#wendyllwins fic

[wendyllwins]

Shed Light | Chapter 5 | 4.2k

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Excerpt:

So. 

A naked man.

A naked man named Simon.

A naked man named Simon who was missing an arm.

A naked man named Simon who was missing an arm, and covered in extensive, horrific injuries that would render most normal people at the very least unable to move fluidly due to the extensive nerve damage, and also seemed, at most times, about one bad mood away from trying to burst through the Tree Dome’s walls and disembowel Rocky before he clawed Grace’s eyes out.

Grace didn’t deal with the threat of physical aggression well, especially not when it came from someone who’d presented enough strength to launch Rocky’s weight across the greenhouse like he was a three month old chihuahua instead of a several hundred pound condensed weight of metal and rock housed in a xenonite suit. 

Also, there was just something spectacularly intimidating about a man who didn’t care that every inch of his skin was exposed to open air and presented the sheer will that Simon did in managing to keep functioning through his injuries.

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[wendyllwins]

Shed Light | Chapter 1 | 3.6k

Summary: Simon was prepared to die alone in the depths of a blood ocean for the sake of the remnants of humanity. He wasn't prepared to live a changed man - monster - in an entirely changed universe, with little memory of how he'd gotten there or who he was or what he'd done.

Who the fuck was this Ryland person, and what did he want with him?

Pairings/Characters: The Convict | Simon & Ryland Grace, Ryland Grace & Rocky

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Excerpt:

Fuck, dying hurt. A lot.

It didn’t have to. Somewhere in the screeching cacophony of metal and teeth and blood Simon knew that there were kinder ways, faster ways. Ways that didn’t involve kicking and screaming and the inconceivable sensations of your flesh ripping from your splitting bones and your blood boiling in your throat and the awful crunch-slough-crunch as your organs and limbs were being warped and absorbed and whatever the shit the horrific entity was planning to do to him and absolutely everyone else.

This was bigger than him. So much fucking bigger than him. And maybe he’d gone crazy and maybe every human being left in the universe hated him and didn’t give a shit if he died - probably even wanted it - but in that moment…he didn’t hate anyone enough to stop. Because maybe, if the others at least lived, they could have more. A future.

So he let the killer in him out. He fought like he had everything to lose while his world turned to red, half-blinded, lungs filling with blood, pushing his failing body to live through the pain to survive just long enough. Not for himself.

He got the black box. Even had managed to wound the damn monster as it tried to swallow him. He had the last laugh.

Scream.

Dying hurt. But at least it had an end.

Whatever happened to Simon… didn’t.

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Author's Note: Learned about the concept of these two together last week. They just happen to both be the only movies I've watched this year. So here we are.

No update schedule planned. My tendency is to keep trucking at things even if they take a while. I have this fic's trajectory and ending all planned out.

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[wendyllwins]

Shed Light | Chapter 6 | 4.2k

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Excerpt:

The sounds of Mean Not-Human Simon’s respiratory system were becoming inconsistent. Rocky continued in his message to Adrian of his required supplies to maintain personal comfort and health in his indefinite quarantine in Grace’s habitat as he shifted his body from side to side for better hearing. There were movements of Mean Not-Human Simon’s body inside and outside. He did not rise but his dormancy was less still than when Grace slept. And Grace when asleep was much much much less still than an Eridian sleep. 

Rocky waited for this to be a sign of more sickness, but the sound of gurgling and muscle contraction that usually preceded the expulsion of fluid from Mean Not-Human Simon’s body was not present. Rocky was thankful.

Armando was inside the Tree Dome, observing Mean Not-Human Simon much closer than Rocky. If its behavior was consistent with the times it had cared for Grace’s injuries on his ship, Rocky estimated it would need to change the cloth for healing in four Eridian days and 22,422 seconds. In the biodome specifically built for Grace’s comfort, that would translate into almost one single Earth rotation cycle.

If Mean Not-Human Simon was awake when Armando tried to change the cloth, Rocky knew it would be bad bad bad. And Rocky was certain Mean Not-Human Simon would be awake soon.

The sounds inside the Tree Dome were coming louder and becoming varied: Rocky heard the scrape of a limb against the substrate, the top appendage stretched out over the edge of the blanket, and a low rumble, coming through the opening in the side of the face. That very low sound had helped Not-Human Simon pronounce his first Eridian word, before the speaking orifice opening had grown to expose more of the ectodermal chewing organs. 

