Archive of Our Own

In hindsight, Ryland should have guessed that calling a fellow - and rather well-known - scientist a “waste of carbon” probably wasn’t his greatest idea.

However, he still believed he was right.

Of course, that didn’t save him from losing his current job and, to make matters worse, his standing in the scientific community. Which was undeniably even worse.
Unfortunately, he had to eat.
And pay rent.
So, looking for a new job it was.

Searching for work while everything about his comment was only one click away, stored on the internet forever, was terrible, to put it plainly. It actually came as a surprise to discover that one of his applications had not been rejected. He had to push his glasses properly into place just to confirm that he wasn’t hallucinating the email.

Dear Dr. Grace,
Thank you for your application for the position of Biological Systems Specialist.
Following a review of your academic qualifications, professional experience, and recent work in molecular biology, we would like to invite you to join our Biological Operations division on a paid trial basis.
This appointment will initially be limited to a twelve-week assessment period. During that time, you will work under the supervision of our senior research personnel and assist with the evaluation, maintenance, and development of proprietary biological systems used across our facilities.
Your responsibilities may include tissue analysis, cellular diagnostics and contamination screening. Further details regarding the nature of the work will be provided after completion of the required confidentiality documentation.
Please be advised that this offer does not constitute permanent employment. Continued placement will depend upon your technical performance, professional conduct, and ability to comply with internal security procedures.
The position is fully compensated and includes temporary accommodation for the duration of the assessment period. Travel arrangements will also be provided.
Should you wish to accept, please confirm your availability within five business days. Upon receipt of your response, we will forward the relevant contracts, nondisclosure agreements, and onboarding materials.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Dr. Elise Warren
Director of Biological Operations
Delos Destinations

On the first day of the following month, Ryland found himself dressed in his best suit - technically speaking, his only proper suit - with a trolley at his side as he waited for the train. He had already travelled halfway across the country on another train. Now, he was standing on a much smaller platform, waiting for the one that would take him directly to the Delos facility and its main attraction.

He fidgeted with the printed copy of his acceptance email. And the ticket that had accompanied it.
Both of which were also on his phone, of course. But phones could run out of battery.
Putting his glasses back into place, he resisted the urge to run a hand through his ash-blond hair and took a deep breath. It was probably already a mess again, so there was no reason to make matters worse.
Instead, he gripped the handle of his trolley more tightly than necessary.

He had packed everything he needed and sublet his apartment for the next three months.
So, no going back.

Not without having a very uncomfortable conversation with the woman currently sleeping in his bedroom, at least.

Around him, more and more people began gathering on the platform. And not the sort of people who looked as though they were a couple of bad weeks away from living on the streets.
Their clothes screamed expensive.
So did their shoes, their watches, and even the casual way they laughed, as though none of them had ever needed to calculate whether they could afford both groceries and electricity in the same week.
On top of that, they carried surprisingly little luggage. Most had no more than a single fashionable bag with them, while Ryland had packed two weeks of clothing, toiletries and his laptop.

He hated being the odd one out.
Again.

By staring at his phone with what he hoped looked like intense concentration, he successfully avoided any possible social interaction. It helped that there was absolutely no reception.

The platform itself was almost unnaturally clean. Smooth pale stone stretched beneath their feet, bordered by glass walls and polished metal. There were no advertisements, no overflowing rubbish bins, and none of the usual crowds hurrying between platforms. Only a discreet silver sign bearing the Delos name and an arrow pointing towards the private track.
Apparently, people paying that much money for a holiday did not have to endure sticky floors.

Ryland checked the time again.
The train was due in three minutes.

A low mechanical hum interrupted the silence shortly afterwards. The train appeared from behind a bend in the track, moving so smoothly that Ryland barely heard it until it was almost at the platform.
It did not look much like either of the trains he had taken to get there. Its exterior was dark and polished, the windows reflecting the surrounding walls and his own face and messy hair. There were no visible company markings beyond another small Delos emblem beside each door.

The train slowed to a stop with unsettling precision.
The doors opened simultaneously.
Several attendants stepped onto the platform, all wearing identical dark uniforms and pleasant expressions that looked as though they had been rehearsed.

The tourists began moving towards them almost immediately.
Ryland stayed where he was, because he had no idea which carriage he was supposed to enter.
One of the attendants approached him.

“Dr Grace?”
That was unexpected.
“Yes.”
“Welcome to Delos Destinations.”
The woman smiled at him before glancing at the ticket still clutched in his hand.
“You’ll be travelling in the staff carriage. May I take your luggage?”
Ryland looked down at his trolley.
Then back at her.
“I can carry it.”
“I’m sure you can.”
Her smile remained perfectly unchanged.
She reached for the handle.
After a brief internal debate over whether refusing would somehow count against his twelve-week assessment, Ryland released it. The trolley was immediately passed to another attendant, who attached a small silver tag to the handle and wheeled it towards the rear of the train.

Ryland watched it go. Everything he currently owned - or at least everything he owned that had been worth packing - disappeared through a different door.
Wonderful.
“This way, Dr Grace"
Ryland adjusted his glasses once more and followed her.

--- 

Maintenance.
That was what they had called it in the email. It was what they were still calling it now, in fact.
It wasn’t the term Ryland would have used to describe his current job.
He had expected… Well, he wasn’t exactly sure what he had expected, to be honest. But given the pages-long NDA he had been required to sign, he had imagined something involving more microscopes. Analysing samples. Studying tissue cultures.
Not the hands-on work he was currently doing.

The first time he had met one of the “hosts,” as they called the humanoid robots, he hadn’t even realised he was standing in front of one. The attendant on the train had looked and acted perfectly normal. She had smiled, spoken to him, and taken his luggage with the slightly unsettling patience of someone accustomed to dealing with confused guests.

It was an entirely different matter to see the hosts that came out of the park for maintenance.
The laboratories were arranged in glass-walled boxes overlooking the cavernous levels below. Bright white lights reflected off transparent partitions, polished metal, and spotless floors. There was nowhere for dirt - or privacy - to hide. From his workstation, Ryland could see other technicians moving around inside their own illuminated compartments, bending over pale bodies laid out on tables.
From a distance, it might have looked like an exceptionally clean hospital.

The woman in front of him was the third host he had been assigned that day.
Only his third.
The others, more accustomed to the work by now, moved considerably faster. Ryland had managed to meet his quota so far by simply staying longer than his colleagues.
Which was probably not a sustainable solution.

