Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

In the myradic year of our Lord--the ten thousandth year of the King Undying, the kindly Prince of Death!-- Simon left his nasty cell in the darkest, mustiest depths of the already dark and musty Ninth Prison for what he hoped would be the last time. 

His cell was--had been--in the innermost ring, closest to the wardens and furthest from any sliver of light that might make its way all the way out here from Dominicus. His window was less for him to look out and more for others to look in, a thick slab of glass in a decrepit metal frame, stuck in place with thick, rusting bolts that were a lot stronger than they looked. Simon used to bloody his fingernails trying to pry them loose just for something to pass the time. They never budged even a millimeter. His cell might have been more secure than the Locked Tomb on the planet below. It didn’t even matter, really. The prison gruel was half bone meal anyway, and there was always a bone adept nearby who could seize him by his gut if he ever took a step out of line. 

But that all seemed to be changing today, at least for a little while. Today, Simon was marched down the dour halls of the prison to a room he had never been to before - not a medic’s room or a torture chamber, but a real office with a clean metal desk and moderately comfortable chairs. The last time he had been called out of his cell, he hadn’t come anywhere as nice as this. The guards muscled him into the chair with a little more force than necessary, and the supervising adept fused his cuffs to the back--one loop around his flesh arm, one loop around the bone arm that the prison necromancers had hastily affixed after his last sojourn out. All the while the warden looked on from her desk, her expression cold. Simon had seen the warden more than most of his fellow inmates, but all their time together had hardly endeared him to the tough ex-Cohort captain. Warden Ava Noventus didn’t look all too much like a Niner by Simon’s reckoning, but she ran the prison in a way that certainly fit her right in among her House. 

“The House is requesting we send down a swordsman for a project of theirs, and you won the draw.” she said, without too much enthusiasm. “You’ll be shuttling down to the castle in about twenty minutes.”

She said it as plainly as if she was informing him that he was moving cells or that his last medical workup had indicated he needed a change to his diet, leaving Simon to scramble a bit before the appropriate incredulity hit. “Absolutely the fuck not.”

The warden pursed her lips. “It’s not actually a request. But the prison has agreed to unconditionally credit your sentence in full in exchange for your work.”

Simon could have laughed in her face. “Bullshit you will. I’ve heard that before.”

“This isn’t actually the Ninth’s project,” she said. “You’ll be going with some other necromancer. They didn’t tell me the details. If he reports back favorably, you can walk away without ever coming back here again.”

That was surprising. Simon didn’t care to speculate. “Pick someone else. I’m not fucking doing it.”

Chances like these didn’t come by often, and when they did they didn’t usually stop long at Simon’s cell. Every single one of his next-door neighbors were murderers, traitors, and heretics, but the Blood of Eden stamp on his record was perhaps the blackest mark of all, and it had kept any passing stroke of luck far outside of his grasp for a long, long time. When he had finally been given the chance to accompany Ninth necromancers to explore a tiny, uninhabited moon filled with strange necromancy, he had thought luck was finally turning his way. What a fat steaming load of shit that had been. 

The warden narrowed her eyes, her dead eye glinting in the harsh overhead lights. “Like I said, it isn’t a request,” she said. “But if you’re successful, your sentence will be considered served. You’ll be a free man.”

It was hard to tell how she felt saying the words, or if she even felt anything at all. Simon didn’t care. The idea of leaving the prison behind--of never seeing his dank, rusty cell again or taste bone-meal-flavored gruel for each meal of the day--was faintly appealing. But this was still the Ninth prison, on the Ninth house, and Simon knew exactly what that meant. Dread soaked into him like so, so much blood, and he bit the inside of his cheek hard to keep the memories from drowning him where he sat. 

“So, what is it going to be this time?” he asked. “Another fucking death trap? Huh? Or are they just going to shoot me into space and save everyone the effort this time?”

“I’ve told you everything you need to know,” she said, ignoring his rising voice entirely. She gathered up the pages on her desk--Simon could read his name on some of them, could recognize the shape and layout of a prisoner file--and stood, motioning to the guards to detach Simon from his chair. “They did say I’m supposed to send you down still cuffed, but armed. We’ll be making a stop at the personals locker before the shuttle arrives.”

She led them in an odd sort of parade through the prison, heading the march with the skull-painted bone adept by her side and with Simon and his two guards bringing up the rear. Simon could see the eyes of the other inmates through their own thick windows as he passed, though they would never dare to rattle the metal of their doors while the warden was near enough to hear. Some glared at him with hot envy, others waved for his good fortune, and still others just stared blankly, eyes as empty as corpses. Simon had long assumed that his fate would be to end up like them, rotting away to nothing in a cell before finally turning into spare parts for the necromancers below. They were truly the lucky ones. Better to die in the familiarity of the prison than in some new fresh necromantic hell at the edge of the Empire.  

The personals locker was a fairly large room for the prison, but it was absolutely packed with shelves upon shelves of some of the most random crap that Simon had ever seen in his life. He barely got the chance to turn his head in wonder at the bizarre things that people turned up to the Ninth prison carrying before he was deposited in front of a rack of confiscated swords, all likely belonging to prisoners who were never expected to see the light of day again. 

“Your record says you used a heavy infantry two-hander,” said the warden, looking thoughtfully across the array with her back to Simon. “Given your height, I’d say we’re looking for about a 30-inch blade.”

“Twenty-eight,” said Simon, seeing how well he could push his luck. “My reach is long enough, and I’m better with a lighter sword.”

The warden was quiet for a moment, and then turned away from the swords she had been considering to pick up and unsheath one that was just a bit shorter, a nasty, thick thing with a worn leather grip and a fairly well-kept blade. That was interesting. Clearly this was something serious, then, if she was willing to accommodate his wants to deliver the most effective product to whoever was waiting below. The warden slipped it back into its scabbard and handed it off to the nearest guard who, with a lot of trepidation and a fair amount of awkward fumbling, managed to hook it over Simon’s back without removing his cuffs. 

It was fascinating how just the simple scabbard changed the way everyone in the room looked at him. Suddenly the disgust in their sneering faces was frosted with just a little more fear than usual, their unease palpable like radiating heat as they all kept just a little more distance from him than before. Not that there was anything he could do to them with bone manacles and intestines full of bone bits. “That’ll do,” said the warden, looking him up and down almost approvingly. “Let’s get you to the shuttle bay.”

“Wait,” said Simon. “What about my personals?”

Silence hung in the air as the guards and the necromancer looked back and forth between him and the warden. Eventually, she scoffed, rolled her eyes, and said to the nearest guard, “Find them. Convict 827.”

The guard shuffled off into the rows of shelves, and returned quickly with a little draw-string bag in the same dusty grey as his prison fatigues. They looped it over his shoulders, over the sword on his back, and suddenly Simon was impatient to get these manacles off to check that everything he had was still inside. 

“Okay. Let’s not keep them waiting,” said the warden, and just like that they were marching back through the prison. 

The shuttle waiting for Simon was a prisoner transport shuttle, but once Simon was cuffed in place, the guards stepped out leaving just him and the warden staring at each other in the dingy shuttle. There would of course be a pilot, too, but they were behind several layers of reinforced steel and Simon wouldn’t see hair nor hide of them until he was at his destination.

“I don’t want to see you back,” said the warden. “This is a big opportunity for you. More than you deserve.”

Simon scoffed. “Doesn’t seem like I’m coming back either way.”

The warden smirked. “No. You probably won’t.”

With that, she stepped out of the shuttle, leaving Simon alone as the hatches closed behind her. 

---

The surface of the Ninth was just about as boring as the prison above it. Nobody came into the shuttle to collect him when the hatches opened, but he felt the manacles release from the seat behind him and so he had felt it was okay to walk himself out to meet whoever it was who had sprung him from prison. His welcoming party was--for the most part--horribly Ninth. A handful of old, robed necromancers stood at attention as he stepped into the buzzing artificial light, and while they certainly would be able to put him down with their necromancy, he was sure that he could knock them down with a reasonably strong puff of air. A bit farther away stood a woman with a bone leg who looked to be something of a captain, and a short, armored man who barely looked alive. They flanked an even shorter person in a thick black cloak and a veil over their head--the lady of the house, most likely. Simon might have given it a bit more thought as to why she would bother to oversee this prisoner transfer herself if he hadn’t been immediately distracted by the final member of his little reception. 

The man was probably a necromancer, but there was no way he was a Niner. He simply couldn’t be. He stood out like a splash of color on a black and white photograph, with golden hair and blue eyes and a yellow coat that was almost offensive to his surroundings. He was so out of place that Simon could laugh, but he was also so beautiful that all breath was gone from his lungs the moment he laid eyes on him, like he was seeing the light of Dominicus for the first time since his imprisonment. The gorgeous man met his gaze and gave an awkward sort of half smile, raising his hand in a meek, half-aborted wave as Simon stepped onto the landing platform. 

Only after the initial shock wore off did Simon notice the thing standing next to the necromancer--the thing which Simon had assumed was just a pile of drillshaft rock until it moved, turning slightly on five stony legs and trilling a strange chorus of musical sounds. It looked like a spider made crudely out of rock, with a couple of straps of polymer cloth across its body and pale turquoise jewels set into random cracks and crannies. The necromancer cleared his throat as it warbled, and said “No, it’s--I’m not. It’s nothing.”

Lacking anything better to say, Simon said “That thing can talk?”

“Convict,” said the woman with the bone leg, her voice a dusky rattle. “You’ve been brought here to accompany a necromantic adept on a scientific expedition as his protector, in exchange for the pardon of your sentence.”

“You’ll kind of be like my cavalier,” said the gorgeous man jovially.

“He is not a cavalier,” corrected the woman. “Not even close.”

The beautiful man stepped forward, undeterred. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Ryland Grace, and this is Rocky.” He seemed to be pointing to the rock creature as he made his introductions, leaving Simon with far more questions than answers. Ryland held out a hand to shake. “It’s nice to meet you!”

Simon’s hands were still cuffed behind his back. It took Ryland a moment to notice that, his face flushing with embarrassment as he lowered his hand and looked back at the necromancers. “Um,” he said. “Is this--?”

“For your safety and comfort, although he will need to be uncuffed once you land,” said the bone-legged woman. “He’s not going to be much use to you otherwise.”

“Oh,” said Ryland, and then he waved his hands and the cuffs melted away from Simon’s wrists like they were ice on a stovetop. Ryland stuck out his hand again as the Ninth representatives murmured in reproach and the rock creature--Rocky--trilled loudly. “Nice to meet you, um. Didn’t catch your name.”

Simon flexed his flesh wrist, his newfound freedom cool and pleasant on his skin. He knew why the necromancers and the Ninth people were so worried--he had come armed, after all, and he could see it in their eyes that they had all read the Butcher’s case files. If there had been anywhere to run besides down into the bowels of the Ninth, they might have actually been in danger. But there was no fear in Ryland’s eyes, just a polite eagerness and curiosity. Simon took his hand. “Simon,” he said, the name reaching his ears like an old friend he’d been apart from for too long. It had been a long time since anyone had thought to say it.

“Simon,” said Ryland with a smile, and the name sounded even better out of his mouth. “Nice to meet you. I really appreciate you coming with us. Means a lot to me and Rock.”

Simon decided not to mention that he didn’t really have a choice in the matter. Ryland probably already knew that, but it was nice in a weird sort of way for him to pretend. Rocky made a few more musical sounds, clicking two of his clawed hands together and finishing off with two stamps of another of his legs, and Ryland shot him a disapproving look. “Well, I think it’s fine,” he said. “We should probably be heading off, unless there’s anything else you need to settle before we get in the air.”

He nodded to something behind Simon, and Simon was surprised to see when he turned around a second shuttle on the landing platform that he hadn’t even noticed on arrival. This shuttle was a hell of a lot nicer looking than the rickety old prisoner transport, but Simon still could recognize it as property of the Ninth by the way the rust seemed to be kind of holding it together. “My ship’s in orbit, but we can leave whenever you’re ready,” he added. 

Simon looked back at the Ninth crowd, hating that he did it on instinct, hated the way he automatically looked for their permission. The bone-legged woman just nodded. “Okay,” said Simon. “I’m ready now.”

“Awesome!” Ryland raised his hand for a fist bump, and Simon only hesitated a little bit before returning it. Rocky whirred and trilled, and Ryland extended a fist bump to him as well. “All right, we’re outta here,” he said to the assembled Ninth group. “Thanks again, and, uh, nice meeting you all.”

He tripped on a piece of rock as he turned away from the impassive crowd, and Simon couldn’t figure out why he found that so fucking endearing. He walked alongside Ryland for a few paces, Rocky not-very-subtly positioning himself between the two, before realization hit him and he dropped to the ground, whirling his bag of personals off his back. He saw the whole Ninth group flinch as one as he moved suddenly, but he couldn’t care less as he yanked open the bag and dug through his messily folded clothes. 

“Something the matter?” Ryland’s voice was kind, but it faded into the background as Simon searched. Finally, his hand closed around a cold, round shape and he breathed a sigh of relief. He pulled the pendant from his bag to inspect it, finding it unchanged from the last time he saw it, the frozen seed still perfectly encased as it had always been. He quickly shoved it back into his bag before Ryland or Rocky could get a good look at it, cinching it back up and swinging it over his shoulder. 

“It’s fine,” he said. “Let’s go.”

---

“So, how much have you been told about our mission?” asked Ryland, once they were aboard his ship. 

The Hail Mary wasn’t anything like what Simon had been expecting. It was a practically ancient-looking ship, but everything inside gleamed like it was fresh from a shipyard. There were no gravity generators at all, and so he and Ryland and Rocky floated about in zero-g, Ryland and Rocky both seemingly experts at getting around using conveniently placed handles and ropes around the ship. For Simon, it would definitely take some getting used to. 

“Nothing,” he said, clutching his bag and his new sword to his chest as he drifted in the middle of the room. 

Ryland frowned. “Oh. Okay. Well, that’s not a problem, we’ll just start from the beginning.”

The explanation that followed was long and probably very interesting and terrifying, but Simon just had too much on his mind to keep up. He vaguely got the idea that there was some planet they were going to, and that there was something necromantically interesting about it that Ryland wanted to study, but that there were dangerous things down there that Ryland and Rocky might need protecting from. Simon started kind of hearing static once Ryland started talking about thanergy bubbles and necromantic theorems. He was too busy wondering where the hell this ship came from, trying to figure out what the deal was with the singing rock monster, and staring at Ryland’s pretty lips as he talked excitedly about something to do with bones. 

“That’s the short version of it, anyway,” said Ryland, and Simon nodded like he’d been paying attention. “Any questions?”

He talked a bit like a schoolteacher from the Sixth. Simon almost felt like he should be raising his hand. “What’s, like--what’s Rocky? What is he?”

“Oh!” Ryland’s eyes lit up, and Rocky seemed to perk up from where he was tinkering with some machines in a corner. It was hard to tell, since he didn’t seem to have any kind of face. “He’s a really ancient construct, like really ancient. As far as I can tell, he’s made of some kind of fossil rock, or maybe he is something of a fossil himself. There’s actually a lot of constructs like him, living on one of the other little planets out here.” Ryland smiled at Rocky, Rocky gave him what looked like a thumbs-down. “We were both exploring a different planet, and ran into each other. I guess I just spend so much time around him these days that I forget that most people aren’t used to seeing someone like him.”

That gave Simon a lot more questions, but it at least answered a few. “Okay,” he said. “And why are we going to this moon exactly? I mean, why are you going?”

Ryland shrugged. It was a little odd in zero-g. “It’s interesting,” he said. “Someone’s got to study it.”

Rocky trilled something, and Ryland sighed. “And I’ve been effectively banished from conducting research with the rest of the Sixth cohort after I called one of their best necromancers a staggering waste of thalergy at a public forum. So this is what I do instead.”

Simon couldn’t hold back a laugh. It came out more like a sort of hacking snort, but Ryland smiled like he’d won something huge. “I’m kinda confused how you can understand what he’s saying.”

“It took me a while,” said Ryland. “It’s not too hard to get the hang of, though. I’ve still got this translator that I built kicking around from when I was just getting started. You can hold onto it.”

Rocky hummed something, and Ryland glared. “Yeah. So be nice.”

He turned his gaze back to Simon, who was still kind of trying to file all this new information away. Grace didn’t sound anything like a typical Sixer last name, but Ryland fit in well with what Simon remembered about the Sixth House. The idea of the words “staggering waste of thalergy” coming out of his mouth almost made Simon laugh again, but he could certainly picture it. 

The silence drew longer, Ryland eventually floating himself slowly towards a bin of supplies to start rummaging through them. The Hail Mary looked delightfully lived in, with little doodles on colorful paper affixed to the walls and haphazard drawers filled with necessary and unnecessary stuff all around them. Simon realized with a start that Ryland had not yet asked a single question about him. 

“You read my file?” he asked. 

Ryland tipped his head. “They gave it to me. I just skimmed it.”

Rocky said something. Ryland didn’t respond. Simon shifted awkwardly, as well as anyone could shift awkwardly in zero-g. “What do you want to know?”

Ryland paused for a moment in his searching. He turned to look Simon in the face. “Anything you really want to tell me?”

It was confusing. Simon had a whole file full of nastiness that someone like Ryland had every business asking about. There were a lot of explanations that Simon owed, but he found that he really had no interest at all about bringing them up. “Not really.”

“Okay,” Ryland went right back to rummaging, letting things drift out of the bins he was searching. “Actually I do have one question. I’m going to be fixing dinner in a few, do you want burritos or noodles?”

Simon gaped at him, waiting for it to be a trick of some sort. It wasn’t. “Burritos,” he said, like he was answering a quiz question. 

Ryland clicked his tongue with a smile. “Burritos it is!”

He started happily gathering up a few packets that had started floating around him, stuffing them into the pockets of his coveralls seemingly at random. He suddenly gasped and pushed off towards another set of drawers, pulling out a big, blocky machine with a small screen on the top and sending it floating over to Simon. “Here it is!” he said. “I knew it was somewhere in this room. I’m going to go start on dinner, but you can go ahead and get settled wherever you like. It just so happens that we’ve already got a third bunk free.”

He pushed off the wall with his packets towards a circular hatch, and just as he was about to float through it Simon thought of one more question. “Why did you take the cuffs off?”

Ryland stopped himself on the rim of the hatch just before he passed through it. When he turned himself around to face Simon, he had the same kind of half smile that he had when they had first met. “I feel like I’ve gotta start trusting you at some point,” he said. “Better sooner rather than later, right?”

Simon didn’t know what to say. Ryland floated over to him, drifting closer and closer until they were less than an arm’s reach apart. Then he reached down and powered on the translator in Simon’s hands. He then kicked off the wall, drifting backwards through the hatch without even looking. “Burritos in five! Don’t worry about Rock, he won’t be joining us.”

He vanished into some other part of the ship, leaving Simon alone with Rocky. Rocky hummed something low and complicated at him, and pointed at the translator. 

Grace also safe because Rocky is very good at bone necromancy. Sword person hurt Grace. Sword person become skeleton. Easy easy easy. 

Simon looked up at Rocky. It was hard to describe a pile of rocks as threatening, but Rocky was certainly starting to look that way as he paused in his working, presumably to stare at Simon even though Simon couldn’t see anything that looked like an eye on him. Simon nodded quickly. “Okay,” he said. “I hear you.”

Rocky hummed again, and then went back to his work. Simon looked at the translator. Good. Understand. Go help Grace make food.

Simon clutched his bag tighter to his chest, and pushed off into the ship after Ryland. 

Chapter Text

The first few days aboard the Hail Mary were…weird. 

Once they left orbit around the Ninth House, the ship suddenly had gravity. Ryland explained that they were accelerating, and that that acceleration was what passed for gravity while they were traveling. There was a lot of other stuff he talked about, something about a centrifuge and some kind of microscopic thanergy-sensitive bug that was powering the ship, but Simon had a hard time following along. Not by any fault of Ryland’s--the man made a point to explain everything in simple, applicable ways that Simon was mostly able to follow along with, but mainly because there was a lot else on Simon’s mind in those first few days. 

It felt nice to be back in his own clothes for a change, instead of the prison uniform. He had filled out a bit since he last wore them--there hadn’t been much to do to fill the time in prison besides push-ups and crunches in his little cell--but they were far more comfortable in their familiarity. Simon tied the pendant around his flesh wrist, hiding it under layers of clothing, and found it comforting in its familiarity as well. 

The Hail Mary took only a little getting used to. There were only three rooms--the dormitory, the lab, and the control room which Rocky made very clear Simon was not allowed in. Simon didn’t mind that terribly. He got a terrible scare the first time the robotic arms in the dormitory made a grab for him, but Ryland was quick to talk it down, introducing Simon to the medical robot that he called Armando, “or NannyBot, if it’s pissing me off.” With Ryland’s reassurances, he allowed Armando to take some measurements and blood from him in order to build a patient profile in case Simon ever needed medical attention. 

Ryland and Rocky worked in tandem like a well-oiled machine on the Hail Mary, leaving scant little room for Simon to wander about between them. He found himself kind of following them around, lacking anything to do besides watch and listen. The translator kept him in the loop with their conversations, but lacking anything of value to add he found himself hanging around the corners of the ship, taking up oxygen. Rocky watched him like a hawk, day in and day out, and even with no eyes to speak of, Simon could tell. Grace had explained the way Rocky “saw” early on, and Simon knew now that Rocky could technically watch him no matter where they were on the ship. But no matter where Simon went on the ship, Rocky stayed close. The only distance Simon ever got from him was using the toilet, or, oddly enough, during meals. 

“Rocky’s a little bit uncomfortable around food,” Ryland explained over their lunch on the second day: thick soup with meat and noodles. Ryland had hedged his cooking skills that first day, but it had all been for nothing as the food he made put the prison gruel to absolute devastating shame. Simon couldn’t remember the last time he had had a meal as good as the “less-than-competent mush” that Ryland had warned him to expect, and so he savored every last bite. The fact that his obvious enthusiasm made Ryland beam in a delightfully self-satisfied way was all the better. “Where he comes from, it’s kind of a taboo topic. He’s only ever let me see it once, and he really doesn’t even like talking about it.”

“Where does he come from?” asked Simon, after swallowing a mouth full of soup. Rocky’s very explicit distrust of him hadn’t been able to entirely quash Simon’s curiosity. He would probably have spent as much time staring at Rocky as Rocky did him if not for Ryland taking up plenty of staring-time real estate. 

“The Empire is full of these little half-planets and asteroids that necromancers over the centuries have used as testing grounds,” said Ryland. “Once they were done, they tended to just pack up and leave, and whatever they made stayed behind. Rocky came from what was probably originally a very powerful necromancer’s experiment, but which over the last few hundred years turned into a society of living, sapient beings. They even developed space travel on their own, which was why the two of us met in the first place.”

Simon nodded, going back to his soup. He had figured out from observing Ryland and Rocky that exploring these forgotten necromantic sites was more or less their job, with Ryland as the expert on ancient theorems and necromancy and Rocky the more practical technology expert, which reassured Simon a little bit that they weren’t heading to another horrible necromantic hellscape. Where they were heading, Simon had come to understand, was a place on their maps labeled “Arboretum,” and it seemed like neither Rocky nor Ryland knew much about it at all. 

“I have a question for you,” said Ryland, putting down his bowl of soup, “if that’s okay.”

“Oh,” said Simon. “Yeah. That’s fine.”

Ryland’s smile was endearingly hopeful, but Simon still braced for a hard conversation. “What made you choose to come on this mission? If you don’t mind me asking?”

Simon stared at him. There was no sign of humor or malice in Ryland’s face, but there was also no way that question wasn’t some kind of trick. Surely, Ryland had to know. Ryland had to have been the one to request Simon’s services--his loan, almost--from the prison. Simon felt his face hardening as he stared, waiting for the punchline, or for some kind of clarification. 

It never came. “What do you mean, choose?” he grunted, finding the words difficult to force out. Worry crossed Ryland’s pretty features, too innocently concerned for this line of questioning. 

“I,” he started, seemingly at a loss. “Didn’t you volunteer?”

Simon laughed humorlessly, sharp like a slap to the face. Ryland flinched like it was one. “I was dragged from my cell and stuffed in a shuttle twenty minutes before we met. No, I didn’t fucking volunteer.”

The worry that had been building in Ryland’s face turned to outright horror. “Oh, god,” he said. “No, I--no, I specifically said that I would only take a willing volunteer, I--oh, god.”

He stood from his chair, looking very ill. “This is so--Simon, I am so sorry. I didn’t know.”

Simon wasn’t quite upset enough not to be hungry, so he stayed sitting with his soup. “How did you not know? Did you think the handcuffs were just for fun?”

Ryland sputtered. “I thought they were just being overcautious! I didn’t know you were being forced onto a ship against your will!” The words seemed to go rotten in Ryland’s mouth, and he spat them out like they were poisoning him from within. “This is. We should turn right back around. I can’t believe they would lie like that.”

“No!” shouted Simon, entirely involuntarily. A skittering sound echoed from above them, and Rocky appeared at the ladder that led to the lab. He hummed and warbled, and Simon realized he had left the translator clear on the other side of the room. Ryland was looking at him, confused and aghast, and so Simon said, “Please. They said if I go with you and do a good job, I don’t have to go back. If you take me back now, I’m just going to go away forever.”

Ryland whirled around to look at Rocky, who had gone very still. After a brief silence, he hummed a few quiet notes, finishing with a light double-tap of his backmost leg. Simon thought he heard the series of tones he had picked for Simon’s name in there, but he lunged for the translator to be sure. Rocky not understand. Simon not volunteer for mission, question?

“No,” said Ryland. “You didn’t know?”

Did not know. Was there. Grace say very clear only want volunteer. Bad bad bad. 

Ryland looked back over at Simon. There was some other, deeper pain in the way he looked at Simon, like there was something about his predicament that cut deeper than just the plain injustice of it all. “This was a mistake,” he said. “I never should have trusted them.”

“Why did you go looking for a swordsman in the Ninth prison, anyway?” asked Simon.

Ryland ran his hands through his blonde hair. “The Sixth basically told me to get stuffed when I asked for a security escort for these missions,” he said. “They told me my options were to either go it alone, or make a deal with the prison. I would’ve gone it alone, but Rocky and I both nearly died the last time we got into a sticky situation where there wasn’t enough thanergy to draw on, so…” He looked absolutely crushed, beautiful features crumpled with grief and horror. “Look. We’ll be passing relatively close to the Fourth on our way out. I can drop you off on our way and tell those shadow cultists you did everything perfectly. It’s the least we can do.”

