Chapter Text
I wasn’t dead. At least, I didn’t think I was. I was still in pain. What was left of my left arm felt like it was on fire. My cheek hurts. I was sore all over.
I should be in the mouth of the blood ocean monster. I should be dead or mutilated or something. Instead I was still in the SM-13. The same SM-13 that should have been eaten.
I was scared. So fucking scared. I did not know where I was. I didn’t know where the ocean went. I didn’t know why I wasn’t dead. I didn’t know what I did wrong.
The camera was broken. The console was broken. I pressed the photo key anyway, again and again, because my brain kept insisting that maybe if I pressed it one more time maybe it would show me something. It didn’t. I wanted to cry.
I was sealing inside a pitch black metal coffin and was slowly dehydrating and starving. I curled up in the navigation seat as tightly as I could and closed my eyes. Maybe when I woke up, everything would make sense.
I woke up because something hit the hull. I did not know if my eyes were open, but I could still hear. A little metallic tap somewhere above my head. I held my breath. The SM-13 held its breath with me.
Another tap followed the first. Then a long slow scrape of metal over metal. I stopped breathing. My chest hurts. My lungs wanted air. I didn’t let them have any. If I breathed, whatever was outside would hear me.
Don’t be stupid. Nothing was outside. Nothing was outside. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
Another sound hit the hull. It was louder this time. I flinched so hard my shoulder slammed into the side of the chair. Pain snapped white behind my eyes. I bit down on a sound before it could get out.
No. No, no, no.
Listen. Just listen, you idiot.
For a second there was nothing. Then voices, but not the ones through the radio. I couldn’t understand the first one. It was too strange with too many sounds at once. Low and high and grinding, chords stacked on top of each other. It made the hair on my arm rise.
Then there was another voice. It was a man. He was close. Too close. Too close. Too close.
“... looks human made.”
A human on the other side of the sub should be good, but it only made me panic more. I failed. I was useless. One arm and half regressed. They wouldn’t want me anymore. Not like this. It would be better if I died.
“No,” I whispered. My voice barely existed. It scraped out of me all cracked. I couldn’t remember the last time I had water. I couldn’t remember the last time my mouth hadn’t tasted like blood and metal.
“No. No, please.”
Nobody answered me. Maybe they couldn’t hear. Maybe they could and didn’t care. That happened a lot.
The music-like voice spoke again. It went on too long. It filled up the sub. It crawled under my skin. I squeezed my eyes shut. No, don’t cry. Don’t be little. Don’t be useless. My breath hitched.
Don’t be little.
The words didn’t sound right anymore. They were too big. I tried to think of them anyway. Boy boys don’t cry. Big boys followed orders. Big boys didn’t need. Big boys don’t get soft. Big boys don’t make Eden look bad. I was a big boy. I was a big boy. I was. I was. I was. I…
A burst of bright sparks flashed through a seam around the hull. I screamed. I couldn’t help it. I threw my arm over my face. In my panic, I tumbled off the seat and onto the metal floor. I ignored the pain, forcing myself between the console and wall. The sparks vanished, but the light stayed in my eyes, hot and sharp.
They were cutting me out. They were cutting me in. I couldn’t tell the difference.
The human’s voice came again, closer this time. “Careful, we don’t know what’s inside.”
I knew what was inside. Blood and pain and a bad pilot. A bad little. Bad, bad, bad.
My chest started jumping. I couldn’t get enough air. The sub had air. It had to have air. I was breathing too fast. I knew I was breathing too fast.
Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.
The hatch groaned. The whole sub seemed to shudder around me, wounded and tired. For one stupid second, I wanted to put my hand on the wall and tell it I was sorry.
I had other things to say sorry to. The people getting me out first.
I didn’t want people. People meant orders and hands and suppressants. I dug my fingernails into my palm until it hurt.
No suppressants. Not again. Not now. I couldn’t. I couldn’t be flat again. Couldn’t be empty and quiet inside my own head while everything screamed around me.