The woman - an older lady who appeared to be in her seventies - had already been washed and placed on his table. Most of the blood was gone.
The bone protruding from her broken leg was not.
It was still unsettling to see them lying on the tables so… corpse-like.
And naked.
Ryland wasn’t a medical doctor. This should not have fallen within his area of expertise.
He still needed the money.
He tried not to breathe too deeply. Even after the cleaning process, the smell of artificial blood lingered in the room. It was still far too close to the real thing, in his opinion.
He checked his tablet again to confirm that the old woman was, in fact, unconscious—or in Sleep Mode, as it was called here.
He didn’t want her to be in pain.
And he certainly didn’t want her to remember what he was doing.
Once he was satisfied that she was fully inactive, he began.

First, he carefully guided the bone back into place. Then he used the instruments provided to accelerate the self-repair process within the host’s synthetic bone tissue.
While he worked, his mind drifted towards the possible cause of the injury.
He hadn’t had her on his table before, as far as he could remember. Perhaps she was one of the townspeople who existed mainly as decoration. Someone to gasp whenever a guest won a duel against an outlaw.
Or shot the sheriff, depending on their mood.
She hadn’t been shot.
Maybe she had fallen.
Her back would need repairing as well. The skin there had been scraped away badly enough to expose the pale tissue beneath it.
Perhaps she had fallen from a ladder.
And then down a hill.
Or she had been dragged by a horse.
Ryland pressed his lips together and shook his head, trying to dislodge the thought.
She was a robot, he reminded himself.
They had programmed her to feel pain. She hadn’t really been suffering.
Except that someone had still designed her to scream when the bone broke.
He clenched his teeth and continued working.
He carefully repaired the damaged tissue, layer by layer, before closing the skin over the wound. Under the bright laboratory lights, the final seam slowly disappeared until the leg looked untouched.
Ryland leaned back and examined his work.
There.
As though nothing had happened.
Not even a scratch.
He would still need her to stand and walk a little, just to make sure she was feeling all right -
Operating correctly, he mentally chastised himself. 

“Bring yourself back online, Maria,” he ordered.
The woman opened her eyes.
“Sit up, please, and take a couple of steps around the room.”
The older woman sat up, her grey hair falling back over her shoulders, and did as he had instructed with a perfectly neutral expression. Ryland glanced down at his tablet, then back up again. He was very determined to look only at her leg.

Her back was something he would deal with next.

The repaired limb appeared to be moving normally. There was no hesitation when she placed her weight on it, no instability in the knee or ankle, and none of the slight mechanical stiffness he had already learned to watch for.

“Step into Analysis Mode,” he added. “How does the leg feel, Maria?”
“Both legs are operating at optimal capacity,” she stated.
Ryland nodded and entered the result into the diagnostic interface on his tablet.
“Sit down, please, but remain upright. I need to examine your back.”
Maria returned to the edge of the table and sat exactly as instructed, her hands resting loosely on her thighs.

Ryland pulled on a fresh pair of gloves. The damage across her back looked worse now that she was upright. Several long abrasions stretched from her right shoulder blade towards her lower spine, with smaller tears branching away from them. Most of the artificial skin had been scraped away, exposing the pale synthetic tissue beneath.
He leaned closer, careful not to touch anything yet.

“Do you detect any loss of sensation?”
“No.”
“Pain?”
“Current pain response is set to zero.”

Ryland adjusted the examination light and passed a handheld scanner slowly over the damaged area. A three-dimensional image appeared on his tablet, displaying the different layers beneath the surface.
The injuries were mostly superficial. The underlying muscle fibres remained intact, and there was no damage to the spinal structure. A few sensory pathways had been severed, but those could be repaired easily enough.
Easily, in this case, being a relative term.

“Freeze all motor functions.”
Maria became completely still.

Ryland set the tablet beside her and began cleaning the remaining artificial blood and dirt from the wounds. Fine grains of sand had become embedded in the tissue, along with several small fragments of wood.
So, probably not a simple fall from a ladder.

He removed the fragments one by one with a pair of narrow forceps, placing them in a sample tray beside him. It was slow work, but leaving even one behind could interfere with the tissue’s repair process.
Or at least that was what the training manual had said.

Once the wound was clean, he used the tissue applicator to reconnect the severed fibres. The synthetic material responded almost immediately, drawing together beneath the instrument in thin, pale strands. It reminded him uncomfortably of watching cells divide under a microscope.

Only considerably larger.
And attached to someone who looked like his former high-school librarian.

Ryland focused on the display. He worked from the deepest damaged layer outward, repairing the sensory pathways first, then the connective tissue above them. The skin came last. He guided the applicator carefully along the edge of the largest abrasion. The artificial skin softened beneath the tool, spreading slowly across the exposed tissue until the wound began to close.

Maria remained completely motionless throughout the procedure. That should have made the work easier.
Instead, it made Ryland increasingly aware of how silent the room was.

Beyond the glass wall, technicians moved between other tables beneath the same white lights. One of them was repairing a host with most of his face missing. Another was calmly washing blood from a young man’s chest.

No one appeared particularly bothered by any of it. Ryland looked back at Maria’s damaged skin.
Professional.
He could manage professional.

He finished closing the last abrasion, then wiped away the excess repair medium and ran the scanner over her back once more. No remaining tears. No foreign material. The sensory pathways were responding normally.

“Carry on.”
Maria’s posture relaxed by a fraction.

Ryland removed his gloves and picked up the tablet again. “I’m going to test the sensation in your back. Tell me when you feel contact.”
“Yes.”
He pressed the blunt end of a diagnostic probe lightly against her left shoulder.
“Contact.”
Then the centre of her back.
“Contact.”
The lower right side.
“Contact.”
Each response came immediately. Ryland recorded the results.

“All right. You can lie down again.”
Maria did so without question, folding her hands across her stomach once she was flat on the table. He looked over the completed diagnostic report.

Ryland selected READY FOR REASSEMBLY AND RETURN.
The wording still seemed slightly dramatic, considering she was already assembled. He hesitated for a moment before looking at her.

“Deep and dreamless slumber, Maria.”
Her eyes closed.
Within seconds, she looked like a corpse again.

By the time Ryland had made it through his seventh patient - Host. His seventh host of the day, most of his colleagues had already vacated the glass boxes surrounding his own.

Ryland removed his glasses and rubbed the sore spot on the bridge of his nose where they had rested for most of the day. Then he put them back on and stretched his back as he went to collect the last host assigned to him.
The floor had become somewhat familiar over the past few days.