“On your way?” said Simon. “So, you’d still go without a swordsman?”

“We’ve been planning this one for almost a year,” said Ryland. “We’d make it work.”

Rocky hummed. Simon looked down at the translator. Good idea, question? Last time very dangerous. This time unknown. Could be more dangerous.

“We’ll figure it out, bud,” said Ryland, firmly. “Like I said. It’s the least we can do.”

Rocky was silent for a moment. Then, he said, Yes. Not fair to force. We make plan.

Simon tried to surreptitiously sip a bit of soup off his spoon while Rocky and Ryland talked. Rocky recoiled visibly on the ladder. Disgust. I make plan in lab while humans finish eat.

He scuttled back up the ladder. “Can you add a stop at the Fourth to the nav computer while you’re up there?”

Rocky chimed back through the ceiling. Yes. Rocky make all plans. Finish eat.

Ryland slumped back into his seat. He didn’t touch his soup, even as Simon tucked back into his in earnest. “I am so, so sorry, Simon. I really had no idea.”

Simon hummed in acknowledgement. He thought he’d be more relieved, especially given that he found he trusted Ryland entirely when he said he would let him go free with a glowing report back to the prison to clear his way. It was beyond anything he could have hoped for--a literal get-out-of-jail-free card. By all accounts, Simon should have been gleefully planning all the things he’d do once he was a free man again. But instead, his mind was occupied by the thoughts of Ryland and Rocky going wherever they were going alone. He had some experience with the type of necromantic wastes Ryland studied, after all. Images of the Hail Mary vanishing under a blood ocean, of Ryland’s arm ripping off as the walls closed around him, played unbidden behind Simon’s eyelids every time he closed his eyes. It wasn’t like a sword would have protected him back then, but having a necromancer with him might have. 

“How dangerous,” he said, each word barely emerging from his mind warring with itself, “are you expecting it to be?”

Ryland shook his head. “No. No way. Not a chance, buddy.”

“How dangerous?”

Ryland closed his eyes, and squeezed them tight. “We don’t know,” he said, “but we’re not expecting anything uniquely dangerous. Skeletons protecting a central building, maybe. Perhaps some more advanced constructs. But we’re not expecting anything too unusual.”

“So maybe your necromancy will be enough?”

Ryland gritted his teeth. He looked like he was losing a war with himself, too. “Depends. Sometimes on these abandoned sites, where nothing has died for so long, it can be kind of a toss-up.”

Simon didn’t know what to say, so he finished his soup. Ryland still didn’t touch his. Simon briefly wondered how terrible of a faux pas it would be to ask if he could have it if Ryland wasn’t going to finish it. “If you two got yourself killed,” he said, finally, “the Ninth would know I didn’t come with you.”

Ryland threw up his hands. “Or they’d just assume it was too dangerous for all three of us.”

“Not if they find me kicking around on the Fourth,” said Simon. 

“And we’re not going to die,” added Ryland. He tried to put some confidence in it, but it fell completely limp. The fear was plain in his face. 

Simon sighed. “Could you pay me?”

Ryland’s eyebrows jumped up. “Yes. We make a commission when we publish our findings. It’s not huge, but all of it would be yours. To make up for…”

“Yeah,” said Simon. “Okay. That sounds fair.”

Ryland shook his head. “It’s really not. None of this is fair. You shouldn’t have been forced on this kind of a mission to begin with.”

“Hey, if you’re right about us not dying, then you’ll have basically sprung me from prison and set me up with some money to get myself started,” said Simon. “That’s a pretty good deal.”

When Ryland looked up at Simon, his blue eyes were so big and sad that Simon couldn’t help but crack a smile. “Okay,” he said. “Then we’ll all do our level best to keep you from dying. How does that sound?”

Simon’s smile widened a bit further. Compared to the time he had spent begging the warden and the Ninth necromancers to care about whether he lived or died from behind a tiny welded-shut porthole, this was already a far better setup. Inexplicably, he found a lump rising in his throat as he thought about that staggering difference. “Good,” he said, fighting to keep his voice level. “Thank you.”

“Hey, thank you,” said Ryland. He lifted his arm towards Simon--seemingly to touch, to put it on his shoulder, maybe--before stopping, curling his fingers back, grimacing awkwardly. “I--sorry, ah, that was weird--”

Simon wasn’t sure what made him do it, but he grabbed Rylands receding arm with his bone hand and used it as leverage to pull Ryland across the table into a hug, wrapping his flesh arm around him to pull him close. Ryland returned the hug without a second of hesitation, and he wrapped his arms around Simon’s back and shoulder blades to squeeze him in tight. Simon realized that he couldn’t remember the last time someone had hugged him like this, or even hugged him at all. It must have been one of his fellows in the Blood of Eden, but he couldn’t remember any specific time. It didn’t matter, though. Ryland was warm and comfortable and was hugging back like he was in no rush to be anywhere else. 

“I seriously can’t thank you enough,” he mumbled into Simon’s shoulder. “I’ll make it up to you. I promise. We both will.”

Simon didn’t say anything. With his head turned the way it was, he could hear Ryland’s heartbeat in his carotid, loud and echoey and steady as the ship’s engines beneath them. A small part in the back of Simon’s mind told him that he was putting a lot on the line by trusting this man, and that there was always a possibility that Ryland could be planning to use him just as the Ninth necromancers had. But Simon somehow found that he really did trust him.  

He let go slightly, and Ryland let go in response, pulling back with his glasses slightly askew on his face. The hem of his T-shirt--a stunning number that read “Necromancers are more Humerus”--had dipped into his soup, but he didn’t seem to mind. He fixed his glasses with a kind of nervous energy that reminded him of the first time they had met on the Ninth landing platform. “Okay,” he said, standing up from his seat. “I probably ought to go break the news to Rocky about the commission.” He shuffled backwards a few awkward steps, and said, “He won’t mind. I’m sure about it.”

“I don’t think he likes me much,” said Simon.

Ryland shrugged. “He’s kind of a nervous guy sometimes. He’ll warm up to you.” He grabbed for the ladder, missed, and sheepishly turned to look in order to grab it properly. “I’m not going to finish the rest of that soup, so if you want it you can have it. Otherwise, I’ll toss it when I get back.”

He climbed quickly up the ladder, and his and Rocky’s voices above were drowned out by the blood pumping in Simon’s ears as he helped himself to Ryland’s bowl. 

---

The lights of the Hail Mary cycled at a much quicker rate than Simon was used to. He had stayed up most of the first night, staring down Rocky in the dark while Ryland slept in the middle bunk. Now, by the second night, he was finally properly tired. Ryland sent him and Rocky, who didn’t seem to sleep at all so far, to the dormitory without him, citing ancient texts on their destination that he wanted to scrutinize a bit closer. Even though his tiredness was bone-deep, Simon still couldn’t get comfortable with the bone construct hovering silently nearby. 

“It’s not like I’m going anywhere,” he muttered. 

Rocky hummed. Simon picked up the translator from the shelves next to his bunk. Good. Simon overdue for sleep. 

“Yeah, which I can do without supervision,” he said. 

Rocky was quiet for a bit. Then he piped up again, making Simon groan and roll over for the translator again. Why Simon have loose bone in body, question?

Simon narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean, loose bone?”

Crushed bone in middle of Simon body. Moving around, some come out when Simon remove waste. Why, question? 

Oh. Simon frowned. “They feed us bone meal in the prison. So that they can fuck us up if we do anything wrong.”

Rocky shifted his body around slightly. No understand word. They do what, question?

“Fuck us up?” said Simon. “Like, turn the bone meal into solid bone and use it to pull us into place. Or turn it into little needles and have it puncture our gut to slow us down. That kind of thing.”

Understand. Word Simon say mean all of that, question?

“No, it’s just,” Simon raised an eyebrow. “Ryland really never swears, does he?”

Understand! Human expletive. Ryland not use many. Teach Rocky even less.

Simon snorted, despite himself. “If you show me how to program it into this thing, I’ll add it for you.”

Rocky seemed to really mull that over, clicking his fingers together. We do tomorrow, he finally said. Now Simon need sleep.

Simon sighed. “Okay, but it’s going to be easier without you hovering over me. No offense.”

Rocky watch Simon sleep. So Simon and Grace both safe.

“Whatever,” said Simon, setting the translator down on the cabinet and rolling over. 

Rocky hummed a complicated series of chords, making Simon get up and grab the translator again. When he picked it up, it read, Grace understand Simon in big way. Grace know what forced to do mission feel like.

Simon scoffed. “Really. So he’s out here against his will too?”

Not against his will now. Was against his will at first. Put in ship to solve big problem for Sixth House. Bad bad bad. Grace not want same for Simon. Rocky paused for a moment. Rocky not want same for Simon.

Simon was stunned. “What?” he said, dumbly. “Why did they do that? What problem?”

Not just Rocky story to tell. Grace tell Simon when comfortable. He shifted his body around, almost awkwardly. Simon not tell Grace that Rocky tell secret, question?

“Yeah, okay,” said Simon, wondering how his life had gone from prison monotony to navigating the complicated interpersonal relationships between a beautiful man and a rock. He scooted himself a little deeper into the blankets on the bunk, rolling over for what he hoped was the last time. “I’m not picking up that translator again, by the way. Goodnight.”

Rocky whistled a few short tones, and Simon felt comfortable assuming that it was something along the lines of a goodnight back. He had a lot of questions, but he was starting to get accustomed to that as his baseline state at this point. His tiredness eventually overcame the unease of being watched by a fossil rock construct, and sleep found him easily as the hum of the engines lulled him to rest. 

---

Simon woke in the middle of the night, but not like he tended to after the blood moon. Instead of screams and cold sweats, he woke with the feeling of having just lost a nice train of thought, straining his brain to try to pick up whatever pleasant thing he had just been thinking of. 

It came to him all at once, memories glazed over with the haze of dreams. Ryland at the dormitory table, taking his hand. Ryland’s lovely blue eyes, crinkled at the corners with a smile. Ryland’s warm weight against Simon’s chest. Ryland’s pretty lips against his. 

Simon felt the heat spiking his cheeks. He turned his head to the middle of the room to see Ryland tucked into his own bunk, illuminated by the faint light of the motionless robot arms above them. His face was turned away from Simon, his hair mussed with sleep, his arms wrapped around his pillow. Simon looked past him to Rocky, who had paused in his fiddling with some piece of equipment as Simon woke, and quickly turned away again, heart hammering in his ears. 

Chapter Text

Ryland squished a plastic bag of sludgy red bone marrow around in his hand, letting the warmth from his palms liquefy any ice crystals still frozen inside. “I don’t know, Rock,” he said. “I think these are gone.”

Some thanergy left, said Rocky. Still useful.

“Yeah, but not enough,” said Ryland. He dumped the rest of the slowly thawing packets onto the lab table, running his fingertips over each one. Only the faintest bloom of thanergy came from each one, telling the tale of blood cells long dead, all the death energy lost to the freezer they had been stored in. “It should be fine, though. I’m confident there’ll be bone material at the site, and we’ll have enough necrophage for a good burst of thanergy when we get there.”

If Grace wrong, Arboretum 🎵🎶 Grace Rocky Simon. Bad bad bad. 

Ryland paused, running the sentence back in his head. It had been a long, long, time since he had stumbled over a word of Rocky’s. He had gotten so used to the word and sentence structure that he could usually figure out unfamiliar words based on context and their base components. But this one was bringing up a complete blank. “Sorry, Arboretum does what to us?”

Grace forget Rocky language, question? Grace brain small. Need translator. 

Ryland sighed, tossing the expired bone marrow packet back with its fellows. “It’s just that one word. Can I get a hint?”

Use translator. Rocky’s voice quavered with amusement. Word in translator. 

“Ugh, fine,” said Ryland, getting up noisily from the lab bench like a petulant student. “I’ll go bother Simon. See if you can separate out the fresh marrow.”

I separate. Go bother.

Shaking his head, Ryland swung himself onto the ladder that led down to the dormitory as Rocky gathered up the packets of marrow. The marrow was Rylands, but the youngest packet among them had been harvested more than six months ago, and while the freezer could prolong their release of death energy just a bit, he figured that they had probably been a bit optimistic to think they’d last even half that long. It wasn’t like they really needed the bone marrow--the necrophage provided enough thanergy for both Ryland and Rocky to use their necromancy when they were exploring--but Rocky’s ability was in bone manipulation, and he could spring forth impressive constructs of his own from only a bit of freshly-dead bone marrow. They still had three days before they arrived at Arboretum, which was plenty of time for Ryland to give a sample and recover before they landed. 

Normally, Simon would have been hanging around the lab with them, translator in hand to keep up with Rocky and Ryland as they talked shop. He didn’t speak up much, just the occasional question here and there, but Ryland had started to grow fond of his company as he watched the two of them fiddle with new construct ideas or go over Ryland’s salvaged texts about their destination. But today he had stayed behind in the dormitory instead, citing a need to freshen up his skills with his sword before they landed, and so that afternoon’s work had been a little lonelier without him. Ryland grumbled to himself as he lowered his legs into the hatch, hoping Simon wouldn’t mind the intrusion as he climbed down to go bother him for the translator. “Hey, Simon, sorry to bug you but Rocky’s being a--”

The words evaporated in his mouth as he looked down to see Simon looking back, having caught his attention. Sweat dripped from his brow, soaking his headband and wetting the roots of his hair, and Ryland could see it shining on his bare arm and torso. He still wore his scabbard, the straps tight across his chest and accentuating the muscles there, and his sword was steady in his hand as he held it aloft, seemingly midway through a drill of some sort. He breathed hard as he looked up at Ryland, body still besides the heavy rise and fall of his chest, and Ryland felt his face heat up to temperatures found only on the surface of Dominicus. 

“Um,” he said, vacantly. Simon lowered his sword, sliding it cleanly into the scabbard on his back with his flesh hand. There was something tied around his wrist that Ryland hadn’t seen before, but Ryland was really not looking too closely at his wrist. Ryland’s foot slipped on the ladder rung, and Simon lunged forward as if to catch him as he clumsily regained his footing, hustling sheepishly the rest of the way down. “I, uh. How’s the, um, practice going?”

Simon shrugged. “Not bad. Could be better. I’m a little off balance with this…”

He waved his bone arm around disdainfully. It really was a flimsy-looking thing, especially for something meant to replace all but the shoulder joint of a man as strong as Simon. Upon closer inspection, it looked as if the ulna was attached upside down. Ryland did his best to stare at the arm and not at Simon’s chest. “Yeah, um. I can see why. Can I--?”

He held out his hands, and Simon offered his bone arm easily. “This part right here wasn’t put on right,” said Ryland. “I can fix it for you, if you like.”

Simon nodded, and Ryland carefully felt around the wrist joint until he found the blobs of cartilage holding the ulna in place, and gently shrank them off the bone to pop it free. Then he repeated the same process at the elbow joint until he was holding the ulna in his hand. Ryland wasn’t a bone adept, not by a long shot, but he suspected that even he could have done a better job putting bones together during his academy days. He reattached the cartilage to the correct ends of the bone with a bit more care, mimicking the anatomical shape of the joint and then laying a bit more over it to give it strength. He could feel Simon’s eyes on him as he worked, and when he pulled his hands away, Simon stayed frozen right where he was as if Ryland hadn’t moved at all. “It should be better now,” he said. 

Simon took a few steps back and drew his sword, one clean motion that brought it from his back to his hands faster than Ryland’s eyes could follow. He clasped his bone hand around the base of the hilt and gave it a few graceful swings, each movement economical and practiced. A drop of sweat flew from his face to the floor, and Ryland realized with a heart palpitation and a rush of blood downwards that the whole room smelled like him--thick and salty and human. Simon cracked a smile as he returned the sword to its scabbard, twisting his bone arm back and forth. “It does feel better,” he said. “Thanks.”

“Yeah,” he said. “No problem.”

The arm still looked terribly flimsy. If Ryland had been better with bones, he might have offered to reset the whole thing for him. But things like hand bones were notoriously tricky even for skilled bone adepts, and besides that even the ulna itself had felt hollow and fragile, like Ryland could have snapped it in two in his hands. Ryland realized he had been staring. “Anyway, um,” he said, running a hand over the back of his neck just to have something to do with it. “Can I borrow the translator real quick? Rocky’s just being a real butthead about something right now.”

“Oh,” said Simon. He grabbed the machine off his bunk with his bone arm, and Ryland was at least pleased to see that it looked like it rotated a bit more smoothly now with the bone in the proper place. He passed it to his flesh hand to give to Ryland, and his fingertips were hot where they touched Ryland’s palm. “No problem,” he said. “I mean, it’s yours anyway.” 

Ryland bobbed his head noncommittally, aware that he probably looked pretty dumb as he twirled back towards the ladder. Simon watched him go with a faint smile. As Ryland’s fumbling hands found the ladder again and started climbing, Simon took the sword from its sheath again and went straight back to drills, swinging the sword confidently in wide, powerful arcs that whistled as they cut through the air, each move accompanied by a soft grunt. Ryland’s lower lip felt cool, and he realized with horror that he had been staring slack-jawed, drool forming a droplet on his lip and his dick half-hard in his pants. He forced himself to tear his eyes away and scrambled up the rest of the ladder as quickly as he safely could. 

“Okay!” he said, his voice a valiant attempt at sounding normal. He powered on the translator. “Say it again.”

If Grace wrong, Arboretum fuck up Grace Rocky Simon. Bad bad bad. 

Ryland gasped. “Rocky! How did you--how did that get into the translator?”

Simon program. Rocky explain how. Simon less stingy with human expletives. 

“Oh my god,” said Ryland, dropping his head into his hands. It was like his days as an Academy teacher all over again, when the young necromantic trainees learned their first curse words and came to class excited to try them out. Rocky already had some choice words of his own that he liked to lace into conversations when the mood struck him, which he had declined to ever translate for Ryland, but Ryland wasn’t exactly looking forward to seeing what Rocky could do with words they both understood. 

Grace more clumsy than usual when talk to Simon, said Rocky, a slightly teasing lilt to his voice. 

Ryland narrowed his eyes. “No, I’m not. I was a normal amount of clumsy.”

Grace heart louder when see Simon on Ninth. Louder when see Simon practice sword. Rocky have theory. Experiments needed. 

“No, no. It’s not like that.” 

Rocky stared at him. Ryland could hear Stratt’s voice in his head. Okay, it’s exactly like that. He pushed her away in his mind's eye and focused instead on the bags of bone marrow newly connected by plastic tubing in Rocky’s hands. “Whatever. Any progress on that?”

Success. Enough thanergic marrow for mission and for Rocky project. Good good good. 

“What project?”

Personal project. Experiment. Grace not need worry. 

“Okay,” said Ryland. “Just don’t go making too many new constructs before we get to Arboretum. We should save up all the necrophage we have.”

Yes. Rocky understand. Grace not need worry.

Ryland nodded. “Hey, we wouldn’t happen to have any extra bones lying around, would we? Did we use up all the arms of those skeletons from the Bastion yet or no?”

Rocky thought for a moment, clicking his fingers. Maybe some bones. Rocky check after finish marrow separation and personal project.

“Sounds like a plan,” said Ryland. He slipped on a new pair of gloves and picked up the ancient text he had been studying, careful not to disturb the peeling binding too much. 

Simon heart louder when Grace fix arm bone, observed Rocky. 

“Not listening,” said Ryland, raising the book to hide his blush even though he knew Rocky couldn’t see it. 

---

Two days before they arrived at Arboretum, Ryland was treated to a comedy act as he made dinner. 

He could recognize the body language that Rocky used when he was gearing up to ask for something, creeping slowly towards Simon with tiny steps, his carapace lowered to the ground in an attempt to appear non-threatening. Simon looked thoroughly creeped out, eyes fixed on Rocky as he inched closer and closer, the straw of a juice pouch between his lips. This went on for about five whole minutes, Rocky waiting for Simon to outright acknowledge him and Simon looking like he was waiting for Rocky to lunge at him. 

Rocky need some measurements of Simon, Rocky finally said. Simon’s eyes flicked down to the translator screen for only a moment, not taking his eyes off of Rocky for any longer than he absolutely needed to. 

“What kind of measurements?” he asked, not taking the juice pouch from his mouth. 

Measurements of body. Fingers, wrist, tendons, nerves. Rocky use scanner on Simon joints, question?

He held up the scanner he had built in an off hand, and Simon’s eyes went wide. The scanner was a neat piece of tech that Rocky had made out of bone and metal that let him “see” more clearly with his necromancy into small, complicated things that he couldn’t touch with his hands. Normally, Rocky was a normal if slightly warm temperature, but whenever he used his necromancy his body heated up to temperatures that could easily scorch delicate bone or burn human flesh. He mostly used the scanner to study the joints of delicate constructs they found on their adventures, but he occasionally used it to study Ryland’s inner workings as well. Ryland was used to it, and was actually fascinated by the little device. But all Simon probably saw was a machine with rings of sharp metal gears surrounded by three pointy talons of bone that whirred ominously. Ryland couldn’t fault him for the way he recoiled from it. “Um. Is that gonna hurt?”

Small hurt. Not damage Simon. 

This did not appear to comfort Simon in the slightest, even though the “small hurt” Rocky was warning him about was just a bit of gentle pressure from the blunt sides of the bone prongs. He inched away from Rocky on the seat, looking to Ryland for help. 

“You don’t have to,” said Ryland, “but it doesn’t actually hurt. It’s just so he can get a better look into you without burning you.”

“Burning me?!”

“He runs hot whenever he uses his necromancy,” explained Ryland. “But if you don’t want to, you don’t have to.”

Rocky use measurements to help Simon. Have idea, need measurements. 

Simon looked cautiously back and forth between Rocky and Ryland. “Okay,” he said, tentatively. “Fine.”

Good good good, chirped Rocky, and then he got to work lining up the scanner over the wrist joint of Simon’s flesh arm. Simon braced himself like it was going to hurt terribly, but true to Ryland’s word the scanner whirred harmlessly, connecting internal pieces of fossil bone to let Rocky feel into the structures under Simon’s skin. Simon looked shocked when Rocky pulled the scanner off harmlessly. Success! Simon tendons and nerves very normal. I check elbow, question?

Simon offered his elbow a little more easily, and Rocky got to work. “I don’t really understand what this is all for,” he said. 

Simon arm bad bad bad. Messy. Unstable. Necromancer who make blind and stupid, question? Rocky fix. 

Simon stared at him, face going slack with surprise. “Oh.”

Rocky use scanner on shoulder of missing arm, question?

Simon turned in his seat, offering up the shoulder that attached to the bone arm. It took Rocky a little more time to set the scanner up on the remaining flesh, but once he did he chirped happily. Good good good! Simon nerves very healthy. Connection easy. I make.

He gathered up his scanner and went to the corner of the lab that was his workshop, pulling equipment out of boxes that Ryland knew he usually used to make inert bone constructions--fossil bone powder, frozen tendon and cartilage, and some of the bone marrow he had saved. Ryland suddenly had a good idea of what Rocky’s personal project was, and he felt a small surge of pride at the thought of Rocky doing something nice for Simon, especially considering how rough their relationship had been at the start. The room started to warm up perceptibly as Rocky used his necromancy, droplets of bone marrow becoming sturdy, smooth bone in his hands. 

Rocky work for long time. Make lab very hot. Grace Simon go to dormitory before eat, question?

Ryland looked down at the noodles he had been stirring. “Yeah, these are about ready. Don’t worry, we won’t make you watch.”

Grace Simon have lot to talk about. Simon show Grace more sword, question? Grace enjoy.

“Okay, let’s move this stuff down!” said Ryland, loudly gathering up the noodles and his equipment before Simon could get a good look at the translator screen. He wasn’t sure if he was quick enough, but Simon seemed eager to help him pack up the food to make it easier to carry down the ladder, so he considered it a win. The noodles went into a purpose-built container with a handle that Ryland could loop his arm through, and Simon was nice enough to carry Ryland’s books as they climbed down, the air of the lab heating up to sweaty temperatures as they were leaving. 

“Was there something you wanted to see? With the sword, I mean?” asked Simon, once they were set back up in the dormitory. 

Ryland felt his face flush a telling shade of red. “No, no. He’s just being dumb.”

He handed Simon a bowl of noodles, finishing it off with a generous sprinkle of dried chives. They’d need to pick up more after their mission, he thought, looking at the nearly-empty packet. It might be harder without the research commission, but it would be worth it to make sure Simon was appropriately compensated for what he had been forced into. 

Ryland still couldn’t shake the little pang of guilt he felt every time he looked at Simon. He had been so clear to the Ninth House representatives he had talked to that he would only bring someone with him who had volunteered for the mission with full understanding of what they might be getting themselves into. Hot anger boiled in his stomach every time he thought about Simon being forced in handcuffs onto a mission he had no idea about, anger that, in part, missed its target on the Ninth House and landed in whatever court-martial cell Stratt was confined to on the Sixth. It wasn’t the same in many ways, but Ryland thought that in most ways Simon had actually had it worse. Every moment they spent together, even the moments that were good, was a moment Simon hadn’t gotten to choose for himself. 

It was made more complicated by the fact that, despite his best efforts to squash and deter any unprofessional thoughts, Ryland was developing a somewhat colossal crush on the man. It was the last thing Ryland wanted to put on Simon in his current situation, since the burden of his unwanted assignment to their mission was already so huge. Simon had enough to deal with without the completely inappropriate attentions of the necromancer he was forced to work for. Ryland did his best not to let anything slip, but it was difficult when his heart did backflips every time he got Simon to laugh, or when his mind drifted to Simon’s broad chest and strong arms whenever he was alone. 

“These are good,” said Simon, pulling Ryland out of his own head and back into the dormitory. Simon was holding up a forkful of noodles as if to show what he was talking about. 

“Thanks,” said Ryland, picking up his own noodles. To tell the truth, he didn’t usually put this much thought into his food when he was just cooking for himself. Sometimes, he would even eat the dry noodles when he was in a rush to get back to his work. But it was incredibly gratifying to cook for Simon, who had seemed to thoroughly enjoy everything Ryland had made for him so far, and so Ryland found he didn’t mind putting in the extra bit of effort. 

