ʐօʍɮɨɛ ɢʊʏ @zomb-creechur - Tumblr Blog

Jun 12

~ He's So Heavy: Part VI

Pairing: Simon the Butcher x m!reader Rating: M Word Count: 6703 AO3 Version: HERE / Part Directory: HERE (Series Completed!) A/N: Thank you for joining me on my first series on this blog! I had so much fun writing this.

Content Tags: male reader, convict reader, immoral reader, blood, reader is from Eden, established relationship, hurt and comfort, angst, unreliable narrator, hallucinations, religious imagery, violence, necrosis, major character death

You smile more to yourself than at him. Even after all this time Simon has never really changed. Always looking for the brightest part of any moment, searching for the right change. Dreaming of a star lit future. The kind of man to ask for hope instead of peace. Hope instead of happiness.

He rubs at his mouth again, trying to wipe away the blood but it only stains along his chin. There's something there on the edge of his expression that looks dangerously close to breaking. As if one more touch will be his undoing and he'll unravel in your hands. Sunshine grown dim, faded behind clouds.

"It's okay." You say, even if it is a lie. Even if there is nothing here that is even remotely a comfort. There is nothing to offer him in this great dark. No light, no soft fabric to torn skin. No water to help his aching throat or help dissipate the taste of blood and bile.

Simon lets out a tearless choking noise and you shift forward instinctually, drawn by the noise as he sinks to sit. You meet him there on the floor, one arm wrapping around him, the other remains drooped at your side, not responding when you think to move it. As if it is someone else's arm, someone else's body beyond your own. Torn from you.

"It's okay." You repeat, because the two of you will be together. This is assured, this is promised. You would never dare consider God to be a liar. Not now that you have seen It with your own smaller, frailer eyes. It has seen you, and you have seen It. That cannot be undone. The promise will be kept.

"It's not." He cries, and still the tears do not come. You wonder if he is unable, if the dry heat of this ship has sucked them from his body. Stripped you of the little water and human decency the two of you have hiding inside trembling bodies.

Would he cry if he were able? Simon has always been willing to cry in private, when he is hidden away. Never in front of others, except you. His forever exception to all rules. You have seen his tears, wiped them away, and cooed out comforts.

"It is." You try and argue an impossible point, hand on the back of his head, your forehead to his own. "I asked for you."

Whatever control is left in him finally shatters. He clings to you so hard your whole body thrums with pain, but you make no move to deny him this. Not if it is what he needs. Your sunshine, seeking out hope where he can find it.

You will give it. You will give anything.

"I will never part from you." It is an easy promise to make now. It is no longer a dream, but instead a reality. A vow. More than any ring on your finger or scarred tattoo on your throat.

"Hello? Hello?"

The speaker crackles overhead. The sound of it trickles in slow, not entirely understood after the first few words. An impossibility.

"Hello?"

It is the voice of the captain.

Your head pulls back and you dare to hope. That is what Simon asked for. They will come for you, for the sample on the front of the ship, the pictures you have taken of life in a dead sea.

"We hear you." You call, leaning back to look up at the speaker. "This is the SM-13."

Simon's breath evens as he processes what is happening, before he falls silent, letting you do the talking. He's spent, run through, you will be the weapon in his hand. His unspoken words.

"Is that really you?"

Simon's hands come up into his hair, fisting into the dark strands. "Is she real?" He mumbles, words slurring together in his exhaustion, "Is this real?"

"I don't know what to say."

"I'm done." Simon says, hands tightening in a way that makes you concerned. You reach automatically to loosen the grip from his hair. "I'm done. Done. Done. This isn't real."

"It's okay." You hold his hands in one of your own, trying to keep them from tangling back in his hair, navigating between the two conversations even as your head spins. Everything is blurrier than it used to be. The walls seem fuzzy almost in some places.

"I don't even know how you survived. How ... hello?"

This could be another trick. A way for that thing to fuck with you. A joke before biting down.

Or it could be hope. The hope that Simon asked for.

You run through different ways to prove her identity. It knows your names so you can't ask for that. Something else, something more specific. Something that it couldn't have seen. The tow-ship.

"What did I say when you were welding us in?" You ask, looking at the speaker box like she will somehow be able to see your glare. Unfortunately, you doubt you would look like much of a threat right now.

One arm completely useless, the other clinging to Simon's fingers, standing in the crook of your lover's legs.