He passed one empty glass cubicle after another, their bright examination lights switched off and their metal tables wiped clean. In some of them, the cleaning crews had already begun their work, moving silently between the equipment with carts of disinfectant and neatly folded sheets.
Ryland nodded at the few who looked up as he passed.

At the storage room, he pulled out his keycard and immediately caught the plastic sleeve on the small zipper of his pocket. After several seconds of fumbling, he managed to free it and slide the card properly into the reader.
The door opened soundlessly.

Ryland stepped inside and found the metal bed marked with his station number. A white sheet had been pulled over the body lying on top of it, though a dark red stain had already soaked through the fabric around the chest.

Wonderful.

He wrapped his hands around the handles and began pushing the bed back towards his glass cubicle.
Only one more for the day, he reminded himself. Then he could return to his room. Maybe stop by the cafeteria on the way and get something from one of the vending machines. Something containing enough suggar to make it back to his bed.

He rolled the bed into his cubicle and locked the wheels into place. Then he reached for the sheet.
The artificial blood staining it had already given him some idea of what to expect. Even after the host’s outer shell had supposedly been cleaned, enough of it had continued seeping from the injuries to soak through the fabric.
Ryland knew it was going to be bad.

Still, when he pulled the sheet away, he had to take a step back.
His fists clenched around the fabric.

The host was a man.

Broad-shouldered and muscular, with dark hair that fell untidily around his face. Or what remained of it.
He looked as though he had met the unfortunate end of a bundle of dynamite.
There was no other reasonable explanation.

Much of the synthetic skin and muscle across his chest was simply gone. Torn tissue framed a deep, uneven cavity beneath his ribs, while several sections of the internal structure had been cracked or exposed entirely.
The left side of his face had fared little better. The damage began near his chin and stretched almost to his ear, stripping away part of his cheek and jaw. Pale synthetic bone and the darker mechanisms beneath it showed through the ruined tissue.
One eye remained closed beneath an undamaged eyelid.

The other side of his face looked as though someone had attempted to remove it with industrial equipment.
Ryland exhaled carefully. “Jesus, man,” he murmured. “They really did a number on you.”
The host did not respond.
Obviously.

Once Ryland managed to tear his eyes away from the body - or what was currently left of it - he picked up his tablet and opened the accompanying file. The diagnostic display filled immediately with warnings.
Extensive tissue loss.
Multiple structural fractures.
Severe damage to the thoracic cavity.
Damage to the left mandible and facial sensory network.

Ryland scrolled past the product number and current software version. Neither told him anything particularly useful at the moment. Instead, his attention settled on the section marked NARRATIVE PROFILE.

He did not usually read those.

Partly because it felt uncomfortably similar to violating someone’s privacy. Which was ridiculous, considering the information had been written by a team of employees and assigned to a machine. Mostly, though, he avoided it because he suspected knowing their names, histories, and supposed families would make it even more difficult to think of them as equipment. He was already doing a questionable job of that.

Still, curiosity won. How had this particular host managed to get himself blown apart?
The answer was surprisingly simple. He was an outlaw.

Narrative Designation: The Convict.

Ryland glanced briefly at the boliterally Apparently, the title was meant literally.

According to the file, the host’s name was Simon. He had once belonged to a violent gang operating throughout the more remote regions of the park. During his time with them, he had killed a staggering number of hosts before eventually turning against the gang - or being exiled by them. The notes were strangely vague on that point, probably to allow the narrative to change depending on which version a guest encountered.

Since then, Simon had travelled alone. He had no permanent settlement and was not restricted to one fixed loop or area, provided he remained away from the main towns and their central storylines. Instead, he moved through the wilderness, abandoned settlements, mining camps, and isolated stretches of desert.

A wandering target for any guest who fancied themselves a bounty hunter. Ryland looked at the destroyed chest again. Apparently, someone had been particularly enthusiastic about collecting the reward.

Ryland settled back into his chair and rolled closer to the man, gathering the equipment he would need along the way. One glance at the host’s face told him he was in for a very long night.

He decided to repair that first because, frankly speaking, it unsettled him to see a person - anyone - looking like that. Ryland carefully prepared the damaged surface, cleaning away the remaining blood and checking that nothing had become trapped beneath the torn edges of the skin. Small fragments of dirt and fabric had embedded themselves in the exposed tissue, and he removed each one with a pair of narrow forceps before beginning the repair process.

Since the man was missing his left eye, Ryland had to retrieve a replacement from the maintenance cupboard.
After consulting the host’s file, of course.

Everything here had a number. Eyes included.

He located the correct model and shade inside one of the refrigerated drawers. Dark brown. A nice shade, really, Ryland thought. Then immediately wondered why that had been his first observation.

He carried the replacement back to the table and positioned it carefully above the empty socket. Even knowing it was synthetic did not make the process feel any less strange. Ryland turned his face slightly away as he pressed the eye into place, relying mostly on touch until it settled with a soft click.

He shuddered.
A very strange sensation, this job.

His breathing became a little more even once he had restored the tissue around the eye and reconstructed the eyebrow above it. With both eyes closed and the worst of the internal mechanisms covered, Simon looked considerably less like the victim of an industrial accident.

Ryland moved on to the rest of his face. Thankfully, there was only so much he could do wrong. The synthetic skin retained the structure the designers had modelled for it, drawing itself into the correct shape once properly stimulated. All Ryland had to do was make sure he reconnected the sensory fibres, or whatever the host equivalent of nerves technically was, before sealing everything together.
That was still quite a significant thing to get wrong.

Halfway through the process, Ryland found himself breathing more easily.

It was satisfying to watch the damage disappear beneath his hands. More than satisfying, really. There was something strangely comforting about seeing a face restored piece by piece. It felt less like repairing machinery and more like nursing someone back to health. Ryland took particular care not to leave any scar tissue. He felt as though the man had probably been through enough already.

Once the skin was smooth again, Ryland leaned back and studied his work. The left side of Simon’s face now matched the right, apart from some faint discolouration that would disappear once the tissue had fully settled.
No unevenness around the jaw. Both eyes (hopefully) correctly aligned.

Ryland picked up the tablet again. 
“Bring yourself back online, Simon.”

The host’s eyes opened. The new one moved in perfect synchronisation with the other, both dark brown irises focusing on the ceiling before shifting towards Ryland.

Good.
That was one concern dealt with.

