“For New York City Pride in 1994 (Stonewall 25), Baker created a mile-long rainbow flag that was carried down First Avenue in Manhattan. During the parade, Baker used scissors to cut segments from the flag to be rushed to Fifth Avenue for an impromptu protest march in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the headquarters of New York City’s anti-gay Catholic archdiocese.
^“At the bottom of the image is the segment of the flag cut for the St. Patrick’s Cathedral protest. Photograph by Mick Hicks”
“Gilbert Baker wearing a white sequined dress (right) and other protestors triumphantly march the cut pieces of the mile-long flag past St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Photograph by Charles Beal”
Yeah. That. I spent my formative years in DC for Reagan's terms, and never thought I'd make it to *twenty* much less this far beyond. And when I realized I would be? I found myself suddenly without any real, actionable plan for the future.
The AIDS epidemic was monstrous. Not only for the lack of cure, but for the easy excuse it made for 'good people' to rid themselves of those disgusting gays.
The national willingness to discard an entire generation of (at first) gay men and then any queer persons has done immeasurable damage to every single one of us who survived it. The horror stories you might have seen in tabloids or online memorials only scratch the surface. We were unpersoned. We were named dangerous simply by our existence, and our presence was a herald for death and disease.
Our joy was not in spite of this. Our mad parties, the tendency to live in the moment, the stereotypical 'cattiness' and sex-crazed outlooks that media showers us with us even now, these were survival techniques. We dance because we lived another day. We craved physical contact from a world that feared us even in the same room, or touching the same door handle, or gods forbid us holding your hand.
And it's happening again.
If you notice your queer elders seem a little agitated beyond their usual baseline with what's happening with their trans peers this time around it's because we all recognize it from the 70s, 80s, 90s.
Name it a disease. Imply it's contagious, made-up for attention, or masking the 'real' problem (it's always pedophilia, always), often in the same breath. Consistency doesn't matter, only fear and hatred.
Say trans folks aren't worth the same considerations that good, upstanding people are. Deny them the medical care that, were they not trans, they would otherwise qualify for. Gender affirming care. Hormone treatments. Comprehensive therapy. Acceptance.
(Hell, even those lucky enough to escape obvious open discrimination find it on the back end, with medical care suddenly not being covered after being prescribed. Ask me how I know.)
And it's not just the right-wingers. Ask your Democratic or NP rep, if you have one, their thoughts on transgender rights. Listen close. See if they actually say anything of substance.
And then when trans people start dying off in droves, vanishing to forced detransitioning, assault, murder, or worse, well, that's just proof there's something wrong, isn't it? Not with the system. With us.
This is why we ask that the newer generations of queer folks learn the history. It's not *all* about Stonewall and Pride. It's about the lengths that those in charge will go to in order to ensure our deaths.
My partner made this comic, and it is beautiful and amazing, and you’re all missing out by not seeing the original on paper because it’s even prettier there!
Transmasc person here (and fully coming from a place of ignorance here), regarding your addendum to the really sweet post about how the world gets richer with transmen folks, what do you mean by amab transmen? I’m hoping this question doesn’t come off as rude, I’m just generally confused by what that means.
Not rude at all!
"trans men assigned male" can cover a few difference experiences:
Many intersex people have a complicated relationship both assigned sex and gender; there are men who were technically assigned male at some point, but then have that maleness denied throughout their life; for example, someone might be assigned male at birth, only to then be re-assigned female when it is decided that would be the "easier" assignment, forced to undergo IGM (intersex genital mutilation)* such as a clitorectomy/penectomy, and then raised as a girl. Alternatively, a man might be assigned male and raised as a boy, but goes through estrogenic puberty, grows breasts and develops hips, and thus experiences life as a man who is forcibly feminized and denied his gender identity as a man, and so feels his gender is more trans than cis.
Otherwise, many people who identify that way are nonbinary, genderqueer, and gender-non-conforming men who feel their manhood is trans, while also having been assigned male. This can be for a lot of reasons. I can say that I myself was raised as a "girl" (technically) but am multigender, have always felt any womanhood I possessed was inherently trans, and after having gone on testosterone HRT "trans woman" increasingly just made sense on every level. I am sexed by random strangers as male or female depending on the day and my presentation, and I am frequently read as a trans woman assigned male in public. My womanhood exists within the context of me also being a man, and agender and neutrois and maverique, and my body which has been reshaped by testosterone, and so there really is no context where my womanhood is cis (I am also intersex but it doesn't play as big a role in my womanhood as it may for others). Trans men assigned male can have similar experiences, although they can have many others! Some are be plural, some are be former trans women who now feel "man, but trans" better captures their identity, some are nonbinary people who are more "man-adjacent" or have some connection to manhood (such as being gay men) while still being very much a nonbinary/genderqueer individual, etc etc.
Notably, if someone says "I am a trans man who was assigned male because xyz," that doesn't mean they think that being a trans man assigned female requires xyz. When I point to my multigenderedness or my androgynous body as part of my identity as a trans woman, I am not saying "being a trans woman is defined by being partially male or physically androgynous." Rather, I am a woman who has a trans body and a trans identity, and I am also transfeminized regularly in public, so on both a personal and social level it is something that makes sense to apply to myself, although I don't talk about it often because people have not historically been the chillest about it. But its gotten a lot more discussed as of late, and people have even started pushing away from using AGAB entirely, so I've decided to be a bit more open about it.
Anyways! That's why I wanted to shout out trans men assigned male <3 I love my brothers in not being defined by what people thought of our genitals at birth, I love my brothers in transsexuality and genuinely for real changing your sex, I love my brothers in nonbinarity and genderqueerness and the experience of being binary in a nonbinary way, I love my brothers in being denied validity in the very category you were forced into because you were a weird little queer from childhood.
*AGAB language was originally coined for use in nonconsensual surgeries on intersex children, pioneered by notable monster John Money. so if this is surprising to anyone, It Really Should Not Be.
thinking about the time they sent me a seven year old autistic patient to investigate if he was suffering abuse because in every psychological test he kept drawing awful monsters
and I start the consultation already miserable as fuck and I give the kid some pen and paper so I can maybe communicate and see what's on his mind
and then I go WAIT A GODDAMN SECOND I KNOW THOSE MONSTERS
turns out the kid just had a special interest in Five Nights at Freddy's
at some point the nurses realized the autistic children and I were like, Really Vibing
so they decided to highkey just appoint all of them to my day and it took me almost a month to realize that the fact that I kept arriving and finding that all of today’s appointments were autistic children was Not A Coincidence
anyway this one time there was a kid who was really into christianity but it was like, specifically angels
so I’m trying to start up a conversation with him and I ask what he’s reading and he goes “do you know what a nephilim is”
and like for one hellish second my soul is suckerpunched out of my body and thrown straight into supernatural-fanfic-on-wattpad hell, and then I reassume control of my flesh prison, ignoring the mental edits of Dean and Castiel making out, and go “Aren’t those the guys who are half human and half angel?”
and the kid was so fucking happy but the mom was staring at me like ‘why are you privy to this bit of occult jesus lore’
and my heathen lesbian of a self just looks at her and goes
Caleb Shomo came out as gay and now I'm studying the ancient texts (listening to his entire discography)
So far I'm in the Attack Attack! era and I'll be honest I always knew that Attack Attack was vapid christian electronicore but this first album really can vapid christian electronicore
like listen. It starts off with a song called Sexual Man Chocolate about burying something down inside you in order to prove your loyalty, to God I assume based on everything about this band. Then after a fuck the haters track they give us a track about how he made a mistake and he still has hope for this other guy Who He Will Never Be The Same As BTW. Then, a track about how he DOES NOT want to dance with a hot girl at the club. Then a song called A is for Andrew about how being himself is an illness and how he was so naive and how he's failed god and he's suffering the consequences for it. Me thinks the mistake was named Andrew. Smokahontas (girl why did you name it that) is about how they're separated from God's love. Brief Fuck Austin Carlile interlude. Song about how they can't please a woman and that she should turn to god instead for that sort of thing. Song about how he needs to escape from his own mind. and finishing it off with him begging a woman for emotional support but also he's super apathetic about her and it's hard to cope with that.
