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Simon stares at the wall. He's been glaring at it for a long while now. Dark eyes flickering down, they settle on the bed shoved against the wall.
Wide, bright, blue eyes stare back. Grace is in a stunned silence. After all, it's not everyday a large man stands in the corner of his room, watching him sleep. Neither of them move, but he can tell it's out of fear on Grace’s end.
It's only happened a few times. Usually Grace is woken by a sound downstairs and that alerts him that Simon is sleepwalking. At least then, it's easy to guide him back to the couch and lull him back into sleep.
He's never sleepwalked into Grace's room before. He's just as confused as the scientist. Simon would never stumble into someone's private chamber without permission, especially at night.
He is aware of how much he scares Grace. He's alien; but not the bubbly, welcoming kind the other is used to.
No, when Simon is around, he can hear Grace's heart rate double from across the room. He can hear the powerful rush of a rising blood pressure. He can see the man freeze, stuck between striking or fleeing.
He knows he isn't appealing anymore. He's scarred and hardened. The side of his cheek is split open from teeth growing out of his skull. He's missing an arm, a new one screwed on by alien technology on his already alien body.
He's less human than he's ever been before.
Still, as they stare at each other, waiting for someone's resolve to crack, Grace holds his gaze. He never looks away. Never denying him that connection.
“Did you want to come in?” Grace suddenly asks, voice quiet and raspy.
Simon blinks. Casts his gaze aside. Shifts his weight. He must want that, right? Why else would his subconscious drag him here?
He nods, half certain he'll be laughed out.
To his pleasant surprise, Grace scoots towards the wall, patting the new empty space on the bed. Simon, against his better judgement, makes himself comfortable. He sits right down on the bed, whose mattress gives way to his weight.
He curls up, keeping a respectable distance from Grace. He's grateful to him and the Eridians for graciously saving his life. He'd be a fool to take up too much space, however difficult it is not to do.
Besides him, Grace shuffles to lay down, hands folded over his chest while poising ramrod straight. It's very different to Simon's fetal position, where he can face him.
Even with his eyes closed, Simon can tell Grace is faking sleep. His breathing is controlled, too even. His heart, the dull thudding of it, is too quick.
“I know you're awake,” Simon mutters.
A long exhale comes out of Grace as he cracks open his eyes. “I should be used to being watched by now.”
His brow draws, a sour feeling stirring. “Is it common?”
“Yes, very. It's an Eridian custom.”
“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to just walk in here.”
“It's fine.” Grace says, uncertainty heavy in his voice. “It was just startling.”
He's guilty again, having imposed on the savior of his past species.
“Do you remember anything?”
“Just waking up in the corner,” Simon whispers.
“You were saying something,” Grace says. “In your sleep.”
“Oh. Was it anything weird?” He wonders, shame burning his face.
“You were apologizing.”
Simon slowly rolls onto his back to avoid meeting Grace’s gaze. He's not about to embarrass himself further than he already has.
“You kept saying you didn't do enough. It was a little strange.”
“You don't have to go on,” Simon mutters, rubbing at scruff with his organic hand.
He's not too keen to hear about the peculiar things he may have done or said in his sleep. He's had enough of that for a lifetime.
“Sorry,” Grace whispers, turning to stare at the ceiling with Simon. “It was just concerning.”
“I didn't mean to scare you.”
“What? No, I'm not scared.”
“You don't have to lie to me to spare my feelings.”
Grace frowns, he can see it from his peripheral vision. He suddenly sits back up, hands laced in his lap. “I'm not trying to spare your feelings.”
Simon huffs. “I'm not one of your students. I don't need encouragement. “
He can feel the pity rolling off Grace. It makes him sick to his stomach. He's tired of the pity. It's foreign and patronizing. No self respecting individual accepts it with open arms.
“No,” the scientist agrees. “You're not.”
“I don't…” he swallows harshly, the flesh of his throat stinging him. “I don't want it.”
Grace rubs the side of his neck. “Okay. But just in case, you can talk to me. It's not a big deal, promise.”
He grits his teeth to the best of his ability. It's difficult, as the shape of his teeth are sharp and angled. He doesn't have molars on one side. They terrifyingly fell out, and then regrew deformed and predatory. Thankfully, the growing pains of whatever transformation he's been subjected to is long over.
The human beside him shifts, awaiting his acknowledgement.
“Thank you.” He doesn't sound too happy to himself. “You are a saint.”
It sounds forced, despite his wholeheartedness. Simon immediately feels bad. He should be more sincere, but his jaded nature is cripplingly prominent.
“No problem.”
They stew in their silence. Simon stubbornly doesn't move a muscle. How selfish of him to crawl into someone else's bed and then act so rudely. All while Grace is still sitting up, disturbed from sleep and awaiting with open invitation.