"Um ... I don't - I don't remember." There is hesitation in her voice, confusion dripping from it. Not the cool calm of the monster after it was found out, but still you do not trust this. You cannot risk misplaced trust.

"Think fucking harder then." You snarl, "Prove you're who you say you are. What did I say when you were welding us in? What did I say to him?"

"I - I - I don't recall. This isn't helping."

"Think!" You shout as Simon's hands tighten on your own.

"You - um, you said something about light about - there was - rage, uh, rage against the light."

Some semblance of relief finally threads through you. Simon's grip loosens, his voice whispered at your feet, "Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage. Rage against the dying of the light."

You squeeze his fingers, the words washing over you. Always a comfort even when you don't necessarily even want them to be. Words spoken so many times before.

"Good enough," You say, "Talk."

"Look it's been days since your last contact. With two people you should have run out of oxygen long before now. How are you still alive?"

Days. The two of you have been down here for days? Now that she says it you can feel it. No wonder your arm has completely given up. No wonder everything feels too tight, hunger gnawing at you.

"I don't know, we have one bar left. So it's time for you to uphold your end of the deal. We got your pictures, your sample, dealt with your bullshit. We've been down here long enough in this pit."

There's a pause too long for your comfort where anger finds its place in the silence before she speaks again.

"I don't think that's possible."

"I had nothing to do with Filament Station." Simon calls out, still on the floor and your heart aches at the sound of his voice. This desperate whining plead as he uses your weight to drag himself to his feet. "I swear. They didn't tell me, they lied. I didn't know."

He looks to you and he is a boy, a desperate caged boy. Breaking, Simon is breaking, "Tell her, tell her I didn't know."

You say nothing as the understanding settles. When they welded you in, you knew that there was never any getting out, but this is the final nail in the coffin of that understanding. This was your tomb the moment you stepped inside. That's why you pressed that button in the first place. You always knew.

"I'm really sorry. It's not a matter of want right now. We can't risk anymore dives."

As if you are an inconvenience. Not lives, but things to be discarded. Not people, Eden's cast offs. Trash for the shredder. Nothing more than crazy cultists.

Another C.O.I. experiment to be jotted down as inconclusive. You laugh, sharp, angry.

It is Simon that falls into panic, "But what about the mission? What about everything we learned!"

He pushes past you to shout at the speaker and it destroys something in you to see him so helpless. To know there is nothing you can do to take it away. Nothing to fight, no punch to throw, no axe to swing.

You look back to where you sat by the button, the blood from your back is vanished in the gore that continues to drip, but you know the spot well enough. You should have slit his throat then and saved him all of this pain.

It would have been a far kinder mercy than to put him through this hell. There is no saving him, no sparing his life. You will be together in death at least, that is the only comfort you afford yourself as you watch Simon's rage build.

You knew death was coming. Simon, sweet, beautiful, white light, Simon, thought to have hope.

"It's ... it's not worth it."

You laugh again, not worth it. Like Simon is meaningless. Like he isn't every dead star in all of fucking space. As if he isn't everything. He's worth all of them and then some.

"So we're just the next SM-8 then," You chuckle and flip the speaker box off. "The next sub to be left down in this pit. You know what, fuck you, and your execution. Fuck you, fuck the C.O.I., fuck everyone on the towship. He is worth it. He's worth twenty of you. I hope you all starve!"

There a cluster of voices, mumbling, discussion. You ignore them, reaching for the fire extinguisher, ready to smash that stupid box in so that you can die in dignity.

"Did you - did you say SM-8?" She asks.

You pull the extinguisher from its holster, readying it in your single handed grip. You're done listening to them. You'd rather go out unheard and uncontrolled. Simon's hand presses to your wrist and you pause.

His orders are the only ones you know how to follow anymore.

"He did," Simon says. "What about it? Let me guess, you want somethin' else from us?"

You ignore her entirely, and her bullshit mumbling, adjusting your grip on the metal in your hand. Talking to her lackeys like the two of you are rats in a cage.

"How do you know about the SM-8?"

You roll your eyes.

"We saw it," Simon explains, looking between you and the speaker. When God gave him hope, you wonder if all Simon got from it was blind hope. "Down in this, uh, this cave."

A man's voice now, the asshole who dropped Simon on his face in the initial descent. "And how did you know it was the SM-8? Or are you just lying to try and save yourselves?"