It's arguably the most closeted album of all time.
Alrighty guys. I listened to the third attack attack album and had very little to report but also attack attack's vocals are famously hard to understand owing to the screaming and the hardtune so I'll probably have to go back to it eventually. But now the time has come for me to venture into Beartooth land
First foray into Beartooth land and I'm realizing I actually know a few of the songs on Disgusting (2014). I think my assessment of them as vapid and overproduced came from a couple of tracks off of a later album (probably Diseased based on the year but I'll find out as I listen) that sounded a bit too much like bad Omens for my liking. I like my electronicore trashy and DIY mixed, I Set My Friends On Fire type beat, so that was what my grievance with them was all these years and that grievance doesn't apply to the debut album. I See Stars is another band like what I'm guessing Beartooth is where the early albums are everything I need them to give and they slowly bad Omens pill overtime. I think metalcore maybe just had a rough time period in general in the late 2010s and early 2020s because The Phantom Tomorrow by BVB also kinda has that sound I'm talking about, but in a way that's less directly offensive to me.
Now, Sick and Disgusting are both kind of iconique. I feel like I understand why he was closeted for so long and I also feel like I can already see the cracks forming in the worldview that kept him there. Keep Your American Dream and Go Be The Voice both are interesting in terms of religious deconstruction. Beaten in Lips was one of the songs I already knew but it, like a lot of this album, really speaks to me as a now adult victim of child abuse by my parents.
But the song that really had my jaw on the floor was Sick and Disgusting. In this song he speaks to God about wanting to kill himself because he's sick and disgusting. But also there are some lines that make me feel like he's also talking to his own father, and some lines that make me curious if he's also speaking to an older male sexual partner (dropping a daddy randomly and saying sick joke that's all I'll ever be to anyone, sick joke, that's all you'll ever be to anyone, I just want to feel loved, if You want me I'm gonna stay here). It's like he's speaking to the primordial figure of The Father which is God and Dad and Daddy all at once. It's also possible that he's just talking to God and his dad of course but I think maybe all three are going on. It's hard for me not to perceive a song about wanting to kill yourself because you feel intrinsically "sick and disgusting" by a gay man married to a woman to not be at least a little bit about sexual shame.
Ok I listened to Aggressive and I'm fascinated by the song Hated. The rest of the album is fairly good, he's doing his "I'm depressed and I'm trying not to relapse with alcohol" bit, he's also making some rockstar songs that have very little to do with how sad he is, good for him. But Hated is so funny because what do you mean you wrote that while you're rough trade in a lavender marriage during the second Obama administration. Like if it was coming from Caleb Shomo now I'd be like fuck yeah brother but it coming from Caleb Shomo 4 years into his 14 year marriage to a woman is crazy work. Also everyone who listens to Beartooth pretending this is surprising is a lying liar. You're lying to the people. You shouldn't be saying buh buh buh he's married you should be saying "ohhhhhhhh that's what hated was about, I see"
Vultures. There's heterosexual vultures in this man's Instagram mentions
I listened to Disease and didn't really super feel the need to comment because it's mostly more of the same, although it does add context to some of the words on Pure Ecstasy that makes it hit way harder.
Now The Surface is the album that made me think I hated Beartooth. I want whoever mixed The Surface's head. If you're going to layer a fat 808 over a real drum kit you need it to go way crazier than that. Stop ruining electronicore. Go back to the sound booth I want it trashier and with more hard tune 🫵
Anyway I find the lyrical content interesting. This album sounds like a statement of intent. He's made a lot of wishful thinking songs where he's like "I'm gonna try to get better now" but this one was a straight album of "I can't just quit drinking I have to actually work on my self esteem and take control of my life" every single song.
Random HARDY mention. I do actually like truck bed because it's funny. My temperature on country has always been it either needs to be excellent or garbage. It can't be good or mid. I either need Dolly Parton or Wheeler Walker JR. Truck Bed fits very neatly into garbage can territory. I enjoy a pathetic man, it must be said, and he's on kind of a pathetic song. Despite the fact that I have no issues with HARDY's general presence, Better Me's music video is one of the worst things I've seen in a long time. It needs to be executed by firing squad in the proletariat revolution. A music video on a golf course .... And your golfing in it. Like I could at least appreciate if they came in like a 2003 ass pop punk band ran onto the golf course with liberty spikes played a set to the exaggerated dismay of the waspy golfers, and tore up the sod and broke the clubs and drove a golf cart into the sand but now they're just tooling around in the golf cart and playing. Its so bad. I hate it.
Basically my opinion on The Surface is that conceptually it is a perfect link in between the first three Beartooth albums and Pure Ecstasy, but it's execution was awful. I'm glad that Free and Pure Ecstasy (the song) sound better and have better music videos than whatever was going on on The Surface, but I do think an investigation needs to be launched as to how this was allowed to happen.
In the wake of a catastrophic two-year relationship, Melissa Febos decided to take a break: For three months she would abstain from dating, relationships, and sex. Her friends were amused. Did she really think three months was a long time? But to Febos, it was. Ever since her teens, she had been in one relationship after another with men and women. As she puts it, she could trace a “daisy chain of romances” from her adolescence to her midthirties. Finally, she would carve out time to focus on herself and examine the patterns that had produced her midlife disaster. Over those first few months, she gleaned insights into her past and awoke to the joys of being single. She decided to extend her celibacy, not knowing it would become the most fulfilling and sensual year of her life. No longer defined by her romantic pursuits, she learned to relish the delights of solitude, the thrill of living on her own terms, the distinct pleasures unmediated by lovers, and the freedom to pursue her ideals without distraction or guilt. Bringing her own experiences into conversation with those of women throughout history—from eleventh-century mystic Hildegard von Bingen, Virginia Woolf, and Octavia Butler to the Shakers and Sappho—Febos situates her story within a newfound lineage of role models who unapologetically pursued their ambitions and ideals.
By abstaining from all forms of romantic entanglement, Febos began to see her life and her self-worth in a radical, new way. Her year of divestment transformed her relationships with friends and peers, her spirituality, her creative practice, and, most of all, her relationship to herself. Blending intimate personal narrative and incisive cultural criticism, The Dry Season tells a story that’s as much about celibacy as its inverse: pleasure, desire, fulfillment. Infused with fearless honesty and keen intellect, it’s the memoir of a woman learning to live at the center of her own story, and a much-needed catalyst for a new conversation around sex and love.
The SAM (split-attraction model) is a model used in psychology and in aspec spaces that treats sexual and romantic orientation as two separate and distinct things. Under this model, while many people's sexual orientation and romantic attraction are aligned, not everyone's does.