“Step into Analysis Mode,” Ryland said. “What is the current condition of your eye and facial integrity?”
Simon’s expression emptied almost immediately. “Visual input from both eyes is stable,” he answered. “No distortion, interruption, or loss of depth perception detected. Facial structure is intact. Motor response and sensory function are operating within normal parameters.”

His voice was deep. The sort of low, rough timbre that Ryland could almost feel in his chest despite Simon speaking without any emotion at all.
Which was not relevant.

Ryland looked down at the tablet. The fact that Simon had answered also confirmed Ryland’s second concern: he had not accidentally damaged anything connected to the man’s speech. “Any discomfort in the jaw or throat?” he asked, tapping through the diagnostic readings with perhaps slightly more concentration than necessary.
“No.”
“Difficulty speaking?”
“No.”
“Any irregularity in vocal output?” Simon paused for precisely half a second.
“My vocal output is functioning within assigned parameters.”
Yes. Ryland had noticed.

“Good,” he said, a little too quickly. He entered the result into the tablet without looking at Simon again.
Facial repair successful. Optical function restored. Vocal function intact.
And apparently quite impressive. That part did not make it into the report.

Once the facial hair was back in place, Ryland checked the man’s report again, just to make sure it looked the way it had before. Before meaning that Simon once again looked very much like someone who belonged on a wanted poster.

Lying still on the metal table, however, he did not seem particularly threatening. He continued staring up at the ceiling, his face perfectly neutral while he remained in Analysis Mode.

Ryland had always been awkward in anything even remotely resembling a social interaction. So, naturally, he decided to fill the silence with what he did best.
Rambling about biology, to a man who would definitely forget it had ever happened.

It also gave Ryland something to occupy his mind with besides restoring Simon’s chest tissue. And kept him from once again marvelling at how disturbingly real the synthetic skin felt beneath his gloved fingers.

He started with the structure of the tissue. Then moved on to the rather ingenious way the synthetic cells responded to the repair medium. At some point, that turned into an explanation of why the word synthetic was technically being used far too loosely.
From there, somehow, he arrived at a research paper he had read several months ago.

He became so lost in his thoughts - and in his increasingly irritated rambling - that his exhausted mind stopped filtering every word before it left his mouth.
“…and then they continued, Simon. Can you believe that?”, he muttered, speaking partly to himself and partly to the host on the table as he concentrated on repairing a particularly nasty burn along the man’s ribs. “Believe me, you’ve never read a worse paper in your life. Their sample size alone should have prevented anyone from publishing it, but apparently standards are merely suggestions now.”

He carefully guided the tissue applicator along the damaged muscle.
“And they continued to insist that correlation...”

A hand pressed against his face.

Ryland flinched so violently that it was a wonder he did not fall backwards out of his chair. The applicator nearly slipped from his fingers.

Simon’s palm rested against his cheek, broad and warm enough that, for one confused second, Ryland forgot that warmth was something Delos had manufactured.

The man had turned his head towards him. The neutrality of Analysis Mode was gone. His dark eyes were fixed on Ryland’s face with open, almost reverent wonder.

“Are you an angel?” Simon murmured.
His voice still carried that same deep timbre.
Only now there was emotion behind it.
It took Ryland’s mind one very long, very panicked moment to work out what had happened.
And then they continued, Simon.
Continued.
He had given him an order.

Ryland’s gaze dropped towards the hand still touching his face, then towards the unfinished cavity in Simon’s chest. “The Convict” was awake. Actually awake.
And instead of screaming - which he certainly should have been doing, considering there was still a sizeable portion of his chest missin - he was looking up at Ryland as though he were some kind of divine apparition.
Maybe he was delirious with pain.

“Oh no, no, no, no,” Ryland murmured hastily. “I’m so sorry. That wasn’t meant to happen. I...”
He grabbed the tablet again and, with one quick movement of his finger, reduced the pain level from seventy-five percent to something closer to seventeen. Hopefully enough to discourage him from trying to sit up. The much simpler option of ordering him not to move had completely left Ryland’s mind. He was far too startled by the Convict’s reaction to remember any of the approved procedures.

Simon visibly relaxed against the metal table. His eyes closed for a moment as the tension left his jaw and shoulders.
He did not, however, remove his hand from Ryland’s face. “Angel,” he murmured again. He sounded deeply convinced of it.

Which, Ryland supposed, made a certain amount of sense from Simon’s perspective.
He had woken to find someone leaning over him who could apparently a) mend his wounds, and b) ease his pain with a single touch.

“I’m… I’m not an angel,” Ryland stuttered. Simon appeared to ignore that entirely. His gaze remained fixed on Ryland for another moment before drifting slightly out of focus, as though he were looking at something beyond him. His thumb brushed slowly along Ryland’s cheekbone. Then higher, catching briefly in the strands of his ash-blond hair.
Ryland went very still.

“But you can’t be real,” Simon murmured.
There was no suspicion in his voice, only quiet certainty.
“I remember the pain,” he continued. “I felt myself being torn apart.”
His eyes moved over Ryland’s face again, taking him in with a strange sort of wonder.
“I must be dead.”
He concluded it so calmly that Ryland found himself staring.

Maybe that was the only reason the supposedly dangerous man had not attempted to attack him.
Not that Simon was in much of a position to do so. He was naked, unarmed, and still missing a significant portion of his chest. Although, given the reports Ryland had read, the absence of weapons might not necessarily make him harmless.

“You’re not dead,” Ryland said carefully. He nearly continued. Nearly explained that Simon had been returned to the facility, that the damage was being repaired, and that he would most likely be sent back into the park as soon as Ryland had finished putting him together.
Then he remembered that he was absolutely not supposed to tell a host any of those things.
His mouth closed again. Simon did not appear particularly convinced by the part Ryland had managed to say anyway.

“Whatever you say, angel,” he murmured.
His fingers moved gently through Ryland’s hair, careful not to pull. The touch did not fit the man described in the file.
The Convict had killed dozens of people. He had turned against his own gang, survived alone in the wilderness, and apparently inspired park guests to use dynamite when ordinary bullets failed to make the experience sufficiently exciting.

Yet he was touching Ryland as though he were something delicate. Something worth being careful with.
Perhaps no one had treated Simon gently in a very long time. Or perhaps no one ever had.
Ryland immediately pushed that thought away.

It was a backstory. Someone had written it. Probably in an office, while drinking coffee and discussing which tragic details would make guests more interested in hunting him.
Simon’s expression softened further.
“You’re very pretty,” he added.