"Oh go fuck a spike, jackass, we got eyes." You snarl.

Simon catches your energy, "Yeah, it had big fuckin' letters. We can read."

"You both are so charming." He snaps through the speaker, "But that doesn't prove shit."

"It had a, um," Simon snaps his fingers as he tries to recall the information after everything you've been through. You do not think you can snap your fingers anymore. "A black box. We hooked up to it, on the computer but it, it said we didn't have privileges."

"That computer shouldn't be working."

"I'm good at crossing wires." You grunt, adjusting your grip on the fire extinguisher, one more sentence from cutting off contact with them for some semblance of peace. "It connected, not that any of you assholes care."

There's more muttering. Simon's hand on your wrist is the only reason you don't swing this piece of metal into that speaker until it is nothing but scrap metal.

"We could get it for you." Simon offers. "The - the information. We could go back. It's not far. Please, please, we can't die down here with these things. What can I do to get us brought back up?"

"Si." Your voice cracks, "Don't beg. Don't ever beg."

His eyes are becoming more and more bloodshot. There's a sickness to him, a paleness even in the low light that your mind knows is wrong. You can't say why, only that it is. There's a ever present tremble in Simon's hands as he looks up the speaker.

Like this woman is God. Like she holds freedom and redemption in her hands. This is not God, this is a false prophet. This is a mirage.

You know this because even as Simon barters for your lives neither of you even considers mentioning the light. Neither of you mentions a great eye. It remains unspoken, cradled between you. An understanding that you have earned this knowledge and they have not.

"I'm done listening to you people." You growl, pulling from Simon's grip. "I'm breaking this fuckin' speaker and we're gonna die without your bullshit."

You lift the fire extinguisher.

"Wait! Wait, we'll pull you up." She calls. "Get us the information from the SM-8 and we'll bring you both back up. Sentences served. You'll be free."

You're done playing this game. You hoist the metal back and swing. It collides with a dull familiar crack.

It takes longer than it should to put the pieces together. The movement, a flash of skin, a spatter of blood. Why the sound is familiar to you at all. Simon is on the ground, his hand to the side of his head.

You drop the extinguisher as if it has burned you. "Simon!"

"What's happening?"

You ignore her, dropping to your knees, reaching for the side of his head. It comes back tacky with blood and your whole body jerks in disgust at your own action. "I didn't - I wasn't - I would never. Simon. Simon, are you okay?"

He smiles up at you with red lined teeth, "S'okay, but we're ... we're getting that box. I'm getting you out of here."

Perhaps that would mean something to you if you could get over the fact that you just unwillingly struck him. There is blood leaking down the side of his head even as he shoves himself onto all fours spitting more blood into the growing amount on the floor.

This place is cannibalizing anything good left in you. It is turning you into the kind of man that can't think through an action enough that you end up hurting the one person you cannot tolerate the idea of hurting.

You look down at your discolored fingers, the arm that you can no longer feel. And altogether somehow, this is the thing that makes it too much.

Not the initial fall, not the creatures in the deep, not God, not seeing parts of your life you'd rather forget. This one moment and the feeling of Simon's blood on your face.

They're talking, but you might as well be drowning outside the ship for how much you understand. Your body bends, an unraveled thread until your forehead presses against the sticky metal of the floor.

You can't save him.

There is no saving him.

Simon is going to rot down here in this shell. He's going to decompose, your bones and his bones and that's only if whatever is out there doesn't implode this paper thin cylinder.

You are no Brother of Eden. Protector. Defender. Soldier.

You are a worm on a big fucking hook, dipped into an ocean of blood to see what the C.O.I. might catch.

There is a feeling in your shoulder, a pressure, a presence. Not pain, not reception, but a sort of weight. You tilt your head and see it is Simon's hand. A touch.

Reaching out your free hand you tap the top of your purplish hand and there's nothing. You sense it in your fingers, in your other arm, but it's like flicking a foot that's fallen asleep, absent of the tingling and simply just weight hanging from your body.

If you survive this ocean the sepsis is going to kill you.

You laugh and wonder which one of the terrible things you've done in your life you are being punished for. Did it start with the onions you could not bring yourself to ever eat?

"Hey, hey." Simon's hand comes to your face. "Stay with me."

You look up at him from where you rest on your knees. He is creation above you. Creation that bleeds.