Using the split-attraction model, someone could be:
aromantic asexual (aroace) - experiencing little to no romantic or sexual attraction
alloromantic asexual (alloace) - experiencing typical romantic attraction, but little to no sexual attraction
aromantic allosexual (aroallo) - experiencing little to no romantic attraction, but typical sexual attraction
Furthermore, someone could be panromantic and homosexual, or homosexual and biromantic, or any other combination of sexual and romantic orientation.
The split attraction model is primarily used by people who are on either the aromantic or asexual spectrum, but it is not exclusive to aspecs, and not all aspecs use the split attraction model.
For some people, their romantic and sexual orientation are interlinked, while for others they are distinct things.
Someone whose romantic and sexual orientations align is perioriented (ex. panromantic pansexual). Someone whose romantic and sexual orientations differ is varioriented (ex. biromantic homosexual).
random PSA, I know a lot of people use duckduckgo as a Google alternative search engine, but it always kind of annoyed me when I was using it because it felt like No Name Brand Google
I have switched to using Startpage.com and vastly prefer it. for one thing, instead of displaying an "AI summary" at the top of the search results (unless you turn it off, yes I know), it displays the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article, with link, whenever it finds one that's relevant.
also a waaayyyyy better sense of design than duckduckgo
also private, European based, least annoying search I've used lately (RIP old "don't be evil" Google)
i have one of those, scraped from multiple different rec posts:
Search Engines
Infinity Search is an alternative search engine with a special focus on privacy
DuckDuckGo is a popular search engine for those who value their privacy and are put off by the thought of their every query being tracked and logged. Uses bangs, ![site] for in-page search (sells your data to microsoft and draws from fucking bing)
WolframAlpha is a privately owned search engine that allows you to “compute expert-level answers using Wolfram’s breakthrough algorithms, knowledgebase, and AI technology.” A data search engine.
Boardreader is a search engine for forums and message boards. It allows you to search forums and then filter down results by date and language.
Based in France, Qwant is a privacy-based search engine that won’t record your searches or use your personal details for advertising. Uses “&” as a bang search.
Another privacy-based search engine is Search Encrypt, which uses local encryption to ensure that users’ identifiable information cannot be tracked. Metasearch across multiple engines.
Offering unbiased results from several sources, SearX is a metasearch engine that aims to present a free, decentralized view of the internet. Can be self-hosted.
Gibiru’s tagline is “Unfiltered private search” and that’s exactly what it offers. Requires AnonymoX Firefox add-on for privacy.
Disconnect allows you to conduct anonymous searches through a search engine of your choice.
Swisscows provides fully encrypted searches to protect your privacy and security. Built-in violence/porn filter cannot be overridden.
MetaGer offers “Privacy Protected Search & Find” through its anonymised search. A plugin will allow it to be made a default.
Gigablast is a private search engine that indexes millions of websites and servers real-time information without tracking your data, keeping you hidden from marketers and spammers. Variety of filtration and refinement options for searching.
Oscobo is a search engine that protects your privacy while you search the web. By not using any third-party tools or scripts, your data is protected from hacking and misuse. Has a Chrome extension to allow use in toolbar.
https://search.marginalia.nu/ an independent DIY search engine that focuses on non-commercial content, and attempts to show you sites you perhaps weren't aware of in favor of the sort of sites you probably already knew existed. Use old-school searching rather than query-based for the best results.
https://www.mojeek.com/
https://wiby.me/ - It’s goal is to index as many personalized websites as possible, and NOT commercial sites.
https://4get.ca/ it works a lot like SearX, but honestly better. It doesn’t have its own index, but pulls from many others. I think it’s the best for research, since it allows you to search for answers from different indexes, is easy to configure, add free, and avoids censorship as much as it can.
https://www.searchenginemap.com/ for more on how search engines relate to each other.
https://yep.com/ is a crawler
https://www.etools.ch/ retrieves from Google, Mojeek, Bing, and Yandex, like Searx
https://www.dogpile.com/
https://searxng.org/ (next gen Searx)
https://luxxle.com/ - possibly conservative?
https://presearch.com/ - good for academic?
https://kagi.com/smallweb - free/randomised Kagi.
Other Searchers
www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.
www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.
https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.
www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.
http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.
www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.
www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free.https://cosine.club/ is an electronic music similarity search engine
Dick Bayford, Botswana's attorney general, removed anti-gay language that courts struck down years ago. (Photo courtesy of the Sunday Standa
Local LGBTIQ+ organisation LEGABIBO welcomed the government’s move, describing it as “a necessary and long-overdue step toward restoring dignity and aligning our legal framework with constitutional values of equality and human rights.”
The group said the change sends “a clear message that LGBTIQ+ persons are not criminals, and that their lives and relationships deserve protection, not punishment.”
LEGABIBO noted that the colonial-era provisions had long cast a shadow over the lives of LGBTIQ+ people in the country.
Every time I see some joke about Star Trek-style teleporter technology I'm like "I should write a story about the potential of this technology re: the whole 'killing and copying people' thing and the ramifications of being able to essentially print people" and then I remember I already wrote it. Every single time.
summary: 5 times you almost revealed you and Ryland's relationship, plus 1 time you finally did.
wordcount: 4650
warning(s): Ryland punches someone who is being a creep to you (I'm sorry), alcohol? IDK
author's note: I'm really really not sure how I feel about the quality of my writing here. I just know I was excited to write this so I hope you enjoy this!
you can find this fic on my ao3 here as well. If you like this fic, go ahead and read my pinned!
_______________________________________
You and Ryland had made a connection ever since you both arrived on the boat to work on Project Hail Mary. You were a medical doctor researching coma treatment for the mission, but also worked in the boat’s med-bay since you had worked in the emergency room and clinics before being hand picked by Stratt for your research on induced coma’s. And of course Ryland was the charming molecular biologist, researching Astrophage, you just happened to fall for — easily.
From the start, Ryland and you both agreed to keep your newfound relationship ‘under wraps’. It made sense at the time, since your relationship had happened so fast, you had just started dating, why make it public if you weren’t sure where it would go after your time on the project?
Admittedly you were the main one who wanted to keep it secret for your own reasons. And Ryland was happy to oblige.
But as time went on, there were many instances in which you almost came close to revealing your relationship, and one time you finally did reveal it.
The first time you almost revealed your relationship, you were drunk in the bar bathroom.
You swayed on your feet a few feet in front of Ryland, in the dim lighting, music sounded softly in the background, along with cheers from your medical team — doing shots off of the science teams bodies — you smiled at Ryland’s adorable face.
You and Ryland had agreed to arrive separately to the party, so as not to cause any attention. You had gotten a few coolers to pregame before from Ilyukhina, so you were already pretty tipsy when you showed up.
You spotted Ryland at the bar with Carl, he never really socialized much at parties, more of a lab socializer. But you knew Ryland got along with Carl very well. The bartender was cleaning the top of the bar behind them.
You walked up to Dubois who was leaning against a table drinking a beer.
“Hey! You’re here at last!” Dubois cheered, raising his beer at you.
“I’ve been looking forward to it all day.”
“Yea? Med bay not treating you well?” Dubois asked over the music.
You barely registered the question. You pretended to look around, before casually locking eyes with Ryland, who was already checking you out. You looked back at Dubois who was looking at you expectantly.