I was already little. Not all the way, not yet. My thoughts kept rounding off. My fear was too big and I was too small.
Metal shrieked against metal. I screamed with it. Light split the SM-13 open. Real white light. It should be impossible, but it was right in front of my face. A shape blocked the light. A man. He coughed once, sharp and startled, and then gagged.
“It smells like blood.”
I pressed myself tighter against the wall as the musical voice spoke again. My thumb reached up and tucked my sleeve into my mouth. As soon as I realized what I was doing I yanked my hand down and tucked it under my leg. I tried to do the same with my left. It didn’t move.
“I hope not,” the man said. He was talking to the musical voice. “That’s a lot of blood.
Too much. Too dirty. Too broken. Too little. Too bad. Bad, bad, bad.
“It’s so dark in there,” the man said. He could not see me. Good. Good. He should leave me. Don’t look at me. Don’t look at me. Don’t look at me. “Can you hear anything, Rock?”
Two clicks then the man stepped into the SM-13 with a light in his hand. He pointed it right at me.
Caught. I was caught. I was going to be in so much trouble.
“Oh my…”
My body moved before I could tell it not to. I hit him hard. The light flew out of his hand. It spun across the floor in a white blur, throwing broken shadows up the walls. The man went down under me with a sharp, startled sound, and his head cracked against the metal floor.
The sound made my stomach twist. I had hurt him. Bad. This was bad. But I couldn’t stop.
My hand found his throat. If he couldn’t talk, he couldn’t call anyone. If he couldn’t call anyone, maybe I had one more second. Maybe I could get away and hide. Maybe I could be good if nobody else saw me.
The man grabbed my wrist tightly and tried to push me away. “Hey,” he choked. “Hey, wait…”
No, no waiting. No more. I couldn’t do it again.
“No,” I rasped.
The man’s eyes widened as I squeezed tighter on his throat. Blue. Maybe. Filled with tears. I was scaring him. I was hurting him. I should stop.
Stop.
Stop.
Stop.
I couldn’t.
Behind him, the musical voice exploded. It was screeching and harsh and layered. It filled the SM-13 and hurt my ears and scared me. I was scared. I was scared. I was so scared.
Something stepped into the hatch. It was low and compact, about the size of a dog, I think. No dog I’d ever seen wore a suit of shining material and spoke in musical chords.
A demon. It was a demon.
The demon moved. One second I was on top of the man. The next I wasn’t. Something clamped around my middle and pulled. My hand slipped off the man’s throat. I grabbed for him without meaning to, fingers catching on the fabric of his suit, but the demon peeled me away like I weighed nothing.
“No!” I screamed. “No, no, no!”
My front hit the deck. The demon pinned me there with five hard limbs. One pressed my wrist to the floor. Another braced on my left shoulder. Something held my hips. Something hovered near my chest.
I fought. I bucked and kicked and twisted until pain tore through what was left of my arm and my vision spotted black. I shoved at the demon with everything I had.
It didn’t move, not even a little.
I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t move.
I sobbed.
“Please,” I said. “Please, don’t. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”
The demon pushed down on me harder as I tried to lift my head. I sobbed harder. The demon sang over me. I squeezed my eyes shut and waited for it to hurt.
“Rocky,” the man said. His voice was rough. He was hurt. Because of me. “Rocky, let him go.”
The demon didn’t. Of course it didn’t. Why would it? I had hurt the man. I had been bad. Bad things happened after bad. That was how the world worked.
My crying got worse. I tried to tuck my face down, but I couldn’t even do that right. The demon had me pinned too well.
“No,” the man said. He coughed. “Human is scared.”
I was. I was so scared and didn’t want to hurt, but I did hurt. Now I was going to get hurt. I whimpered. I didn’t want that. I deserved it.
“Rocky,” the man said again. “Please let him go.”
The demon made one low, sharp chord.
I sobbed so hard I couldn’t breathe.