"Can you feel your arm?" He asks and the fear in his voice does not trickle in like it is supposed to. Simon's fear is starting to sound like Simon's voice. As if all happiness has been sucked away into the pitched shadows and blood puddles.

"Fuck my arm, it's gone." You grunt and shove yourself to your feet. You have followed Simon into every aspect of his life. This too you will follow, "Let's go get your box."

There's something cloying about dragging yourself to the back of the SM-8 now, a familiarity as you find yourself in front of that ever glowing button -- the green light mocks you. This place is starting to feel like a part of your skin and bones. Like it is your thrumming over worked heart pulled out of your chest to surround you.

It is no surprise then that Simon is inside it.

You lean against the wall, letting your head rest against the hot metal and close your eyes as the ship starts moving again. Your arm lies limp and vanished at your side, the other rests over the button without pressing it.

There's a thin layer of blood sloshing in the crawlspace below you. Maybe an inch or two, slowly accumulated over your days you have apparently spent down here. You watch it shift and ripple as Simon navigates. If it were brighter in here, you think you could probably see your reflection in it.

He's become so proficient at it, he barely needs you to check the way at all. The flickers of light, the tick of the warning sound seems to be all he really needs to get you through the tunnel system back to where you tried so hard to get out of the first time.

As he navigates you find yourself humming. The same tune Simon would hum to fill the time when you were home, stuck in the walls of Eden cleaning and repairing. A piece of his mother passed into him and on to you.

You press the button when he slows and the SM-8 appears before you. Same torn metal as before. You stare at it, head cocking to the side in consideration. Seeing it in a new light now that you are not so focused on the thing in the depths.

It wasn't an implosion that destroyed the ship. The metal petals outward not inward. You realize as you stare at it that something burst from inside the ship.

"Connecting. Connecting. Wait. Wait. Wait."

You think of the creature that seems to call these tunnels home. The way it knows things it shouldn't, the way it asked for Ava. No.

No, you are not letting your mind consider the possibility that whatever that fucking think is was once you. Was once human.

But the ship is ripped outward and you have considered yourself a man of facts near your whole life. It speaks in your language. It suffers the way a human might. It remembers the sun.

"Wait. Wait. Sufficient privileges. Connecting."

You turn to look at the computer, several load bars appear one after another. Simon doesn't even get up from the chair, when you look over at him you think he might be half asleep, draped against the backrest. You let him rest while he can.

"Connection made. Beginning download. Wait. Wait. Wait."

Your good hand presses to the side of the console to hold yourself up. The download bar fills slowly and outside the ship you can hear the creak of metal and the shift of blood. It's here again, circling you.

There's a hint of a voice, it sounds like it's coming from behind you. Whispered down a long hallway, imperceptible once it reaches you. Best to ignore it. You do not let those voices in.

Simon grunts and you see him shove himself out of the chair from the corner of your eye. His hand comes to his head, and you force your eyes entirely back to the screen, hand tightening to the lip of metal.

"Is it working?" He asks, feet scraping as he meanders to stand next to you.

You don't reply to his question, only nod toward the bar on the screen. There's blood collecting in the corner of one side, running lazily down the glass.

"How's your head?" You ask, teeth sinking down on the fat of your tongue to control your anger. You struck him. You stupid motherfucker. How could you hit him?

Simon's hand finds the small of your back. "Don't." He disagrees, leaning forward to press his temple to the side of your ever pounding head. "Was an accident."

"Si I - " You choke, but the computer interrupts you.

There's a beep, an audio message pops up on screen and it begins to play. And maybe that wouldn't be all that important to you if you did not recognize the voice so keenly.

"Simon. Simon."

There's a pause in the audio log, no spikes other than the ruffle of fabric. Your heart feels like it is being squeezed in your chest. A hand clamping down on the beating muscle.

"Thank you. Thank you."

Another pause. You stare at the screen, a sense of deja vu biting into your brain, and swear, "What? What the fuck is this?"

"Motherfucking, fuck. Think. Think. What would Si do? What would he do?"

"I don't understand." Simon mumbles, reaching out to touch the box along the screen like that will change anything. "When was this?"

"Simon." Your recorded voice sounds shredded, sharp with panic. It had been pitch black in the ship. No power but the button behind you. It shouldn't have been able to record anything. This moment should belong only to you.

There's the distinct sound of your manic chuckle, more fabric. You don't say anything, eyes locked toward the next spike in the audio log.