“Oh, uh yea it’s kinda been a slow shift,” you sighed. Thinking of a way to get out of that conversation. “You know what I need? A drink.”
“Alright, make sure to get something strong then.” Dubois exclaimed.
You nodded, patting his back before turning toward the bar and walking over to Ryland slowly. Casually as if you didn’t expect him to be there.
“Hi Dr. Grace, how’s the research going?” You asked, just as Carl saluted you and walked away, you were attempting to hide your tipsiness.
“It’s going good, I guess,” Ryland mumbled, his eyes following to watch where Carl was headed before turning them back to you.
“I’m about to order a drink, what are you having?” You asked.
“You seem pretty tipsy already, bad day?” Ryland asked.
You expected the question to be playful, but when you finally scanned his eyes, you remembered who he was. Genuine and caring, and genuinely interested in hearing about anything you tell him. Even when you were tipsy, and even in that packed bar with everyone around.
You weren’t unfamiliar with his sweetness. Just unfamiliar with relationships.
You let out a sigh, Ryland’s presence already helping you unfold.
“Do you really wanna hear about my day right now?”
“Yea! I’ve been staring at Astrophage data for hours. Please.”
“Alright.” You said.
“Thank you. Go ahead.” He whispered.
“Well it’s been kind of boring, I mean sure the coma research is interesting I just miss treating people.”
“What do you miss about it?” He asked, his attention fully on you despite the chaos behind you.
Your heart melted at his genuine interest.
You tilted your head to the side, suppressing a smile that would reveal your admiration, and Ryland imitated you playfully, his shoulders lifting adorably.
“I just miss helping people, figuring out what exactly is wrong, things that aren’t immediately obvious. Now it’s head bumps and painkillers for headaches. On top of that, the coma resistance research team has been pretty hard on me lately.” You explained.
“I’ll be sure to be less careful in the lab then, to make your life more interesting..” Ryland teased.
You laughed.
“God no,” you said, “I don’t know what I’d do if you got hurt.” It came out playful, but hit truthfully.
Ryland must’ve seen the worry on your face at his words.
“Hey, I know I was joking.” He said, slipping his hand discreetly to tug the bottom of your shirt.
Ryland began leaning closer to you, he moved his glasses to hang below his chin.
“You’re doing great work, don’t be too hard on yourself.” He reassured.
“Thank you.” You sighed.
He shrugged like it was nothing at all.
“Also, you look really good when you’re not in scrubs.” Ryland spoke quietly. “Not that- not that you don’t look good in scrubs.” Ryland cleared his throat.
You blushed in response, biting your lip to suppress the laughter at his clarification.
“Thank you. No need for clarification I got it Ry. Not like you haven’t seen me out of scrubs before.”
“Just wanted to remind you.” Ryland stated.
You discreetly placed your hand on the bottom of his blazer. Your tipsiness pulling your guard down. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad — people knowing. But what you did know was that Ryland could leave you at any minute, you could be pulled off the project. There were so many reasons your relationship with Ryland could end. Keeping it to yourself, kept you safe.
“Nice blazer.” You whispered. “Keep the glasses on please?”
He smiled, and pulled his glasses back up to his eyes.
“I was given the blazer by my high school science teacher, he was like a mentor to me, I wanted to be exactly like him when I was a teacher.”
“I’m sure he’d think you were just as good of a teacher as he was.” You said.
He nodded proudly and you reached out to grab Ryland’s hand, feeling for the first time like you didn’t necessarily care about your guard coming down in front of him. Were you opening up? In a way you had never felt safe to do before?
Ryland blushed, pulling his hand from yours.
“People are looking.” He reminded you.
“Alright, alright.” You chuckled.
You resisted the urge to run your fingers through his hair.
Ryland blushed again, looking around the room shyly. You loved how awkward he got when he was flustered, you had so much warmth in your heart for him, he was so sweet. You knew exactly what you needed, to kiss him.
“I miss kissing your face.” You whispered, pouting. “God you’re adorable when you blush.”
“Well, why don’t you follow me into the bathroom in a minute.” He said, smirking.
“Really?”
Ryland bit his lip shyly and nodded.
“Wow. Okay I didn’t know you were so risky.”
You didn’t get to hear his response because he pushed himself off the bar and headed toward the bar bathroom. You asked the bartender for a shot of vodka to stall, swung it back with a wince, and headed toward the bathroom too.
The bathroom door swung open as you pushed the door, and you stepped into the empty bathroom. There were rows of about five stalls, and you smiled as you saw Ryland standing in front of the bathroom sink. When you stood in front of him, he automatically placed his hands on your waist, and your arms swung around his shoulders naturally. Sometimes, you couldn’t believe he had chosen you, he was so goddamn attractive, and so smart. He practically led the project. Then you remembered how awkward he was around you, and how you practically had to make the first move because he was so oblivious.
Ryland leaned forward so your noses brushed.
“I’ve been thinking about you all day.” He murmured.
You had only heard people say things like that, in that specific deep tone, in romance books. You couldn’t believe how much he seemed to care about you. Or even think of you.
You shivered and pressed your lips against his. A singular kiss, long and hard, before you pulled back and dove in to deepen the kiss, latching onto his bottom lip. You pressed him against the bathroom sink, and just as he was about to put his hand up your shirt you heard footsteps approaching the bathroom door.
You jumped, grabbing Ryland’s hand and pulling him into the bathroom stall on the end. You reached out to lock the stall, and you both looked around as you heard the bathroom door swing open. Ryland’s hands still grasped tightly onto your waist, and he leaned in again to kiss you, but you yelped away as you heard the footsteps approaching the bathroom stalls, and quickly stepped on top of the toilet seat, and kept your head low.
“What are you doing?!” Ryland half hissed half whispered.
“I don’t know!” You whispered back.
You both patiently waited for the individual — who ever they were — to finish peeing, you holding onto Ryland’s blazer for dear life, your knees shaking from crouching. And when they left the bathroom after they washed their hands, you let out a sigh of relief.
“So…any other plans tonight?” Ryland quipped.
You smacked him on the arm.
“Shut up.”
You stepped off of the toilet, using Ryland to balance yourself.
“I will admit, that was a little fun.” Ryland sheepishly mumbled.
“Yea?”
“Yea really.”
“Meet me in my room in ten then.” You said.
You sent Ryland a wink as you unlocked the stall and left the bathroom stall, then out back into the party passing the bar and past Dubois into the corridor.
The second time you almost got caught was when you woke up in Ryland’s room.
You and Ryland had not planned to spend the night. But when you had mentioned you had a headache the night before, and when you didn’t really feel like going to your room on the opposite side of the boat, you inevitably ended up sleeping over.
You woke up to the sound of your alarm, it was 5:30am, the supposed start of your shift in med-bay. Your eyes shot open and you groaned as you felt Ryland’s biceps wrap tighter around you, pulling you closer to his bare chest. You turned in his arms to look at his sleepy face.
His blonde hair was a mop of messy, and his glasses-less face was groggy. He groaned as your alarm continued to go off.
“Ry, they’re gonna wonder why I’m late.” You mumbled.
He shook his head silently, his eyes still closed from sleep. He leaned forward and kissed your mouth softly and barely, as if he was too tired to fully latch on. You sighed into the kiss, and kissed him deeper, eliciting a soft moan from his lips.