Grace had never made a sound with that frequency. Rocky was sure the vibrations of his vocal folds could not produce it at all.

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[wendyllwins]

Shed Light | Chapter 10 | 6.6k

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Author's Note: Bit of a flashback chapter this time for Grace's POV before we catch up with the present!

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Excerpt:

Rocky was in agony. 

Grace had known him long enough to recognize the signs; to know that although his own new stretch of burn sang through the nerves of his own right arm in an unignorable flaring hurt, but Rocky was feeling it through most of his body as the temperature fluctuated and the oxygen leaking inside stirred a combustion reaction.

The crack in Rocky’s xenonite suit was still spreading as the mutated Taumoeba traveling through it sought out more and more Astrophage to consume. Not enough ammonia was escaping to cause more than the barest whiffs in the air but Rocky’s movements were clearly becoming more and more of a struggle, which meant the worker cells of his body were becoming damaged if not starting to die off completely. 

Rocky hated burning. Oxygen exposure was one of his deepest personal fears after the events of the Hail Mary. And Grace would have to watch him go through it again, this time to its inevitable end. And then he’d lose him, Rocky, savior of Erid and Earth and stars. He’d have to tell Adrian, and all their other friends, and everyone who knew and loved Rocky-

Simon pounding against the wall of the Tree Dome was like a sledgehammer pistoning against xenonite. The noise snapped Grace’s attention up even through his grief. Simon’s unpatched eye was wide, intent, his normal teeth bared and the slash of sharp daggers crawling up the left side of his face clacking together, while Grace hysterically thought - guess the mutation didn’t form any specialized sheaths for the disproportionally massive fangs, maybe there was some kind of benefit to them being constantly on display?

“Open the door!” Simon demanded through both sets of teeth, stopping those thoughts in their tracks. “Open the door to this thing.”

“We don’t know if you can survive that amount of mutated Taumoeba dumped on you at once,” Grace pointed out. The smallest amounts of previous exposure had caused him to nearly immediately explode with blood in what looked like an excruciating process.

“If they want to eat me,” Simon growled, a swell of something deep coming up from his chest, and Grace swore he could hear the wall of xenonite between them rattling. “They can come and try.”

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[wendyllwins]

Shed Light | Chapter 7 | 2.8k

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Excerpt:

There was black smoke curling up in the dark outside of the Tree Dome.

There was also screaming, multiple inhuman notes piercing the air and echoing off the wall. They sent all of Simon’s instincts flaring to life and made him feel like his overworked nerves were pricked to full attention, his throat closing up as his lips parted.

”Flames? Why would there be flames?”

He stood on dirt ground under bright, warm lights, his bandaged body stinging and his head aching, and listened to that awful sound, his right eye staring unblinkingly into a landscape of sand and shadows and the two figures directly on the other side of the strong, clear wall of his prison. The waves of that unseen ocean were still crashing in the distance but, for once, he didn’t give a shit about them.                                 

The rock tentacle monster thing expelled more curling black smoke as it screeched again in its clear container in the throes of pure agony. Simon could practically feel the noise reverberating in his chest. He shrunk back a step, still unsure what was causing that damage and if it would come for him next.

Ryland the Grace didn’t shrink. He brought his body over the suit that housed the rock monster and clamped his arm over the crack. Simon heard the sizzle right before Ryland’s hoarse yell joined the chorus of pain and he had to break away, the sleeve of the cloth with the snarling animal faces charred and blackened and melted into his reddened flesh.

“No, Grace!” Rocky squealed, skittering back before it desperately plunged its own limb deep in the sand, up to the main part of its body, clamping down over the cracked section of suit and shimmying itself further down. The smoke coming out of it slowed to a trickle. “Tired, stupid! Pick better choices!”

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[wendyllwins]

Shed Light | Chapter 4 | 3k

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Excerpt:

Not. Human. 

That was what Ryland’s science had said about Simon. Not. Human.

Not human.

The dirt ground disappeared, transforming into stiff metal - a chair unyielding against his aching hips and sweat-drenched back, walls too close and rumbling and every inhale a choking miasma of hot, humid, stale air. His head was pounding his skull apart and his forearms were fucking dissolving and he could hear metal creaking all around him as a torrent of death threatened to burst through the welded hull and drown him. 