Ryland blinked. Of all the possible things the Convict could have said, that had not been anywhere on the list.
Blood loss, Ryland decided.
It had to be the blood loss speaking.
Artificial blood loss, technically, but apparently the behavioural consequences were convincing enough.

Simon continued looking at him. Which, Ryland supposed, was helpful. As long as Simon remained focused on Ryland’s face, he was not looking down at the large open cavity where a considerable part of his torso should have been.
Ryland had the distinct impression that seeing that might interfere with Simon’s calm acceptance of "the afterlife".
So he stayed exactly where he was.
With Simon’s hand resting against his cheek.
Trying very hard not to think about the fact that the dangerous outlaw had called him pretty.

---

Simon still felt as though he had been run over by a stagecoach. His entire body ached, although the pain was not nearly as bad as he remembered it being. Not as bad as it should have been after feeling himself torn apart by the explosion. He remembered the heat and the brief, terrible sensation of his body no longer being one whole thing.

Now, making the angel blush a very pretty shade of pink was certainly distracting. Simon found himself genuinely smiling. He could not remember the last time he had done that. The expression only seemed to make the blond man fluster even more. His eyes darted away behind his glasses, although he made no attempt to pull free from Simon’s hand.

If this was the afterlife, Simon decided, it was not so bad.

The priests from his youth had always spoken at length about death. About judgement, hell, and purgatory. They had promised fire for men like him. Not gentle hands. And certainly not beautiful, nervous angels with soft blond hair. Simon let another strand slip through his fingers.

Fuck.

He had never seen anyone look so clean before. There was no dust on the man’s skin. No sweat darkening his collar. No blood beneath his fingernails, apart from what Simon suspected belonged to himself. Even his clothes were spotless.

“I should…” the angel began. His voice caught slightly. Simon watched his throat move as he swallowed. “I should continue healing you.” Healing him. Very angelic. Simon closed his eyes for a moment. The room seemed to tilt faintly beneath him, and a strange lightness filled his head.

“Sure, angel,” he murmured. He did not remove his hand. Instead Simon tightened his fingers slightly in the soft hair. Not enough to hurt him. Only enough to make certain he was still there.
He could not bear the thought of the man suddenly disappearing.
Everyone disappeared eventually.

The angel returned his attention to Simon’s torso. One hand rested carefully against Simon’s left collarbone, holding him steady while the other continued doing… whatever it was angels did when putting a man back together.
The touch felt very nice indeed.

Simon watched the blond man work, perfectly content to remain exactly as he was. Moving seemed dangerous. If he moved, he might shatter this fragile state of being dead. So Simon stayed still. For a while. Unfortunately, he had always been a curious man.

Especially when the angel had stopped looking at his face. And stopped talking. Simon had liked his voice. He had woken to the soft sound of the man rambling about things Simon did not understand, speaking as though he had known Simon for years and fully expected him to share his outrage over some terrible paper. The silence felt wrong now. 
The angel was staring intently at Simon’s side, his brows drawn together behind his glasses. Simon lifted his head. Or, at least, he began to.

The angel reacted immediately. The hand resting against his collarbone slid upwards and settled beneath his chin, firmly guiding his head back down against the cool metal.
“Oh no, no. You can’t do that.”

Simon allowed himself to be moved without resistance. “There is still…” The angel glanced down briefly, then immediately back at Simon’s face. “There is still quite a lot you certainly shouldn’t see, and that would only make you panic. Then I would panic because you were panicking, and that would make everything considerably worse.”

He was rambling again. Simon was pleased to note that. The hand beneath his chin helped too, of course. It was warm and careful, the angel’s fingers resting along his jaw as though Simon might break if handled too roughly. Simon relaxed his head against the table.

“Wouldn’t want you panicking,” he murmured.
The angel blinked at him.
“Exactly.”
Simon smiled. The man seemed to realise only then that he was still holding Simon’s chin. His fingers shifted uncertainly, but he did not pull them away. Simon was perfectly happy with that arrangement.

“What are you doing down there?” he asked. The angel’s expression tightened.
“Healing you.” - “I gathered that.” - “Then why did you ask?” - “Wanted to hear you talk.”
That pretty pink colour returned to the angel’s cheeks. Simon’s smile widened.
The afterlife continued to improve.

“You don’t want me to talk,” the angel said. “Most people find it terribly one-sided when I start. And not everyone is interested in the things I’m interested in, so that doesn’t exactly make it better.”
Simon hummed, perfectly content.
“I like listening.”
The angel glanced at him, visibly doubtful.
“Makes me believe this is real,” Simon continued, letting another strand of blond hair slip between his fingers, “and not some hallucination my mind came up with.”

That gave the angel pause.

His hand was still resting beneath Simon’s chin, although the pressure had eased now that Simon was no longer trying to look down. Simon could feel his thumb against the edge of his jaw.
“Please talk,” Simon murmured. “I promise I won’t interrupt.” The angel stared at him for a moment, then sighed, but Simon could tell he was considering it.

His gaze dropped back towards Simon’s chest, and the instrument in his other hand began moving again. Simon felt a faint pressure along his ribs, followed by an unpleasant pulling sensation that never quite became pain.

“All right,” the angel said eventually. “But you did ask so you can’t complain afterwards.” 
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
The angel gave him another suspicious look before returning to his work.

“For example,” he began, “the material your skin is made from is fascinating, although calling it synthetic skin is technically inaccurate. Or at least misleading. Synthetic makes it sound like plastic, which it very much isn’t. It has cellular structures. They’re engineered, obviously, but they react to damage in ways that are remarkably similar to actual biological tissue.”

Simon understood perhaps half of those words. It did not matter. The angel’s voice had settled as soon as he began talking. The nervous catches disappeared from it, replaced by an easy rhythm. He spoke faster now, his attention divided between Simon’s injuries and whatever knowledge had apparently been waiting impatiently inside his head.

Simon watched his face. The little crease between his brows returned whenever he concentrated. Every few moments, he pushed his glasses back into place with the back of his wrist so he would not touch them with his bloodstained gloves.
Simon liked that too. He liked all of it.

“And whoever designed the repair response clearly understood extracellular matrices,” the angel continued. “Which is impressive, because most people hear the word matrix and immediately think of science fiction instead of the structural network surrounding cells, which is unfortunate because-"
His eyes flicked briefly towards Simon. The angel seemed almost surprised to find him still listening.
“Go on,” Simon murmured.
A faint flush returned to the angel’s cheeks. Then he did.