"You don't mind if I talk, do you, sunshine? I remember the day I fell in love with you. I kinda knew it was coming and didn't at the same time. It was weird like that, but we were working. Shoved into the SD quadrant. Rust prep and wire repair. For whatever reason it was hot as hell in there that day, worse than normal.

"We were sweating buckets, and you just got fed up and stripped off your shirt and tossed it on the floor. And I remember looking at you, tattoo still red on your neck, face all flushed, and thinking to myself shit. Oh shit, he's beautiful. Heh, I wanted to lick you. And you'll remember that I did. Neither of us knew what the hell we were doing, and we were filthy by the time we crawled out of there—laughing and happy."

You have half the mind to try and stop the recording. It is so odd to hear yourself echoed back in a time when you thought for certain everything was about to end. The mania had bled from your voice and you sound so calm.

You've never known yourself to sound like that and you think Simon is also unfamiliar because he seems entranced by the recording. Words said to him but that he was never supposed to hear in the first place.

"I'd give anything to go back there. You see the Quiet Rapture as this horrifying thing, and you have your theories, your hopes. Maybe it's us and not them. I know why you think that. If we were the ones that disappeared, then your mom is out there somewhere waiting for you."

Simon's finger presses harder to the glass, as if he's touching an older version of you. There is blood staining his cheek. He's as beautiful now as he was then, in that pitch dark.

"For me, the Rapture was the start of my life, not the end of it. I met you because of it. I got to know you the way I have because of it and ... well, my ma isn't out there somewhere hoping I'll come home. The only reason I want to see the sun again is so I can see you in that holy light. But we're ... we're going to die down here."

The gauze around his wrist is starting to fray away, pulled back. They train you on Eden, especially workers like you that end up spending most of your time in the spots others don't go. You're shown videos, forced to read manuals, and take tests about the symptoms of radiation. It's been baked into you with years of repetition.

That's how you knew you were fucked long ago. Even if you're trying hard not to think about your ruined rotting arm.

"This is an execution; it was always an execution. No matter what they said to you. They don't want us to return. And even if we did find our way back, what awaits us? Dead stars and endless waiting. Living in the same cold space and being unable to touch. If there's still hope, it lies beyond the veil, somewhere we can't go."

There are radiation marks pocking Simon's wrist. Little discolored boils and inflamed skin. They match the yellowish sheen to him and his red eyes. You swallow hard.

"I think it's better this way, to choose to breathe our last here at the bottom of an ocean: unseen, unheard, uncontrolled. Sure, they'll get their execution. We'll get our freedom. Isn't that what we always wanted? To be free?"

Simon is dying.

"I love you, Simon. Truly, truly I do. God, please ... please let him into the Grove."

There's not enough water left in your body to cry. You should have cried when you had the chance.

"We're going to meet there, you and I." You whisper as the audio recording closes itself out. The Grove will let you in now, it must after what you have suffered and what you are doing now. Helping the C.O.I. offering them up something precious.

"SM-8 Recovery Log downloaded. Black box information confirmed. Disconnecting."

Simon parts from the screen. He does not notice his own affliction. You think it better to not tell him. Best he doesn't realize that the radiation will kill you both, if your arm doesn't kill you first.

"We're not fuckin' dying today." There it is again -- hope. Simon heads back to the helm of your beating heart and you watch him go with a sad smile.

Today you will become eternity.

But for now, you see no reason not to humor him. Like playing a game, a childish naive goal as you resume your spot along the wall that now knows the shape of you.

Navigating back has almost become habit at this point. The thin funnel of an entrance no longer alarms either of you as you make your way through. This could have been one hell of a career if it weren't a death sentence.

Simon heads for higher elevation and the two of you wait, one eager and one resigned for the voice of a false god.

Ava's annoying voice breaks through the speaker, despite the blood that has started to drip through the front grid. "Hello! Hello! Can you hear me?"

"Yes, we hear you." Simon calls. "We've got the data. What do we do now? Are you going to hook us?"

"No. No you need to listen to me."

You know from that alone she has no plan to lift you from this sea. Not that you're surprised, not that you didn't see that coming. That is why you're doing this for Simon and not them.

Outside the sub the thing is on the move again. You swear you can feel the ship move slightly from the force of the blood around you. It's close, the blinker along the console flickers its warning for a moment before it's gone again.