“God, you’re so perfect.” He whispered.
You whined as he began sleepily kissing up your neck. Sucking perfectly along your neck, biting gently at your jaw, before he kissed behind your ear. Your hands tugged at his hair, as you moaned softly. Your alarm was still sounding, but Ryland had you in a dangerous position.
“I want to show you off so bad.” He whined.
“Not yet.” You sighed.
It had been a month since you and Ryland had decided to keep your relationship a secret. You weren’t ashamed of Ryland, far from it. You were scared of sharing your relationship with everyone if you and Ryland were just going to be separated by the end. You were from different cities, with different professions, you just didn’t know where this was going. You were thankful that Ryland was so patient.
“I know, I’m just realizing how lucky I am that you chose me, I’d like to rub it in everyone’s faces when the time is right.” He mumbled, still half asleep.
You imagined what that would be like, realizing that if you really did want him in your future, if you really wanted pure love, then you’d have to open up a little bit more. You were working on it to say the least.
“I gotta go.”
He gave in and slumped back into his pillow. He loosened his grip on you.
You slid off of Ryland’s bed out from under the blanket, and hurried to pull your scrubs on, and grab your pager and phone, you turned off your alarm. When you turned toward the bed, Ryland’s eyes were closed. You walked toward him and pulled the blanket over him.
You grinned, and checked your pockets, making sure your pen was still in there.
“Lunch with me at 2:00pm?” You whispered, planting a kiss on his head.
Ryland just nodded.
You made sure to run your hand over your messy hair before you hurried out the door, and as you pulled the door shut, you ran into Carl walking by.
“Oh sorry.”
“All good.” Carl said, he looked at you then at Ryland’s door number. He squinted his eyes at you. “You came out of Ryland’s room?”
“Uh, yea I was just grabbing some…papers from him.” You fumbled over your words, it was 5:30am in your defense.
Carl nodded.
“At 5:30 in the morning?”
You knew what Ryland really wanted finally, was for you both to tell the truth. But you also knew Ryland would never say anything if you weren’t ready to. So you decided to keep going on the train of thought you were going.
“What can I say, work never ends.” You laughed awkwardly.
“So where are the papers?”
Damn. You forgot about the logistics of this argument. You thought for a moment.
“Oh-yeah, it turns out he didn’t have what I needed, said he left them at the lab and he’ll grab them as soon as he starts shift.”
“Huh, I guess that makes sense,” Carl mused. “Well, cheers.” Carl waves slightly, before continuing down his path past you.
That was a close one. You let out a sigh of relief and hurried back to med-bay.
The third time you almost revealed your relationship was in the lunch hall.
You and Ryland were sitting at a long table, next to Ilyukhina, and Dubois and Carl. Your lunch trays all lined up. You were sitting across from Ryland, and beside Carl. You were all eating the soup of the day.
The food on board the boat wasn’t good to say the least. But it was edible and filled you up. That was when you weren’t feeling especially motion sick that day.
You glanced down at your bowl of orange gloop, and twirled your spoon around before resuming your glance on Ryland — who was talking about who knows what.
Ryland moved his hands, spoon in one of them, deep in conversation with Carl.
“So then I ended up drawing up the data on these data analysis sheets that y/n showed me, and they fit information so perfectly right–” Ryland explained.
You were proud that you had offered him a good piece of advice. You had been using specific data analysis sheets you found on an online website for your coma resistance research, and thought they would be equally perfect for Astrophage data. You had been spending a lot of time in the lab with him, of course after hours. It was becoming easier to integrate yourself in those parts of his life. It made you begin to think maybe your relationship wasn’t so doomed.
“Did you figure out the miscalculation you were talking about?” Carl asked.
Ryland nodded absentmindedly, you watched as he scooped up soup with his spoon and fed it to himself. A little bit of it dripped onto his chin, Carl laughed at the sight.
“You’ve got–” Carl began, gesturing to Ryland’s chin.
But before he could finish, you were already leaning forward and wiping off the orange soup from Ryland’s chin with a napkin. You hadn’t even realized you were doing it until the rest of the table went quiet, you turned your head to the rest of the table and pulled back from Ryland who’s eyes were slightly wider than before.
You laughed nervously, and shrugged your shoulders, you didn’t know how to cover this one up, so you went for,
“Hey, crewmates helping crewmates, am I right?” You asked.
The whole table burst out laughing, and you and Ryland both let out a sigh of relief.
“Try not spill soup below the neck region.” Ikyukhina exclaimed, her euphemism making everyone laugh, except for you and Ryland, who were mortified.
Carl laughed before jabbing you in the side with his elbow playfully, and Ryland’s thigh grazed against yours under the table.
The fourth time was when you fell asleep in med bay.
Ryland had been ready to see you when he walked into med-bay. Your almost daily visits were the highlight of Ryland’s time on the boat. Yes he loved spending time studying Astrophage, it had felt like he had been given a research opportunity he hadn’t been given in a long time. But seeing you was also a plus.
So when Ryland walked into the empty med-bay to find you asleep at your desk, he was a little disappointed. Although he was happy to see you sleeping for the first time in three days. The coma research was finally almost done, and you had been supervising the whole project — since Stratt promoted you.
You were slumped in your chair with your head on the desk, your face to the side and your mouth open. Ryland found you so adorable like that. Even more adorable than when you fell asleep in his bed, most of the time when you didn’t mean to.
He walked closer to your desk, and when he spotted yellow post-it notes beside you, it was like a lightbulb appeared over his head. He chuckled to himself, at his nerdy little prank he was about to pull on you.
He grabbed a sharpie, and started writing a few suggestive, and flirty notes, and walked around you before gently placing the sticky notes on your back. He leaned down and kissed the back of your head before heading out of the med-bay door. Satisfied with his work.
You were woken up by a shake of your shoulder, you groaned when you opened your eyes to see Stratt standing in front of you holding two massive binders. You sat up and Stratt placed the binders on the desk, you crumpled your nose.
“No time for sleep now, okay? I need these filled out tonight.”
You sighed, rubbing your hand over your face.
“Why tonight?”
“Because we don’t have time to work slow.”
You groaned again, that was the answer she gave for almost everything.
You opened the first binder to the first page as Stratt walked around you to grab something from one of the stations. Suddenly you felt her touch your back, you gasped as you jumped, before realizing she had pulled something off of your shirt.
You turned around and saw her holding two sticky notes in her hands. Those were on your back?
“‘Came to see you, saw you were sleeping, come back to mine and I’ll help you relax’ winky face.” Stratt said, reading the sticky note.
Your eyebrows furrowed in sleepy confusion, and you yanked the sticky note from her hand, instantly recognizing Ryland’s hand writing. A blush rushed to your face.
“‘I think I might be Astrophage, cuz I’d eat your star anyday’–”
You grabbed the last one from her hand.
“I don’t even—what are these—I—no need to even continue—” You fumbled.
Stratt did not even laugh, just looked at you seriously.
“I did not know you were ‘seeing someone’ as they say.”
“I’m not. I’m not!”
“Funny. I saw Ryland come in here a few minutes ago.” Stratt pondered.
“He was borrowing some—” You started.
“Not important. Less talk, more work, thank you.” Stratt said, as she headed out the door.
You slumped your head in your hands, swearing you were going to get Ryland back.
The fifth was when a newly recruited scientist was flirting with you in front of Ryland.