“I guess I'm just jealous,” Simon starts, mouth moving before he can stop himself. “Of how much you achieved.”
“Oh?” Grace responds, judgment absent in his tone.
“You've done so much more for everyone. Humanity, Eridians, me. I can't help but wish…”
“You've done plenty too. Recovering the data from that ship is significant.”
Simon shakes his head. “It doesn't matter. You're Tau…”
“Taumeoba,” Grace fills in.
“Right. It was already on the way back before I was sent down. There was no purpose for it. Salvation was already on its way.” Just not for me, he leaves unsaid.
Grace observes him silently, expression unreadable as Simon gathers the courage to look at him. “If we were kept in the loop. Maybe I wouldn't have been welded into a coffin.”
“They would have executed you.”
“They already did.”
“You're here now,” Grace says.
“I'm nothing like who I was.” Simon's expression sours. “I died the day they sent me into the sea.”
He stretches his prosthetic arm towards the ceiling. The silhouette is hard to see in the low light. Sometimes, he can imagine sensation in it. “Whatever's left of me isn't human.”
“You seem pretty human to me.”
“You said it yourself. My genetic code is beyond mutated. The radiation and that… sickness. It changed me.”
Grace wets his lips, tongue darting in a nervous gesture. “The radiation saved you. It killed whatever was splicing your DNA.”
“Well, it'll kill me in the future. No chance I escaped cancer.”
“We don't know that. Whatever viral infection you contracted out there, the contents of it are unknown. Maybe the chances of developing a tumor is higher, but it’s not certain.”
“Thanks, I feel a lot better,” Simon deadpans. “I don't understand your sciency jargon. Tumor suppressor this, oncogene that. It makes no sense.”
He can hear the words die in Grace’s throat, stifling a “learning opportunity”. “Well, with the speed you bounced back, I'd take it as a sign your body is more resistant to the consequences of radiation. Maybe you're cancer proof!”
“What? Gonna take a sample of me and send it to Earth? Find the cure for cancer?”
“Hey, I'm just looking at the bright side! It could be a groundbreaking discovery. “
“Haven't you had enough of that?”
“No such thing.”
“You just want to play the hero again.”
Grace cracks into a blinding, perfectly straight smile. “Hey now, that would be you.”
Simon snorts, tension tightening in his chest. “Right. All I did was almost die.”
An ice cold prickle crawls down his spine when Simon's hair is gently brushed away, baring the malformed side of his jaw. He’s hyper aware of the calloused texture of Grace’s hand. “You're already a hero.”
“Funny,” Simon chokes out. “Coming from you.”
“I mean it,” Grace says, holding on gently to his shoulder. “If I was dead at the bottom of a blood ocean with a heap of life saving data, I'd want someone to recover it. “
“I didn't do it out of the goodness of my heart.”
“Neither did I. You could've given up, when you thought there was no way out.”
“I couldn't let it be for nothing.”
“I'm sure it wasn't. That data will be important.”
Simon takes a deep, shaky breath. “I'm disappointed. I'll never see what became of it.”
“Neither will I. That's not the point. We did what we could, our job is done.”
“It doesn't feel like it.”
“That's the ambition in you.”
“Wait a minute.” Simon scowls, tilting his head towards Grace. “I thought I told you I don't want a pep talk.”
“Sorry, sorry,” Grace says, holding his hands up with a victorious grin. “It's habitual.”
“Yeah, right.” He can't help but return the smile.
“I mean it though!” The scientist proclaims. “You have a natural ambition.”
“What, like you don't?”
“I didn't say that.”
“Yeah, stroke your own ego.”
“Hey!” Grace shoves at him playfully. “I am not!”
“You so are!” Simon proclaims, sitting up to mirror his peer.
“So maybe I'm a little proud of my work. Is that a crime?”
“It should be!” Simon shoves back.
Despite their bickering, both are grinning ear to ear. It brings a foreign soreness to Simon's face. Unused muscles pulling at his skin. There's a stillness, the previous heavy air dissipated.
“You're amazing.” Grace blurts out.
Something inside him stutters and screeches to a halt, burning hot in his chest. “What?”
“I mean. You. All of you. It's amazing. The resilience and intellect you have,” he gestures vaguely at Simon. “I'd never think any human could sustain what you could have. You are either extremely lucky or you have the strongest immune system I've ever seen.”
Simon laughs nervously. “I don't know about that.”
“Just take the compliment!” Grace whines, grasping both his shoulders and giving him a shake. “Is that so hard?”
“I don't know,” he says, mischievously grinning. “Maybe I need more convincing.”