They ate in silence for a while, before Simon spoke up again. “Was Rocky talking about fixing my arm back there? I wasn’t sure.”

Ryland smiled. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure.”

“Ah.” Simon smiled down at his noodles, locks of black hair shading his face like a curtain. “That’s, um. Really nice.”

“Don’t mention it. It’s really the least we can do.”

Simon shrugged. The bones of his elbow clicked against the scabbard on his back. “I could still protect you with this one. It’s fine for that.”

“It kind of seems like that’s all it’s good for,” said Ryland. “Rocky’s great with bones, though. He’ll make you something that can last you as long as a flesh arm.”

Simon’s smile widened, sending a stab of vicious satisfaction through Ryland. It was a shame that Simon smiled as infrequently as he did, since a smile sat rather nicely on his already nice features. “Thank you,” he said again. “Really. That means a lot.”

Ryland reached out and rubbed Simon’s flesh shoulder. It was something they had both gotten more and more used to, the strict separation of necromancer and swordsman breaking after their earlier conversation and making way for the kind touches of colleagues, of friends, even. Ryland got plenty of mileage out of his fist bumps and the occasional tolerated hug with Rocky, but he had to admit that it was nice to have the comfort of living human flesh after so long without it. Simon had seemed to agree, initiating shoulder bumps as they worked or getting Ryland’s attention with a hand on his back with an eagerness that suggested he had gone just as long as Ryland without that kind of contact, if not longer. He leaned into Ryland’s hand, letting him rub his thumb over the acromion under his skin. “That’s what we do for one another,” he said. “If someone on the crew has a cruddy bone arm, we make it nicer.”

 He took his hand away once Simon shifted slightly, not wanting to push his luck too hard. “Honestly, I think Rocky might have been right about the necromancer being blind and stupid when they put this one together,” said Simon. “I’d say drunk, too.”

Ryland snorted, a noodle almost going up his nose in the process. “I’m glad you’re the one saying it, ‘cause I didn’t want to be mean,” he said. “It doesn’t match the rest of you at all.”

“Yeah, since I’m not actually a skeleton,” said Simon. 

“No, I mean--well, yeah,” said Ryland. “But also, like, it’s weird for it to be so flimsy when the rest of you is so…”

Ryland waved his hand as he trailed off, realizing that there was not a single good way to finish that sentence. He didn’t even really know what he had been planning to say--so strong, maybe? So alive? So pretty? It was all bad. Simon didn’t ask for clarification, but he stared practically through Ryland with dark, curious eyes that Ryland couldn’t read at all. It seemed like he was thinking hard, scrutinizing Ryland for clues the same way Ryland studied the archaic language of old necromantic texts in the hopes to pull out clues to its true meaning. Ryland stuffed more noodles in his mouth to hopefully keep anything else stupid from coming out, spilling some broth on his pants in the process. 

“Hm,” said Simon, eyes still boring into Ryland. Then he looked up at the ceiling. “You weren’t kidding when you said he ran hot. I can feel it from down here.”

“Ah, yep,” said Ryland. “It’s kind of the same process as blood sweat for us human necromancers. Basically, his body is made of these, uh. Parts, that, um.”

Ryland’s tongue suddenly felt like a wad of cotton balls as Simon started slowly taking off his outer layers of clothing, unclipping the scabbard and pulling his loose sweater up and over his head to reveal his much tighter undershirt. The undershirt rode up as the sweater came off, and Ryland’s eyes snapped to the sliver of skin at his waistband like magnets to a metal floor, his mind burning each wisp of black hair into the highest-definition memory available. Ryland wrenched his eyes away to meet Simon’s and found Simon staring right back at him, eyebrows raised in a strange look of surprise and wonder, and Ryland immediately knew he had been caught. He felt found out, guilty as a kid with their hand on the answer key. Blood rushed to his face so fast it hurt, surely turning him an even guiltier shade of red. 

“Yeah,” he said, still flailing to save face even with the complete certainty that he had goofed up so far beyond saving that it was actually funny. “That’s um. Yeah, that happens. I can actually, uh.” He tripped over his chair getting up. Simon looked at him, almost in awe. “There’s a shirt I can--setting I can change, on the Hail Mary. For the temperature. I should’ve--I can go do that now.”

Simon was saying something, but Ryland could barely hear over the sound of his pulse racing in his ears. He barely made it up the ladder without falling, his palms slick with sweat that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room above. As he stumbled into the very warm lab and over to the ladder to the cockpit, Rocky didn’t even put down the highly articulated-looking hand he was working on to make a fist at Ryland. Grace stupid stupid stupid. 

Ryland didn’t even have a response for that. Rocky was probably right, he thought, as he clambered up to the control room. Stupid stupid stupid, indeed. 

Chapter Text

On the morning of their arrival to Arboretum, Rocky was finally ready to fit Simon with his new arm. Simon had assumed Rocky was just going to replace some parts, or maybe fix up what was already there a little bit. What he didn’t expect was to come out of the little shower to find Rocky waiting for him, humming cheerfully as he cradled a beautiful bone arm in one of his free hands. 

They had to go up to the lab, where Ryland was already waiting for them, in order for Rocky to put it on. Simon could barely take his eyes off the thing. The bones themselves were smoother and cleaner, and perhaps a little wider than the actual bones of a human arm were meant to be, and even Simon could tell that the cartilage in each joint was masterfully laid. Thick cables of ligament tissue stretched across the elbow joint and from the wrist over the palm of the hand, and thinner strands were woven into the finger and thumb joints, disappearing between what looked a little like exoskeleton plates to make the fingers look sleek and sturdy. The length and size of the fingers perfectly matched Simon’s other hand, and each one had a tiny ridge of bone on the end to mimic the end of a short fingernail, something Simon hadn’t even thought of but which he imagined would come in handy. It was limp and inert as Rocky laid it on the workbench, but Simon could tell that it would feel good to wear it just from the way it flopped. The shoulder end of the arm was surrounded by a mop of thin fibers, which Rocky took an extra second to lay out just so as Simon took a seat next to him. 

Amaze amaze amaze, said Rocky. Simon was just starting to get to the point where he could recognize Rocky’s most common phrases without the translator, though he still kept it around just to be sure. Size good. Rocky excited for test. Remove bad arm now, question?

Ryland took a seat next to Simon, thin gloves on his hands. “I’ll be here to help, but Rocky’s the boss,” he said. “If anything starts to hurt, just say so and we’ll stop.”

Simon nodded, laying his bone arm next to the new arm. “I’m ready,” he said. 

Ryland set his hands on Simon’s shoulder, positioning them with practiced confidence around the joint. Rocky hovered two of his hands nearby, and as Simon started to feel heat radiating off of them, he also felt a strange pressure as something inside his shoulder loosened and then popped free. He grunted in surprise, which made both Rocky and Ryland pause, but there was no pain. He nodded to them, and Rocky gingerly grasped the ulna of Simon’s old arm and pulled it out, freeing it from the flesh of his shoulder with a wet squelching noise. 

A dribble of blood followed, landing on the workbench. The sight of it made Simon’s stomach drop, but Ryland was quick with a cloth to wipe it up. Rocky dunked his hands in a waiting bowl of water with a hiss, and once they were satisfactorily cool, he picked up his creation and held it up to Simon’s stump. Success! Grace attach joint first, then Rocky attatch nerves. 

“On it,” said Ryland, repositioning his hands on Simon’s shoulder. He looked over at Simon, their faces only two shoulder-lengths apart. “You doing good? Any pain?”

Simon shook his head. “Feels kinda weird, but no pain.”

“Awesome.” Ryland scrunched his nose to adjust his glasses in an unbearably cute way. “Let’s do this, then.”

Simon felt the open wound where the bone came out widen under Ryland’s hands, and Simon felt a wave of panic rise inside him at the fleshy, visceral feeling. Rocky froze where he had been adjusting the position of the arm. Simon heart fast. Pain, question?

Simon shook his head quickly. “No. It just. It feels bad. Wrong.”

“Do you want to stop?” asked Ryland, his voice soothing. 

Simon shook his head again. “No, I want…” He sighed, frustration and fear making him shake. “I want to put it on. I want to keep going, I just…”

Ryland didn’t move his hands at all, but he scooted his body a little closer to Simon’s. “We’ve got you,” he said. “This is all going really well so far. Do you want me to tell you what exactly’s going on while I do it?”

It was a nice offer, but not an attractive one at all. “No,” said Simon. “Not really. Could you actually just, like,” he said, pushing the words out of his chest before he lost the nerve to say them, “just stay here? Like, stay close?”

Ryland shifted even closer, so that Simon’s back was almost enveloped by Ryland’s warm chest. He took one gloved hand off Simon’s shoulder to loop it under his opposite arm, so that Simon was practically tucked in a hug with Ryland’s cheek right up against his. Simon felt his pulse return to normal as he relaxed into the comfort of Ryland’s warm body around his, until the comfort was overwhelming compared to the dark and unpleasant memories that the flesh manipulation dredged up. Ryland’s eyes were still locked on the shoulder joint, but now they were close enough for Simon to see the reflection of his blue eyes in his glasses and feel the heat coming from the pink flush on his cheeks. Which was interesting. Simon was starting to pay more attention to all the interesting things he noticed about Ryland. “How’s this?” he asked.

Simon nodded, just a quick tuck of his chin into his chest. “Good. I’m ready.”

When Simon arrived back at the Ninth prison after his last misadventure, screaming that he had done his part of the deal and getting told that since the submarine was lost he hadn’t, they had taken their time bringing him to Medical from the shuttle. Once they finally shoved him down onto the bloodstained table, he had been half delirious from blood loss and from whatever the hell else he had come into contact with down there. It hadn’t been enough, though. The bone adept on duty had reopened what little healing his own body had done, and shoved bones with agonizing carelessness into his wound that Simon swore he had picked right up off the floor. His flesh had been squeezed messily onto the new bone even as every nerve ending screamed, and Simon hadn’t even had the good fortune to pass out as the necromancer built the rest of the arm. He was sent back to his cell not long after, twitching and sobbing in pain. 

When Ryland pulled open the wound, it felt like he was coaxing it open rather than forcing it. The split in his skin opened wider, but no more blood came out and not even a whisper of pain came from the flesh as it parted to let the head of the new arm in. A faint pink sheen of blood sweat bloomed over Ryland’s face as he concentrated, but the smell of iron that might have been horrible was overpowered by the scent of Ryland’s shampoo and laundry soap and the pleasant smell that was probably just him. Rocky guided the new arm into Simon’s flesh with expert precision, not even grazing the exposed parts of him until the bone made contact with his shoulder. Once it did, he felt the telling heat of Rocky’s necromancy along with a strange, almost pleasant feeling of the shoulder joint sliding into place.

Grace hold skin. Rocky check with scanner, said Rocky, holding the arm in place and picking his scanner up with another hand. He gently guided it onto the outside of Simon’s shoulder, and chirped happily after it whirred for him. Good good good! Connection perfect. Grace put skin back. 

Ryland shifted his hands, and the flesh closed around the bone like a curtain falling gently on a stage. A few thick lengths of ligament stuck out from his flesh stump to connect to the bone of the arm, but his skin lay seamlessly around it like it had always been a part of him. “We’ll need to let Armando have a look at it when we’re done here,” he said, “but it looks good to me. I think I got any bleeders sealed off while I was in there.”

Good. Rocky let go of the bone arm, and it fell limply by Simon’s side. It didn’t respond when he tried to move it. Attach nerves now. May be some pain for Simon.

Ryland stayed where he was, taking his hands off Simon’s shoulder. “This is gonna hurt,” he said, an apology in his voice. “There’s no good way around it in order for the arm to have sensation, but I’ll get you some good painkillers when it’s done.”

“It’s going to have sensation?” said Simon. 

Ryland shrugged against his back. “Not a lot, but it’ll be something.”

Better for feedback. Pressure, temperature, damage. Know where arm is in space better. I start now, question?

“Yeah,” said Simon, bracing himself. “Let’s do it.”

It was pretty painful, Simon had to admit. Rocky draped a heat-protective pad over his shoulder and placed one hand on it while he held his scanner against his skin with another. Every time he fused a nerve, a sharp jolt of pain came from some new part of the arm, some vanishing immediately but others lingering as a dull ache or itchiness. Each time he grimaced or yelped in pain, both Rocky and Ryland paused and checked in on him, and each time they did he eagerly encouraged them to keep going. He just couldn’t believe it. As Rocky worked, the new arm started to fill with feeling and vitality, each bone and joint and fingertip transforming from inert material hanging off of him to a part of his body. By the time Rocky was done, the arm had ceased to be a thing made of bone and sinew, and had become a living, tingling, itching part of him. 

Simon opened and closed the hand cautiously as Ryland and Rocky eagerly watched. Some of the thicker ligaments connected to bits of tendon that contracted and expanded like muscles, shifting under the smooth exoskeleton of each finger and feeling so alive that Simon could hardly believe it. He felt the gentle touch of his new fingertips against the soft webbing of tissue on his new palm, felt the easy slide of smooth fingers against one another as he curled them into a fist. There were no more creaky vibrations every time he moved the elbow, either--just a glide that felt just as natural as it had when it was flesh and blood. The wrist twisted in a graceful, orderly motion, all the ligaments slotting perfectly into place among the radius and ulna no matter which way he turned it. It made his old arm look like a toy. 

Simon like, question? Rocky clicked his fingers together eagerly. If problem, Rocky fix. 

Simon reached out to touch Rocky with the new hand. Rocky shied away quickly. Careful with new hand! Rocky still very hot. Hand still soft. Will be less delicate after heal. 

“Oh,” said Simon. “Um. Thank you. It’s…”

He didn’t have the words. The arm was magnificent, better than anything he had even seen, let alone had on his body. A new appreciation of Rocky’s unique necromancy washed over him. His new arm was fit for a Cohort general--for a Lyctor, even. He almost felt more unbalanced with it on, like the worth of his body couldn’t keep up with such a beautiful construction. 

“It’s good,” he finally said. “It’s perfect. Thank you so much.”

Amaze! Armando check stump health in dormitory. Grace carry Simon down ladder.

Simon lifted himself out of Ryland’s arms, missing the warmth immediately. His new arm did feel a little weak, but more in the way that his foot felt after he sat on it wrong than the fragile way that his old arm had felt. One look at the old bones on the table was enough to put a smile on his face. Ryland got up awkwardly from the chair as Rocky skittered off towards the ladder. “It’s probably just safest until everything finishes fusing up,” he explained, wiping the pink blood sweat off his face with a clean cloth. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Simon couldn’t stop smiling. He watched as Ryland met his eyes and started returning it almost automatically, just a crooked grin sprouting first before blooming into a wide, beaming smile. “How do you wanna do this?” he asked, hanging the translator on his belt. 

“I can carry you piggyback,” he said, turning his back to Simon. Simon wrapped his arms around Ryland’s neck, but he was shocked by the ease with which Ryland hoisted him up onto his back, slinging his entire weight up like he was used to it. Simon had never been a small man, and with the added weight of a sword and a bone arm and a week of good meals, he was probably even heavier than before. Ryland’s lankiness had distracted Simon from the fact that he was strong, uncharacteristically so for a necromancer, and getting his first experience with it up-close and personal was a little much. Simon wondered if Ryland could feel his heart racing through the fabric of his “thanergy drink” T-shirt with a picture of a cartoon bottle of poison on it. He held on tight as Ryland carried him easily to the ladder and started climbing down. 

“This brings back memories,” he said with a chuckle. “I had to carry Rocky all the way back to the ship like this last time we were out exploring.”

“Oh,” said Simon. “How heavy is he?”

“Heavier than you,” said Ryland. “And he had just set off a thanergy bomb to get us out of there, so he was way hotter than you, too. I mean. Not, like.” Ryland ended his sentence spluttering and scrambling, which was also interesting. 

“How did you carry him without burning yourself?” asked Simon, mercifully. 

“I didn’t,” said Ryland. 

He kept climbing. Simon kept his flesh arm looped around Ryland’s chest, but freed his new bone arm to feel gently along the top of his back. The bone fingertips were able to register the roughness under his shirt, and as he followed it with his fingers he noticed the edges of melty burn scars along the base of his neck and the backsides of his arms. He quickly drew his hand away. “Oh.”

“It’s all good!” said Ryland. “It doesn’t hurt at all anymore. Rocky was worse off, though. It was a pretty sticky situation.”

Grace talk about Bastion mission, question? Rocky was waiting by Simon’s bed, Armando ready and waiting for Simon above him. Simon could just see the translator screen well enough from where he was hanging from Ryland’s back. Bad bad bad. Learned much, but much bad. 

“This time, though, we’ve got Simon,” said Ryland, carrying Simon from the ladder and depositing him on the bed. He didn’t need to do that, but Simon enjoyed it thoroughly. He still couldn’t believe he had let Ryland’s height and his awkwardness and the fact that he was a necromancer distract him from the way he was built--lean muscle from his shoulders down his legs, the kind of trimness that came from a life of activity. He looked at Simon with a reverence that suddenly had him feeling a bit exposed. “I think it’ll be a lot harder for us to get overwhelmed by skeletons with you on the team.”

Armando got to work scanning the new joint. “Minor hematoma,” it said. “Cold compress and stabilizing dressing advised.”

“Go ahead,” said Simon. Armando got to work immediately, wrapping a pleasantly cool pad onto his shoulder with soft white bandages. Ryland handed him a small white pill and he swallowed it gratefully, feeling the pain start to ease off almost as soon as it hit his stomach. “I’m glad I’m coming,” he said to Ryland and Rocky. “I owe you both. For this.”

Both Ryland and Rocky started talking at once. “You don’t owe us anything!” said Ryland, affronted, while Rocky hummed. Arm apology for forced to do mission. Favor for crew member. Gift. Simon owe nothing.

“If anything, we’re the ones who owe you. An arm barely starts to make up for it.” 

Agree. Simon good and kind friend. Easy to want to give gift. 

Simon felt raw under their eager praise, like his skin had been burnt clean off by the strength of their belief that this was something he deserved. He couldn’t understand why. His heart ached to believe it, though. “I’m serious,” he said. “You both know who I am. Even if you just skimmed my file,” he said, looking at Ryland. “You know. This is better than I deserve.”

Ryland stared at him long and hard, the expression on his face unreadable. This was it, Simon thought. This was the moment that broke the spell, that killed whatever spark of attraction Ryland was clearly indulging with regards to Simon. Surely he had forgotten just what kind of a person he was. Perhaps he would be horrified to come to his senses and realize that each blush and fumbled word had been for the famous Butcher. The silence stretched on, even Rocky falling quiet, and Simon found that he had to look away, the thought of facing the incoming rejection head-on too awful.

Finally, Ryland said, “You didn’t blow up Filament Station.”

Simon’s eyes snapped back up to his. “What--”

“I specialize in psychometric necromancy,” he said, slowly. There was still so much kindness in his voice, like someone talking to a scared child. Simon didn’t understand it. “I taught young necromancers for years. I can tell when someone’s got even a little necromantic talent in them, and I’m sorry to say that I’m quite confident you haven’t got a lick of it in you.” His eyes were piercing as he held Simon’s gaze. “You could not have set off a thanergic bomb of any size, much less one large enough to destroy a space station.”

Armando finished wrapping Simon’s arm. He slumped forward in the bed, not sure if he was weighed down by relief or guilt. “It wasn’t supposed to happen that way,” he said. “I didn’t--I don’t even know what went wrong, really. We were supposed to be stealing files. The necromancer--we got separated from her.” The words were falling from him unbidden, coming from somewhere deep in his mind where he had shoved them away. “She killed the rest of our team, too. I’m the only one who. You know.”

“You don’t owe either of us any explanation,” said Ryland. Rocky hummed in assent, simple enough that Simon didn’t have to look at the translator. “For any of it. The station, Blood of Eden, it doesn’t matter.”

“So many people died,” he said. “Innocent people. They made me--they showed me their bodies. What was left of them. They made me watch recordings of how they died.”

“It doesn’t sound like it was your fault,” said Ryland. “You didn’t kill them. You couldn’t have.”

Something cold landed on the back of Simon’s new hand, and he realized all of a sudden that there were tears running down his face, wetting his cheeks and the edges of his beard and filling his nose. It was the only warning he got before his entire body was shaken by sobs, great horrible sounds that felt as if they were dragging years of rot out of him. In the blink of an eye, he was surrounded by Ryland, his strong arms closing tightly around him, the soft warmth of his chest cushioning him as they leaned back together. He tried to keep his tears and snot from getting on Ryland’s shoulder, but Ryland just nestled him deeper into the hug until Simon had no choice, a gentle hand on the back of his head telling him it didn’t matter. Simon wrapped both of his arms around whatever parts of Ryland he could, holding on for dear life as he hacked and sobbed out every horrible thing he had been keeping locked up inside of him ever since he was thrown in that awful cell. He heard a few wavering chords, and then his other side was being pressed by a mass of fossil rock that was just too warm to be comfortable but just cool enough not to burn, Rocky laying three of his arms around both him and Ryland and squeezing them even closer together. They both held him tight, and Simon found himself smiling even before he stopped crying. 

“You’re okay,” said Ryland, into his hair. He planted a kiss on the top of Simon’s head. “You’re okay.”

They stayed like that until the cold pack grew warm, until the sobs finally stopped and the shaking that followed stopped too. Simon had felt like all the good parts of him had died when they threw him in the Ninth prison to take responsibility for all those lives he hadn’t even meant to take, and then somehow all those good parts had died again when they brought him back from the blood moon. But when he finally pulled his face from Ryland’s snot and tear-covered shoulder, and looked up at Ryland’s kind face and Rocky’s eager finger-tapping, he felt all those best parts born anew.

---

“Okay,” said Ryland, floating into the cockpit. “I think that’s everything we forgot about put away. Hopefully we don’t end up with another ketchup incident.”

“Another what?” asked Simon. The gravity in the ship had gone away once they reached orbit around Arboretum, and both Ryland and Rocky had both immediately remembered about twenty different things that they had each forgotten to put away before going zero-g again. Simon, who had finally been allowed into the control room to strap in for deceleration, had been perfectly content to remain buckled into his seat. 

Grace leave ketchup open inside food box. Messy messy messy. Ketchup on all food. 

Ryland groaned. “Thanks for the reminder, Rock. All the food containers are sealed this time, don’t worry.”

Grace check, question?

“Yes, I checked.” Ryland strapped himself back into his seat, while Rocky nimbly shimmied his way into his own specialized restraints. “All right. Let’s get down there.”

He flipped a few switches and pressed a button on the screen in front of him, and the Hail Mary lurched downwards. “Beginning descent,” he said. “There’s not a lot of atmosphere, so it should be a smooth ride.”

Simon’s stomach did a drawn-out flip that started when the Hail Mary first moved and didn’t let up until the ship was coming to a stop on the surface of a tiny planet that, on the screens around them, looked pretty barren to Simon. The milky grey of an artificial atmosphere was visible on the horizon, but other than that it looked very much like they had taken the ship to a lifeless piece of rock. The ship had landed so that the gravity of the rock lined up with what had been up and down before, but Simon noticed as he unclipped his restraints that the gravity seemed a lot weaker than it had before. 

“Looks like we’re just inside the atmosphere bubble,” said Ryland, checking the numbers on one of the countless screens around them. “We’ll need to use air tanks on the way there, but we won’t need them once we’re inside.”

Weak thanergy signature. Need much necrophage.

“We’ll keep the breeders running at full power until you wake up.”

“Until he wakes up?” asked Simon. 

Rocky need sleep before explore, said Rocky. 

“I didn’t know you slept,” said Simon, feeling a little silly. 

Sleep not as frequent as human sleep. 

“We’re parked far enough away from the active site that nothing will be coming for us,” said Ryland. He got out of his own seat, climbing towards the ladder as Simon and Rocky followed. “Rocky can sleep, then we can sleep, and then we can all head out. It’ll give us a day to get everything prepped.”

Long sleep. The words were taking a little longer than usual to show up on the translator, and Simon was starting to be able to tell that it was because Rocky was talking slower. Long time awake. Need long sleep.

“You got it, bud,” said Ryland. “We’ll watch.”

Armando help watch. Grace Simon pack for mission. 

“We’ll watch,” said Ryland, a little more firmly. “We can take turns. And if we need to step out, we’ll leave Armando on active mode.”

Good good good, said Rocky. Rocky sleep. Grace Simon have time alone together. 

Ryland caught Simon’s eyes, and Simon felt his cheeks prickle at the same time as a hot red blush bloomed in Ryland’s face. He turned away quickly, picking at a stray bit of fuzz between the bones of his arm while Ryland studied the ladder more intensely than he probably ever had before. “Yeah, bud,” he said. “You got it.”

Need to eat before sleep. Come to dormitory in thirty-six minutes, question?

“Will do,” said Ryland. 

Thank. Rocky fetched a box from his workshop area and tucked it into a pocket on his cloth belts before heading to the dormitory ladder. Simon snuck a glance at Ryland, who still couldn’t meet his gaze. Interesting. Simon Grace eat. Come to dormitory after for sleep.

“Sounds like a plan,” said Ryland. “Have fun!”

Rocky hunched his body. Disgust. Not say that. 

Ryland laughed loudly as Rocky scampered away with his box, and Simon found himself laughing along. 

Chapter Text

Simon was horribly jealous of Rocky. He couldn’t remember the last time he had slept through an entire night cycle, uninterrupted by noise or by his own nightmares. Even on good nights, like the ones Simon had spent on the Hail Mary so far, his sleep was restless and often unsatisfying in length and quality. But as soon as Rocky was curled up on his bed he simply laid his carapace down and was out like a light, looking to all the world like a giant dead bug made of rock. No sound or movement could bother him. He was guaranteed a good, restful sleep until his body had gotten all the rest it needed. Ryland had explained it all to him once he noticed Simon being extra quiet in the dormitory, and had seemed a little surprised when Simon’s first honest reaction was blinding envy. It was the only natural reaction to have, Simon thought. As he tended noisily to the edge of his sword, Rocky unbothered and unmoving on the bunk next to him, he couldn’t help but wish he had been born as a fossil construct. 

Ryland climbed down the ladder one-handed, a small tank of some kind of black sludge tucked under his free arm. “How’s it looking?” he called, nodding at Simon’s sword. 

