Chapter Text
Ava boarded the elevator, grimacing the air changed the deeper they descended into the prison. Cold humidity closed in on her skin and the stench of piss and bile and rot caught at the back of her throat with every breath. The guard beside her chuckled, though his eyes weren’t amused.
“You get used to it.”
“You’d have to.”
The doors opened to a cacophony of sound that poured in from every direction - screams below, laughs above, shouts to her left, sobs to the right. Bloodied hands stretched from between bars, wild eyes and words begging for freedom that wasn’t hers to grant. Other prisoners rattled the bars of their cells, snarling threats and obscenities Ava knew they would act on, given the chance. In response, the guard raked his baton along the cell bars, barking threats just as vile.
(Threats she hoped he wouldn’t act on, but Ava knew better than to hope for such humanity from the COI.)
The pair navigated the labyrinth of cells, the volume gradually decreasing the further they walked. Overhead, a yellow and black sign was posted: solitary confinement. These cells weren’t open air, closed off by solid doors. Not solid enough to completely muffle the manic screaming or pained wails, but enough to hide the worst of the horrors from her eye. She swallowed, throat bobbing.
Ava hadn’t been the one to pick the convict (Simon, she reminded herself). He had been selected by the board of a COI subcommittee who had never set foot on the prison station. He was shipped to her custody in handcuffs, angry and unwilling but desperate. Desperate for a freedom that he was so sure he would see.
(How someone from Eden of all places had so much faith in the COI, so much hope, was beyond her.)
“Here we are.” The guard stopped in front of an isolation cell. The occupant was completely silent as he pressed a keycard to the lock, sliding open a slot at eye level before opening the mechanism. “On your feet, convict. You’ve got company.”
The man huddled in the corner of the cell (it was barely large enough to lie down in, its shape closer to a coffin) didn’t respond. Ava didn’t expect him to; she had seen him in the aftermath. Mangled and maimed and - somehow, through sheer force of will - alive. Now, though, Simon looked dead. How had a man, half drowned in boiling blood and missing an arm, looked more alive than the occupant of this cell? It had only been a few months...
“Convict!” The guard slammed his baton against the wall, the sudden sound making Ava jump. Simon flinched, but seemed to sink even deeper into himself. “Sorry; night shift must’ve been rough on him.”
Ava shot the guard a glance that must have been venomous enough to elucidate an explanation she didn’t ask for.
“Somebody has to shut him up. He’ll scream himself to death if we don’t.”
Ava took a slow breath, driving out the pity from her voice.
“Convict.” It was calm and clear, direct. The same way she addressed him when he first boarded her ship. Her voice seemed to finally get through to him, dark eyes snapping up to stare, wide eyed, through matted hair. Burn scars raked over the left side of his face, eye intact but the skin warped and taut.
“No…” His voice was hoarse - from screaming and from fear - as he tried to back deeper into the cell. “No, no, no - you promised.”
She had.
She couldn't keep her promise.
Ava opened her mouth to reply, but Simon’s tear filled screams overwhelmed any response.
“You promised! You promised you promised you - you - fucking liar - ”
“Oh, shut up, Butcher.” The guard finally snapped, stepping into the cell. Simon recoiled, arm wrapped around his legs and forehead pressed to his knees. He was still speaking, but Ava couldn’t tell if the words were apologies, curses, or prayers.
“…is he…functional?” Ava asked the guard, trying not to dwell on the way Simon’s trembling form was imprinted on her retinas.
“Functional?”
“Can he pilot a fucking sub or did you beat the brains out of him?” She let some annoyance slip into her tone, smothering the anger beneath. Even with the shadows, Ava could see the bruises mottled across Simon's skin.
The guard laughed, shaking his head. (Simon had lifted his face again, lips curled back in shaky defiance.)
“We didn’t fuck him up any worse than whatever was down there.” They hadn’t. They couldn’t. Ava knew that. And Simon knew that. “He’s not half as brain dead as he’d like to be.”
“Good.” She stole one last glance around the cramped cell. “Get him on my ship. Quickly. They want him diving again as soon as possible.”
