and hurt like hell; this is the most freedom he'd had to move... anywhere. In ages. Even this small space could seem so overwhelming, and he wasn't doing great with coping. Not that Anya needs to know that. He's not told her a damn thing about himself or his thoughts yet, even though she really had tried her hardest to get him opening up.
But ... Thoughts of his past haunted him regularly. It wasn't even something new-- every time he had an inkling of happiness, every time he thought he could marvel at the freedom he has to move around, even with those shackles he'd yet to break, the anxiety hit him like a semi-truck.
And just like every time he got too in his head and anxious, he started to silently cry. At this point, he was hardly even aware of the tears falling, with the scars under his eyes growing so thick and the sensation of tears in his eyes so common he had stopped bothering to register when it'd happened altogether. Thus begins his spiral as he stares at a screen of a sunny, beautiful sky, wondering when the last time he even saw the real deal was before the day he was shipped off. The only thing that could really snap him out of it, vaguely, was the realization that someone's presence was nearby -- based on the sound of their footsteps, the one approaching him from behind had to be...
But Simon wanted none of the pity he's sure she'd have. The idea of a conversation in this state, especially, was humiliating and aggravating to think about. He couldn't, under any circumstances, let his intimidation factor fail now. So naturally, Simon does what he does best --- a twisted sabotage of a conversation that'd barely even started yet.
"What?" Simon growls, arms crossed. His sharp grey eyes pointedly stay staring at the screen in the lounge, refusing to look Anya's way. "What business could you possibly have with me? Can't you see I'm trying to rest?"
Yeah, right. Rest?? He's done everything he could not to contribute and to be difficult on board. Not only is he in the middle of another spiral, but he should also be working on board right now, doing some oddball jobs that Pony Express demanded he do to show he was 'earning' his freedom properly or some shit. Technically, this was on company time .. or was it prison time? Who knows. Who cares. All he knows is that frankly he doesn't give a shit what happens.