“Pretty good.” The sword still didn’t feel like Simon’s. There was still that nagging fear at the back of his mind that whichever Ninth prisoner it belonged to would be set free and come looking for it. Simon wouldn’t have blamed him--it was a great blade, well crafted and obviously well maintained before it was remanded to the tender, loving care of the prison. The rust it had accumulated in the personals locker hadn’t been too hard to fix. The blade was as sharp as it was going to get, but Simon had used a chunk of polished bone to make sure the edges were straight for lack of something better to do. It had been a long time since he had fought anyone with a sword, and even longer since he fought skeletons. There wasn’t much he could do to change that, but having his tools at their best couldn’t hurt. 

Ryland nodded, strapping the tank of sludge into a perfectly-sized pocket on his canvas pack. Simon pointed to it. “What’s that?”

“Necrophage,” said Ryland. “This is all we can safely bring with us, but it should get Rocky and I a couple days of moderate necromancy.”

Simon nodded. Ryland had given him the crash course on necrophage early on in their voyage, and though Simon had never found himself very interested in the strange business of necromancers he did find the stuff pretty fascinating. The little microorganisms stored thanergy and used it to move, providing an easy source of death energy for Rocky and Ryland that didn’t actually rely on huge amounts of recent death. All they had to do was make a light that looked like the place that necrophage was trying to go (Simon still wasn’t totally clear on how that part worked), and let the necrophage zip over to it little by little, their tiny movements apparently creating comparatively huge thanergy blooms. Simon watched closely as Ryland attached the “spout” head to the tank, first checking that the light was off and the gauge was set to zero before screwing it on tightly. 

“What happens if that thing breaks?” asked Simon. 

“Nothing that bad,” said Ryland, “other than a big mess.” His lips formed a thin line. “But if the light were on, or if we were on the surface, then it’d be the same outcome as a medium-sized thanergy bomb.”

Simon raised his eyebrows. “Just from that little thing?”

“Yup.” Ryland patted the side of the tank, making the black necrophage slosh sluggishly inside. “Rocky made the spout, though. It has three layers of failsafe mechanisms in case anything goes wrong.”

That seemed to be all the comfort Ryland needed, but Simon still made a mental note to give the tank a wide berth. He slid the sword back into its scabbard as Ryland finished securing the pump mechanism back into place, watching the nimble way he checked and re-checked each strap. Packing for the mission seemed like muscle memory to him, and with Simon’s help for the few more difficult tasks it had only taken them forty-five minutes. The necrophage pocket had been the last empty space in Ryland’s pack. 

“Is this what you guys normally do?” Simon asked. “Like, does he normally sleep right before you go out?”

“Yeah, usually,” said Ryland. “It’s not all that safe for him to have to sleep while we’re out exploring. We get snuck up on pretty often, and there’s literally no way for me to wake him up if we’re in danger.”

“Huh.” Simon looked back over at Rocky’s motionless body. “So, what, he makes you do all the packing?”

“He’ll make up for it by keeping watch for us if we decide to sleep while we’re in the field,” said Ryland. “Plus, I don’t mind it. I love the guy, but it’s good for us both to get some time alone.”

He gestured vaguely to the ship around them, and Simon could kind of understand. There was no privacy from Rocky anywhere on the Hail Mary while he was awake, not when he could “see” beyond even the confines of the ship with his ultra-sensitive hearing. He at least tended to be chill about it, but Simon could imagine that it was still a little difficult to shake the feeling of being watched while you slept, bathed, and used the toilet. Simon, of course, had gotten plenty used to that in the prison, but the lack of judgement was at least a welcome change. “So, what do you usually do?” he asked. “With your free time?”

“Oh, uh,” started Ryland, suddenly breaking out in a nice pink flush as he looked away from Simon. He shrugged, checking the tightness of each strap on his pack with intense focus. “You know. Just whatever.”

“Just whatever,” Simon repeated back. He thought he had a pretty good idea. 

The images that flashed into Simon’s mind in the moment that followed were enough to have him blushing in turn. He imagined Ryland hiding himself away somewhere in the ship, maybe in some corner of the lab or the control room, to get a hand around his dick and relieve some of the tension that came with having a nearly-omniscient roommate. He wondered if Ryland still tried to be quiet despite there being no need, or if he came loudly into his own hand, letting his voice echo in the small ship. That led to Simon imagining what Ryland sounded like when he moaned, which led to Simon having to turn away from Ryland and adjust his sweater to cover his lap. He could feel his heart beating in his stomach, and was incredibly glad that Rocky was too asleep to comment loudly on it. 

“Yeah,” said Ryland, an awkward chuckle following. Simon risked a glance up at him. “I mean, there’s always last-minute stuff. I gotta go over all my notes one more time, you know, that kind of thing.”

“For sure,” said Simon. His voice sounded weird. He cleared his throat. “Makes sense.”

Ryland hummed in agreement. “Speaking of,” he said, “I should probably…”

“Yeah.” Simon waved him towards the ladder. “Go ahead. I’ll keep watch.”

Rocky’s preference for watching Simon and Grace sleep and being watched in return was, as it turned out, a result of his way of sleeping and a holdover from when he lived on a planet with other constructs like himself. Rocky had been eager to share after he had warmed up a bit to Simon, and Simon had found himself warming up to the idea of Rocky watching over him every night after he learned what it actually came from. It had felt a lot less like a night guard after that; more something of a night watch. He was surprised by how little he minded returning the favor. 

Ryland started climbing up the ladder, keeping his body turned oddly sideways. “I’ll call you up here when I’ve got lunch made,” he said as he went. “I still feel kind of weird eating around him. Rocky’s fine with Armando taking a shift every now and then, as long as I’m there when he gets up.”

“Sounds good,” he said, but Ryland was already up and out of the dormitory. 

---

Lunch was crispy sandwiches with warm vegetable soup. When Ryland called Simon up, he told Armando to activate “standby mode,” which made the robot arms disengage from their resting places by the ceiling to hover near Rocky’s sleeping body. “Armando can let us know if he starts warming up again,” he explained, “so we’ll be able to hop back down before he’s actually awake.”

“Does that happen a lot?” asked Simon. He had finished his lunch well before Ryland, and was too content to feel weird about it. Ryland really was an excellent cook. 

Ryland shook his head. “Not really. He usually gets about ten and a half hours before we go out on missions, and he’s never been too far off of that. So I’d say we’ve got a good four hours before we’re expected back down there.”

Simon made a small noise of understanding, letting Ryland finish his lunch in the silence that followed. Ryland had packed a week’s worth of supplies for the three of them, mostly in the form of dry foods and protein shakes for himself and Simon, and it looked like he had been putting a little extra effort into their last day of proper meals as a kind of farewell. When he finished, he took both of their plates to the equipment cleaner in the corner of the lab and set it to run, filling the room with the low hum of machinery as he returned to the bench next to Simon. 

“Sorry to mess up your alone time,” Simon blurted out. He had been thinking about it since their conversation that morning, trying to extract the actual regret from the thoughts of what Ryland might have wanted to do with that time. Whatever the case was, whether or not it had anything to do with the imagined scenarios that had forced Simon to take an ice-cold shower after Ryland left (because asleep or not, there was no way in hell he would be taking matters into his own hands with Rocky still in the room), it wasn’t fair that Ryland had to have his scant private time ruined by another person in his ship. Ryland had done such a kind thing by making Simon feel like he wasn’t an imposition at all, but Simon could tell that he and Rocky had their routines down to an exact science, and he figured that any deviation had to be a slight annoyance. 

Ryland smiled. “What? No, you’re not messing anything up!” He bumped Simon’s shoulder with his own--the one without the bone arm, since the one with still had the occasional flash of pain from the newly fused nerves--and Simon’s heart fluttered traitorously at the contact. “Seriously, don’t worry about it. I really like spending time with you.”

Simon couldn’t help but return his smile. “You wouldn’t rather have some time to yourself?”

“I made lunch all by myself,” Ryland pointed out. “Kinda lonely and boring, to be honest.” 

Something about that sat warm and heavy in Simon’s chest, like a feeling of comfort so intense that it made him feel squirmy. It made him brave enough to poke at Ryland a little bit more. “You wouldn’t rather do something else, though?” he asked. “Something else alone?”

Ryland’s blue eyes darted to Simon, looking equal parts shocked and guilty. Simon didn’t think he had ever seen him so still. He was about to open his mouth to let Ryland off the hook, to try to backtrack from what was obviously a thread too uncomfortable to pull, when Ryland said, “I’d rather do it with you. If I’m being honest.”

Now it was Simon’s turn to freeze. Surely they weren’t talking about the same thing. Ryland had to mean something else. “Do what?” he asked. 

Ryland got up abruptly from the stool and leaned a hand on the bench next to Simon to bring their faces close, and Simon surged forward half on instinct to kiss him. He found Ryland’s mouth easily, and as he wrapped his flesh arm around him to grasp at the back of his neck he felt Ryland’s other hand on his waist, pulling them both down to the bench as their kiss deepened. Ryland’s mouth tasted like the lunch they had just shared, which should have been a little gross but which Simon didn’t mind one bit, fingers digging into blonde hair to hold Ryland’s face steady as he kissed him again and again. Ryland pressed his hips forward until their pelvises were flush against one another, drawing a groan from Simon’s mouth right into his own. 

“Is this,” he said, barely finding space to get the words out between kisses, “okay?”

Simon laughed. “Yes, fuck,” he said as Ryland’s face pinched suddenly with worry. “Please.” 

Ryland smiled as he kissed him again, and suddenly Simon was being lifted from the stool, their lips never parting as Ryland hoisted him up by his waist, easy in the lower gravity. It was unbelievably hot. Simon rewarded him with a gentle bite to his lower lip, getting a gorgeous moan in response that made him immediately want to do it again. It barely seemed real. Simon could almost believe he was still in some kind of extremely vivid dream, his subconscious playing with his shameful waking desires to produce something that would leave him embarrassingly hard when he woke up. But Ryland’s hands were firm and heavy around his waist, and so Simon busied his own tugging on Ryland’s hair and cupping Ryland’s jaw, all other concerns fading away in the overwhelming pleasure of Ryland’s body against his. 

His ass was set down gently on a different lab table, one that was a little lower to the floor than the ones they usually sat at. Ryland’s kisses moved from his mouth to his throat as he boxed Simon in with his arms, each touch of his lips a burn. Simon’s back arched as his hips dragged against Ryland’s, fully aware that a whole slew of embarrassing sounds were coming out of him but far too ecstatic to care. 

Ryland pulled away, leaving Simon unbearably cold. His glasses were crooked on his red face, his hair wild from Simon’s attentions, his breath coming in heaves. The blue of his eyes was almost eclipsed by his massively blown pupils. “Can I suck your dick?” he asked, voice hoarse and delicious. 

“Oh my fucking god,” said Simon, already scrambling for the buttons on his pants. 

“Yeah?” Ryland looked almost desperate, mouth hanging open and eyes wide with hope, knuckles tight on Simon’s waistband. 

“Yeah.” Simon had to be dreaming. “Fucking obviously.”

He unbuttoned his pants faster than he ever had in his life, and his bone arm held his weight flawlessly as he lifted his hips for Ryland to help pull them down. “Just double checking,” said Ryland, pressing another kiss to Simon’s neck. He palmed Simon’s dick through his underwear, and somehow he was the one gasping into Simon’s mouth. “I want to.”

“Please,” Simon groaned, canting his hips into Ryland’s grasp. 

Ryland kissed him deeply, hooking his thumbs into the waist of Simon’s underwear and pulling away as he dragged them down slowly. He looked like he was planning to take them all the way off, but he froze as soon as they were around his thighs, staring at Simon’s cock where it stood erect against a crop of black hair. Simon felt himself grow impossibly harder under Ryland’s heavy gaze, all blood not heating up his cheeks going straight down, leaving him dizzy. Ryland’s lips were shiny where they were frozen in place, a string of actual drool threatening to drip from his mouth. Simon was going to lose his mind. He must have made some kind of sound, because Ryland snapped out of it and yanked his underwear the rest of the way off, tossing them aside to join his pants wherever they had fallen. 

Simon pointed at his T-shirt, at the sad skeleton on it with a speech bubble that read “I don’t have the guts.” “Take that off.”

Ryland complied immediately, and Simon soaked up a nice long look at him. He really did look strong, the faint definition of well-used muscle giving shape to miles of golden skin. He struggled to get his arms out of the sleeves, and Simon had to laugh--at the ridiculousness of it, and at the fact that he still found it unbearably hot to watch. Ryland’s hair and glasses were in an even worse state once he freed himself from the shirt, but he was smiling so grandly. Even his smile was hot. Simon suddenly couldn’t stand the thought of a single more moment spent not touching him. 

He reached for Ryland, who shook his glasses off his face and set them on a nearby stool along with his inside-out shirt. Simon pulled him into a kiss as soon as he was in grabbing range, letting Ryland pull his sweater up and only breaking the kiss long enough for him to pull it over his head. He felt giddy, probably a little bit to do with the severe drainage of blood from his brain. He was so hard it was almost painful, and as the front of Ryland’s half-up jumpsuit brushed against his bare cock he moaned, back arching. “Fuck, Ryland, I need--”

“Yeah, I can tell,” said Ryland, somewhere between teasing and awestruck. He dropped to his knees all at once, his fall cushioned by the lower gravity. It didn’t do any favors for Simon, though, both of his arms feeling weak as he held himself up to watch. Ryland looked up at him through his lashes, and said. “You doing good? Everything comfortable?”

“Yes,” said Simon, nodding quickly. A wave of doubt suddenly came over him as Ryland lowered his gaze. “Are you? I mean--do you still want--ohh, fuck.”

Ryland licked a slow, languid stripe up Simon’s length from base to head, tongue laving over the tip like he was savoring it. Simon threw his head back, groaning from somewhere deep beneath his lungs. “Fuck,” he shouted, hearing his own voice echoed back off the round walls of the lab. Ryland closed his lips around the head of his cock, each move slow and almost curious, humming almost thoughtfully to himself as he worked unfamiliar noises out of Simon with just the tip of his tongue. Simon was going to have a heart attack right here on the lab table. “God, your mouth--”

“You sound so nice,” said Ryland, dropping Simon from his mouth like he was reluctant to let him go. A thread of saliva connected the head of his cock to Ryland’s bottom lip as he spoke. He rested an elbow on Simon’s thigh, fingers dragging absently through the thick black hairs there, eyes not leaving Simon’s. 

Simon meant to laugh. What came out was more like a whine. Ryland’s face flushed redder, and he gently used the hand on Simon’s thigh to guide his legs a little wider to make room for himself as he got his mouth on him again in earnest, taking Simon down to the base in the same slow, luxurious pace he had set from the start. Stars peppered Simon’s vision as his head fell back again, part of him a little in awe at the noises he was making as Ryland hollowed his cheeks, dragging his soft lips up Simon’s cock before diving back down. When Simon finally pulled his head back up, overcome by the need to see, Ryland was looking up at him as he bobbed his head gently. It reminded him, inexplicably, of the way he looked at his research, the way he read ancient, barely decipherable texts. It was a look of curiosity, amazement, and something a bit like hunger, and as Simon’s dick twitched in Ryland’s mouth he knew in that moment that he would never be able to watch Ryland study again without thinking of this. 

His flesh arm gave out first, dropping him to his elbow and pulling his cock from Ryland’s mouth with the change in position. Ryland kept a hand on his thigh, hooking his ankle around the leg of a nearby stool and dragging it over to where they were to rest his own knee on it, putting him in a better position to reach Simon’s cock while he was a little laid back. From this angle, Simon could see the tent in the crotch of Ryland’s jumpsuit, and lacking a free hand, he used his chin to point to it. “Let me see,” he said, his voice already sounding wrecked. 

Ryland looked confused for a moment, following Simon’s gaze before he understood, and Simon had to laugh at the ridiculousness of the man who was making him feel this dizzy with lust and pleasure. With a slightly awkward shimmy, Ryland got the jumpsuit down until it was just below his hips, untangling his gorgeous cock from his underwear almost as an afterthought. He ran his own hand over it, fluid catching the light at the tip, and Simon felt the room start to spin. “God, Ryland,” he groaned. 

Ryland’s grin was lopsided and rather proud. “Ready for me to get back to it?”

“Fuck, yes. Please. I need it.”

Ryland let out a contented sigh before dipping his head back down to Simon with his hand still around his own cock to resume his work. Simon found himself choking back a sob at the warmth of Ryland’s mouth, pleasure lighting up every nerve in his body so strongly that he was sure he had to be glowing. Ryland worked miracles with his tongue, bobbing his head slowly and punctuating every movement with a searing swirl, occasionally filling his mouth with vibrations from his own moans of pleasure that made Simon practically scream in turn. It was insane. It was completely incomprehensible. Simon had had entire one-night-stands less satisfying than this one fucking blowjob. 

“How,” he moaned, “are you so fucking good at this?” Ryland caught his eye and gave him a particularly nasty lick over the head that forced him to stop and moan. “Do you--ah, fuck--how often do you do this?”

Ryland pulled back until the head of Simon’s cock was just resting on his lower lip. “Not all that often,” he said, Simon still in his fucking mouth. “But I like doing it. I keep up with all the latest, ah, you know. Research.”

“What the fuck,” said Simon, as Ryland dove back down, sending another unstoppable wave of pleasure through him. “Are you fucking kidding me, you--ohh my fucking god.”

Ryland took Simon’s cock all the way into his throat, bobbing his head shallowly as he swallowed against the head, tongue curving deviously all the while. This was going to be over long before Simon wanted it to be. “Ryland, you gotta--I’m, fuck.”

Simon started to see stars again as Ryland redoubled his efforts, his orgasm seeming to come towards him from every part of his body. His bone hand shot out to tangle in Ryland’s hair, more as a warning than anything else since there wasn’t enough sensation left in it to actually pull him up. His thighs were already shaking. “Ryland, please, I’m gonna--”

He made no move to get off of Simon, and his orgasm was already taking him, shaking him from the tips of his fingers to the head of his cock in Ryland’s throat, Ryland swallowing him down as his fingers tightened on Simon’s thigh until they bruised. Simon yelled himself hoarse as he came, back arching against the lab table as wave after wave of pleasure crashed over him, his bone hand a fist in Ryland’s hair. He was vaguely aware of Ryland moaning around his dick, and as he finally pulled off Simon was treated to the sight of Ryland coming all over his hand with a soft, beautiful groan, a few drops of it landing hotly on Simon’s exhausted cock. Ryland’s head dropped to Simon’s chest as he recovered from his own release, back heaving as they both panted together for a moment, the adrenaline seeping away from Simon’s body and leaving only euphoria in its wake. 

Simon lay back against the table. A few moments later, Ryland heaved himself up to lay next to him, wiping his hand on his discarded shirt. “Gonna do laundry before we go anyway,” he mumbled, breathless, when he noticed Simon looking. 

It was too ridiculous not to laugh. It came out giddy and gasping, and Simon didn’t even mind one bit. “What the fuck did you mean by research?” he asked. 

Ryland laughed awkwardly. “You know. The latest techniques. The current literature.”

“What the fuck. No, I really don’t know.”

“Rocky uses a special scanner to read anything printed,” Ryland said. “Anything of mine that he doesn’t put in the scanner is just a blank bundle of papers to him.”

Simon gaped at him. “You have dirty magazines on this ship?”

Ryland flushed so red that Simon was worried he was going to pop a blood vessel. “As I said,” he said. “The most recent literature. I find it useful.”

“Clearly,” said Simon, relaxing into the lab table beneath them. With Ryland’s warm body pressed up against his, it was surprisingly comfortable. “I can’t believe you’re the one who sucked me off,” he said, his mouth running away from him in his loose post-orgasm haze. “Should’ve been me doing it for you. Makes more sense.”

That was, apparently, the wrong thing to say. Ryland sat up all of a sudden, the sudden cold shocking Simon a bit back to his senses. When he looked up, he saw that Ryland’s face had fallen into a look of concern. “What?” he said. “Why would it--?”

He stood up suddenly, horror dawning on his face. He tucked himself back into his underwear with lightning speed, backing away from a very confused Simon. “No,” he said. “No no no, that’s not--that’s not what I meant. That’s not what it was.”

“I’m sorry,” said Simon, not knowing what else to say. 

“No,” said Ryland, firmly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have--crap, Simon, I didn’t think.”

He gathered up his glasses and his cum-stained T-shirt, backing towards the ladder. He looked like he was going to be sick, reminding Simon of the way he had looked when Simon told him he had been forced to come on this mission. “I’m gonna go take a shower, okay?” he said. “I just--I’m sorry. I’ll be right back.”

He grabbed the ladder with his clean hand and slid down into the dormitory, easy in the lower gravity. Simon was left alone in the lab with his pants off, more confused than he had ever been but with the creeping suspicion that he had just massively fucked up somehow. 

“Fuck,” he muttered, under his breath. Then he started gathering up his clothes from the floor around him. 

---

Rocky was starting to come back to his normal temperature by the time their usual night cycle rolled around. Ryland and Simon both set themselves up in the dormitory while they waited for him to wake up. After his shower, Ryland had taken his time changing into a new jumpsuit that he had zipped up to the neck, and had offered to make breakfast burritos--Simon’s newly discovered favorite--for their dinner. He had a hard time looking Simon in the eye, but Simon was already miles away in his own mind, ready for the fallout to hit him hard any moment now. It still hadn’t by the time they were waiting in the dormitory, but Simon was still braced for it. 

“Look,” said Ryland, finally meeting Simon’s gaze. He looked deeply upset. Simon tried to stop himself from wondering why, but found that he couldn’t. “I really like you. Obviously, I know, but I really do like you as a person. It’s been such a good thing, having you around.”

Simon nodded in response, no clue as to where this was going. “But this,” continued Ryland, waving a hand between them, “earlier today, is, like, kind of crossing a really big line. You didn’t choose to be here, and, like you said before, you can’t choose to leave without risking really serious consequences. It’s not fair of me to…”

Simon was starting to understand where this was going. Part of him wanted to argue, to say that it didn’t actually matter, to remind Ryland that he had, in fact, been an eager participant in the blowjob that he received. But another part of him saw the truth in what Ryland was saying, the part of him that had been keeping a running tally ever since he set foot on the Hail Mary. Another, crueler part of him pointed out that this could be Ryland’s excuse, that maybe Ryland hadn’t been quite as pleased as he seemed. 

“I’m not saying, like, a hard no forever,” Ryland was saying. “It was good. Again, obviously,” he said, cringing. “But, like, could we put a pin in it until the mission’s over? Is that okay?”

Simon nodded once. “Yeah.”

Ryland seemed to relax a little. “Okay. Cool.”

The sound of shifting rock drew both of their attention. Rocky shifted in his bed, slowly gathering up his legs to bring himself to standing. Ryland picked the translator up off Simon’s bedside table and passed it to Simon. Their fingers didn’t touch at all. How long Rocky sleep, question?

Ryland checked his watch. “About thirty-seven thousand seconds. Right on schedule.”

Sleep good. Rocky ready for mission. He paused for a moment, turning his body this way and that. Ryland Simon different. Something change, question?

“Nope,” said Ryland. “We’re just ready to get to bed. I packed up all your stuff, but I’m sure you’ll want to go through it before we wake up.”

Rocky was still for a moment. Then he said, Understand. Sleep. I watch.

“Thanks, bud,” he said. Simon wasted no time sliding his body under his blankets and turning over in bed, facing the wall. His outer clothes were all laid out for their departure, leaving him in just his undershirt and the underwear that Ryland had run his hands over, the underwear he had pulled down. 

“Goodnight, Rocky,” said Ryland. “Goodnight, Simon.”

Simon couldn’t trust his voice not to come out wrong. He just grunted in acknowledgement, and nestled himself deeper in the bed. The lights clicked off, and no other sound came from the other occupants of the room, save for the quiet rustling of Rocky going through his pack. Simon squeezed his eyes shut and found them, inexplicably, hot with unfallen tears. 

He put it out of his mind. It didn’t matter. He had a job to do, and he would need to be well rested to focus on it. He held onto that thought like a lifeline, pushing away anything else that threatened to cling to him and pull him back down. 

Despite that, sleep didn’t find him easily that night. 

Chapter Text

Something was wrong with Simon and Grace, and Rocky was at a loss for what it was or how to make it right.

He was able to start putting the pieces together, at least. When he woke up, he had found the two of them standing uncharacteristically far apart, not pointing their faces towards one another the way they had been doing before Rocky went to sleep. Their faces, which Rocky had come to understand did most of the heavy lifting for emotional display in humans, were both turned into expressions associated with sadness and discomfort. A weak bloom of thanergy was radiating from Grace’s digestive tract, a small amount of cells dying in the highly acidic environment he used to sterilize his food. Rocky was able to start making a guess, his study of Grace’s secret papers which he had fed through his scanner while Grace was sleeping coming in handy. But even his best guesses gave him no clue as to how to fix their obviously fractured relationship. 

“Grace can tell Rocky anything,” he mentioned to his friend while the two of them unloaded equipment from the Hail Mary onto the surface of Arboretum. “Even if it’s embarrassing.”

It’s nothing, said Grace, the pattern of simple notes and fleshy clicks coming easily to Rocky. I don’t want to talk about it. 

Simon was still putting his clothes on in the ship above. He was much too far away for his small human ears to pick up any bit of their conversation, especially though the thick hull of the Hail Mary. “Seems like a big problem,” said Rocky. “Did Simon hurt Grace, question? If so, Rocky wants to know.”

That got a reaction out of Grace, at least. No! he said, emotion raising the pitch of the word. He didn’t do anything wrong. I did something wrong.

“What did Grace do, question?”

Grace let out a puff of air, fogging up the mouthpiece of his respirator. They were just a little too far from the atmospheric pumps of the Arboretum site to go without them. Rocky’s own respirator fit snugly over the vents at the top of his carapace, more for temperature control than actual respiration since he could go a bit longer than Grace without gas exchange. I did something inappropriate, he said, his body language indicating extreme discomfort. Rocky could read between the lines, the clues he observed filling in the parts of the story that Grace couldn’t seem to say. Humans, Rocky observed, had an almost food-like aversion to talking about anything to do with reproduction, and this situation seemed too serious to warrant unnecessary needling from Rocky. 

“That doesn’t sound like Grace,” he said. “Did Simon not want it, question?”

Grace raised both of his hands in a gesture for helplessness. I don’t know. I’m pretty sure he did want it, but. I don’t know. It still wasn’t fair.