---

It helped immensely to talk about cellular structures, the process of engineering cells, and the fact that “synthetic” probably wasn’t even the correct terminology. Because then Ryland didn’t have to think about the fact that the man was quite good-looking when he wasn’t missing half his body.

Simon listened, occasionally humming whenever Ryland stopped long enough to breathe or pick up another repair tool. Even while Ryland rambled about terminology. Much to his surprise - and he did check quite regularly - Simon didn’t seem bored.
Even the data on the tablet remained stable, so Ryland couldn’t reason with himself that Simon’s behaviour was simply an effect of the wounds, or the pain.

Even with his damage level now reduced to fifteen percent, according to the digital file, Simon seemed remarkably calm. He didn’t even flinch.
The only visible signs that he felt any discomfort at all were the occasional moments when he squeezed his eyes shut or tugged a little more firmly at Ryland’s hair. Never painfully so.
Which was still rather odd, Ryland thought.

Not only because of the man’s programmed backstory. There was also the simple fact that, if Ryland woke up somewhere he had never been before with a person he had never seen meddling with his body, he certainly wouldn’t be this calm.

Absolutely not.

He only realised that he must have stopped talking when Simon’s fingers brushed against his cheek again.
“Have I done something wrong, angel?” Simon looked far more distressed now than he had while Ryland was repairing the open cavity in his chest.
“Hmm?” Ryland glanced quickly at the tablet, checking whether he had missed reconnecting a nerve and was somehow responsible for the man’s reaction.

“You stopped talking.”
Oh.
Oh.
“No, no, you haven’t. It’s not like that,” Ryland assured him. “I just got… lost in thought.”

“I’m sorry,” Simon said, as though he had somehow caused Ryland’s thoughts to drift. His hand returned to Ryland’s cheek, but he made no attempt to hold him there. “Please don’t leave. You don’t - you don’t have to talk. You don’t have to do anything. Just… please stay.”

There was a quiet desperation in his voice that made something constrict in Ryland’s chest.

The hosts were designed to keep guests engaged, he reminded himself. Of course Simon knew how to make someone react like this. It was programming. A carefully constructed response meant to make him seem vulnerable. Human.
Professional, Ryland told himself. He only needed to remain professional.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said, though he could not quite keep his voice from trembling. “I still need to heal you, remember?”

He had intended it to sound reassuring. Almost like a joke. It did not. Simon’s expression tightened, and his hand slipped away from Ryland’s face. He turned his gaze back towards the ceiling, pressing his lips together.

“Right,” he said quietly. “Until you’re finished, then.”

Ryland stared at him. The reaction made no sense. Not for a machine. And yet the hurt on Simon’s face was unmistakable.

Ryland knew he sometimes sucked at social interactions. He was definitely even worse at consoling someone. So he tried changing the subject, attempting to ease Simon again by talking. Simon had liked listening to him, hadn’t he?
Maybe that would work better than his attempt at humour.

Ryland started rambling again, returning to the differences between natural and engineered tissue and explaining how the repair medium encouraged the cells to reconnect in the correct order. He doubted it was working, however.

Simon’s gaze remained fixed on the ceiling, his hands resting motionless at his sides.

If Ryland hadn’t known better, he might have thought the host had slipped back into Analysis Mode.
Except Ryland hadn’t given the command.
And there was something too deliberate about the stillness. As though Simon had decided that moving - or speaking - might somehow make things worse.

Ryland faltered in the middle of a sentence. Simon did not turn towards him. For some reason, that felt far worse than when the man had refused to let go of his face.

---

His angel had been lying to him. Simon had seen it often enough - the change in someone’s expression when they looked at him and decided there was something wrong with him.

Something dangerous.
Something better kept at a distance.

He had seen the same thing in the angel’s blue eyes the moment he had stopped talking in the first place. Sure, he was talking again now, which twisted something painfully in Simon’s chest. But the calmness in his voice was mingled with a slight tremor. The sort that appeared when someone wasn’t sure how Simon might react. Expecting violence, most likely.

Simon closed his eyes.
He had fucked this up, hadn’t he?
Managed to push away the one being who had been kind to him by simply being himself. As usual.
He had asked for too much. Held on too tightly. Let too much of the fear show.
People didn’t like that.

They liked him better when he was quiet. When he kept his hands to himself and whatever he felt buried deeply enough that no one else had to deal with it.

So Simon remained still. He kept his hands at his sides, even though every part of him wanted to reach for the angel again. To reassure himself that he was still there.
That would only make it worse.
Wanting people too much always did.

Simon swallowed bitterly.

Of course the angel was kind to him. It was his job to heal Simon. Whether Simon deserved that kindness was another question entirely. “I’m sorry,” Simon tried again, keeping his voice as quiet and non-threatening as possible.

The angel stopped talking. Simon immediately regretted interrupting him. “For what?” 
Simon stared at the ceiling rather than looking at him. “For making you uncomfortable.”- “You didn’t.”
The answer came quickly. Gentle and automatic, the way people spoke when they wanted to calm a dangerous animal without startling it. Simon nodded once.
“All right.”

He did not believe him. The angel was kind. That was all. Kind enough to lie rather than tell Simon that he had held on too tightly, stared too long, wanted too much.
“You haven’t done anything wrong,” the angel added.
Something in Simon’s chest tightened. He wished he would stop saying that. It only made the shame worse, hearing the man offer him comfort Simon had done nothing to deserve.

“I won’t touch you again,” Simon promised. “And I can be quiet.”
The instrument against his side went still.
“That isn’t what I meant.”

Simon swallowed. Of course it wasn’t. The angel had not asked for promises. He had only been trying to finish his work without Simon making it more difficult.
“I know,” he murmured. He kept his hands flat against the cold metal and made certain they did not move.

The angel remained silent for a moment. Then Simon felt his hand settle carefully against his shoulder. Simon’s breath caught despite his efforts to hide it.
“You really haven’t done anything wrong,” the angel said again, quieter this time.
Simon closed his eyes. He still did not believe him.
But the hand stayed.

“I really mean it,” the angel tried again. “You haven’t startled me or anything like that. It’s just something I do sometimes. I stop in the middle of a sentence, get lost in thought. It really wasn’t anything you did.”

“What were you thinking about, then?”

The question came out sharper than Simon had intended. He winced at himself immediately. The angel had been nothing but kind to him. He did not deserve to have Simon snapping at him simply because Simon could not control the mess in his own head.
Still, judging by the way the man’s expression changed, Simon had been right.