"It's time to pull us up." Simon snaps, "We got you what you wanted. We've done everything you've asked!"

The flicker on the console moves to the front now. You hit the button. Simon is so preoccupied he doesn't bother to look back, but you see what he doesn't see.

Oh.

"I know what I said. It doesn't matter anymore. Finish the plan. You are the only ones who can. Everything comes down to this."

You press the button again. The creature looks back, mouth spread, grinning like a devil. It is gloating.

"That data needs to survive if any of this is to matter. Do you understand me?"

The SM-14 looks so small in the mouth of that great thing. Like a tin can. She knows she is about to die. There's no saving her, there's no saving you. That animal in you is pleased she now knows what it feels like to be hunted.

"Please! Please, are either of you listening? Take the box and go, go now!"

"We had a deal." Simon's voice instills some kind of fight instinct in you. Some urge to defend against the devastation of his voice. Your poor boy, stripped of sunshine, forced to die in the dark.

He looks so frightened and it doesn't affect you the way it should. There is something separating you from your body, a whisper in the back of your head. That thing with its jaws wide spread is desperately trying to whisper in your head.

Words about the light, about the need to keep it. Kill the hope. Let the body die.

You ignore it, shove it away. Rage against it.

Ava is screaming now, it is ironic that she does not know the names to scream for, "No. Not everyone gets to be saved."

"What are you talking about? You said you'd get us out of here. That was the deal!" Simon shouts back, staring at the speaker. He always looks at it like it's a person.

That slow sad smile finds its way along your split lip mouth. You chuckle as blood runs down the walls. More now than before. That inch or two in the crawlspace is now half a foot.

You have never been the kind of man prone to doing the right thing. You are selfish; you think of what you want and what Simon wants before anyone else. Even as a Brother you knew in your heart that your loyalty to Eden would die with Simon.

That you would slaughter your own for him. Die for him. Live for him.

You will give him his hope.

That thing will give you your freedom.

"Please, please, listen. Listen to me. It's worth it. You deserved your freedom. And I'm sorry I can't give that to you. But it's worth it. It is more than me. It's more than you. Please. It's - oh my god. Oh my god."

There's a pop from the speaker. You do not look back at the photo screen.

"Time to man up," You grunt to yourself and cast out any remaining hesitation, before dropping down into the hole. The blood soaks through your clothes and you're abruptly aware of how small this space is.

It's warm. You do not like the fact that it is warm as you shove yourself down the long too thin column. You're not claustrophobic, far from it. This prey panic in you is new. Drowning was never something you've thought to fear.

Simon calls your name. "What the fuck are you doing? Get out of there, it's flooding."

You ignore him scraping yourself along the metal, using your only arm to yank yourself along. "Where's the black box?"

"Fuck, fuck." Simon keeps swearing, voice fainter as you continue on, scanning for it.

"Simon! Where is it?"

"The back, it's all the way in the back." He shouts.

Of course it is.

"I got it." You get blood in your mouth as you call back to him, spitting it free. The taste of it sharp and metallic and familiar makes you dizzy with disgust. "Keep us moving."

His footsteps vibrate through you as he runs for the controls. Your body slides with the momentum as he starts the ship forward and you grapple to hold on as more blood washes over you.

Why the fuck is this thing so small? This might be the first time in your life you've cursed your size as you catch yourself on the metal grating and equipment. The end of this corridor seems much farther away than it is and with each passing second more blood floods in.

But it is not endless and you reach it all the same, reaching out for the box. You pull on it, feeling the latch along the back. You're using your feet to keep in place as the SM-13 moves, yanking with the one arm you have, no matter how hard you attempt to use the other it makes no reply.

"Bitch. Just let go." You snarl, spitting free more blood. Your eyes burn. It won't give.

There's so much blood now, the rush of it. Simon keeps shouting your name. You're so busy trying to breathe you can't answer him. There's more footsteps, the slosh of blood.

You twist backward so you can pin your legs, holding onto the box as you pull as hard as you can. Every muscle screams in unison, malnourished and pushed too far. It finally gives and you splash backward completely surrounded by the viscous red. Something has you by the shirt and you panic for a split second in irrational fear before you feel it pull you, shirt shredding toward the exit.

It's with a scramble of limbs that the two of you get out of the crawlspace, Simon first before he's hauling you out under your arms to throw you like a drowned cat to the floor. You spit, dry heaving for a moment as Simon goes for the box.