“How, question?”

He can’t leave, said Grace. It’s not fair for me to make my--I don’t know--attraction his problem when he can’t even quit this mission. Grace paced back and forth around their prepared packs, feet scuffing through the loose rock. He might have felt like he needed to go along with it. I didn’t even think about that.

“Has Grace asked Simon how Simon feels about it, question?” asked Rocky. 

Grace paused for a second, seeming to think about that. I can’t really just ask him about that, he said. If he’s worried about me, I dunno, kicking him out or sending him back to the Ninth, he’s obviously going to say yes. 

Grace had a point, but it was still a stupid reason not to have a proper conversation. Rocky stamped one of his feet. “Grace should still communicate. It would be better than Grace and Simon not talking.”

He knew Simon was just coming down the ladder to meet them, his respirator over his face, so Grace couldn’t say whatever it was he had been planning to retort back. Grace just looked away from Simon, fiddling with the straps of his pack. Rocky stamped his foot again in frustration. “Stupid stupid stupid.”

Simon didn’t even look down at the translator clipped to his belt, which Rocky supposed meant he used that word enough that Simon had already picked it up. He looked between Grace and Rocky, confused. What?

Nothing, said Grace. Ready to go?

Yeah, said Simon

“Ready!” said Rocky, putting his friend’s troubles out of his mind for a moment to let the excitement of their mission take charge again. Grace’s research had promised several fascinating constructs protecting some inner sanctum within the Arboretum site, and Rocky was looking forward to taking them apart and studying the way they were put together--preferably after Simon had helped neutralize them, rather than while they were chasing a very panicked Grace and Rocky at the end of their necrophage supply. Neither of them had any idea what the constructs were meant to be protecting, but that was just another exciting mystery that Rocky was looking forward to uncovering. The three of them strapped on their packs--Simon’s the smallest of the three, since Rocky and Grace were already used to carrying all their supplies--and set off towards the site in the distance.

The first leg of the trip was aggressively quiet. Rocky didn't like that one bit. Usually, he and Grace would chat about the mission ahead on their walk, or at least trade jokes back and forth until they got to wherever they were going. But the silence between Grace and Simon was as thick as bone as they walked, and as the Hail Mary fell into the distance Rocky grew less and less able to tolerate it.

He had found himself growing quite fond of Simon, despite his early reservations about the human. Unlike Grace, Rocky had read his file in detail. The crimes he had been accused of hadn’t made much sense, but they were serious enough to give Rocky pause. But once Rocky had actually gotten to know him, he had found Simon to be a very pleasant addition to their crew, if perhaps a slightly shy and quiet one. Simon kept the space tidy, asked interesting questions about Rocky’s work, and had programmed a whole slew of delightful curse words into Grace’s translator. There wasn’t much not to like. 

And Rocky also knew that Grace agreed, or at least that he had. Grace’s heart had sped up considerably when he first saw Simon on the Ninth landing platform, which Rocky had teased him for at the time but which had ended up being more serious than Rocky had anticipated. It had been a long, long time since Rocky had seen Grace interact with another human, and even longer since it had been with a human Grace liked quite so much, but Rocky recognized it well. What was more surprising was the way Simon seemed to exhibit the signs of interest back. That had been exciting--Grace was especially stingy with details about human reproduction and copulation, so Rocky had been eager to study the courting process up close. And if nothing else, he was excited to see his old friend making a new friend. 

Grace’s explanation of what went wrong made some sense, but it didn’t sit right with Rocky. From his point of view, Simon and Grace seemed equally concerned with taking advantage of the other, each for reasons that would be a waste of time to count. Rocky couldn’t understand why they hadn’t cleared the air with a simple conversation yet, but he resolved to be gentle with them as well as he could while they figured it out.

“How is the function of Simon’s arm, question?” he asked. “Any problems, question?”

Simon checked the translator before responding, keeping his face pointed towards Rocky. It was unnecessary, since Rocky could hear him just as clearly no matter which way he was pointed, but he appreciated the politeness of the gesture all the same. Yes. It’s all working great.

“Good good good,” said Rocky. Simon’s new arm had been some of Rocky’s best work, if he did say so himself. Probably anything would have been better than the terrible arm Simon had arrived with. Rocky had seen constructs several thousand years old that were better made than the arm Simon was meant to use daily. “It should be fully healed now. If any part breaks during mission, Rocky can fix.”

Okay, said Simon. Thank you.

“Simon already thank many times,” said Rocky. “Understand. Now Simon tell Rocky how to improve.”

Simon looked confused. Grace did too, looking back and raising an eyebrow at Rocky. It's fine, said Simon. There’s nothing else I need. It’s already better than--

“Not perfect,” said Rocky, cutting him off. “Very, very good, but not perfect. Rocky wants to improve craft. Feedback helpful.”

With only a little bit more coaxing, Rocky was able to get Simon to start talking about the things that his flesh arm could still do better than his bone arm, things that Rocky happily noted and started planning solutions for in his mind. Some things would simply require further innovation, such as the fact that the surface of his arm was still much less sensitive than it had been before, since Rocky had exhausted his entire understanding of human nerves in order to give Simon the functionality he had. That would simply take more study, and more experimentation. But other things, like the fact that there was a ligament that caught whenever he turned his wrist while carrying something, was an easy fix. Simon assured him that it would be fine for him to wait until they were back at the ship to fix it, but Rocky could already picture the new and improved ligament in his mind as they talked the problem through. 

Eventually, Grace couldn’t help but join in. Bone construction wasn’t anywhere near his wheelhouse, and he was pretty hopeless when it came to anything more complicated than the most basic theorems, but his curiosity still got the better of him. Rocky couldn’t help but feel satisfied once he had drawn Grace into the conversation and gotten him and Simon to at least talk to one another, even if it was just about human ligament tissue and bone density. The two of them walked on either side of Rocky, but at least now they were looking at one another. Rocky could call that a win. 

The Arboretum site rose up over the rocky ridges after only a few minutes of walking, and Rocky had to admit that it was smaller than he expected. A square stone building only slightly bigger than the dormitory of the Hail Mary stood alone against the barren landscape, made from thick blocks of what appeared to be the same rock that surrounded them. An ancient metal door was the only feature Rocky could discern, but more interesting to him was the structure next to it. Carved from the same rough rock was a tall, thin sculpture of some kind, one that started as a thick protrusion from the ground and divided as it crept upwards, until it ended in several dozen skinny points just above the height of the building. 

Is that a tree? asked Simon in disbelief. 

Looks like it, said Grace. No way it could be alive, though. Not in this atmosphere.

“Tree is made of stone,” said Rocky. “Sculpture. Decoration, question?

That would make sense, said Grace. He scratched his head. From the texts I thought it would be bigger, though.

Once they had gotten a few steps further, Rocky immediately figured out why. Underneath the little stone building was a massive network of tunnels and hallways, all dug into the thick rock itself. The walls and ceilings were incredibly thick, so much so that Rocky could only see down a few layers, but he could tell that there were tunnels and caverns leading off into the edges of what he could sense. There was movement, too, the promise of weird constructs shifting beneath their feet just waiting to be found and examined. Rocky was suddenly impatient. “Arboretum is mostly underground! Very large! Many many rooms and tunnels.”

He picked up the pace, letting Simon and Grace catch up behind him. They crossed the last stretch between them and the site in just a few minutes, Simon and Grace both breathing heavily into their respirators as they came to a stop in front of the fascinating little building. It was secured by an ancient computerized lock, the metal of the machinery practically rusted through but the screen still buzzing with electricity. Rocky got to work setting chips of potent bone into the cracks he could find in the door as Simon and Grace took their respirators off, the atmosphere thick enough this close to the site for them to breathe. It seemed to be coming out of a pump near the roof of the building, slow and soupy but surprisingly fresh-smelling as Rocky took off his own respirator. Once the chips of bone were in place, he motioned for Grace to bend down so he could reach the necrophage converter. “We should begin thanergy release now.”

Grace crouched low enough for Rocky to reach. There’s a lot of weird necromancy here, he said. Nobody’s been here for a few millenia at least, but they brought some serious thanergy with them when they did. 

“Understand,” said Rocky. That matched what they had guessed from Grace’s studies. Rocky turned the crank on the necrophage valve to its lowest setting, allowing only a few individual cells to release their thanergy at a time. A faint, steady bloom of thanergy immediately flowed from the device, and Rocky harnessed it easily to expand the bone chips in the door with enough force to pop the decayed metal from its hinges. A hiss of dusty air rushed out, and Simon drew his sword from his scabbard. But nothing waited for them behind the door but an empty stone room with a small hole in the center, and a rusted ladder leading down. 

“Amaze!” said Rocky. “It is time-go!”

---

The walls of the Arboretum were thick. Rocky only got a slightly better view of the rooms around them once they climbed down the ladder into the first chamber. 

Nothing bad waited for them below. The room looked like an ancient storage bay with the skeletons of rusted equipment piled in the corners under long-decayed tarps. Two doors similar to the one at the entrance sat on either side of the room, and Rocky could tell that behind one was an elevator shaft, and behind the other was a lab. Beyond that, the thick walls made it fuzzy. Grace turned on a battery-powered lamp while Simon got to work checking every corner of the room, leaving no cranny large enough to hide a skeleton unchecked before returning to the middle of the room. Grace watched him as he worked, making no move to unpack anything else. 

“Grace want to start examining room, question?” said Rocky after Grace had been staring at Simon for a little too long. 

Grace jumped into action, unzipping his pack. Yup. You got it. Great idea, buddy. 

He put his glasses on his face properly as he got his scant equipment out, a sure sign he was starting to take this seriously. Rocky was a little disappointed not to find any constructs waiting for them in here. Typically, Rocky and Grace made sure to clear every room one at a time to keep from being overwhelmed, but that meant that Rocky had precious little to do in rooms that didn’t have much to offer his areas of expertise. Grace only got more and more energized as he started inspecting the contents of the room, though, soaking up almost all of the thanergy from their generator as he investigated the thanergic signatures on each piece of equipment. Simon leaned against a nearby wall that gave him a good view of the whole room, sliding his sword back into its scabbard and mostly keeping his eyes on Grace as he worked. 

Grace muttered into his voice recorder as he went, his sleeves growing damp as he wiped blood sweat from his forehead and cheeks as he worked. Simon watched him carefully, turning his face away whenever it seemed like Grace might lift his head up to look at him. It frustrated Rocky. Neither of them seemed happy with whatever their current situation was. He was about to say something, forming a plan in his mind to gently nudge them both to that conclusion, when Grace yelled in surprise and delight, picking up a small device from the pile he was standing over. 

“What did Grace find, question?” asked Rocky, hurrying over. 

This, said Grace, pulling his lips back to bare his teeth joyfully, is an ancient plant-based thanergy detector! This thing must be older than you, Rock!

Simon kicked off his wall to come see the device. It was a tiny thing with a thick handle at the top, an empty chamber in the middle, and a complex network of bone connecting the inside of the chamber to a set of thin metal meters on the top. Some crumbly, dead material sat in the bottom of the empty chamber. “Amaze,” he said. “Good find. Valuable for study or for money.”

How does it work? asked Simon. 

These bone proxies are all connected to the roots of a tiny plant on the inside, said Grace, pointing to the webbing of bone on the outside. Internal sensors measure the hydration of the plant, while the proxies pump ambient thanergy through the living tissue. If the plant starts to rapidly die, the hydration sensors pick up on it and cause the dials up here to show trace amounts of thanergy. Grace’s voice wavered between a wider range of frequencies, showing his excitement. It’s really old tech, but modern thanergy sensors work in more or less the same way. 

Is there still a living plant in there? asked Simon, staring intently at the machine. 

Grace shook his head. The sensor plant’s been dead for years. They still need water and occasional light when they’re not being used, and nobody’s been around to give it that.

Simon looked almost disappointed. He seemed to realize how close he had gotten to Grace, their bodies near enough that a gentle push would have knocked their shoulders together, and he backed away all at once. Grace’s face fell as Simon retreated. He went back to his work, and Rocky went back to his plotting, wondering if maybe it would be worth it to simply lock them in a part of the Arboretum until they worked out their issues. But it was a stupid idea with so many unknowns, so he shelved that plan as a truly last resort. 

Grace finished his initial examination of the room, and they moved on to the room opposite the elevator shaft. This room was more to Rocky’s taste, as three skeletons formed from piles of bones as soon as they stepped through the door. They were pretty terrible, as far as skeletons went--one was missing a skull--but they were still constructs, and so Rocky was still interested. Simon was the first one into the room, shattering the closest skeleton into pieces, and Rocky used fragments from the first skeleton to send spears of new bone through the remaining two, cracking them into their composite pieces. It was an underwhelming fight, but Simon looked as glad as Rocky for something to do. 

Rocky examined the bones left behind. “Bad construction,” he said. “Old. Not meant to last. Triggered by ward on door, but not clear why they attack.”

Grace placed his hands on the doorframe, warm blood beading on his skin as he concentrated. I think they’re protecting something, he said. There’s a conditional here. Some kind of check that they made which we failed that made them attack. I can’t figure out what, though. 

“Understand. Information useful,” said Rocky. 

They went through the lab a little quicker, though Rocky knew Grace would be eager to return to it. He filled an age-worn metal bin with papers, making all sorts of interested and excited noises as he chose which ones to bring with them and which to leave. There were a few more doors leading off of the lab, and Rocky was most interested to learn what lay in the very large room through the closest door. Once Grace had finished choosing papers, Rocky unlocked the door with a few more bone chips, sending it careening through the frame, off some ledge, and down a very deep-sounding pit. 

“Too much force,” he said as Simon and Grace both gave him a look. “Apologize.”

The room beyond the lab was much larger than either of the two they had seen before. It was a tall cylinder large enough for the entire Hail Mary to stand upright in, ringed with rusting platforms and thick stone stairs between levels. In the center of the room, a stream of water flowed from a hole in the ceiling to some far-off depths below. The bottom was too far away for Rocky to be certain of, but he could easily tell that every level was populated by at least a few skeletons, every single one of them stopping in their tasks as the door went sailing past them. Simon stepped through the door before Grace or Rocky could stop him, and Rocky saw every single skeleton turn, set their empty eyes on him, and charge. 

Fuck! shouted Simon, hurrying back into the lab. Guys? There’s a fuckton of skeletons out there.

What? Grace peeked his head out the door to get a look. Oh man. Yeah, that’s a lot. 

“More necrophage!” shouted Rocky. “We leave this room. Too small to fight.”

Grace ran for his pack, which he had left on the far side of the lab, but the skeletons they had already dispatched were starting to re-form, broken bones regrowing and reforming to block his path. It would have been fascinating to study if it hadn’t been a bit of a problem. Grace slammed his body through them, sending bone fragments flying as he reached the pack and cranked up the necrophage valve. Thanergy bloomed much faster than before, and Rocky drew on it immediately to grow the bone chips he had used to dislodge the door into a barrier of bone webbing across the empty doorway. 

This door isn’t warded, said Grace, slinging his pack back on and pointing to one of the other lab doors. He, Simon and Rocky all ran for it as the skeletons in the great big room outside all converged on the door, Rocky’s hastily grown barrier cracking under dusty phalanges and rotting teeth. The unwarded door led to a tight spiral staircase down, and spat them out in a new room just below. 

There wasn’t any time to study this room, though Rocky knew Grace wanted to. Rows of troughs ran up and down it in orderly lines, tube lights buzzing overhead. Rocky could tell by the way Simon and Grace looked more freely around the space that the ancient lights were somehow still working, making them both more confident and efficient as they threw down their packs near the center of the room and turned to face the oncoming hordes. The floor in the far corner of the room was cracked to ruin, a gaping hole leading down to the room below. “Careful!” said Rocky. “Floor in this room not very stable.”

The skeletons poured through the doorway, but Simon was waiting to dispatch them easily. They could only come at him two at a time, and his sword flew in a shower of crumbling bone as he picked them off easily. It gave Grace the time he needed to raise a thanergic field behind the door, slowing them further and allowing Rocky an opportunity to stretch thicker bone across the doorway to give them a more solid barrier. 

You’re running pretty hot, Rock, Grace said. There was blood flowing from his nose, now, threatening to drip from his chin. 

It’s a dead end, said Simon, who had gone off to check the rest of the room once Rocky and Grace were able to slow the skeletons with their necromancy. All these doors lead to fucking closets.

“Not a dead end,” said Rocky. “Floor below hole short jump. Safe to go down.”

We can’t just keep going down, said Simon. 

“No choice. Many many skeletons coming from big room.”

They were clamoring at Rocky’s second barrier, scrabbling and gnashing at the thick bone. Rocky could just keep replenishing it, but that would burn through their necrophage fast and wouldn’t solve their actual problem. There weren’t any constructs directly below them, and Rocky was confident he could see multiple different passageways branching out from the room. “Grace and Simon go down. Rocky use necrophage to thicken barrier, then follow with Grace pack.”

Grace was silent for a moment as he ran that plan over in his own mind, and then stuck out his thumb at Rocky. You got it. 

They ran in opposite directions, Simon and Grace towards the hole in the floor and Rocky towards the door. He gathered up the thanergy still spilling from Grace’s pack and thickened the bone barrier, trapping the hands of a few of the closer skeletons in the newly grown material. They were still breaking through it at a pretty regular pace, but it would take them a little longer now. He snatched up Grace’s pack as Grace and Simon both hopped down into the room below without any trouble, landing safely on the stone floor. Rocky had almost made it to the edge of the hole when a heavy tremor shook the stone around them, causing Rocky to nearly lose his balance as something shifted in the structures below. 

What was that? Simon shouted. He and Grace were standing near the center of the mostly empty room, almost back to back, Simon holding his sword at the ready. Beneath their feet, a free chunk of stone shifted with their changing weight, cracked all the way through and terribly unstable.

“Careful!” Rocky shouted. “Floor is not safe--”

The thick stone rumbled beneath them again, stress lines meeting one another in the worn floor and giving way all at once. The slab Grace and Simon were standing on tipped, throwing them both to their knees, before the stone around them started to crumble all at once, the room they had just landed in sinking into the room one level below, walls coming loose and dropping like they had been waiting for just that moment to finally give up. Rocky shot a spike of bone into the room to try to keep the floor from collapsing entirely, but the necrophage was converting too slowly, the thanergy not nearly enough. The spike was smashed to bits by falling rock, and Rocky had to scramble back from the ledge as pieces began to fall from it too. He just barely saw the shape of Simon diving for Grace, shoving him into a mostly stable hallway in the lowest room before the ceiling caved behind them, burying their entrance in a mound of rubble that quickly grew too thick for Rocky to hear through. 

He shouted their names, looking in horror as the rock finished its dramatic death and came to rest, burying his friends. A loud crack from the other side of the room distracted him--a skeletal hand reaching its way through his barrier, grasping at the bone to try to tear it down. 

“Stay safe, Grace and Simon!” he shouted, hoping his friends could hear him, hoping they were still alive to hear. He strapped Grace’s pack to his underside, feeling the polycloth straps hover on the brink of melting from the heat of his necromancy. He cranked the necrophage tank up another notch. Worry for his friends threatened to overwhelm him, but first he had to make sure that he could live to save them. “Rocky come back to rescue! Stay safe!”

The barrier started to crack, and Rocky planted his feet. 

Chapter Text

“Yeah,” panted Ryland, his shoulders aching. “This isn’t moving.”

He had known that in an instant, but it would’ve felt silly not to try. Most of the chunks of stone in the heap that used to be the mouth of the tunnel were larger than Ryland’s whole body. He gave the mound one more shove, not a single pebble dislodging to show for it. That was probably for the best, he thought. He spared another look at the massive pieces of wall and floor that blocked their entrance, pieces that had been just inches from crushing him, and shuddered. 

One moment he had been stumbling to his knees, the room shifting sickeningly around him, and the next he had been flying backwards through an open tunnel with an armful of Simon, landing hard on his back on the stone floor but with his head and neck cushioned by Simon’s arms. The sound of the collapse had been deafening, but Ryland thought he had heard Rocky calling out to them  through the ceiling as it crumbled. Ryland hoped he was all right. All things considered, he probably was better off--he was stuck alone on the upper levels with a horde of skeletons chasing him, but at least he had the necrophage tank. Ryland wasn’t completely running on empty--he had siphoned up a great deal of thanergy before they had gotten separated, expecting to have to help Simon deal with the skeletons. But he couldn’t feel even the slightest trace of thanergy through the fallen stone, and the rest of the tunnel around them felt as long-dead as the rest of the Arboretum. 

Stepping back from the cave-in, Ryland took a moment to get his bearings. The walls of the tunnel they were in were lit by sagging tube lights that halfheartedly flickered, casting everything below them in thick shadow as they followed the curve of the hallway off into the distance. Besides that, there were some rusted metal rails lining the upper half of each wall, and not much else to speak of. Simon, who had been pacing up and down the crumbled end of the tunnel, stopped to watch Ryland as he stared down into the distance. “What now?” he asked. “Any idea where we are?”

Ryland shrugged. “No. It looks like some kind of maintenance tunnel, though, so there’s probably another way up somewhere down here.”

Simon looked apprehensively between the crumbled wall and the dark hallway, sheathing his sword. Something in the bowels of the structure rumbled ominously, making them both shiver. “Are you going to be able to do necromancy down here?” he asked.

“Yeah,” said Ryland, trying to sound reassuring. Simon stared into him, impossible to read in the low light. “For a while, anyway. Let’s focus on finding a way out of here, okay?”

The first time something like this had happened on a mission, Ryland had been terrified. He and Rocky had split up to explore different sectors of an old, haunted castle, and Ryland had gotten trapped in some kind of strange, ancient torture-puzzle. The ancient-ness of the trap had been its undoing: the rivets holding the saw blades in place had rusted so thoroughly that when the saws spun up to full speed, they just kind of fell apart, leaving nothing but pathetically rotating spools for Ryland to get slowly forced into. That hadn’t mattered. Ryland had screamed and wailed so loudly that Rocky had heard him through eight stone walls. 

Nowadays, this kind of thing was only slightly more concerning than normal. He and Rocky planned these missions out thoroughly, and while it was becoming obvious that they would need to account for one of them getting separated from their thanergy source, most potential problems had contingency plans already in place. Simon and Ryland each had a day’s worth of food and water on their person, which they could stretch to two if they really were stuck down here. 

And, Ryland had to admit, he felt a little safer with Simon around. He had barely been able to tear his eyes away from him in action--bones shattering into dust with every swing of his sword, more powerful even than the movements Ryland had seen him practice, likely thanks to his new and improved arm. It was already hard enough to look away from him, but seeing him so in his element had been almost unbearable. Ryland still bore it, though, because the amount he had been letting himself look had already caused them both so much trouble. 

They walked side by side down the tunnel, turning a corner to find an intersection with four branching paths, each labeled with a sign that was thoroughly eroded and unreadable. Ryland picked the one that seemed to be going closest to where they had come from, and they continued down another stretch of nearly featureless hallway. “Did your research say anything about this?” asked Simon.

“Not much,” he said. “Only that there were maintenance tunnels in the lower levels.”

“Hm,” said Simon. “What were they maintaining?”

“That’s what I couldn’t figure out,” said Ryland. “Something that required a lot of water at one point, and a really robust electrical grid. I mean, it’s crazy that these lights are still working,” he said, pointing to the faint tube lighting. “Whatever radioactive source that’s powering this place must be buried well underground, ‘cause the Hail Mary didn’t pick it up at all.”

“Could there be something alive down here?” asked Simon. 

“Maybe. I’d be very surprised, though.”

The sound of something skittering across stone somewhere behind them made them both freeze and turn, Simon drawing his sword. The shadows were too dark to make out anything, but Ryland thought he saw some faint flash of movement in the darkness. “It’s not alive things I’m really worried about down here,” he said, “but, rather, dead things.”

They both stood still as the sound stopped, and then changed direction, seeming to move around them in a wider arc than there was space for within the tunnel. Simon turned and pressed his back into Ryland’s and Ryland swallowed thickly as his heart gave an unwarranted kick to the inside of his chest. He could feel the muscles shifting under Simon’s heavy sweater as he readied his sword, and Ryland distracted himself by peering into the dark end of the tunnel for any more movement. He saw nothing, but the skittering sounds only grew louder. Whatever it was that was nearby, it seemed like it had more than two skeletal legs. Ryland’s ears strained as he tried to pick out the source of the sound from the echoes that came from the tunnel walls. 

He felt Simon’s head tip up, and then his whole body tensed against Ryland’s back. “Oh, fuck,” he said. “The ceiling!”

Ryland looked up. Clung to the ceiling and illuminated by the faint tunnel lights was a bone construct, about two bodies long and a little less than a body wide. The thing was mostly made of vertebrae, thick nasty ones that were as big around as Ryland’s arm and with spinous processes as sharp as swords, with rib bones forming spikes all the way down either side and three sets of legs evenly spaced from its skull to the end of its long spine. The legs were clawed with talons made from sharpened human scapulae, and the skull had an almost reptilian shape to it and housed at least three rows that Ryland could see of long, jagged teeth. It was a common design from the time period Ryland had nailed down for the Arboretum, but it was still a nasty one. Ryland had only just gotten a good look at it before it was leaping at them from the ceiling, Simon and Ryland both moving as one to get out of the way. It landed with a clatter of bone and rock, and whirled itself around gracefully to charge at the two of them. 

“Run!” shouted Ryland, grabbing Simon by the sleeve of his flesh arm, and then they were sprinting down the hallway, the construct’s footsteps thunderous behind them. It didn’t make any sound--no wall-shaking roars, no blood-curdling shrieks or hisses--but the rattle of bone against the stony walls and floors was cacophonous in the empty space, and more than enough to indicate just how close behind them the thing was. The tunnel came to another fork, and Ryland chose a direction at random, leading Simon down the hallway and into a new tunnel lined with heavy metal doors. Before the creature could fully turn the corner, he wrenched open a metal door that was mercifully unlocked, shoved both himself and Simon through, and slammed it closed behind them.

He locked it by turning the wide metal wheel on the inside of the door, an ancient design that betrayed the age of the place as much as the style of the construct. A heavy weight slammed into the door just as he had gotten the wheel into place, bone and metal both groaning under the force of the impact but neither giving way just yet. As Ryland slowly backed away, into the room that appeared to be a storage room of some kind, the creature bashed against the door a few more times before seeming to give up, the skittering receding into the distance. 