You had been feeling much more confident about you and Ryland’s relationship. You had begun the next couple steps into completing the project and there were only a few months until launch day.
You and Ryland had talked privately about what you were going to do. You felt vulnerable enough to explain to him how much you cared about him and didn’t want to have to let him go. So you both decided to make plans to visit each other frequently outside of the project. You weren’t entirely sure how much you expected, or whether you were less afraid or less unsure than you were before. But again, you were working on it.
The next step was introducing the technology to scientists who were added to the crew for additional supervision during launch, just to make sure everything went as smoothly as possible.
So there you stood beside one of the new scientists in the lab — Dr. Cox. He was very clearly attempting to flirt with you, and at first it was enough to just shrug off. This astonished you, as you couldn’t believe this guy was more interested in flirting with you then paying attention to this planet saving information.
Stratt stood on the sidelines chatting with the astronauts, and Ryland was preparing the Astrophage for the final test of the tour of the lab — melting the cubic ton of metal. Ryland was preparing the Astrophage with Carl on one end of the spindrive.
“So what is your specific involvement in this project?” Dr. Cox asked, folding his arms over his chest.
Your mouth formed into an unimpressed line, maybe now he’d finally catch a hint.
“Oh, I worked on the coma resistance gene research to select our very inspiring astronauts, and I worked to perfect the coma inducing drugs, also I helped make sure the ship was fully stocked with medical supplies before it launches.” You declared proudly. “I don’t know how I even had time to socialize on board.” You laughed, at your own thoughts, not Dr. Cox’s.
Dr. Cox nodded, his eyes drifting up and down your body, you didn’t like the way he was looking at you.
“Oh nice. That all means you're single right?” He asked.
His directness surprised you, but you saw no regret in his face at asking.
“Uh, no it means that I’m the most qualified in this field.”
Dr. Cox nodded, like he didn’t even hear a word you said.
You shifted slightly as you stood next to him, looking at Ryland, who very clearly was overhearing this conversation. His back was turned to you as he started to load the Astrophage inside of the spindrive. But his back was tense enough for you to understand what he was feeling and that he had heard every second of the interaction.
Dr. Cox shrugged his shoulders and said,
“I’m surprised a doctor like you has a body like that, I’d be all over you myself.”
He must’ve spoken just loud enough for everyone to hear, because just as his words finished, Stratt turned around at the same time as Ryland did. Both with strong expressions of shock on their faces.
Ryland turned to Carl, whose face was in an angry expression directed entirely at Dr. Cox. Ryland handed Carl the vial of Astrophage and his glasses.
“Sorry, can you hold these?” He asked.
Carl nodded without a word, taking the vial and glasses in his hands.
Ryland smiled politely as he walked across the floor away from the spindrive and toward you and Dr. Cox.
Dr. Cox held out his hand expectantly, and Ryland took off his gloves slowly. Once they were off, he lifted his right fist and punched Dr. Cox square in the jaw. Your hands went to your mouth in shock.
Dr. Cox dropped to the ground, and you held back a laugh, and simultaneously a scream, as you stepped away from him.
Ryland sent you a fiery look, and you were overcome with this feeling of safety for the first time in a long time.
Ilyukhina gasped, realization spreading across her face.
“You and Ryland are–”
Before Ilyukhina could finish her sentence Stratt chimed in.
“What exactly were you thinking when you did that?” Stratt asked, pretending to be annoyed, sending you a wink.
You were thankful Ilyukhina’s thoughts were interrupted.
Ryland straightened his back.
“I was thinking that I felt very strongly about our sexual harassment policies.” Ryland grumbled, the sexiest you’ve ever heard a statement like that be said. You didn’t even know that was possible.
It was like his protectiveness over you had finally convinced you that you were allowed to be less afraid. Less afraid of being hurt, less afraid of losing him.
“Let’s start the demonstration!” Ryland exclaimed, like nothing had happened at all.
+1. When you finally revealed you and Ryland were together, it was an accident.
You and Ryland had been walking toward a conference room, where Stratt had asked to meet with Ryland. You walked side by side, your hands subtly brushing each other, but not intertwined, you finally reached the door. You were there to deliver the final pages of your coma resistance research to her.
You opened the door following Ryland inside, Stratt was sitting at a long table, staring out into the ocean as the boat moved. She smiled a little when she saw you both enter, Carl stood on the far end of the room.
“Hey guys, let's try to make this quick.” Ryland groaned.
Carl laughed in response, you rolled your eyes carrying your papers to the table.
“The meeting will be as long as is efficient, Dr. Grace.” Stratt said pointedly.
You had to admit, sometimes you liked how effectively she carried her authority.
“So this is the research summary, I think it needs some tweaking in the graph areas, since I didn’t update them since we last talked, but I will today.” You explained, placing the stack in front of her.
She nodded.
“Very good. Will you be joining Dr. Grace and I for the meeting?” She asked.
You shook your head.
“Just dropping him off.” You said with a grin, patting Ryland on the shoulder as he sat down.
Ryland grinned back up at you shyly.
“Alright, I’ll let you all get to it.” You said.
And the next thing you did surprised Ryland, and yourself. You leaned down and kissed his mouth absentmindedly, before pulling back. Ryland blushed and you wondered why he was so flustered, it was just a kiss? Until you realized that that was the very first time you had kissed him publicly.
After your initial shock, you realized how right it felt. How stupid it was that you were keeping this a secret. You cleared your throat awkwardly and were about to speak when Stratt let out a sigh.
“Thank god, now we can stop pretending we did not know.” She grumbled. “American idiots.”
You and Ryland gasped.
“You knew?” Ryland inquired.
“Man, we all knew.” Carl chimed in.
You groaned in embarrassment, and when Ryland’s hand found yours for the first time publicly, you felt sure that you were less afraid, that you knew who he was — the person who would protect you from anything, and love you as much as you loved him.
Just read a fanfic about Ironmary/Bloodymary that made SCIENTIFICAL SENSE for the quiet rapture… APPARENTLY IT WAS ALSO CHECKED BY AN ACTUAL NASA ENGINEER
I’m crine
10/10 btw I legit learned about the multiverse theory by Astrophage
The pressure was crushing, his arm ached with a deep and painful throbbing, pulsing as the blood forced its way deeper under his skin. He gagged, face pressed against the ceiling, desperate for air.
Then it stopped. He felt light, airy, distant. It felt like an apology. It felt like freedom.
•~☆×♡×☆~•
Ryland floated casually, doing loops around one of Rocky's tunnels as they talked about what Humans and Eridians did for fun. Music and dancing was shared, video games and TV not so much.
“Personally,” he began, tugging himself around the tunnel “I liked to watch stupid little YouTube videos.”
“🎵You? Tube?🎶” Rocky said, sounding horrified.
“No, no,” he rushed to correct and comfort his friend. “YouTube was just a–”
“WARNING.” the NannyBot interrupted loudly. “catastrophic blood loss detected, immediate assistance required.”
Ryland bumped into the wall, too stunned to catch himself properly. “But I'm fine?” He mumbled, rubbing at his head. His hand came away dry and clean.
“What wrong?” Rocky asked, coming closer to the wall.
“I don't–”
“Immediate assistance required.” NannyBot said. again. speaking over him. again. “Dr. Grace. Please assist–” it blanked out, going completely silent for a moment “– in the air lock.”