There's no more discussion now, no sweet offers of comfort or touches. Only the two of you locked on the singular purpose you have left.

He's pinned the controls forward with one of the binders. You laugh when you see it, "Oh, you're fucking nuts. I adore you."

Simon grins back and there is a shard of camaraderie in the devastation, "What is it you say, if you're gonna throw a punch hit the hardest?"

Blood drips from you both, sliding from hair, slicking across exposed skin. Your shirt is nothing but a rag. You pull the rest of it free and let it fall to the growing puddle that is the floor.

Everything about you feels tingly. Rubbed raw and too sensitive as you scramble toward the life jacket floating to the side. The console starts pinging. Something dead ahead. Simon runs for the controls, barely making it into the seat when you impact. The force of it launches you forward with a wave of blood, hand barely staying on the black box so it doesn't go flying.

Pain doesn't seem to register the same as one of your legs impacts the corner. There's a numbness thrumming through you, getting more severe by the second. An understanding that something is changing, some integral part of you is being rewritten.

Simon wants to give the people hope, so hell or high water that will be the last thing you do. Your gift to him. Your thank you for years of soft laughter and lingering touches. For giving you a place to belong.

He pulls back and slams forward again. You jerk less this time, moving with the flow of blood, rocked with the internal wave.

There's a shriek of metal. A sound you know on some intrinsic level is the shredding of the hull. Something long and white rips through the floor a few inches from your face. You barely get out of its way before stumbling to your feet.

There's more, some on the top, others on the bottom. Ivory white, blood stained, teeth. You can't focus on that, can't focus on the thought that you are in the maw of the beast that has been hunting you for days now.

You have a job to do. You must rage against the dying of the light.

The box is awkward, a strange shape for fitting inside a life jacket. And with the rocking and your dead arm, it becomes almost impossible. You grunt in frustration, "Simon! I need you!"

He's there in a second, wordlessly reaching for the section you cannot get to. Neither of you needs to communicate with words. You haven't needed to in years and now it seems you operate as one being. You swear it's like his very thoughts are in your head.

"It won't hold." You say, looking at the bottom. "We need something else."

You pause in unison. Simon's expression crumples and then he's pulling the knife sheath from his shoulders. Another piece of him sacrificed on humanity's altar.

"Keep this ... keep this safe, mom."

It will hold. You know it will hold. This is hope.

Your mind reels. If it drags you back into the tunnel the box will never find the surface. It has to be now, before it is lost in the deep.

Somewhere between the very first drop of blood and now you have calmed. The idea of death is so close it has its fingers in your chest. Tracing the shape of your thundering heart, settling you with the inevitability of it.

Today you die.

Tomorrow they live.

You're not doing this for them, you're doing this for him. So that he can know that he made the difference he always wanted to make.

"We have to flood the ship." You say, hand still on the box between the two of you. The blood is almost to your thighs now, rocking in small waves as the SM-8 is dragged.

Simon's eyes widen in realization. He comes to the same conclusion you have. You nod to him. He rises to the challenge.

Brave boy. Braver messiah.

"Time to be the fuckin' butcher." He grunts, and shoves himself to his feet.

You stay there on your knees as he wades toward the console, hand gripping the box, legs spread for balance to try and keep it from being banged around. Being the protector you were groomed into.

You have seen him walk into a fight, seen him throw a punch, seen him kill and cry. This is something different, blood soaked and steady. As you rest there, in the vicious remains that you know now to be humanity from taste alone, you accept that you have seen both God and Son.

The creature screams. Rebels against what it knows you attempt to accomplish. You don't hear it anymore, this tiny world you are in has gone silent. It is only the slosh of life blood, the breath wheezing from your lungs, and the click of the switch as Simon triggers the shutters to rise.

You meet him in the middle, knees to knees, forehead to forehead.

Was this how it was always meant to end? From the cradle were you destined for this moment with him?

There are worse ways, you suppose, for one to die than in the arms of who they love most.

You reach for his hand, capturing the cracked glass of a seed that will never be planted above you. This will have to do. You press the piece between your palms, squeezing until you feel it crack, feel the pain of it. If there's blood it mixes with all the rest.

His seed, your seed. It would be fitting if in the next life you were a tree.

The port glass shatters.

He smiles at you, sugar sweet, eyes lazed in quiet understanding. "It was always - "