“Fuck!” hissed Simon. He looked agitated, which Ryland figured was fair. He had backed himself all the way into the corner of the storage room, still holding his sword out in front of him as if he expected the creature to burst through the door at any moment. “What the fuck was that?”

“Some kind of construct, by the looks of it,” said Ryland. “It’ll be part of this place’s defenses. It probably would only stand down for the necromancer who made it.”

Simon pressed himself deeper into the corner, tripping over ancient buckets and wedging himself between crumbling shelves. He didn’t look like he was moving by anything other than pure instinct, all hints of strategy replaced by a blind primal fear. Maybe he was a little more agitated than Ryland originally thought. “What does it want?” he growled. “Can it still hear us?”

“It can’t hear us at all,” said Ryland. “It’s probably only made to hunt us down and kill us. It’ll be tracking us off of our thalergy--our life energy.”

Simon’s shoulders raised, sword shaking in his hands. Ryland was getting more and more confused. Simon had clearly fought necromancers before, and it stood to reason that he would have had just as much experience fighting necromancers who used constructs as necromancers who used skeletons. There wasn’t really much difference between one and the other--it came down to a matter of the necromancer’s preference and the basic shape of the construct, but the theorems were almost exactly the same. Most necromancers also only put the most basic of instructions into their constructs--clean, serve food, fight enemies, but nothing more intense. Constructs like Rocky were the exception rather than the rule, and Ryland had long suspected that some other force than a human necromancer had to be responsible for the creation of Rocky and his kind. Simon’s questions didn’t make much sense, and Ryland was eager to try to understand. 

“Most constructs only follow simple directives,” he said. “I don’t think that one was much different.”

“How do you know?” Simon’s dark eyes were wild with fear. He was still holding his sword, his eyes darting back and forth between Ryland and the door. “Do you hear it talking to you?”

Ryland frowned. “No? Do you?”

Some of the fear seemed to drain from Simon’s face, though not nearly enough. “No. Not yet.”

“Okay,” said Ryland, moving closer to Simon’s corner until he was right in front of him. “I’m going to ward the door real quick, just in case it comes back. That’ll make it harder for it to get through, and hurt it pretty badly if it does. Okay?”

Simon nodded, and Ryland bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood, dipping a finger into his mouth and bringing it out faintly red with mixed blood and saliva. The fear that Simon had seemed to let go of came right back when he saw the blood, his whole body shaking with it. “It’s okay,” said Ryland, kind of at a loss for what to do to help. “I need some of your saliva, though. That way you can pass safely through the doorway if we ever need to leave.”

For a second, Simon didn’t respond. Then, slowly, shakily, he opened his mouth, lowering his sword to the floor. Ryland took that as the go-ahead to swipe one clean finger across his tongue, immediately hoping it wasn’t too gross with sweat and rust and powdered stone. He gathered up just enough spit to make a ward, and left Simon just long enough to paint some basic symbols around the doorway with their combined spit and his own blood. This he could at least do with a high level of confidence, each line of the ward practiced and smooth, and the ward that went up when it was done was good and stable. He wiped his hands on his jumpsuit before returning to Simon, who had slumped down to the floor, legs folded up against themselves as his back remained pressed against the wall. 

“All right,” he said. “The doorway’s warded, so anything that isn’t the two of us is going to have a hard time getting past it.” He pulled up an overturned bucket to sit on. “Now, do you want to tell me about constructs that have spoken to you? Because aside from Rocky, that’s not something I’m very familiar with.”

He sat on the bucket as Simon told him a horror story, in a voice quieter and rougher than the rock of the tunnels, about an ocean of blood that he had seen from the inside of some kind of submarine, about a construct made from flesh and bone that spoke to him in his mind, getting in his head and drawing him towards his death as Ninth necromancers did a halfhearted job of keeping him alive. He listened as Simon described it in halting half-sentences, painting a picture that was as horrifying in its detail as it was in the things Simon could not or would not say. What details he shared were alien to even Ryland, who had spent the best part of his life studying weird constructs and ancient necromancy. It was hard to connect the details to anything Ryland had studied when his horror at what Simon had experienced was so overwhelming, his heart feeling swollen and painful in his chest with every new detail. 

“Anyway, I don’t know how they got me back,” finished Simon, his eyes pointed towards the center of the room but his gaze millions of miles away. “The blood was doing--it was changing me, doing weird shit to me. I guess they fished me out after the sub imploded,” he added. “The thing--they said it died. They were angry that I killed it, ‘cause now they can’t fucking study it or whatever. That and I blew up their sub, so.” 

He grabbed at the base of his bone arm with the hand that was holding his sword, the blade scraping a little against the forearm bones. Credit to the toughness of Rocky’s creations, it didn’t even leave a mark. Rocky would probably have been entranced by this story, possibly to the point where he might not have remembered to be sensitive to the obvious fear that came up as Simon was telling it. Thinking of Rocky threatened to send another wave of panic through Ryland, and so he squashed the thought before it could begin. 

“That,” said Ryland, “does not sound like any construct I’ve ever seen before.”

“But what if that thing is like it?” said Simon, pointing towards the door. 

Ryland tightened the hand that he hadn’t realized he had put on Simon’s thigh. “It isn’t,” he said, with complete confidence. “A process like that would have a huge thanergic signature, one I would have been able to pick up on from the surface. Honestly, I think a decent necromancer might be able to pinpoint a construct of that size and that complexity within miles on psychometry alone.”

Simon’s brow pinched. “Then why the fuck did they send me down?”

Ryland shook his head, hot anger bubbling up inside him. “I have no idea. There’s no good reason for it. Even the weakest necromancer would have been in a hell of a lot less danger than you were.”

Simon’s eyes snapped from the middle distance to Ryland’s. “You swear now?”

“Didn’t mean to,” said Ryland with a sigh. “Not the point. You never, ever should have been sent down with something like that. Ever.”

“All the necromancers there were super old,” said Simon. “Maybe the Ninth didn’t want to risk one of them.”

White-hot rage flashed behind Ryland’s eyes, and he seized Simon by the shoulders. “They never should have risked you,” he said. 

Simon’s eyes were tired when he met Ryland’s gaze. “I was a convict. I was the worst of the--”

“Shut up,” said Ryland. His own voice was surprising him every time he talked. “Shut. Up. Shut up, Simon.” He took Simon’s beautiful face in his hands, wiping strands of black hair away where they had plastered themselves to his cheeks with sweat. Even here, in the dim light, Ryland could see the scars there--scars he hadn’t been able to place when he was looking at Simon before, but which were now impossible not to identify as old flesh necromancy that had since receded and healed over. Simon, who was thoughtful and charming and funny and brave and who could never in a thousand lifetimes do something to deserve the hell he was describing. “You are one of the best people I’ve ever met.”

Ryland could hear his heart in his ears as he looked into Simon’s eyes, searching desperately for some hint that Simon believed him. “I would drown every last Ninth necromancer if it meant saving you,” he added, finding that he believed every word. 

When Simon kissed him, it had none of the heat of the first kiss they had shared. His lips were soft against Rylands, like an offer or a question rather than fiery determination. Ryland caught his lips with his own before Simon could pull away, ignoring every scrap of integrity still left in him that was screaming at the inappropriateness of it all, letting all of his care and his affection pour into Simon through the gentleness of their kiss. His own mouth probably still tasted a little like blood, but Simon didn’t pull away until Ryland did, his bottom lip marked with rusty red. 

“I’m sor-” Simon began.

“Please don’t,” said Ryland. “We can’t both be sorry.”

Simon met his gaze, and Ryland finally started to see some of the belief he had been looking for. “Okay,” he said. 

“Okay?” Relief sat poised on the edge of Ryland’s mind, ready to spill into him. 

“Yeah,” said Simon. “I wanted to do that. Did you?”

“Yes,” said Ryland, feeling something click satisfyingly into place that had been askew for way too long. To prove his point, he pulled Simon in and kissed him again, delighting in the way Simon leaned forward into it, returning the kiss eagerly. He tried to remember what he had been so worried about, but the ecstatic feeling of Simon’s mouth on his was prohibitively distracting. Maybe he would remember later, but it was hard to call up anything else at the moment. 

“So,” said Simon, once they had pulled apart again. “Does this mean you’re interested in, um. Not putting a pin in it? Taking the pin out?”

Ryland sighed. “Rocky’s still in trouble, and there’s a bone construct trying to kill us outside that door,” he said, hating every word. “But, um. Once we’re out of here, I think definitely yes. No pin.”

“No pin,” said Simon. 

“Yeah, whatever,” said Ryland. “We’ve still got a very unintelligent, very simple, but still very pointy bone construct out there hunting us. Not the most romantic situation I could imagine.”

“No,” said Simon. He picked up his sword again, his hands steady on the hilt. He was smiling, and Ryland felt giddy with it. “I agree. Not really.”

“Then let’s go out there,” said Ryland, “and kill us a gosh-darned construct so we can get out of here.”

---

Simon was first through the door, sword at the ready, but no construct was waiting for them in the hallway outside. They left the relative safety of their storage closet and raced down the hallway, Ryland looking ahead and Simon guarding their rear, both of them keeping one eye on the ceiling as they raced towards unexplored tunnel that they hoped might hold an exit. 

“It really doesn’t matter how loud we are?” asked Simon.

“Nope,” said Ryland. “It didn’t have any soft tissue, which you need to give a construct hearing. Besides, if it could hear it would have found us immediately when the tunnel caved in.”

“Good point,” said Simon. 

They checked every other door, finding mostly other storage rooms and an ancient boiler room filled with long-silent machinery. Each room was a dead end, so they pressed onwards. They came to a fork, followed it one way, and found the caved-in tunnel they had started at and had to retrace their steps back to the fork, choosing a different path that led down a flight of stairs into more empty hallway. 

“I’m starting to get a better idea of this place,” said Simon as they rounded more unfamiliar corners, keeping their eyes out for the creature. “We should go this way. That’ll bring us closer to the center.” 

Ryland followed him easily. Simon looked back in his element, sword held confidently in his hand as he ran down the halls. Ryland was proud to be able to keep up with him, though he expected his own legs would give out a little before Simon’s. He indulged in just a brief second of appreciation for those thick thighs and the gorgeously soft hair he knew covered them before turning his focus back to the situation at hand. 

They reached another set of stairs leading down, and then passed through a narrow archway back into an area that seemed a little more like Arboretum proper. The rails by the ceiling and the tube lights were the same, but now the doors were a bit nicer-looking, like this was somewhere people used to live and work. Behind some of the doors were rows of beds with long-gone mattresses, and behind another was a comparatively nicer bedroom with a soft-robed skeleton the only occupant of the dusty double bed in the center.

Simon raised his sword as soon as he saw the skeleton, but lowered it once it made no move to attack them. Ryland looked around the room, at the shelves full of old paper books and the desk piled high with bone bits and scribbled papers. He spared a little thanergy to psychometrically inspect the skeleton, getting flashes of a life that looked very similar to his--study, theorems, research. “That’s the necromancer who built this place,” he said. “Or, was, I guess.”

He snapped off a few finger bones and stuffed them in his pocket for later. “Your lizard is a nasty piece of work,” he said to the skeleton, confident that there was no revenant waiting around a place like this to come attack him. “Ugly, too.”

Simon laughed, and Ryland delighted in the sound. “Let’s keep moving,” he said, unable to keep the grin off his face. 

The last door along the hallway opened into a tiny, circular room, featureless except for a hole in the ceiling and a pit in the floor, through which a single stream of water ran from distant heights to invisible depths. It reminded Ryland of the stream they had seen in the big room with all the skeletons. On the opposite wall was another door, and Ryland could practically feel the energy coming off of it, the ward more powerful than any of the others they had encountered so far. 

“Uh oh,” said Simon, just as a familiar skittering noise rushed up behind them. “We’ve got company!”

Ryland slammed the thin metal door shut. The construct smashed through it, taking several big chunks of wall with it and burying what was left of the door in a pile of broken rock. It looked the same as it had before, realistically, but Ryland couldn’t shake the feeling that it looked mad. “Come on, then!” he shouted as he and Simon took up positions on either side of the water stream. “Let’s do this!”

The construct targeted him first, which made sense if it could distinguish between non-adept and necromancer. He raised a shield of pure thanergy between him and it, its jaws starting to rot and crumble as they approached, and as the creature reared back he saw Simon ready to deliver a powerful blow to its jagged spine. The effect hadn’t been very strong--Ryland still needed to conserve his thanergy, and could already feel himself running worryingly dry--but it had slowed the construct enough that Simon’s blows landed perfectly, separating the last pair of legs from the rest of the construct and crushing the severed legs into useless bone dust. That dust became Ryland’s materials, which he formed into thin, flat darts that flung themselves into the construct’s fragile joints. 

He could feel hot blood running down his face as the thing reared backwards, not experiencing pain but rather the basic self-preservation that any prudent necromancer added to any construct more complex than a skeleton. Simon took advantage, hacking at the construct’s spine again and sending another shower of vertebrae to the stone floor, a few falling into the pit with the stream of water. The creature swiped with two of its remaining clawed legs, the first missing Simon completely but the second clipping his shoulder, drawing blood. Simon hissed in pain, but the cut didn’t seem deep. He had moved so quickly, dodging even as the hooked scapulae were upon him. 

Ryland was running on fumes, but he pushed his necromancy to the limits, feeling blood bead at the inside corners of his eyes as he forced the bone darts he had sent into the monster’s joints to expand, popping some of the looser joints entirely free. Battered and on only three working legs, the construct made one last lunge at Ryland, moving faster than it ever should have been able to in such a state. The many-layered jaws were flying towards him faster than he could react, and on instinct he shielded his face with his arms, bracing for impact. 

It never came. Simon was suddenly in front of him with a crunch of bone, and Ryland realized he had wedged his sword in the thing’s jaws, forcing them apart. He twisted the hilt, the move powered by every muscle from his arms down his back and into his legs, and the skull snapped cleanly in two, upper jaws dislocated from lower, teeth clattering all across the floor. He shoved a booted foot into what was left of it, sending it over the edge and into the pit where the water disappeared, the bones falling inert down the hole and into the blackness below. 

“Oh my god,” said Ryland, breathing hard. He wiped his face, getting bright red blood all over the sleeves of his jumpsuit. He felt dizzy. “We did it!”

“We did!” shouted Simon, but he sounded far away. He turned to look at Ryland, Ryland’s vision tunneling until all he could see was Simon’s face, going from joyful to concerned all at once. “Ryland?”

His knees hit the floor, some sharp bone underneath digging painfully into his skin. He opened his mouth to respond, but the darkness was already taking him. It had been a while since he had passed out from overtaxing his necromancy, he thought, annoyance coloring the relief he felt at their successful fight against the construct. 

He slumped not onto the bone-strewn floor, but onto something nice and soft and solid, where he promptly passed out. 

Chapter Text

Simon knew that necromancers were constitutionally fragile, even for those as unusually strong as Ryland--Blood of Eden had had a handful of necromancers, and Simon had been no stranger to them fainting after especially taxing feats of necromancy. Even so, he didn’t breathe easy until he saw Ryland’s blue eyes flutter open, flecks of drying blood sticking his eyelashes together and turning Simon’s stomach just a bit. 

“Ugh,” he groaned, a little gurgly. “How long did I…?”

“Just a few minutes,” said Simon. It had felt like hours. Simon had barely made it in time to catch him as he went down, scrabbling shaking fingers through the blood oozing from his face and skin to check his pulse and breathing as his head lolled in Simon’s lap. Simon had tried to wipe a little of it off with his sleeves, even though the sight of it had made panic rise in his gut. It was still stuck to Ryland’s face and beard, streaky and browning. Simon helped him up with a hand on his back. “How are you feeling?”

Ryland laughed weakly. “Been better, but I’ve also been worse.”

Simon didn’t doubt it. Ryland seemed at ease even as he was recovering, wiping his face on his already filthy sleeves like he did this every day. He reached clumsily around in his pocket for an energy bar, and Simon, lacking anything else to do and wanting nothing more than to be helpful, took it from his hands to tear it open for him. 

He smiled, dried blood between his teeth. “Thank you.”

They sat in silence in the bone-strewn room for a little bit while Ryland recovered, Simon eventually eating one of his own bars. He wasn’t sure exactly how long they had been down there at this point, but adrenaline had certainly been keeping his hunger at bay. Eventually, Ryland started pulling himself back up to his feet, and Simon was there with a steadying hand to help him up. 

“Well,” said Ryland, taking a look around the room. “Looks like we’re in another pickle.”

The door they had come through hadn’t caved in entirely, but the space left was barely big enough for Simon to fit his arm through. “I tried moving that stuff,” he said, pointing to the doorway, “but it’s either really heavy or really stuck in there.”

“Looks like it,” said Ryland. His eyes drifted over to the opposite door, which Simon hadn’t even tried yet. Something about it made him uneasy, and in an ancient ruin full of strange necromancy he figured he should probably trust that feeling. “If I had the necrophage, I could make some of these bones into skeletons to clear it for us, but.”

“How empty are you?” asked Simon. 

Ryland grimaced. “I don’t think I could make a finger bone right now.”

They walked together towards the other door, Simon staying close in case Ryland passed out again. “This ward seems pretty nasty,” he said, looking over the doorframe. “I haven’t even got enough juice to figure out what it is, let alone un-ward it.”

He reached his right hand towards the handle, paused, and then reached his left hand instead. As his hand approached the handle, his fingernails started to blacken and the tips of his fingers began to wither and rot, skin blistering and cracking away to reveal sinews underneath, flesh contorting into unfamiliar, nasty shapes. Simon snatched his wrist and yanked his hand away, and as Ryland stepped back the black rot started to fade, his skin stitching itself back into a healthy pink. Ryland sighed. “Yep,” he said. “That’s a classic. Doesn’t take much thanergy to un-ward these, but I’ve literally got nothing.”

Simon still couldn’t take his eyes off of Ryland’s hand. The transformation had been horrifyingly familiar--Simon had watched his own hands change the same way, though a bit more gradually. He had felt it all up and down his body, from his legs to his arms to his face. He realized with a start that his grip was still tight on Ryland’s wrist, and quickly let him go. “So, what do we do?” asked Simon. “Could I do it if you walked me through it?”

Ryland smiled sadly at him. “Sorry, Simon. I wasn’t kidding when I said that there wasn’t a lick of necromancer in you.” He looked back at the door, and sighed, leaning against the wall. “And even if you were, this is kind of tough necromancy to teach on the fly. I’m pretty confident I know what the ward is and what theorems were used, but if I’m wrong then I’m going to have to be able to make minute adjustments on the fly to not use up unnecessary thanergy…”

He trailed off into high-level necromantic mumblings, leaving Simon to look around the rest of the little room for something that might help. “What kinds of things could give you thanergy?” he asked. “These bones, maybe?”

“They’ve been dead too long,” said Ryland. He was thinking hard, flecks of dried blood flaking off his facial hair as he worried it between his fingers. “I’d need alive things, or at least recently dead things. Problem is, there’s nothing alive down here.”

Realization froze Simon where he stood, sinking into his gut like a stone in water. There was nothing alive down there, but the except us had been implied. He thought back to the first thing Ryland had ever said to him--you’ll kind of be like my cavalier. Simon knew what the traditional business of cavaliers was. They protected their necromancer, but they also provided them with thanergy, killing plants, animals, people, whatever was needed to draw out the death energy their necromancer needed. And when they ran out of things to kill, when those resources were exhausted, they turned their swords on the last resource available. Simon’s bone hand started drifting up to the hilt of his sword, almost in a haze. No matter which way he looked at it, there was nothing else alive in that room. Nothing besides Ryland and himself. 

Before he could even get his fingers on the hilt, Ryland’s arm was streaking past his, drawing his sword out of his scabbard over his shoulder faster than Simon thought he’d be able to move in his state. The scrape of metal seemed louder than usual as Ryland pulled it out, and though Simon was shocked he somehow couldn’t find it in him to feel betrayed. When they had left the Ninth, Simon had assumed Ryland was going to use him just like the Ninth necromancers had on the blood moon, but even now Simon didn’t feel like he had been proven right. Ryland really had tried, had honestly given it his best shot to keep Simon safe. But they were stuck, and at least he was doing Simon the kindness of not making him do it himself. Simon raised his chin and closed his eyes, hoping that Ryland at least had the knowledge and the strength to make it quick and painless. 

A clatter of metal against stone shocked his eyes open. Ryland was up in his face, eyes wild with what looked like rage. Distantly, Simon registered that the sound had been from his sword, hitting the wall on the other side of the room and clattering against the floor. Before he could really register that, Ryland had grabbed him by his shoulders and pressed his back against the wall, fingers gripping him roughly but still avoiding where the bone construct had grazed him. “You had better not have been thinking,” he said, his voice tight with fear, “what I think you were thinking.”

“You need thanergy,” said Simon, weakly. “There’s nothing else alive here but me.”

“Simon!” shouted Ryland, lifting him gently off the wall just to shove him back. “Are you out of your flipping mind?” His hands balled into fists on Simon’s shirt. “I literally just got done telling you that I want--that you--” he trailed off, spluttering. “What were you thinking?”

He looked legitimately angry, which was weird. “Are you mad at me?”

“Yes!” shouted Ryland. He seemed just as surprised to have said it as Simon was to have heard it. “I mean--you know, yeah, actually, I think I am!”

“Why?”

“Because you were going to kill yourself for the thanergy,” he said. 

“It would’ve been to help you,” said Simon, feeling like his throat was going to close up. “So you’d live.”

“That is,” said Ryland, slowly, “the actual worst thing I can imagine happening here.”

“Worse than dying?”

“Okay!” said Ryland stepping away from Simon and putting his hands on his hips, positioning himself between Simon and his sword like he thought Simon was going to make a run for it. “You want to talk dying? How about I ward my own body and pass through it so that the thanergy release from my corpse cancels it out?” Simon’s stomach dropped, imagining Ryland’s whole body withering under the ward’s horrible effect, and it must have shown on his face because Ryland pointed at him and said, “See? Not such a good idea anymore, huh?”

Simon had arguments ready to go, that it was a different situation, that it made more sense for Simon to be the one to die to get Ryland out rather than the other way around. But all he could say was, “You really want me to live.”

“God, Simon,” he said, looking nearly ready to collapse again. He stayed planted firmly where he was, though, standing between Simon and his sword, between Simon and danger. “Of course I do.”

Of course. Simon’s resolve was cracking, the brave face he had been building that might have let him drive his own sword through his chest crumbling to powder. “I do too,” he said, his voice coming out small and afraid. “I know it’s fucking selfish but I want to live.”

“You’re going to,” said Ryland. “We’re going to find another solution, because there’s definitely something we’re not thinking of. But even if there wasn’t, just know that I’d rather sit in here and starve than use a drop of thanergy from your death to get out. I will do that, by the way, in case you’re still thinking about it.”

Despite everything, Simon found himself laughing. “Why the hell would you do that?”

“Because I’m selfish,” said Ryland, “and I want you to live.”

Simon could feel tears rising in his throat, rough against the parts of him that had been scraped raw by the emotions of the day. He tried to swallow them down. His head dropped to his chest, and suddenly it was all pouring out in a flood, tears running down his face as he choked out a sob, loud even to his own ears in the tiny room. He wasn’t sure how it happened but he ended up on the floor with Ryland in his arms, and was shocked to feel great, heaving, teary breaths coming from him, his bloodstained face buried into Simon’s shoulder, his strong arms squeezing him like the only solid ground in an ocean. He squeezed him back, the tightness comforting even as it made him nearly wheeze, almost as if he could press the two of them so close together that their bones might touch, sternum to sternum, heart against beating heart. It wasn’t just human comfort, he realized. It was Ryland. Ryland, who wanted him to live, who wanted him, and who Simon found he wanted back just as desperately. 

“Do you really just, like,” he started, trying to force the words from his compressed lungs, “like me that much?”

Ryland relaxed his grip a bit, perhaps coming to the conclusion that Simon wasn’t going to make a lunge for his sword anytime soon. He looked shy all of a sudden, faint color rising in his abnormally pale cheeks as he pulled just slightly back from Simon. The tears on his face had carved tracks through the streaks of dried blood. “Yeah,” he said. “Guess I’ve done a bad job of keeping it under wraps.”

“I like you too,” said Simon. “So much.”

“Even though you were forced to come on this mission?” asked Ryland with a weak laugh. 

“That stopped mattering to me, like, a while ago,” said Simon. 

Ryland raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Well, it kind of matters,” said Simon. “But in a still-mad-at-the-Ninth way, not, like, an I-don’t-want-to-be-here way.” He snorted, leaning back against the stone wall. Ryland scooted so that he was sitting next to him, their thighs pressed together. “I mean, if they had told me something like ‘hey, we’re sending you with two competent necromancers to a way better place than the one you went last time, and plus they’re going to fix up your arm and one of them is the prettiest man you’ve ever seen,’ I probably would have jumped at that.”

He turned his head to look at Ryland, whose big blue eyes were wide with excitement. “You think I’m pretty?” he asked. 

Simon stared at him. “Are you stupid?”

Ryland laughed delightfully. “God, Rocky definitely thinks so.”

Simon’s face fell, remembering the situation they had left Rocky in. “Oh. Yeah.”

“Hey, don’t worry,” said Ryland. “He’s still got the necrophage tank, and I think we’re close enough to the center of Arboretum that I’d feel the thanergy if he had died.” He rested his head back against the wall, looking up into the stream of water that was still steadily pouring from somewhere far above. “I bet he’s worried about us, but I think he’s still doing fine.”

“Okay,” said Simon, his worry abating just a bit. “We still should get out of here soon.”

“We will,” said Ryland. “We’ve just gotta think of a plan.”

---

“I don’t like it,” said Simon.

“It’s my left hand,” said Ryland. “It wouldn’t really even bother me in the long run.”

“I still don’t like it.”

“Me neither.” Simon could tell that just from the way Ryland was grimacing. “But I really can’t think of anything else.”

“Use the charm,” said Simon, pulling up his sleeve. 

Ryland just shook his head. Not long after they had sat down to think, Simon had remembered his bracelet, the little seedling that was still living in its sealed pendant. His heart had ached at the thought of killing it, but Ryland had picked up on that before he had even finished mentioning the idea and refused to touch it. He argued that the seedling wouldn’t be enough thanergy to un-ward the door, but Simon couldn’t help but think it was still a better idea than the best Ryland had come up with. 