The man moved. I heard fabric shift against metal. I heard him suck in air like it hurt.
“Rocky. Please.”
The pressure holding me down vanished.
I scrambled backward before I understood I was free. My shoulder hit the wall. Pain flashed down my side and through the place where my arm ended. I curled around it, shielding it with my right hand.
The demon stayed where it was. The man stayed on the floor. For a long moment it was completely silent. No one touched me. No one moved. I inched myself into the corner between the broken console and the wall again. I shook so hard my teeth clicked. The man was between me and the light. There was nowhere to go.
The man lifted one hand slowly. His other hand stayed near his throat. There were red marks there. Finger marks. My finger marks. I made a small sound and tucked my face into my knees.
“Hey,” he said.
I cried harder and wedged myself deeper into the corner even though there was nowhere to go.
“I see you’re scared,” he said.
No. No, he didn’t. If he saw me, he’d know. He’d know I was a little. He’d know I was bad. He’d know I wasn’t useful anymore.
“We’re not here to hurt you,” he said. “We just want to help.”
I whimpered.
People said help before they held you down. People said help before the pills. People said help before they told you to “stop making that face, Simon, you’re embarrassing yourself.”
I looked up at the man. He did not look angry. That made no sense. He should be angry. He should tell the demon to grab me again. He should yell. He should hit. He should do something.
Slowly, carefully, he shifted until his back was against the wall. Still a few feet away from me. If I really wanted to, I could try to run. I didn’t.
The demon made a quiet sound from the other side of the sub. The man glanced back.
“Not yet.”
Not yet? Not yet what? I wanted to ask. I couldn’t ask. The demon went still. I stared at it through tears. The demon listened to him.
The man looked back at me. “He won’t touch you.” I didn’t believe him. “I won’t touch you either. Nobody touches you unless you say it's okay.”
My face crumpled. I tried to stop it. I tried so hard. I pressed my fist against my mouth, but the sob came out anyway.
The man’s voice got softer.
“Can you tell me your name?”
I shook my head.
“Okay. That’s okay,” the man said as if I had not just refused. “My name’s Grace.” He pointed to the demon. “That’s Rocky. He’s… um, protective. Sorry.”
“I hurt,” I said.
The man’s eyes flicked over me. My face. My shaking had. The place where my left arm ended. The blood on my clothes.
“Yeah, yeah. I know, you’re hurt,” he said.
His forehead creased. “No?”
“Hurt you,” I whispered.
His hand moved back toward his throat, but stopped before it touched the marks there. “Oh,” he said.
Bad. He knew now. He knew what I did. He knew I was bad. Bad boy. Bad boy.
“Hurt you,” I said again. “Bad.”
He swallowed. “Not bad.” I stared at him. “Scared.”
“Bad,” I whispered. He had to say it. He had to know it.
“No,” he said, still soft. “Scared.”
The demon sang from the hatch.
I flinched so hard my head hit the wall. A sob punched out of me before I could stop it. I tucked my face down, shaking harder.
The demon was talking again.
The demon knew. It knew I hurt him. It was telling him. It was telling him to let it have me. It was going to drag me out and I was going to be punished and I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t.
“Rocky,” the man said.
The demon stopped.
I kept crying.
“Rocky, stop talking, please.”
The demon stopped. Again. My fingers dug into my sleeve and brought it to my mouth. The man watched me do it. I yanked my hand down but it was too late. He saw.
His face changed. He was sad. Had I made him sad?
“You’re a Little, aren’t you?” he asked.
I made a tiny sound and tried to press myself through the wall. “No.”
He nodded. “Okay.” His voice got even gentler. “I’m a Little too.”
I cocked my head at him. That couldn’t be true. He was big. He had a ship. He had light. He had a demon listening to him. He had all the things people had when they got to decide what happened to people like me.
“I was alone too,” he said. “For a while. I’m not anymore. Neither are you.”
I looked for the lie in his face. I couldn’t find it.
“I sorry,” I said. I couldn’t even talk right anymore.
