After seeing @headfullof-ideas hail mary au I decided to pull my own au out of the dark box that is my wip/draft folder
In this au Alpheus was a student under Eva stratt, he worked mostly on the engineering side of things. Despite only being 16 he's among some of the brightest minds in Eva's circle. Everything's going great. Until he's chosen as a replacement mechanic after an catastrophic accident.
No one else survives the comas so Alpheus wakes up, 100 years from earth with 2 dead bodies. Cue screaming, crying and breaking anything he can get his hands on. Luckily nothing critical to the mission. After which he locks in and finds everything he can on astrophase, until he spots a ship, dead in space.
Cue Adrian, the biologist they sent to help with the astrophase their lab was next to the astrophase to help with their research
Wooo trying to work together and save the day!!! Alpheus is not good with humans or living things in general but they make things work. He even builds a little ball for Adrian so they can visit and watch over him while he sleeps.
Thier making steady progress but it takes a little over a year for them to finally figure out what's going on with the astrophase and another year to make stable contament units. Thier putting the final touches on it when blip d shows up.
Out of curiosity Alpheus opens what appears to be a submarine welded shut.
Enter freshly traumatised Antaeus!!! Little baby 13 year old who was sent to die!!! Yaaaaaay Alpheus who hasn't talked to anyone but Adrian in almost 2 years is woefully unprepared.
Ant was falsely accused of murder at 10 and sent to prison. Manipulated into taking the deal to go to the blood moon. Distrustful but desperately wants some human affection. Alpheus desperately does not want to be hugged by this child who has sharp teeth where thier should be no teeth.
Once ant is more comfortable they begin to talk about going home. Which is when Alpheus is put in the awkward position of having to tell this kid that they can't go to the world full of green and life even in the deepest parts of the ocean and the tops of the highest mountains. That he was sent to die
Cue utter outrage from Adrian.
"CHILD SENT TO DIE!? QUESTION?!?"
"NO! CHILD SENT TO DIE!! NOT OK!! BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD!!!"
Ant, who hasn't said how he got into the submarine yet pipes up.
".....I was also sent to die."
"DO ALL HUMANS SEND CHILDREN TO DIE?! QUESTION?!"
Humanity has lost custody of these kids they are Adrian's now, rocky is going to be in for a treat when they get home