“This sword is probably so full of tetanus,” said Simon. He had, under Ryland’s watchful gaze, fetched it from the opposite side of the room and returned it to his scabbard. “And you want to cut off your finger with it?”

“Just my pinky,” said Ryland. “And only the distal two phalanges. I can bite it off if I need to.”

“And then eat it.”

Ryland nodded grimly. “Yup.”

“Why do you have to eat it?”

“You don’t get as quick of a thanergy release from amputated tissues,” said Ryland. “The cells just don’t die quick enough. Stomach acid is a good way to make them all die at once.”

“Can’t you use something else?” asked Simon. “I don’t know. Hair? Fingernails?”

“Not alive enough for what I need to do,” said Ryland. He gave Simon a tired smile. “Human bodies just don’t have a lot of living cells kicking around that they don’t need.”

Simon thumbed through every part of his body in his mind, scanning himself top to bottom for any kind of living cell he could spare. An idea suddenly came to his mind, and he felt his cheeks heat up as he considered it, but they were really running low on options and it was a great deal better than Ryland having to eat his own finger. “Um,” he said, trying to figure out the best way to say it. “Would any kind of living cells work?”

Ryland’s eyes widened, and he gasped softly. More color spilled into his anemic face as he looked over at Simon, a sure sign that he had just arrived at the same conclusion. “Oh, um,” he said. “Yeah. Any kind.”

“Would it, uh. You know. Be enough?”

Ryland held his gaze. “If it’s anything like last time, definitely.”

Just that had blood rushing downwards, Simon’s dick giving a throb of interest. But Simon ignored it. “Why don’t you let me do it for you? My stomach acid would work too, right?”

The pink flush in Ryland’s cheeks darkened to a faint approximation of his usual red. “That sounds--I really wish you could. But I’ve lost kind of a lot of blood,” he said, gesturing to the stains still coloring his jumpsuit and skin. Simon had helped him clean off a decent amount of it while they thought, but there was still plenty remaining as a reminder of how far Ryland had pushed himself. “It’ll be more difficult for me to, you know, get hard and stay hard I think. Plus, the proximity of the thanergy bloom makes a bit of a difference, and I’m going to be counting on getting every last drop for this to work.” His eyes flicked downwards as he said that last bit, it was embarrassing how quickly it made Simon start to stiffen under his pants. “Besides,” he said. “I told you. I like doing it.”

“You don’t have to,” said Simon. Ryland was moving closer and closer, backing him up against the wall, which was not helping him hide his obvious interest. His pants were already fairly tight, and now his dick was pressing almost uncomfortably against the seam as Ryland crowded him against the rough stone. 

Ryland smirked, adjusting his glasses on his face. “I kind of do, though, if you think about it.”

“Fuck,” muttered Simon, losing the battle before it began, Ryland’s words going straight to his cock. Ryland pressed his hands into Simon’s chest, bringing their faces close.

“If you don’t want to,” he said, suddenly serious, “we can try something else.”

“Ryland,” begged Simon, breathlessly. “Please.”

”Please, what?”

“Please suck my cock.”

Ryland surged forward and kissed him, bloody and hot and nasty and everything Simon wanted, enough to make him moan into it as his back was pushed roughly into the wall. Ryland’s tongue slid against his as his hands found their way to Simon’s pants, undoing the belt and unfastening them as quick as if he had practiced it a hundred times. The air was cool on Simon’s thighs as Ryland pushed his pants to the floor, stopping Simon from stepping out of them with a hand on his knee. “We should probably make this quick and dirty,” he said, breaking their kiss with a pop, apologetic. “Besides, I don’t want you getting a bone shard in your foot.”

“Good idea,” said Simon, and then Ryland went right back to kissing him as he pulled down Simon’s underwear, crouching down to his knees as he slid them down to Simon’s ankles to rest with his pants. Simon’s cock nearly hit him in the face as he went, and he didn’t take his eyes off of it as he settled onto the floor, brushing bits of bone away with his boots before resting on his knees. He grabbed a fistful of the back of Simon’s thigh to stabilize himself.

“Hands in my hair,” he said, and Simon obeyed without question, his dick jolting in front of Ryland’s face. He winked, and Simon had zero time to prepare before he was sucking the head of Simon’s cock into his mouth, swirling his tongue and then immediately taking him deeper with an enthusiasm that was a little more hurried than it had been before but not even a little bit less incredible. 

It was, as promised, fast and dirty, but it still showed no less of Ryland’s obvious skill. Ryland’s tongue worked Simon’s sensitive head on every drag upwards, and his throat closed deliciously around him when Ryland took him down to the base. Where the first one had been overwhelming for its novelty and languid pace, this time was marked by Ryland’s unbelievable efficiency--how every move he made, every roll of his tongue and every drag of his lips was masterfully executed to push Simon closer to the edge. Simon couldn’t stop the sounds that came out of him, a stream of moans and curses and barely-formed words spilling from his lips as pleasure burned from within him, hands tight in Ryland’s gorgeous hair. “Fucking--god, Ryland, you’re so--fuck, do that again, please, oh my god.”

Ryland hummed, more self-satisfied than a proper moan, but it still sent electricity straight from Simon’s cock to his brain. He raised a hand to massage Simon’s balls, and Simon was suddenly laughing at the thought that Ryland might still be thinking about the thanergy, the end of his laughter turning into a desperate whine as Ryland hollowed his cheeks and upped his pace, bobbing his head a little quicker as he looked up at Simon. His eyes glittered as he pulled almost all the way off to lick deftly over the tip, the corners of his mouth turning up in an almost cunning smile at the sounds it drew from Simon. 

Simon tipped his head back against the wall, wishing he had more time to enjoy this. He felt himself barreling towards the edge, unstoppable with the gorgeous heat of Ryland’s mouth around him and the insane, unbelievable way he was using his tongue. “I’m so--fuck, Ryland,” he moaned, as Ryland took him impossibly deeper into his throat. “Please, fuck, I’m so close, please, please.”

He came down Ryland’s throat with a drawn-out groan, his legs threatening to give out as Ryland worked his tongue up and down his length even as he was coming, making his pleasure trip over itself and double back as he came down from his high. His whole body shook, his hands curling into fists in Ryland’s hair, vaguely aware he was holding Ryland where he was but with no power to stop the spasms that were holding him there. He let go as soon as feeling returned to his arms, and Ryland seemed unbothered as he pulled slowly off of Simon’s softening dick, throat still bobbing, his chin slick with saliva. He wiped it on his shoulder, pulled Simon in for a searing kiss that tasted still a little like blood but also like sweat and something else that had to be Simon, and then turned towards the warded door. 

Simon watched, still shaking a little bit, as Ryland set both his hands on the highest point of the doorway, fingers tracing invisible patterns as he moved them away from one another and down the length of the doorframe. He worked his way all the way down to the floor, and when he stood up there was a tiny bead of blood trickling from one nostril. “Okay,” he said. “It’s safe.” To prove it, he grabbed the handle with his right hand and turned, the door clicking and his hand remaining as healthy as it had been the entire time. Simon could only stare in awe as the door swung open to reveal a tunnel made from much smoother stone behind it. 

“That was hot,” said Simon. 

Ryland laughed sheepishly. “Well. Glad to hear it. I appreciate your help.”

It was so ridiculous. Simon doubled over with laughter just as he was starting to pull his pants back up. When he finally stood back up, fastening his pants, Ryland was grinning at him. “You want me to return the favor?” he asked, nodding to where Ryland was maybe half-hard in his jumpsuit. 

Ryland shook his head. “Gotta get a bit more blood in me first,” he said. “Later, though. If you’re still up for it.”

“I will be,” said Simon, walking over to the newly un-warded door. He kissed Ryland before going through, seizing Ryland’s face in his hands and pulling him close. Simon found he was really looking forward to returning the favor. 

He pulled away, smiling into Ryland’s face. “Let’s get out of here.”

They hurried side by side through the new tunnel, which was a lot nicer than any of the maintenance tunnels they had seen before. This one looked like it used to be lit from above by fancy hanging lights, which, unlike the ugly tube lighting, didn’t seem to be working anymore. There was light coming from the end of the tunnel, though, and as Simon and Ryland turned the corner they were suddenly faced with the source of the light, Simon stopped dead in his tracks in shock. 

Trees--real, living trees!--of all kinds grew from the ground in the room they found themselves in, a huge room that put the skeleton room to shame with its round, vaulted ceilings and wide perimeter. The trees didn’t even come close to the glossy, crystalline lights that hung from the ceiling, bathing the whole room in a gentle white glow that diffused through a watery mist to make the appearance of a thick, blanketing fog. The trees were each so different from one another--some thick and tall like lumber-farm trees, some spindly and flowering, some with leaves that seemed more like points than leaves, and others with big fan-like leaves that reached for the faraway ceiling like there wasn’t anything there to stop it. They weren’t even the only plants in the room: each tree had the company of ferns, bushes, mosses, and all kinds of greenery that Simon couldn’t even begin to name. Elegant stone paths connected the edges of the room to the center, where a stream of water finally came to rest in a small stone pool. 

It was warmer in here than anywhere else in the ruins, and Simon found himself rolling up the sleeves of his sweater even as he gaped in wonder at what they had found. Ryland seemed similarly dumbstruck, eyes wide as he took in all the beauty around them. “Wow,” he said under his breath. “How is all this still alive?”

The clatter of bone against rock made them both jump to attention, peering through the dense trees to try and see where it was coming from. A skeleton rounded the corner, coming from some other path, a bucket of water in its arms Simon swung his sword out of his scabbard and positioned himself in front of Ryland, but the skeleton made no move to attack. It looked at Simon, its empty eye sockets seeming to focus more on his hand than his face, and bent forward in a simple bow. Then it turned and walked into the trees, finding a specific one and emptying the bucket at its roots. 

“What,” said Simon.

“That’s weird,” said Ryland, which wasn’t comforting. 

A loud clattering of bones echoed from somewhere else in the tree room, and the skeleton turned to look towards it at the same time as Ryland and Simon. The sound of clattering feet against the stone floor echoed as it raced towards them, and Simon adjusted himself so that he was positioned between Ryland and the incoming threat. Next to them, the skeleton that had been watering the tree suddenly came apart all at once, joints falling to pieces and bones piling up on the ground. 

The thing making all the noise rounded the bend, and Simon was faced with a construct even stranger than the one that had been chasing them. It had five legs of what looked like hurriedly fused human leg bones, three feet to each leg and random shoulderblades and jaws reinforcing each joint. Ribcages made up what passed for a body, ribs curving around something in the middle as if to protect it. When Simon peered through them to see what they were protecting, though, a wave of relief washed over him. 

“Rocky!” shouted Ryland, rushing forwards as Rocky leapt down from his construct. Ryland stopped a few feet away, bouncing on his heels, waving his hands at Rocky as Rocky waved two hands back. 

Grace Simon alive! Rocky’s voice sounded higher than usual, and Simon was relieved to see that the translator was still attached to his belt and working properly. Amaze amaze amaze! 

“We’re okay, buddy!” said Ryland. “You’re okay! Oh my god.”

Rocky very worried about Grace Simon, said Rocky. Happy happy happy Grace Simon safe. How, question?

Ryland’s eyes darted back to Simon, but nothing could shake his grin. Simon realized that he was smiling too, and he came forward to join Ryland, feeling the impressive heat radiating off of Rocky’s body. “It’s a long story,” said Ryland. “Why don’t you tell us yours first?”

Chapter Text

They didn’t leave the tree room for a while. Simon had absolutely no problem with that. While Ryland and Rocky studied and experimented together in the center of the room, Ryland seeming to perk up with newfound access to the thanergy generator strapped to the bottom of Rocky’s construct, Simon was left alone to explore the beautiful place they had found.

Simon had always loved trees, or perhaps more accurately the idea of trees. His pendant had been a gift from an older Blood of Eden member, a good-luck charm given to him the first time he went on a dangerous mission, a little reminder of what it was they were fighting for. He had heard stories, had even seen a sapling stolen from a lumber farm once, but nothing could ever compare to seeing them up close. He stood at their roots and just stared, up at graceful branches thick and green with life, and down at the gnarled fingers that twisted their way into soft, fresh dirt. The patterns that ran up and down the thick skin of each tree were each unique, like a fingerprint that spanned their whole bodies. Simon could have spent days just running his hands over them. 

Every so often, a skeleton would wander into the room, passing through the heavily warded doorways unhindered as they went about some task to tend to the trees and plants in the room. If they saw Rocky or Ryland first, they would lay down their tools and charge, but for some reason if they saw Simon they would stop, give him a bow, and return to their work. Simon’s exploration of the trees was periodically interrupted by Ryland’s panicked call, which he never strayed too far to respond to.

He was laying on his back on a thick bed of moss, staring up into the fringe of a gorgeous tree when Ryland finally came to join him. “I think I figured out why they like you so much,” he said, holding a time-worn piece of paper in his hand. Simon sat up to take a look at it. In the center of the page, surrounded by archaic writing, was a sketch of his pendant. “According to this, your bracelet was a pretty important thing in this place. Rocky thinks the skeletons are set to recognize you as an authority if you’re wearing it.”

“Oh,” said Simon. His bone fingers brushed over the charm, just like his flesh fingers had so many times. “I don’t know why. It was a gift from someone, but I have no idea where they got it.”

Ryland shrugged. “This place is so old,” he said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if stuff from this place was still getting passed around.” He scrubbed his hand through his dirty hair. “It’s crazy lucky that you happened to be with us, though.” 

Simon smiled. The way Ryland said it made his heart feel soft--that they were lucky to have Simon, not just his pendant. He leaned against Ryland, who settled into the moss with a contented sigh. There was a little more color in his face now, color that came from blood under his skin rather than smeared on it. He leaned his head against Simon’s, a gesture so achingly affectionate that it made Simon’s chest hurt. Simon couldn’t remember the last time he had come to like someone this quickly, or even this much if he was being honest. 

Ryland shifted his head slightly, putting more weight on the place on Simon’s shoulder where the construct had gotten him, and Simon yelped. He still missed Ryland’s head as soon as he drew it away. “We probably ought to get you back to the ship,” he said. “Armando’s going to want to have a look at that.”

“Armando’s gonna want to have a look at you,” muttered Simon. 

“I’m fine,” said Ryland, dismissively. “I mean it!” he added when Simon snorted disbelievingly. “I’m recovering just fine. You on the other hand are probably going to need some antibiotics for that.”

Simon didn't want to leave this beautiful room anytime soon. But Ryland had a point, and the stinging from his wound was getting to the point where it was difficult to ignore. He slowly got up from the moss, letting his bone arm and the hand that Ryland immediately put on his back take more of his weight to keep the gash from stretching further. “Do you know how to get us out of here?”

Ryland smiled. “I think I do.”

---

Once they were back aboard the Hail Mary, Simon very hesitantly parted with his bracelet so that Rocky could go back down and gather the artifacts and notes that they hadn’t had time to take with them. Not a single skeleton had stopped them on their way out of the Arboretum, each one simply stepping out of the way as Simon led them back to the surface. Simon and Ryland had had to share a respirator, since Simon’s had gotten smashed to bits sometime in the chaos, but once they were back at the ship and in Armando’s care, Simon found he really had no desire to make the long walk back there too soon. Rocky, on the other hand, seemed eager to go back, and extremely confident that Simon’s bracelet would be what got him there safely. 

Thank! said Rocky, cradling the pendant like it was as precious to him as it was to Simon. He dropped it into a thick pouch, closing it tightly around the cord so that the charm was the only thing sticking out. He then put the pouch into a pocket of one of his straps, arranging it so that it was visible. Bag keep Rocky heat from damage Simon bracelet. 

Simon still felt a little pang of worry without the bracelet around his wrist, but the gentleness with which Rocky had handled it had done a surprising amount to alleviate his fears. He watched as Rocky strapped on the rest of his pack, switching out the used necrophage tank for a fresh one (though Simon couldn’t tell any difference between the black sludge in each tank). Rocky return in twenty thousand seconds. Return sooner if trouble. Grace Simon heal. 

“Sounds good, bud,” said Ryland. Despite his earlier assurances, Armando had seemed just as interested in him as in Simon, practically forcing a pouch of electrolyte goo into his mouth once it had finished a thorough exam of him. But he had at least been allowed to wander around the dormitory enough to shower and change, whereas Simon was stuck on his bed while Armando cleaned and bandaged the gash on his shoulder. Simon could at least enjoy the way Ryland’s eyes seemed to drift towards his exposed chest whenever he wasn’t paying attention, and the way he turned a much healthier bright red whenever Simon caught him looking. “Stay safe out there,” he said, giving Rocky a fist bump. “If you’re not back in time, we’re going in after you.”

Understand. Rocky waved a claw hand dismissively. Will not be late. Grace Simon heal. 

Armando finished working on Simon’s arm as Rocky scampered off to the ladder, seeming like he had a bit of a spring in his step. Ryland watched him go with his hands on his hips, turning to look at Simon once the hatch had closed behind him. “He’s probably really excited to find what’s left of our construct,” he said, a pink blush creeping back up his cheeks as he maintained pointed eye contact with Simon. “How’s your shoulder?”

Simon rolled the joint back and forth. It barely hurt at all--Armando had sprayed it with something that had made some of the pain dissolve into faint tingles, and had deposited a familiar painkiller pill into his hands along with an antibiotic. The wound had closed with thick skin glue, no stitches needed, and felt secure under Armando’s bandaging job. “Pretty good,” he said. “How long did Rocky say he’d be gone?”

“Oh, a little less than six hours,” said Ryland. He crossed the room over to Simon, letting his eyes wander across his body. “Any pain still? Does it hurt to touch?”

Simon’s eyes didn’t leave Ryland as he pressed the fingers of his bone hand into the covered wound, finding nothing more than a dull, unconcerning throb. “Not badly. It kinda just feels sore.”

“Good range of motion?”

Simon waved his arm in a circle. “My range of motion’s fine,” he said. “Seriously, I don’t think it got any further than my skin. I’m--”

His sentence ended in Ryland’s mouth, Ryland rushing forward and kissing him hungrily. Simon barely had time to react enough to kiss him back before he was getting pressed deeper into his bunk, Ryland hopping up to sit in Simon’s lap as he scooted back. Ryland tangled his fingers into his hair, wrapping it into a grip to pull Simon’s head back firmly and painlessly, and Simon gasped into his mouth as their bodies slotted easily together. His hands found Ryland’s waist, bone and flesh pressing him even closer as Ryland kissed him feverishly, like he had been starving for it. He could feel himself getting hard against Ryland’s body, and as Ryland shifted his hips forward he groaned as Ryland’s clothed erection grazed his. 

“Is now a good time?” asked Ryland, practically into Simon’s mouth. 

Simon grabbed Ryland’s hips, grinding them together and getting a wonderful sound out of him. “Now,” he said, voice coming out thick with arousal, “is a fucking perfect time.”

Ryland moaned gorgeously, his chest pressing against Simon’s as he grinded his hips forward again to draw a similar noise out of Simon, and Simon realized that he needed to get Ryland’s clothes off of him immediately. He tugged at the hem of Ryland’s “I wear this shirt a skele-ton” T-shirt and yanked it up, Ryland helping him get it up and over his neck when Simon’s bandages kept him from lifting his arm high enough. Ryland’s chest was a vivid pink from his shoulders to his navel, the blush on his face not stopping until it reached the bottom of his ribs. Simon was at a loss for where to touch first, absolutely spoiled for choice. 

But then Ryland was leaning back, clumsily trying to wiggle his legs out of his jumpsuit pants, and Simon realized that if he didn’t get his own pants off before Ryland was fully naked then he might never want to stop touching him long enough to do it. It was more than a little awkward--neither he nor Ryland seemed to want to get off the bunk, and Simon’s shoulder bandages made it a little harder, but Simon was able to brace himself against the back of his bunk to lift his hips enough, accidentally grinding his crotch against Ryland who was tipped over to the side trying to get one leg off at a time. Ryland gasped and almost fell right off the bunk, and Simon was just quick enough to catch him by the waist and help him get out of the other leg of his jumpsuit. It was ridiculous and inelegant, but once they were both naked and pressed up against one another again it was hard for Simon to focus on anything else. Ryland seemed to have recovered well, his cock flushed a brilliant red with new blood as he hovered over Simon. 

“Lube packet,” said Ryland, breathlessly, and one of Armando’s arms came out of nowhere to deposit a little white packet in his hand. He tore it open with his teeth as Simon marveled at the convenience of it all, and coated his hand as he shifted their hips, bringing them so close that Simon could feel the heat radiating off his skin. When he took them both in his hand, working both their shafts with a burning hot hand, the lube providing a delicious glide, all thoughts in Simon’s head were unceremoniously cut short, his hands going tight on Ryland’s thighs. 

“Fuck,” he mumbled, unable to stop his hips from bucking up into Ryland’s hand. Ryland groaned in appreciation, his pace steady but his face red with lust, glasses slipping down his nose as he leaned his forehead against Simon’s. Ryland was wonderfully hot and heavy and solid against him, working them both with expert technique, rolling his thumb over both of their tips and spreading precum and lube between them. His other hand was braced against Simon’s chest for balance, unsubtly squeezing the meat of his pecs. Simon relished in every burst of pleasure, every lovely sound that came from Ryland and every moan that came from his own lungs, realizing that he hadn’t yet gotten to see Ryland like this, overcome and desperate with his own arousal. 

“Simon,” sighed Ryland, barely a breath of hot air against his face. He was rocking his hips too, thighs rolling under Simon’s grip. He looked unbearably erotic, a vision from the darkest depths of Simon’s imagination as he gasped and whined at every slide of their dicks together, clear sweat beading at his temple and running down his gorgeous body. “I need--please, god, I need--“

“Anything,” said Simon. He let go of Ryland’s right thigh to tug gently at his hair, bringing his face to the right angle for a deep kiss. “Anything you want,” he murmured into Ryland’s mouth. 

Ryland groaned, hand stilled on their cocks but his hips still grinding them together. “Simon, could you,” he started, panting for breath. “Would you--?”

Simon did his best to keep his own hips still, desperate to hear what Ryland wanted from him. There was none of the guilt in it that had colored his want when they were in the lab, all thoughts of debts and fairness gone from his mind. What he wanted more than anything was to know what he could do to have Ryland sounding more like the way he just had. “What?” he asked, using the hand in his hair to pull Ryland’s face back. When Ryland just stared at him, pupils blown wide, he gave him another tug. “Tell me.”

“Okay, okay,” said Ryland, probably meaning to sound a little exasperated but missing the mark thanks to the thick strain of lust in his voice. “Will you fuck me?”

All Simon could do was stare, slack-jawed, desire burning holes through his body. Ryland immediately started to ramble. “I haven’t had solid food in at least eighteen hours, and I made sure to shower, you know, thoroughly, but if you don’t want to then that’s, like, this is good, this is really good, I just--“

“Yes, god,” said Simon. “Absolutely the fuck yes.” He pulled Ryland in to kiss him, hot and dirty and toothy. “How do you get more lube out of the robot?”

Ryland pulled back, a crooked grin on his face. His glasses were dangling well below his eyes, but he didn’t seem to notice or care. “Three lube packets,” he said, and the arm deposited them right into his waiting hand. He ripped the first one open messily, lube squeezing out either side of the jagged tear and landing cold on Simon’s thigh as Ryland did his best to gather it up, rising up on his knees and bracing himself with his other arm behind Simon’s shoulder to get a hand under himself.

Simon watched in awe as he gasped above him, body tensing up before relaxing back down, Ryland’s face an exhilarating blend of tension and desire and concentration. “This might, uh, take a little while,” he said. “I rarely ever--I mean, I kinda don’t do this very often, so.”

“Can I help?” Simon said, the words falling from his mouth as he stared.

Ryland laughed weakly. “I mean, if you really want to.”

Simon readjusted himself faster than even he thought possible, wrapping his bone hand around Ryland’s waist and positioning his flesh hand underneath him, feeling for where Ryland’s own lube-covered fingers disappeared. It was an awkward angle, his wrist not quite able to rotate fully to feel, and without thinking he switched hands, wrapping his flesh arm around Ryland and feeling with his bone hand before suddenly thinking better of it. He drew the hand back. “Is this, like. Is that okay?”

“Let me see,” said Ryland, pulling his finger out of himself to inspect Simon’s hand, Simon feeling almost dizzy at the warm feeling of his lubed hand against the sensitive bones. Ryland turned his hand this way and that before whistling appreciatively. “Rocky, you mad genius. Any pinch points I can see are covered over with cartilage. It should be fine.” 

He stayed holding onto Simon’s hand, though, running his fingers idly over the delicately constructed bone and tissues. Simon, who really would rather have his hand doing something else, said, “I’m gonna need that back from you, then.”

Ryland let go immediately, looking away sheepishly. “Sorry. It’s just. I didn’t expect it to be so warm.”

Simon tore open a second lube packet, squeezing it over his bone fingers before pulling Ryland closer and feeling his way to his hole, the bone wrist rotating far more easily to get his hand into the perfect angle. He wasn’t sure if the tips of his fingers had grown more sensitive or if he had just gotten more used to using the arm, but it felt almost indistinguishable from his flesh fingertips, the warm, tight feeling as he slipped a finger inside as vivid as if it were innervated skin. Ryland hissed a breath through his teeth, which was followed by a deep, comfortable moan as Simon’s finger slid in to the last knuckle without much trouble, Simon wondering if the smoothness of the bone was doing him any favors. “Okay?” he asked. 

“Yeah.” Ryland nodded quickly, glasses threatening to slip from his face. “That’s really good. Doesn’t even hurt.”

Simon moved cautiously, almost reverently, as he felt the ring of Ryland’s ass loosen around his finger until he could add a second, keeping careful track of every twitch of Ryland’s face, every sound that he made. It was maybe the hottest thing he had ever seen in his life. Ryland kept one hand on Simon’s bone wrist but offered no guidance or correction other than god yes or please, just like that, his dick achingly hard against Simon’s stomach. Simon’s own cock was kept engaged by every incredible sound Ryland made, the prospect of getting to do more than just touch keeping him dizzy with want. He had just managed to get three fingers past Ryland’s rim, going slowly to allow a smooth stretch, when he brushed up against something inside him that made him gasp and dig his fingers into Simon’s wrist, and suddenly Simon felt his fingers curl as if someone else’s hand was pushing his fingers forward. Several things happened at once--Ryland’s dick leaked onto Simon’s chest, his fingers slid out of Ryland with a lewd pop, and Ryland looked down at him, his red face colored with worry all of a sudden. 