Goodness, is it hallucinating another person? That's not ideal, and why the airlock? He sighed to himself, pushing his way down to the air lock–
Oh.
Oh gosh…
A hand raised to his mouth. He felt sick.
There was a dead man in the airlock. Blood coated the walls, crawling along the glass in a way that almost seemed sentient. The man's blood soaked hair floated around his neck, one arm hung limply at his side, the other was missing.
There was no way he could survive losing that much blood, yet the man twitched.
Grace rushed, slamming at the panel to open the airlock. “Rocky!” He called, hooking his arms around the man's middle. He dragged the man further into the ship.
Rocky clambered down “🎶who that, question?🎵”
“I don't know,” Ryland said, strapping the man down into the one bed not on Rocky's side of the partition. “Does he have a heart beat?”
NannyBot's arms descended, beginning with wrapping the man’s arm and inserting a feeding tube. Rocky hunkered down, listening. Ryland chewed on his nails, feeling particularly useless.
“🎵Yes.🎵” Rocky said at last. Ryland let out a breath, running a hand through his hair. “🎶Very fast, though.🎵”
“Ok,” Ryland sighed, “Ok.”
●•●□●•●
Simon opened his eyes. Not something he expected to do so soon. Or ever again, really.
“Eye movement detected.” A feminine voice said oddly. He let his eyes close again, he felt clean for the first time in days. He wasn't thirsty for the first time in weeks, he wasn't hungry for probably the first time ever.
Was he in heaven? Did he change his life around at the last second enough to go to heaven? Was this voice an angel? Is that why she sounded so odd? So inhuman?
“What's two plus two?” She asked.
“Oh, shove it, NannyBot.” Another voice, this one masculine, said. Softer, he asked, “can you speak? I know those tubes can be rough.”
Tubes? Rough? Was he talking about the submarine?
“Hello?” The voice said as music began to gently play.
Oh, right. Simon should probably respond. “Hey.” He said, voice gravely and broken.
The music stopped. Simon opened his eyes again. The warm light was being partially blocked by… an angel?
Golden hair caught and scattered the light. Bright blue eyes looked down at him. Those eyes were worried, not scared or hungry, just concerned–for Simon.
“Hey,” the angel said, smiling– actually smiling at Simon. He could cry. oh, wait he was crying.
The angel startled, leaning away until he disappeared from sight. Simon tried to sit up, tried to follow– no, no please! Please don't leave me. I can't be alone, I can't! don't leave, “don't–” his throat burned, ached and screamed.
He didn't care. “Come back, please.” he sobbed, patheticly begging. It was hopeless, he knew he didn't deserve heaven.
He especially didn't deserve an angel, yet he came back. He pat at Simon's cheeks with something soft and warm, gently wiping his tears. “It's ok,” the angel said, so soft, so gentle, so very sweet. “I won't leave you.”
“Try not to move, or speak.” The angel said so kindly it was beginning to be hard to believe he was still talking to Simon. “You're on a lot of pain killers, so things probably don't make a lot of sense right now.”
Oh, yeah. Pain killers. Music gently played as he considered the ramifications of heaven having pain killers.
“No, of course I'm not on pain killers.” Huh? “That was a one time thing. Please drop it.” Maybe Simon's angel was crazy, wouldn't that be something?
•~☆×♡×☆~•
Ryland stood at (no longer) blood-covered-stranger's bed side. He should be waking up soon, and actually be cognizant this time. Ryland paced, wringing his hands.
“🎶scared of human, why, question?🎶” rocky asked from upstairs, Ryland asked him to be elsewhere when BloodBoy woke up. Aracniphobia was no joke and he probably couldn't take such a scare right now.
“I'm not.” Grace said, glancing back down at the only human he's seen in the last few months.
“🎵Leaking. Twisting. Heart go🎵” Rocky knocked on the wall, mimicking Ryland's heart racing.
Ryland was never good at talking to people, and if he made a bad first– second– wait if he remembers Ryland making him cry then he already made a bad first impression. “Eye movement detected.”
“🎵jumpy.🎵” Rocky teased. Ryland clutched at his shirt, he had maybe jumped, just a little.
“Hey.” Ryland said, horribly awkwardly.
BloodBoy blinked several times “you were real?” He asked, voice deep with sleep instead of drugs this time.
Oh. Oh gosh he remembered. Please, please let Ryland salvage this situation. “Ye-yep!” He cringed at the stutter, “how are you feeling?” He cringed more, the man had just lost an arm he is not feeling-
“Great,” he said, totally earnest. “I- uh.” He swallowed, looking away from Ryland and around the room instead. As his eyes fell on Rocky's partition he continued “I feel great.”
Ryland sighed in relief. He hadn't expected the sudden eye contact to startle him so much. “I'm glad.” He said, the man looked slightly startled at that, “sorry, my name is Doctor Ryland Grace,” he said, in the hopes the man would introduce himself.
Instead, the man blinked, slowly hulling himself up to a sitting position. “Doctor?” he asked, looking up at Ryland through his hair.
“Yeah, I have a doctorate in molecular biology.” The man, Ryland can not keep calling him BloodBoy looked less hostile and more confused. Before he could ask directly the man began mumbling.
“... you're human?” He asked quietly. Ryland nodded. “I'm alive, and you're human and–” his hand reached up to hover around his stump. “And it was real?”
Oh goodness the man looked near tears again. Ryland didn't know what to do, when the man was drugged simply being close was enough to comfort him. “I'm still here.” Ryland said suddenly.
The man tilted his head slightly to show he was listening. “I'm here, with you, we both are. We won't leave you.” He hoped it was comforting.
“Both?” The man was making eye contact again and golly! When did that get so weird?
“Oh, um.” He stalled, fidgeting again. “You aren't scared of spiders, are you?”
“Spiders?” Those dark eyes darted around in thought. “I donno.”
Ryland sighed, good enough. “Id like you to meet my friend.” He gestured to the tube. Rocky made a show of slowly peeking in. “This is Rocky.” on cue, he waved.
Dully the man waved back. “My name is Simon.”
They sat quite awkwardly for a moment, then rocky- the closest thing they had to an extrovert said “🎵have no word for human name. Give meaning?🎶”
“Oh,” Grace said, looking down at him, “God is listening? I think?” Simon flinched slightly, eyes drifting to the window.
“But you can pick a nickname!” He said, raising his hands, “Or rocky can give you a name and I'll just program it to say Simon. Whatever you want.”
Simon sighed slightly, “just pick something,” he said burying his face in his hands.
Ryland almost raised a hand to offer comfort, He never knew what to do with sad people. Most people don't like to be touched. So what should he do?
“That doesn't matter right now,” he said softly “are you hungry?”
Simon met his eyes then hesitantly nodded. Ryland looked away “Computer, food please.”
Rocky began to shift slightly, Ryland pat at the wall “you can go if you want, bud.”
“🎵No,🎵” Rocky said, “🎵I watch.🎵”
Ryland smiled, they had a conversation about different bonding activities between the two species. When he explained that humans actually eat together on purpose, Rocky was aghast. But then he offered to “engage in … human bonding ritual…” a few hours later.
Simon fell asleep a few minutes after he ate. “🎵Sleep I watch,🎵” Rocky said, going to his usual right above the bed spot “🎶grace, question.🎵”
“What's up, buddy?”