Grace did not seem bothered. He just blinked and his face did that strange soft thing again. “I know,” he said. “I believe you.”
I didn’t understand that. People did not believe sorry. People made you prove sorry. People made you pay sorry back in quiet and useful and good. Sorry was not something people just took and held carefully.
Grace did. Somehow Grace did.
“I’m just gonna talk for a little while, okay?”
I didn’t answer but my eyes widened.
“That’s not a question you have to answer,” he said quickly. “Sorry. Teacher habit.”
I blinked at him.
He smiled a little, like he knew he had said something strange. “I was a teacher. Before all this. Middle school.” His smile got smaller. Found. “Kids that age ask a lot of questions. A lot. You would not believe the number of times I had to explain that no, licking the lab table does not count as data collection.”
He gave a tiny laugh. It rasped in his throat and turned into a cough. I flinched.
“Sorry,” he said, lifting his hand. “I’m okay. That was me being stupid. Not you.”
He kept saying things like that. Putting walls between me and bad. I didn’t know what to do with them.
Grace rubbed at his chest, careful of his throat. “Anyway. Science teacher. Then the sun started getting dimmer.”
That was wrong. He was wrong. The stars didn’t dim. The stars vanished. The universe emptied itself. The Quiet Rapture took everything except stations and blood moons and people too scared to die properly.
Grace kept talking.
“At first we didn’t know what was happening. Nobody did. The sun was losing energy, and other stars were too. We thought everything was going to freeze. Earth. Everybody.” His voice stayed gentle. Too gentle for the end of the world. “I got pulled into it to learn about astrophage.
I knew that word. Astrophage. I lifted my head a little before I could stop myself. Grace noticed. Of course he noticed.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “You know that word.”
My mouth went dry. Dryer.
Astrophage ate stars. Astrophage killed worlds. Astrophage was why the sky went empty. Grace looked down at his hands. “They put me on a ship called the Hail Mary,” he pointed toward the light. “They sent me to another star. Tau Ceti. I didn’t remember agreeing to go at first. Long story. Not a great one.”
“I woke up alone. I didn’t know where I was. Didn’t know who I was. Didn’t even know my own name.” He breathed out a little laugh that wasn’t happy. “So I get the whole waking-up-where-you-shouldn’t-be thing. Not exactly the same, obviously, but… I get some of it.”
My fingers tightened in my sleeve. He had been alone. Big people were not supposed to be alone. Big people did not wake up scared with no name. Grace did.
“I was scared,” he said. Grace looked at me then, really looked. “I was very scared,” he said. “And I get small when I’m scared sometimes.” Grace tapped two fingers against his own chest. “When I regress, I’m usually around one to three. Depends on the day. Sometimes I can talk. Sometimes not much. Sometimes all I can do is cry and want my blanket and pretend I am not being a complete menace to everyone around me.”
He paused.
“That last part is mostly Rocky’s opinion.”
Rocky made a small sound from the hatch. I jerked.
Grace turned his head immediately. “Quiet, please.” Rocky went quiet. My heart beat too fast. Grace looked back at me. “He worries,” he said. “A lot. Mostly about me. Sometimes very loudly.”
The demon worried. About him. That didn’t make sense either. Nothing made sense.
Grace’s voice softened again. “I met Rocky out there. Around Tau Ceti. He was alone too. His star was dimming. Mine was dimming. He saved me. I saved him. We figured out the astrophage problem together. Mostly by being stubborn and doing a lot of math.” He wrinkled his nose. “Too much math, honestly. Don’t tell my students I said that.”
“You…” My voice scraped and broke. I tried again. “You save… stars?”
“Yeah,” he said. “We saved the stars.
I shook my head. No. No, that could not be true. The stars were gone. The sky was empty. I had seen the dark. I had been sent down because everything was already dead enough that one more body didn’t matter.
“No,” I whispered.
“I know. I know that probably sounds impossible.”
“Gone,” I said. “Died.”