“Crap,” he said. “I didn’t mean to--is your hand okay?”

Simon looked up at him, completely confused. “Yeah? Nothing’s wrong with my hand. Are you okay?”

Ryland sighed. “I didn’t--it was an accident. Your fingers were just right there, and I--” He huffed, clearly at a loss, but gathered himself up bravely with a deep breath to try again. “Rocky used my bone marrow to make your arm,” he explained. “When it’s this close, I can really feel it. I mean, obviously,” he said, “but, like, it’s like I can feel it through you. Like it’s a part of me.”

Simon stared, amazed. “Like, in a good way?”

“I mean, yeah, it felt good,” said Ryland, turning his face away in embarrassment. “But, like, I think I got confused. It felt like I was moving my own hand, but I guess I was using necromancy to move yours.”

He started to get up. “We should adjust. I can--so you can use your other hand. I don’t want you to worry about--”

“No,” said Simon. He kept Ryland in place with his flesh arm around his waist. “It felt good, yeah?”

“Yeah, but--”

“That’s hot as fuck, Ryland.” Simon ran his lube-covered bone fingers up Ryland’s ass cheek, hoping Ryland could feel the gorgeous way his muscle curved under Simon’s touch. “Put your hand back like it was. I want you to show me exactly how you like it.”

“Oh!” Ryland put his hand back on Simon’s wrist as he lined up his fingers over his hole. “Are you sure? I don’t want you to feel, I dunno, like I’m controlling you or anything.”

Simon didn’t feel controlled. Simon felt so horny he might pass out. “It’s hot,” he repeated. “I’m sure.”

Ryland seemed to relax under his touch, and Simon gently slid his fingers back inside him, Ryland’s hand gently on his wrist. Ryland’s fingertips curled gently, and Simon’s obeyed, brushing up against the same spot inside him that had Ryland’s back arching, a wonderful, desperate moan spilling out of him. Simon curled his fingers again, and Ryland practically screamed. “Oh, fuck, Simon!”

“Oh my god.” Simon felt giddy as he resumed his work. 

They worked in tandem, Ryland guiding the movements of Simon’s hand and Simon taking cues off of every hint he was given, repeating and building on each curl and slide to make all kinds of delicious sounds pour from Ryland’s mouth. He rolled his hips back onto Simon’s fingers, each movement sliding his cock against Simon’s chest and wetting his skin with precome. Long before Simon had seen his fill of such an amazing sight, Ryland was lifting his hips off of his fingers with shaking legs. “Okay, yeah,” he said. “We gotta--you gotta stop.”

“Is something wrong?” asked Simon.

“No!” Ryland held his gaze, massaging the back of his bone hand with his thumb. “No, I just want to last long enough for you to actually fuck me.”

“Oh!” Simon couldn’t help the little bloom of pride that blossomed in his chest as he watched Ryland reposition himself, chest heaving and face bright red. He watched, transfixed, as Ryland broke open the last lube packet, thoroughly coating Simon’s cock in quick, impatient strokes, a self-satisfied hum making it out of Simon’s mouth as he noticed the way Ryland seemed to be hurrying. Ryland noticed, giving him a look of affectionate annoyance before leaning forward to kiss him, smiling even as their tongues pressed together. When he pulled away, a string of saliva connected their lips. “You think you’re ready?” asked Simon. 

As an answer, Ryland settled himself over Simon’s hips, lined up the head of his cock, and sank down slowly, a sigh turning into a whine in his throat, his hands braced on Simon’s chest. Every inch felt like a miracle, pleasure threatening to send Simon over the edge with every minute adjustment of Ryland’s hips, and he clung tightly to Ryland’s waist to keep himself from fucking up into him before he was ready. “Fuck, Ryland,” he said, unable to look away from Ryland’s gorgeous, blushing face, his hair outlined in a golden halo by the dormitory lights. His lip was swollen red where he had bitten it, his glasses hanging askew. Simon reached forward to pluck them from his face, his slight change in position making Ryland clench down to stay upright which made both of them moan. Simon at least got the glasses off in one piece, folding them up and sticking them on the bedside table. 

“Thanks,” breathed Ryland. He rolled his hips forward, and Simon swore he saw stars, white-hot pleasure gripping him from all angles. It seemed to have a similar effect on Ryland, if the drawn-out groan was anything to go by. He rolled his hips again, electricity jolting through Simon’s whole body, their voices echoing against each other and the walls of the ship. Ryland’s thighs shook as he arched weakly forward, his breathing coming out rough and exhausted. “Simon, I--ah, I don’t think I’m gonna last much longer.”

He said it like he was embarrassed. A hot spike of affection lodged itself in Simon’s heart, somehow finding room between the overwhelming pleasure of Ryland’s body around him. Simon adjusted his hands on Ryland’s hips until he thought he might be able to hold his weight, moving him as gently as he could as he gathered his legs under his knees for leverage. “Do you want me to fuck you?” he said, raising his head just enough to whisper it into Ryland’s ear. 

“Oh, god, Simon,” said Ryland. It sounded almost like a sob. “Please.”

“Please what?”

“Please fuck me, Simon.”

Simon didn’t need to be told twice. He held Ryland’s hips steady as he thrust up into him, setting a pace that made him think of the way Ryland had sucked him off that first time in the lab, steady and languid and deep. Ryland’s hands found their way to Simon’s chest again, which he suspected wasn’t just for balance, each thrust punching an indescribable sound out of him that made Simon’s cock throb inside him, a chain reaction of pleasure bouncing back and forth between them. Simon wasn’t going to last long, either. He met Ryland’s gaze and found he couldn’t look away, hunger and lust and desperation in his unblinking eyes, the blues swallowed whole by his pupils. He was so fucking beautiful. Simon leaned forward to kiss him before he could do something crazy like start crying. 

He felt Ryland’s dick jolt against his stomach as he came, and barely pulled away from Ryland’s lips in time to watch. His hips jerked against Simon’s cock, rim clenching as he spilled all across Simon’s chest and stomach and even the edge of his beard, his voice rising beautifully as he worked himself through his orgasm. Simon’s own orgasm hit him out of nowhere as he watched Ryland shake, his own hips stuttering upwards as he came deep inside him, his hands tightening around Ryland to pull him impossibly deeper. His voice felt hoarse as he moaned through it, feeling like he was in zero-g, feeling nothing but the intoxicating heat of Ryland around him and the bruising grip of Ryland’s hands on him. 

He came down from it, panting and shaking, to find Ryland staring down at him with his mouth hanging open, something like shock or awe playing across his face. Simon took a breath, an apology on his tongue, but before he could even make a sound Ryland had slapped a hand over his mouth. “If you apologize right now for coming inside me, I’m gonna freak out.”

Simon snorted. Ryland cautiously removed his hand, and Simon grinned up at him. “Okay. I won’t.”

Ryland sighed in relief. He lifted himself off of Simon, groaning as Simon slid out of him. He could feel his own cum sliding out to land on his softening dick. He scooted over as Simon dropped next to him, making room for them to lay side by side on the little bed. Ryland nestled in next to him, his ribs tucked into Simon’s arm, his head resting in the crook between Simon’s shoulder and chest. He even threw a leg over Simon’s thighs. Simon’s heart was swollen too big for his chest, and the only thing he could do was squeeze Ryland tighter, the passion between them distilling into something warm and comfortable that Simon couldn’t quite put his finger on the name of yet. 

“I’ll wash your sheets,” mumbled Ryland. He sounded bone-tired. Simon realized he felt pretty tired, too. Their bodies were arranged too comfortably to want to do anything other than just lay there. 

He stared up at the ceiling, hand stroking over the soft hairs at the base of Ryland’s neck, and let himself sink into the comfort.

---

“So, what’s next for you?” asked Ryland. 

They had moved to Ryland’s bunk once the evaporating sweat and drying lube and cum got too uncomfortable, taking turns in the tiny shower and changing into clean clothes before settling onto Ryland’s relatively clean bunk. Ryland had made space for him on his bed automatically, and Simon could think of no better place to be than pressed up against him. “What do you mean?” he asked, hand carding through Ryland’s hair.

“I mean, where are you going after this?” asked Ryland. “I mean, we can drop you off wherever, but. I dunno. I’d like to stay in touch.”

“Oh.” Simon hadn’t actually put much thought into it. Back in the prison, he hadn’t ever indulged in the thought of going free, and there had been so much going on during his time on the Hail Mary that it hadn’t really even crossed his mind. He searched through his brain for something that sounded like a good plan. He could join back up with Blood of Eden, but the thought seemed less appealing now than it might have before. He knew why they had let him take the fall for Filament Station, of course, but the thought of crawling back after everything he had been through seemed like a really stupid move. He could enlist in the Cohort or get a job as a dockworker on a space station, but those just seemed like cookie-cutter ideas that Simon didn’t actually see himself fitting into. “I don’t know,” he finally said, once he realized he’d been quiet for too long. “I kinda got nothing.”

Ryland opened his mouth, and then closed it, a familiar look in his eyes that Simon had come to associate with Ryland thinking hard. “Well,” he finally said, “if you want to think about it a little longer you could always, I dunno. Stay.”

“Stay?” A smile stretched across Simon’s face, completely outside of his control. “With you guys?”

“We’ve still got the spare bunk,” said Ryland, sheepishly. 

Simon was grinning like an idiot. “You’re sure? That would be okay?”

“Selfishly, it’s what I would want,” said Ryland. “But it’s up to you.”

Simon took Ryland’s chin in his hand, gently tipping his face close enough to kiss. It felt warm and comfortable and so correct, like a wound disappearing under smooth scar tissue, like a bone arm that could move and feel and touch. He pulled back, looking into Ryland’s hopeful eyes. “That’s what I want too,” he said. 

“Good,” said Ryland, settling back into Simon’s chest. “Then take all the time you need to think about it. Forever, if you have to.”

“Will do,” said Simon, relaxing back into the bunk, his arms falling perfectly back into place around Ryland. 

Chapter Text

1.

“Rocky,” said Ryland. “Can you leave George alone, maybe?”

Rocky did not pause in his tinkering with the skeleton for a moment. Need to study. George skeleton not busy.

“He’s only not busy because you took his legs off,” called Simon from above them. He was perched in the branches of one of the thicker trees in the Arboretum, legs dangling freely off of a high branch, his pendant swinging from his wrist. He smiled when he caught Ryland looking up at him. “C’mon. The poor guy needs to get back to work.”

George skeleton finish work after Rocky finish study. The pitch of Rocky’s voice was flat with annoyance. Grace Simon finish work for George skeleton if so important. 

“Ugh,” said Ryland, without any real frustration. “Fine. Gotta do everything myself around here.”

His neck had been starting to ache from leaning over pages and pages of research notes, learning more about the biology of the trees in the room and the life of the people who built this place to preserve them than he ever expected to know in his life. The notes from the lab and the journals from the necromancer’s bedroom wove a story that Ryland was quite fond of--of a necromancer and her students not long after the Resurrection growing a garden of trees from just a handful of preserved seeds. The theorems that kept the skeletons intact and working were the fascinating subject of Rocky’s study, but while he took apart their joints to study the necromancy that kept them together, the trees still needed tending. 

Ryland picked up poor George’s discarded shovel and went to the base of Simon’s tree, rolling up his sleeves. “You feel like helping?” he called up into the boughs. 

Simon was draped elegantly over a thick branch, head resting on his arms as he gazed down at Ryland. Ryland secretly hoped he wouldn’t move, that he would stay looking so pleased and comfortable for just a little longer. “Nah,” he said. “I think you got this.”

Ryland smirked. “You’re just here for the show, huh?”

“Yeah.” 

Ryland laughed to himself as he got to work, using the long-handled shovel to clear away the piles of seeds and bark that had built up around the roots of the tree. He had spent days watching the skeletons work, taking careful notes and cross-referencing with the extensive literature found in the lab and the newly-discovered greenhouse to figure out exactly what each one was doing. George’s job, he had learned, was to tidy up the sycamore trees to keep rot from building up, while still leaving a good layer of organic material to feed the bugs and smaller plants that accompanied them. If Ryland didn’t do a good enough job, then George would come and fix it up for him after Rocky put his legs back on. He felt the skeleton’s empty eyes on him, non-hostile thanks to the newly made pendant around Ryland’s neck, but judgemental all the same. 

They weren’t the only eyes on him. Simon’s gaze was hot on him as he worked, and Ryland took extra care to flex his back and arm muscles to best effect as he gathered sycamore seeds and fallen leaves into a waiting bucket. He heard Simon climb to a different branch as he rounded the tree, Simon obviously vying for the best view. Struck with sudden inspiration, Ryland pulled off his shirt and tossed it over towards his research materials, hearing Simon’s appreciative hum from the branches above but not giving him the satisfaction of looking for his reaction. He simply got back to work, letting Simon enjoy the view of his scarred back as he worked. 

Grace temperature problem, question? asked Rocky with an amused quaver, still tinkering.

“Yeah, just a little hot,” said Ryland.

Simon snickered. Ryland thought he heard him mumble, “More than a little.”

Ryland dumped a pile of seeds into the bucket and stuck the shovel into the dirt to lean on it, looking up at Simon. “What was that?”

“I said you’re hot,” said Simon. 

Ryland grinned up at him, Simon smiling a delightfully satisfied smile as he watched Ryland flick sweat from his chin. “You think?”

Grace could make skeleton to do work, Rocky pointed out. He was starting to pick apart poor George’s metatarsals, lining them up to watch them reconnect and taking thanergic measurements. 

“I don’t mind,” said Ryland. He lifted another shovelful of leaf litter into the bucket and stepped back to survey his work, more or less pleased with the outcome. He was sure George would have opinions, but it would do for now. Setting down the shovel, he felt around the trunk of the sycamore until he found the gentle ridges and branches that Simon had used to pull himself up, climbing easily into the branches of the tree to sit next to Simon on his perch. Simon’s smile widened as Ryland lifted himself up, easy in the lower gravity, and came to a rest straddling the same branch Simon was lounging on. 

“Hey there,” he said, scooting himself forward until he was pressed up against Simon. He didn’t think he was ever going to get used to the way Simon looked at him, like he was the only thing worth his attention whenever he was nearby. Simon swooped in for a kiss as soon as Ryland was in kissing range, a quick, warm peck that made Ryland feel silly with fondness. “How’s the view from up here?”

“Better now,” said Simon, eyes traveling from Ryland’s face over his exposed chest. Ryland could hardly believe that someone who looked like Simon would get so much out of looking at Ryland without his shirt on, but such were the miracles of the world, he supposed. 

Ryland leaned further into Simon, upsetting their balance and making Simon squawk as he scrambled to hold onto the tree. It didn’t matter much--in the Arboretum’s gravity, a fall from even this height couldn’t do more than bruise their egos, but Ryland still liked the way Simon grabbed onto him for stability. He was laughing, a sound Ryland was starting to appreciate as one of his favorites. “Yeah?” he murmured into Simon’s neck, planting soft kisses there even as they tipped precariously on the bough. “You like what you see?”

Simon let go of the branch with one hand to grab Ryland’s face, and then they were both tipping off the side, Ryland holding onto Simon for dear life as they slid off the branch and tumbled inelegantly to the ground. Simon’s back hit the grassy earth first, Ryland’s hands wrapped around his neck and skull just in case they landed too hard. 

Grace Simon hurt, question? Rocky didn’t sound too worried, but he at least paused working on George. 

“We’re fine, Rock,” said Ryland, unable to take his gaze away from Simon’s laughing face below him, in no hurry to get up from Simon’s lap. Simon’s hands rested so comfortably on his hips, a tender weight that fit like an old sweater. Warmth bubbled overwhelmingly in his chest, and the only thing he could think to do to relieve it was bend forward and kiss the laughter from Simon’s lips. 

Grace Simon find useful research to do in Arboretum, chided Rocky. Happy happy happy that Grace Simon happy with mate. Rocky not happy if need to wait for Grace finish research later.

With a long-suffering sigh, Ryland rolled off of Simon, gathering his things and clipping one of Rocky’s new necrophage mini-tanks to his belt. Simon looked down at the translator, something he had been needing to do less and less frequently these days. “Fine,” he said. “I’m gonna go get more documents out of the greenhouse. Simon, you want to come with?”

Simon was already leaping to his feet. “Of course. I can help carry.”

If Grace Simon not return before twelve hundred seconds, Rocky come find, warned Rocky. Research now. Mate later.

“Relax, bud!” Ryland could feel his face prickling to a humiliating shade of pink. Simon burst into another delightful round of laughter next to him. “We’re just gonna get the documents. Promise.”

“Although, now that he mentions it,” Simon murmured into his ear.

Ryland could feel his whole head turning an even worse shade of red. “Come on,” he said, unable to keep a smile off his face as he pulled Simon out of the tree room. 

---

“New ligament ready!” said Rocky, stepping happily from foot to foot in front of the air conditioner as he waited for his temperature to come down. “Simon ready for replacement, question?”

Simon lifted his head from where he had been helping Ryland carry artifacts up the ladder into the lab. Oh, he said. It’s okay. I can finish this first. 

“Finish later,” said Rocky. “New ligament will help Simon carry things better.”

Go ahead, said Ryland. I can get the rest of the small stuff packed up. 

He climbed back down the ladder, and Simon came over to sit at the lab bench closest to Rocky, laying his bone arm on the table. Rocky figured he had probably cooled off enough, picking up his newly constructed ligament and carpals as he came over to join him. 

“Problem with rotation and bearing weight also due to attachment points,” he explained. “Could disconnect and reconnect, but stronger if Rocky replace entire ligament and connected bones.”

Sounds good. Simon seemed a lot less nervous than he had the first time Rocky had worked on the arm. His heart rate was more or less normal, and he held his body loosely instead of tightening all of his muscles in a threat readiness display. Rocky used the smallest bursts of necromancy that he could to detach the bones from his hand that the old ligament attached to, relying more on tools to pop it free to minimize the amount of heat he generated. The bones came loose easily with the combination of forces, and Simon made no indication that the heat was too much. 

You made this out of Ryland’s bone marrow, right? asked Simon as Rocky unwound the offending ligament from the other tissues of Simon’s wrist. 

“Yes!” said Rocky. “Easier to make smooth bones in correct shape. Can use mature bone and mold into shape, but finished bone is more brittle.”

That’s actually kinda interesting, said Simon. He watched, showing no signs of fear, as Rocky finished untangling the ends of the ligament, detaching them from the shoulder joint with another two tiny bursts of necromancy. Did you know that Ryland would be able to, um. Kind of. I don’t know. Connect with it?

Rocky threaded the ligament out of the arm. “Knew it was possible. Did Simon observe this, question?”

Um, yeah, I guess so, said Simon. He was being unusually cagey. Rocky added that to the ever-growing matrix of information in his mind relating to Grace and Simon’s mysteriously mended bond and newly-developed mateship, with no idea how it fit into the other information he gathered. He knew that humans would consider it rude to pry, but Rocky was nothing if not curious, and honestly a little disappointed at missing the opportunity to observe the process for himself. 

“Grace maybe lose connection over time,” said Rocky. “Uncertain. Rocky not make replacement arm for other human before.”

Oh, said Simon. His voice was quieter than usual, which Rocky usually associated with disappointment in humans. That went into the matrix as well. 

“Rocky could also replace fingertips if Simon want connection,” he offered. “If Grace agree, Rocky make new bone from new marrow. Make connection stronger.”

Simon loudly swallowed some of his mouth fluid, turning his face away from Rocky. Now his pulse was starting to pick up a bit, some tension coming into his body. It didn’t seem like fear or pain, though, but more like the kind of way that Grace tended to be more often than not. Uh, I don’t know, he said. I’ll, um. I’ll ask. 

“Good good good,” said Rocky. He threaded the new ligament through the cables of tissue along Simon’s arm, checking with careful touches that the sinew still rotated safely into place with Simon’s full range of motion. “Success! Rocky attach now. May be some heat, tell stop if too much.”

Simon stuck his thumb out from his fist, and Rocky got to work. The hand bones fit right back where the old ones went, the ligament stretching from them at a slightly different angle than they had before. The old cartilage that had held them in place was still good, and so Rocky moulded it around the new bone until they sat as neatly in place as bones in a human’s fleshy arm. Once he had worked out any air bubbles in the soft tissues, he moved to the attachment points at the elbow. “Rocky very happy Simon stay with crew,” he said into the silence as he worked. 

Simon seemed surprised, the patches of hair over his eyes stretching upwards. Um, he said. Thanks.

“Simon a good friend to Rocky and Grace,” Rocky continued. “Rocky enjoy Simon company. Enjoy talks with Simon.” Rocky tapped nervously, trying to find the words. “Rocky suspicious of Simon when first meet. Apologize.”

Hey, you’ve got nothing to apologize for, said Simon, his face pointed down at the table as Rocky attached the new ligament. I mean, you had a good reason. I get it. 

“Rocky make Simon feel not welcome,” said Rocky. “Good reason, but still not kind to Simon. Both true. So, apologize.”

Well, thanks, said Simon. Apology accepted. 

Rocky finished up attaching the ligament, pulling his hands away before they got too hot against the fresh tissue. The placement looked perfect, and as Simon twisted his arm experimentally it seemed like it was working as intended. He picked up a storage box from the table next to them, feeling the way the ligament shifted with the weight of it in his hand. That’s so much better, he said, baring his teeth in a smile. Thanks!

“Good good good!” Simon set the box down, standing up from the table. Rocky decided to try to push his luck for some answers. “Does Grace connection to Simon arm have to do with mating, question?”

Simon stared at him for a moment, and then checked the translator. Um, he said. Uh. Yeah. Kinda.

“How, question?” Simon started to tense up, and Rocky saw his opportunity slipping away. “If Simon explain how, Rocky can improve Simon hand for mating functions.”

Simon’s face tipped towards the ladder to the dormitory. Below them, Grace was still loading ancient equipment through the cargo hatch Rocky had made in the floor, bringing smaller things into the room in piles in order to carry them all up to the lab in one trip. Simon must have understood some of that from his own, less sensitive hearing, because he scooted closer to Rocky, lowering his voice. 

Okay, he said. Just between you and me, though. 

---

All done with the arm? asked Grace.

“Success,” said Rocky. Grace had come up to the lab for a quick coffee break while Simon took a turn carrying some lighter things into the ship. “Ligament now works much better. Also improved joint coverage in fingers for less pinch points.”

Grace tilted his head to the side. Pinch points? Why--?

“For safe mating. In case Simon need to fuck Grace with bone fingers.”

Grace choked, spitting his coffee all over the lab. 

---

“You’re sure?” asked Ryland, for what had to be the millionth time. 

“Oh my god,” said Simon. It had been sweet the first few times, how concerned Ryland was about backing out on his offer to hand the entire research commission over to Simon, but now it was starting to get annoying. Simon had been the one to offer it, after all. “Look. If you gave it to me, what I’d honestly do with it is just buy stuff for the mission. Except I don’t know all the bone stuff you two need, and so I’d probably end up getting the wrong things.”

“You’re sure there’s nothing else you want?” asked Ryland. 

Simon thought about it. “Mineral oil, for the sword.”

“I mean other than supplies you need,” said Ryland. “What about a new sword?”

“Oh.” Simon had to consider that. He still wasn’t entirely able to shake the fear that somebody would come looking for it. But it really was a nice blade, and a little bit of elbow grease after their mission had gotten it into even better condition. It was a nice length and weight, and after what he had been through with it it was hard to imagine parting with it. “I think I’m good. I like this one.”

Ryland scratched his head. “Tell you what,” he said. “When we get to the Fifth, you can come food shopping with me and pick out whatever you want.”

That did sound immediately tempting. Ryland was a really good cook, but Simon had only just started to get far enough away from the Ninth prison to start remembering and missing the foods he used to eat. “Yeah,” he said. “Deal.”

“Awesome.” Ryland sat back down at the table, looking like he might finally be ready to let it go. Simon sat down next to him, peering over his shoulder at the printed diagram of a great big temple. 

“So,” he said. “What’s the story with this place?”

Ryland’s face lit up. “Oh, so it’s actually been studied before, but since it’s got an actual historical site designation, it’s going to be a little more complicated. Let me show you the floorplan.”

Simon rested his head on Ryland’s shoulder as Ryland shuffled through his papers, excitedly telling Simon all about the structure they were on their way to explore. According to his notes, it was a temple filled with hundreds of ancient skeletons tending the altar of a long-forgotten deity. Ryland was excited to try and discover more about the deity and the people who worshipped it through his psychometry. Ryland explained in breathless, rapid sentences that he wanted to fill a gap in existing research by looking into the skeletons themselves, and the people they used to be. For that, Rocky’s understanding of constructs and Simon’s ability to take down skeletons without tainting the site with new necromancy would come strongly in handy. 

“So, what do you think?” asked Ryland, beaming at him. 

“I dunno, I guess it sounds cool.”

“But does it sound worth it to you?” asked Ryland. “Like, do you want to go explore it?”

Simon was confused. “That’s what we’re doing, right?”

“Not until it’s unanimous,” he said. 

When Simon still didn’t respond, still trying to understand what Ryland was saying, Ryland shifted so that they were face to face. His forehead was almost close enough to touch Simon’s, his big blue eyes looking up at him over the rims of his glasses. “You’re part of this crew,” he said. “All three of us have to agree on missions. If that sounds like something you’re not into, then we aren’t going.”

“Oh,” said Simon, all other words failing him. It hit him harder than maybe it should have, something as simple as getting his opinion on their missions not that grand or surprising compared to everything else, but Simon found a hard lump forming in his throat the more he thought about it. He really believed it, too, when he looked into Ryland’s face. One word from him, and he and Rocky would scrap all their plans to investigate this temple. It felt like more than he deserved, but that seemed to matter less now. It was what he had. He loved it. 

“Let’s do it,” he said. Ryland beamed, lifting himself off of his stool to kiss Simon enthusiastically. They were both smiling so widely that the kiss was more tooth than lip, but Simon couldn’t care less. 

“Sounds like a plan!” said Ryland. “Let’s do it.”