“🎶Where Grace sleep? Only one bed.🎶”
“Huh, hadn't thought it yet.”
“🎵I did.🎵”
●•●□●•●
When Simon woke up it was to Rocky's incredibly rocky underside. “OH, fuck!” He rolled to the side, tried to catch himself with his missing arm and his face met the floor. He rolled, sliding himself along the floor.
“Whoa, whoa!” grace said as Simon bumped into his legs, “what happened?”
“🎶Rocky do nothing then human get scared!🎵” Rocky said, tapping against the glass walls.
“Calm down.” Grace said. “Are you alright?” This was directed at Simon, “anything hurt?”
“No,” Simon said, sitting up propping himself up to sit properly. “’m fine.”
“You're bleeding.” Grace said. The all to fimilar scent of blood was pressent, Simon forgot it wasn't normal.
He reached up to prod at his nose, his fingers came away red. “It's fine, im fine.”
“No,” grace said, stepping closer he pulled a tissue from his pocket, “here, let me.” He knelt close.
Fingers found their way into his hair, tilting his face up. The paper was soft when grace dabbed it around Simon's mouth. The pure white paper came away stained.
Grace suddenly blinked, “sorry,” he said, standing quickly. “Lets show you around the ship, yeah?” He asked, looking away.
Simon nodded and was about to try to get up when a hand was presented to him. Not a fist nor an accusing finger. He didn't know what to do with that “Hm?”
Grace glanced down, making a grabbing motion, behind him Rocky made an exaggerated motion of grabbing his own hands. Simon put his hand into the offered one. Grace lifted him to his feet then his grip loosened.
Simon tightened his grip to compensate. If grace wanted to hold hands, Simon would hold his hand. He let their hands hang loosely between them. “so, um. What now?”
●•●□●•●
When Grace yawned for the second time in a row and the conversation died, Rocky said very happily from his tubes “🎶Grace: stupid, tired. Go sleep, I watch.🎵”
Grace stretched with a yawn. “Sure, alright.”
Simon looked up from the projection on the walls. Grace went towards what simon had been assuming was med Bay instead of towards a room, not that he had seen his room on the tour. But he had to have a room, right?
When grace didn't come back, Simon said softly. “Hey, rocky?”
“🎵Yes?🎵” Rocky said, appearing in his tube. He looked nervous, tilting back-and-forth ever so slightly.
“Why didn't Grace go to his room?” He asked, trying to keep it down.
“🎵He did.🎵”
“No, I mean, why didn't he go to his bedroom?”
“🎵He did, grace share bed with new human.🎶”
Simon shifted uncomfortably “there's only one bed?”
“🎶Yes, grace said grace share.🎶” rocky shifted again.
“And he's alright with that?”
Now rocky was tapping on the wall. “Grace ask stupid question repeatedly when tired. You tired? You sleep? I watch.”
“No, I'm not–”
“Then stop distracting. Grace sleeps, I have to watch.” and then he was gone.
Ok, that's alright. Simon thought to himself. They can just take shifts.
●•●□●•●
That lasted somehow less than one day when Simon woke to grace dozing on the floor beside him and rocky above them. He managed to hold in his shout this time. It was, however, quite a near thing.
Rocky waved, he was fiddling with some sort of something dull green and shiny. Simon waved back then asked, as quiet as his sleepy voice could be, “why is he on the floor?”
“Try sleep in science room, Rocky can't watch you both if in different rooms.” He completed three of the tiny things he was working on and linked them together in the time it took him to say that. Then he paused to look at Simon. “I make him sleep down here. He no want share bed. Rocky not know why.”
“Because on earth, it's considered rude to saddle up to someone who's asleep.” Grace said from the floor. “especially if you don't know them too well.”
Simon shrugged, “I would have been fine with it.” Rocky made an ‘I told you so’ gesture. “also, I'm not from earth. How old do I look?”
Grace looked up at him, “you're not from earth?” Simon shook his head. “Where are you from?”
Simon folded in on himself a little bit. He knew this wouldn't last very long. Yet it was still painful to have to admit “Eden.”
he braced himself for the question. For the accusations, the discovery of what happened at filament station.
Nothing happened.
He opened his eyes.
Grace looked confused, “I'm sorry, I don't know where–or what– that is. Was it an offshoot of project hail mary?”
It was Simon's turn to be confused. “Project hail Mary? Was that a response to the quiet rapture?”
They were done taking turns, and now they were both confused. “No, it was the Petrova Task force? the Earth, trying to save the stars.”
“‘Trying to save'” Simon mumbled under his breath. “So they knew what was coming?”
“Yeah, we knew about the Petrova line, and we knew about the astrophage. But that shouldn't have actually killed anyone yet.” Softer he said, “Right?”
“astrophage?” Simon asked, “what's that?”
“The star eaters.” At Simon's panicked expression he added, “wait, wait, wait, let's slow down.” He said, hands in front of him.
“I think that something odd has happened here. Let's start at the beginning.”
The conversation took the rest of the cycle. By the end of it Simon just wanted to go back to bed.
●•●□●•●
Simon woke up, it was his third ‘day’ on the Hail Mary and waking up to a rock ‘spider’ was still very odd. “Good morning, Rocky.” He said, instead of ‘holy shit get out of my room’
It wasn't his room, anyway. It was Ryland's. He just happened to be nice enough to let Simon sleep there. In his bed. The only bed.
He startled when Rocky said good morning and went up the tube. “Um, food please” The ceiling arms deployed, saying something about days and meals. Simon reached up, letting the packet fall into his hand. He ripped the plastic with his teeth.
Rocky made himself scarce whenever Simon ate, so he made sure to do so first thing every day. Even if the thought of eating three whole times a day felt excessive and rich. He was pretty sure no one got three whole meals a day anymore.
Water is recyclable, food? Not so much. After he finished his meal (that even included meat!) he made his way to what was once a ladder.
The angels–that's what he liked to call rocky and grace. He can't call them ‘the other humans’ as Rocky wasn't human. ‘The others’ wasn't right either because that implied he was just as good and important as they were. And ‘the boys’ was just weird.
Anyway, the angels had replaced the ladder (unusable with only one hand and increased gravity) with a rope (tiny chain, actually) and pulley system.
He sat on the xenonite seat and began to hull himself up. Ryland was hunched in his desk chair, beside him was a white board covered in numbers 1,500 was repeated a lot, underlined in some areas, angrily crossed out in others. A few times ‘1,400?’ Or ‘1,000..?’ popped up.
“Hey.” he greeted, Ryland jumped and then muttered something. Rocky sang something in response and Ryland rolled his eyes.
Ryland was carefully pretending the white board didn't exist. “What's up, man?” He asked, aiming (and missing) casual.
“What’s that?” Simon asked, not one to beat around the bush.
“What's what?” Ryland really was a terrible actor.
“1,500. What does that mean?” Ryland shrunk away, nervous.
Ryland shrunk, “the absolute minimum daily intake of calories before suffering malnutrition.”
In the middle was an underlined “2 mouths=2 months.” Each equation led to it. “We have two months before we starve?” He asked.
Ryland nodded. “I've been experimenting with growing something from the meal packets, but they're all so processed. It just isn't possible.”
“How long until we get where you're going?” Simon asked. If the second mouth is the problem then maybe–
“Six months,” he sighed. Simon had already killed them both. Was it too much now to pray?