His eyes sharpened, but his voice stayed soft. “The stars?”
I nodded before I could stop myself.
“Not here,” he said.
Grace must have seen something in my face because he stopped talking about stars.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay. No big universe stuff right now. That’s too much.”
Yes. Everything was too much.
He shifted his hand a little, palm still open. “Just this room, okay? Just us. You, me, Rocky. Broken submarine. Weird spaceship.”
I stared at his hand.
It was empty.
Grace kept talking.
He talked about Rocky building things with too many arms. He talked about students who asked if exploding things counted as chemistry. He talked about Tau Ceti and math and a planet with heavy air and tunnels full of music. I tried to follow it. I really did. But the words got slippery. They stopped being facts and turned a sound. Like a blanket made out of voice. Grace’s voice stayed low and warm and steady, and Rocky stayed quiet by the hatch, and nobody touched me, and nobody told me to move, and nobody asked me to be big.
I wasn’t big.
I was so tired of pretending I was.
My sleeve was in my mouth again. I didn’t pull it away this time. My body hurt. My arm hurt. Everything hurt, and the cold had gotten into my bones. I stared at Grace’s hand until it blurred.
Warm, some small part of me thought. Up. No. Not up. I was too big for up. I was 34. I was bad. I hurt him.
“You’re okay,” he said softly, though I didn’t know if that was part of the story for me. “I’m right here.”
I wanted. I wanted so badly it hurt worse than my arm.
I moved before I could make myself stop. My right hand slid over the cold deck. My knees followed. My head swam. I reached with my left hand to catch myself. I had no left hand. For once stupid second, I forgot. My shoulder dipped, and I almost hit the flood face first before I jerked myself back with a broken sound.
Grace moved like he wanted to catch me.
I flinched back. “No.”
“Okay,” he whispered. He sat back. “Okay.”
I wasn’t okay. I was little and wrong and missing pieces, and I wanted him to catch me anyway.
Up.
No.
Warm.
No.
Please.
No.
I dragged myself forward another inch.
Grace’s eyes didn’t leave me. He looked like he wanted to help so badly it was hard not to.
I wanted up so bad. A sound crawled out of my throat, too small and too young. I hated it. I hated it and made it again because the hurt was too much.
“I know,” Grace said “I know it hurts.”
I moved again. It took forever. It took no time at all. The light on the floor blurred into a white smear. I finally stopped in front of him. I was close enough that I could touch him. Close enough that he could touch me. Close enough to be stupid.
“You’re doing good,” he whispered.
I shook my head. Grace did not argue.
Suddenly, my arm gave out. For one terrible second, I was falling again. Grace caught me. One hand came to my shoulder. The other braced against my side.
I froze, waiting. Waiting for the catch to hurt. It didn’t.
Grace breathed shakily above me. “Okay,” he whispered. “Okay. I’ve got you.”
His hands loosened. He was going to let go. No. He could not do that. He could not let go. No, no, no.
I made a sound and grabbed at him, fist closed in the fabric of his shirt. I couldn’t look at him. I pressed my forehead into his chest and shook and shook and shook.
“There you go,” he said, so soft it barely made it past his throat. “That’s okay.”
His arms came around me. I leaned into him before I could remember not to. Grace simply held me. Warm. He was so warm.
I broke. There wasn’t another word for it. Something inside me just gave up. My whole body folded against him, all the pretending gone at once. I cried into his chest. My hand clenched so hard to him that my finger hurt.
Grace started to rock, just tiny motions forward and back. I tucked my head further under his chin. It felt so nice.
“I’ve got you, Baby.”
Grace called me a baby. I should have hated that. I should have said no. No baby. Big. Useful. Instead, I made a tiny, ruined sound and tucked my face harder into him.
Grace’s hand moved to the back of my head. Slow enough that I could have stopped him. I didn’t. His fingers settled there, light and warm.
“I know,” he murmured. “I know. You’re safe. You’re okay. I’ve got you.”