THIS MADNESS ENDS WITH YOU!

No, he thought viciously as he blinked his right eye, his stomach lurching like he’d taken a sudden drop. The dome had reappeared, the air cool and fresh as it scraped through his starving lungs. No. Screw that. He didn’t know what the fuck was going on in his head or why he kept seeing those... things, but he knew they weren’t right. Weren’t true. That hadn’t happened. It hadn’t.

The fact that he couldn’t string two memories together in a straight line to explain anything about himself was just a side effect of whatever these people had done to him. They could have experimented on him. Given him drugs that had made him hallucinate and lose his memories. That would make a fuck of a lot more sense than…than…

The right side of his scalp let out a hot pulse of pain; he’d clawed his fingers into his greasy hair, the blanket sliding open, precariously perched on his shoulders, the stump of his left arm awkwardly raised to try and keep it from falling. He dug his nails in deeper just to get the hurt to sharpen enough to focus him.

“Test it again,” Simon ordered, staring down at the grooves in the dirt around him, heart catapulting itself against the walls of his chest as he wildly tried to keep his mind on the present. He could feel his body shaking uncontrollably, and he forced his voice as even and clear as he could manage it. “The samples were contaminated. They had to be contaminated. Test them again.”

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[wendyllwins]

Shed Light | Chapter 9 | 6.4k

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Author's Note: Shows up and dumps a 6.4k chapter at your feet

GRACE WHAT HAVE I TOLD YOU ABOUT HIJACKING MY CHAPTERS WITH SCIENCE? (It will happen again)

As always, to commenters and kudos-givers, thank!

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Excerpt:

Having a panic attack as some kind of mutated half-tree freak didn’t end well, especially since Simon’s warped body had apparently brought his adrenal system back to fully functioning while he couldn’t fucking move.

The noises that tore through his throat were a mix of his own strangled wails and a deep rumble that hurt his chest all the way through his back as it came out, saliva flicking out from between both sets of clenched teeth from the force of his cries. He tried to lift his head from the ground, twist his arm, move his legs, anything. He made some headway with his wrist, then focused all of his might on that, muscles straining as he viciously ignored the memory that was boring down on him, left arm fused to the hull but he was all alone, no one was coming to save him, everything was up to him-

Something snapped. 

He grunted in the shock of agony that followed, and then could literally feel the creep of his skin hardening from the site of the damage all the way up his forearm as it started to change him back, restricting his movement further, making his exposed eye go wide in realization at his mistake and please, no, no no no, he didn’t want to go away again, please-

“Simon, Simon, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, stop pulling! Stop pulling!”

It was the yelling that got to him, loud enough to ring in his ears and send his body straight into freeze instead of flight. He panted and trembled against the dirt, his wide eye directing up towards a starless void.

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[wendyllwins]

Shed Light | Chapter 8 | 2.1k

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Excerpt:

“Do not fear, my son. This mark counts you amongst your Brothers. It is a reward for your loyalty in surviving the ailments of infancy to continue your service of Eden. The pain is temporary.”

“You were so brave, Simon. I’m very proud of you.”

“Head on the table, Convict. COI regulations say you can’t be on this station prowling around with that ink.”

“If the Consolidation were to take you alive, they would attempt to cleanse you with fire.”

“Simon, look what I brought you.”

“Simon, oh God, Simon, you can stop holding him now.”

“Convict, just let it happen. Pain’s temporary, unless you screw it up and the wound gets infected.”

“To burn would be the greatest failure. We must ensure not just death, but the correct death.”

“Simon, will you please talk to me?”

“Simon, are you awake? Can you hear me?”

“I let you burn me, so now what?”

“Now? Solitary confinement until the Captain decides what’s next. She’ll be busy cleaning up Eden’s mess for months. Maybe even years.”

“My son, the preparations are nearly complete.”

“I thought we didn’t want them to burn?”

“In the cell, Convict.”

“Hey, you forgot to take the handcuffs off. HEY!”

“Simon!”

“Simon, come on. Come on! Oh, my-”

“There are nutrients to be found in ashes!”

I SEE YOU.

Simon opened his eye.

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