His gaze flickered away. His mouth opened, then closed again.

“You were thinking about me,” Simon said.
He tried not to sound disappointed. He failed. Of course he had been. Thinking about the hand in his hair. The way Simon had held on. How quickly he had made something gentle feel like a burden.
Simon turned his face slightly towards the ceiling again.
“You don’t have to explain,” he added quietly. “I understand.”

“No, I don’t think you do…”

Wonderful. Now Simon had managed to frustrate his angel.
A divine being, at that.

He mentally cursed himself and let his head fall back against the cold metal table a little harder than necessary.
“I was only wondering how you could possibly stay so calm,” the blond man continued, the explanation coming out increasingly frantic. “I mean, you’re still in pain, and you woke up here without knowing where you were or who I was. It was just… odd.”

Simon’s chest tightened.

Then the angel hurriedly added, “But in a good way.” Simon turned his head just enough to look at him.
The man’s blue eyes were wide behind his glasses, his face flushed again as though he was desperately trying to untangle words that had already come out wrong.
He did not look angry.
Only worried that Simon might misunderstand him.
Which, apparently, Simon had.
“Oh,” he murmured.
The angel swallowed. “Yes. Oh.”

Simon looked back towards the ceiling, unsure what to do with the quiet relief spreading through him.
“So you weren’t thinking about how to get away from me?”
The words slipped out before he could stop them. To make matters worse, Simon quickly added, “Which I would completely understand. I killed people. Wanting to get away would be a natural reaction. A very logical one.”
The angel was smart. Simon knew that much.
Surely he would understand the reasoning.

“I wouldn’t stay around me either, if I were you.”
The words came out quieter than the rest.
Simon kept his gaze fixed on the ceiling, bracing himself for the agreement he was certain would follow.

Instead, the angel groaned. Then his forehead dropped against the edge of the metal table. Simon flinched and immediately tried to sit up.
Was he all right?
Had Simon hurt him somehow? Or frustrated him so badly that the man had chosen to hurt himself rather than continue dealing with him?

A sharp, repetitive beeping started somewhere nearby. The strange device the angel kept glancing at. That could not be good. Simon’s panic rose with every alarmed sound. Making the alarmed sound even worse.

“Are you-”

He pushed himself halfway upright.
Pain tore through his chest so suddenly that the question vanished from his mouth. It was far worse than the dull ache he had grown accustomed to, sharp enough to steal his breath and turn the edges of his vision white.
The angel had warned him not to look down.
Simon did. Of course he did.
His body seemed to stop beneath him.
There was a hole in his chest.
Not a wound.
A hole.
Torn flesh surrounded the open cavity, and beneath it—
Ribs.
He could see several of his ribs.
His own fucking ribs.
“Holy shit,” Simon breathed.
The beeping grew faster.
So did his breathing.

He could not look away. His hands hovered uselessly above the ruined parts of himself, fingers shaking as though they wanted to confirm what his eyes were already telling him. He had been right. He was dead. No living man could look like this.
“Simon, no - don’t move.”
The angel’s hands were suddenly on him. One pressed carefully against his shoulder, the other supporting the back of his neck as he tried to guide him down again. Simon resisted without meaning to.
“What happened to me?” - “You already know what happened,” the angel said, his voice pitched too high with panic. “There was an explosion, remember? But you’re all right. Or you will be. I was fixing it before you decided to ignore the one thing I specifically asked you not to do.”
Simon barely heard him.
His gaze snapped towards the blond man’s face.
“You said I wasn’t dead.”
“You aren’t.”
“I can see inside my own chest.”
“Yes, and I understand why that is upsetting, but it’s also why you need to lie back down.”

The angel was frightened now.
Simon could see it plainly.
Because of him.
Again.
His resistance vanished.

He allowed the man to lower him back onto the cold metal, even as every instinct screamed that he should run. The movement sent another wave of pain through him, and he clenched his teeth hard enough to ache.
“I’m sorry,” Simon gasped. The angel made a strangled noise. “Stop apologising.”
Simon went still. There it was.
The frustration he had known would come eventually.

His throat tightened.
“I didn’t mean to-”
“No, that isn’t…” The angel shut his eyes for a moment, taking a breath that did very little to calm him. “I’m not angry with you. I’m angry with myself because I keep saying the wrong thing, and then you somehow decide everything is your fault.”
Simon stared at him.

The angel groaned again and dragged one hand through his hair. Simon winced. There was blood in it now. His blood. The man should not have had to deal with that too, on top of everything else.
On top of Simon having a hole in his chest.

“Do you know how frustrating that is?” the angel asked. “Trying to say one thing, and then you…”
He stopped and took a very careful breath. Then he clasped his hands together, as though physically holding them still might help him make his point.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he said, each word deliberate. “And if you say that again one more time, I’m going to get up and take a break before I scream.”

Simon stared at him.
The angel was angry.No, frustrated.
With Simon. Because Simon kept getting it wrong.
His stomach dropped.

He pressed himself more firmly against the table, making certain not to move anything else.
“All right,” he said quietly.
He would not apologise again.
Apparently, even that was something he could do wrong.

---

Ryland still felt as though he needed to bang his head against the table one more time. Because he was fairly certain Simon had missed the point again. Maybe that was part of his programming too.
If it was, Ryland felt a sudden and rather intense desire to find whoever had written it into him and hit them.

How dare they give Simon a backstory that made him believe he was a burden simply for existing? He most likely had not even killed anyone. Not really.
The murders were probably nothing more than lines written into his history to justify the bounty on his head. A convenient reason for guests to hunt him without feeling guilty about it.
The only thing Simon had likely experienced - actually experience - was wandering through the park alone and being hunted for sport.
Again and again.
Then waking with memories of a life he had never lived and trauma from things that had never happened, because someone had decided it made him more interesting. And there was certainly more than a little trauma in the man.

Ryland took another deep breath and rubbed the bridge of his nose. His glasses were hanging crookedly from one ear.
“All right,” he murmured. “I need a break. Let’s take a break.”

The tablet immediately began beeping again.
Ryland looked down. Another spike in adrenaline.
Simon stared at him from the table as though Ryland had just announced he was leaving and never coming back.
“No. It’s just…”
Ryland closed his eyes and shook his head.
Then he reached into the pocket of his lab coat and pulled out a packet of Sour Skittles.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “I’m just having a snack.”