“Ava, please…” the pain in his voice was palpable. “Ava you know - you saw - I can’t. Ava, please, I can’t go back down there. Don’t put me back down there, please…”
She started walking back to the elevator, ignoring the screams for mercy rising behind her. (She couldn’t let him - or more importantly, the guard - see the ugly and pitying guilt on her face.)
Simon would understand, eventually.
This was bigger than him.
This was bigger than everything.
She just needed to get him off this station long enough to show him.
Simon floated. Even as rough hands grabbed his body and dragged him through the prison, he felt weightless and painless. No, not entirely painless. The twinge in his left ankle persisted with every step, broken ribs shuddering with every breath. Old and new bruises that usually melted into an ignorable ache all felt fresh and tender as he tried to keep pace with the guard. Besides the pain, he felt…hollow, the words from the guard and the other prisoners he passed bouncing around between his ears without being absorbed by his brain.
Probably for the best.
“Lucky motherfucker - should’ve killed you down here while I had the chance.”
“Butcher on the block! They should chop off his leg next.”
“How about his tongue, or better yet - ”
“Eden’s big, bad, butcher - now he’s just the Consolidation’s bitch.”
“Hope you live, bastard. Just so I can personally pay you back for what you did on Filament.”
“You’re gonna die! You’re gonna pay for your sins you fucking monster!”
Simon dimly wondered why he wasn’t cuffed (somehow, he still forgot one of his arms was gone, phantom sensations flickering in his brain). The elevator stopped before they reached the docking bay of the prison. The infirmary. (He had been there a lot lately. Mostly so the medical staff could have a turn torturing the Butcher.) The reason for this last minute pit stop was revealed without ceremony.
“Give him enough sedatives to keep him down between here and AT-5.”
Ah. Chemical restraints.
(He was going back down down down Ava promised but Ava lied - )
Simon felt like he had been slammed back into his body, adrenaline and instinct flinging him into motion. He crashed his elbow into the guard’s gut, hand snagging the baton out of its holster as he lunged forward toward the medic, swinging wildly.
“I’m not going back!” He smashed the cart full of syringes, pushing it into the medic who stumbled and screamed as they caught themself on the broken glass and needles. He rounded on the guard, who was breathlessly begging for backup through his radio. “You hear me? I’m not going back down there!”
The baton connected with the guard’s skull, red splattering from the head wound as he collapsed. (He was alive. Concussed, severely, but the Butcher knew how much force it took to cave in a human skull.) The sight of the red red red pooling on the floor momentarily froze Simon in his tracks.
He was going back.
And there was not a damn thing he could do to stop it.
(He couldn't save Filament Station; of course, he couldn't save himself.)
His entire body seized as the electrical kiss of a taser pressed against his back, more guards pouring into the medical wing. Simon had dropped the baton, the weapon kicked from his reach as a knee pinned him down. He struggled for breath, his hand wrenched behind his back until his shoulder protested with an angry crackle.
“Please!” He screamed, more hands pinning down his legs as he flailed for leverage against the weight holding him down. “Kill me! Kill me! Don’t send me back down there, please!”
The medic he had injured cut through the blur of black guard uniforms above him, their pale scrubs stained with their own blood. They jammed a needle into his shoulder, quickly depressing the syringe. They left it stuck in his arm, jumping back as though he could still hurt them. (He wanted to.) But the sedative was already working, his frantic breaths slowing and vision spotty.
“How long will that keep him out?”
“Not long enough for them to weld him into a new coffin.”
“Get a collar. We’re not handing the Captain a rabid dog without giving her the leash.”
Simon's hearing began to cut out, fragments of sentences filtering through as the hands pinning him to the floor gradually retreated.
“I’ll…next - ‘vel. Keep - down.”
“…gonna - need another…here.”
“Fuck, hold - still…call - “
“…easy…you good - he?”
“Butcher still… to his name.”
Weakly, Simon tried to lift his head and beg for death, but all that came was a wheezing sob.
It was over.
No use fighting it now.
He surrendered to the - blissful, beautiful, undeserved - dreamless sleep.