“You carry food in your robes?” Simabsurdity Ryland had to chuckle at the sheer absurdity of the sentence. “It’s a lab coat. I’m not an angel, remember?”- “Sure,” Simon replied.
He looked very much as though he still doubted that. But apparently, he had decided not to argue and risk frustrating Ryland again.

Ryland let it go with a sigh and opened the packet. “Do you want some too?” he asked, pouring a few of the sweets into his palm. Then frowned.
He wasn’t entirely certain whether the hosts could eat them. They were perfectly capable of eating and drinking in general, though. A few Skittles probably wouldn’t hurt, Ryland reasoned.
When he looked back at Simon, the man appeared equally puzzled.
And very much as though his first instinct was to refuse.

What came out of his mouth instead was, “What is that?”
Ryland considered giving him the scientific explanation. Then immediately discarded the idea. Simon probably wouldn’t understand half the words, which was not a particularly reassuring way to introduce someone to food.

“Angel food,” Ryland said instead. “It’s good. Sour, though.”
“Angel food,” Simon repeated.
The corner of his mouth twitched upwards. He looked far too delighted that Ryland had finally admitted it.

“All right,” Simon said, half sitting up and propping his upper body on one elbow.
Very deliberately ignoring the wound. And Ryland very deliberately ignored the way the muscles in his arm and shoulder shifted with the movement.
He reached for Simon’s hand and poured some of the sweets into his open palm.

If anyone saw him now, he would certainly have some explaining to do.
Fortunately, even the cleaning crew had decided to head home by now.

Ryland let go of Simon’s hand once he realised the man wasn’t going to pull away on his own.
That fact made his face heat up again. He quickly threw a few Skittles into his mouth to distract himself.

Simon watched him.
Then simply copied him.
Without any hesitation whatsoever.

His face contorted almost immediately, once again confirming that Ryland had managed to repair it properly.
Every muscle seemed to be in place.
“Oh, that’s…” Simon winced slightly. “Much worse than I expected.”
Ryland stared at him.
“Sour, I mean,” Simon added quickly.

Ryland chuckled and ate a few more Skittles. “You know, for someone who spends most of his time out in the wilderness, I didn’t expect you to simply eat whatever you were handed.”

Simon raised his eyebrows.
He seemed to consider that for a moment before apparently deciding the statement was very silly indeed.
“You’re an angel,” he replied. “An angel who is healing me.”

Ryland could understand the reasoning. Poisoning him would be a rather strange move under those circumstances.
Still, it was the general principle of the matter. 
“Healing you, yes. But, again, not an angel. I’m Ryland Grace. Or Dr Grace.”
“Grace,” Simon repeated, as though that settled the debate all over again.
Then the corner of his mouth lifted.
“Very fitting.”

Ryland supposed he had walked straight into that one. Which was as frustrating as it was amusing. There probably wasn’t any way to convince the man otherwise, anyway. Simon studied his reaction rather closely, the small smile spreading across his face.
Very pleased with himself indeed.

After their short break, Ryland picked up his instruments again and pushed his glasses back into place.
“I should probably continue,” he said. “It’s getting rather late.”
Something flickered across Simon’s face that he couldn’t quite place. Still, the man lay back down obediently, his eyes half-lidded but fixed on him.

Ryland settled into his chair again and leaned over the table. As he reached for the damaged tissue, a hand moved carefully towards him and came to rest around his free wrist.
“That okay?” Simon asked quietly.
“It’s okay,” he whispered back.
Then he forced his attention away from those very pretty brown eyes and returned to mending what remained of the wound.
The man beneath him stayed still throughout the entire process. Only his fingers moved occasionally, brushing lightly over Ryland’s wrist as though reassuring himself that he was still there.

Ryland finished sooner than he had expected.
His back ached slightly from leaning over the table for so long, but he was more than satisfied with the result. The man’s chest was smooth again, apart from the scars that were supposed to be there because the design team had apparently decided they suited an outlaw.
His gaze lingered on the remnant of a bullet wound in Simon’s shoulder before he realised what he was doing.

“Right. So, I think I’m all done,” he said quickly.
He rolled his chair back, giving him some space.

Simon sat up carefully and ran his fingers over the newly restored tissue where, only minutes earlier, there had been a hole in his chest.
“It’s marvellous, angel,” he murmured.

Ryland hid his blush by busying himself with putting the instruments back in their proper places. “It’s just… science,” he said. “Really, I only held the tools.”
When he finally looked up again, Simon was watching him.
“Take the compliment, angel.”
Another smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“Fine,” Ryland muttered. He discarded his gloves and ran a hand through his hair again before looking up. Simon was still watching him as though he had performed a miracle.
Which, from his perspective, was probably entirely accurate.

Ryland took a deep breath and fidgeted with the edge of his lab coat. His job was finished now. And Simon probably knew that too.
Another deep breath. Why did this suddenly feel so difficult?
“Thank you,” Simon said.
He sat very still on the edge of the table, his hands resting beside him.
“It wasn’t a problem. Really.” Ryland stumbled slightly over the words. “You’re welcome.”

“It was nice meeting you,” Simon admitted carefully. “Will I see you again, angel?”
Ryland’s heart gave a painful twist at that.
“I don’t know,” he replied truthfully.
Simon’s lips pressed together.
Regret, Ryland concluded.
Then the man reached out once more, his fingers brushing gently along Ryland’s cheek.
The touch lingered there, as though Simon were trying to memorise him before he disappeared.

Simon’s lips quirked upwards again in a brief, painfully sad smile.
“I hope I do,” he said quietly. 
Ryland took the hand still resting against his face and held it between his own, squeezing gently.
He tried very hard to remain composed.
There was no logical reason for this to feel so difficult. But the words sat like lead on his tongue, and he couldn’t bring himself to say them yet.

Instead, he said, “It was nice meeting you too, Simon.”

He looked up into the man’s eyes again.
A very pretty shade of brown, Ryland thought once more.
Now they were filled with an emotion neither of them seemed able to name.
Something that mirrored his own.
This was goodbye.
They both knew it.
Only Ryland knew what kind.

“I’m sorry, Simon,” he whispered, knowing the man would never understand the full extent of what he was apologising for.
“Stay safe.”
Then, because he was afraid he would not manage to say the words if Simon spoke again, Ryland forced them out.
“Simon, erase this interaction.”
The emotion vanished from Simon’s face.
His hand went slack in Ryland’s.
Ryland inhaled shakily.

“Deep and dreamless slumber.”