The scientist makes a noise of exasperation, letting go and allowing Simon to fall back onto the mattress. “You're impossible to convince.”
“I am?”
Grace leans over him, hands boldly planted over each shoulder. It makes Simon feel caged in, but not like the ways he’s used to. “More impossible than anything else I've looked after.”
Simon's brows shoot upward. “Oh, so you're looking after me now?”
The other man rolls his eyes. “I feed you-”
“Your own flesh!” He protests. “A ‘meburger’ is a horrific way to claim you feed me.”
“You just don't want to admit I taste great.”
The hands on Simon's shoulders burn through his skin, heavy as the man leans on him. His face feels just as hot at Grace's careless wording. It puts interesting ideas into his head. Ones that make him jittery.
“You taste… just fine.”
“Just fine?” Grace seems genuinely offended. “Just fine. You crawl into my dome, my house, my bed and tell me I taste just fine?”
Simon shrugs, trying to be casual about his reactions. His mind is heavily preoccupied with intrusive, inappropriate thoughts. “Could be better.”
He receives an acidic look. “Better?”
He's made very aware of their position after that glare. Simon's broad back is pressed into the mattress, pinned at the shoulders. Grace twisted over him, sat at his side. Their hips are touching and their eyes are locked onto each other.
Grace is attractive. He always has been. With the many hats he wears, Simon is surprised he never modeled. He'd be perfect. Blond hair, blue eyes, sunkissed skin. He's fit and symmetrical. It makes him equally frustrated and flustered.
He knows that the taller man is waiting patiently for him to respond. He's always been disgustingly patient. It must be the cross section between teacher and scientist. Simon is not that patient. He possesses even less acumen.
He is rash, desperate, indecisive, volatile. It works great in the heat of the moment for survivalistic decision making. It works fine when he grabs the back of Grace’s dumb blond head and drags him down with swift strength. His lips taste decidedly better than cannibalistic meat patties. Stubble scratches against stubble, and Grace shockingly kisses back.
It's… slow. Sweet. No hunger or rush. It's decidedly the pace that has been set for him, and Simon hardly minds. Not when the gentle drag of Grace's tongue traces the seam of his lips.
He opens up, just enough to return the gesture. Tongue to tongue, flesh gliding along. Even as they explore deeper, they take their time. It's igniting, making Simon shudder.
He hopes Grace is just as affected as him. He'd be disappointed if the reciprocation is because he's the only other thing on Erid resembling a human. Simon knows, for him, it's more than that.
He nips him. Grace moans. So he does it again, and again. It causes sharp pangs of excitement to ring in his chest. Another lower in his gut when he's straddled.
He pushes to sit up, adjusting Grace to settle in his lap. Kisses and nips migrate to his jaw, his neck. The blond's face buries into the junction of his throat, hot puffs of air finding their way through his shirt.
He sucks, pulling at skin with sharp teeth. He's careful not to bite hard, but the pressure is on. It leaves splotchy red marks in his wake, a trail left behind.
Grace is chanting something against him, switching and jolting at every new mark. The way he squirms in Simon's lap makes him hold on tighter, as if he'll slip away.
“Please,” Grace gasps, finally forming a coherent word.
“Please what?” Simon asks in a tone sounding teasing, but is genuinely curious.
He writhes in place, burning red and conflicted. “I need more than this,” he admits.
“More?” This time he really is teasing.
He feels the other's hand fist into his hair, pressing his face into him to muffle an embarrassed noise. “You know what I mean.”
“I don't.”
“I can't say it.”
“Then I can't do it.”
A long, drawn out and distressed whine squeezes from Grace's chest. “I need you.”
Need. Simon pulls the human away from him, looking him over. Nothing betrays a lie or inconsistency in his face or body. Strung tight, flushed red, and unable to hold still. Grace is deprived of human connection, and Simon just barely makes the mark.
His hand cusps the side of Grace’s face, the broad palm encompassing his cheek. The scientist looks horribly conflicted, and he feels similarly. Together, the heat that rolls off of them makes the room unbearable.
They kiss again, harsh and desperate. Grace makes a pained sound at the bruising force they crash their lips together with. It’s flashes of tongue and teeth, pushing and pushing to get something out of the other. The ease in which Grace moans into him would make any man keel. Simon is incredibly bothered, shifting to avoid letting the other lean too much into his lap.
It’s futile though. When Grace pushes against him, he grinds down. An embarrassing moan is dragged out in tandem with the motion, his hips jerking to eagerly meet the friction. It gives the scientist the idea to do it again, turning it into a continuous motion. Simon, who’s never been so hard in his life, thinks he’s going to die.
He does in fact die. When hands are shoved up his shirt, gliding over hot skin and sparse hair, Simon tips his head back, away from Grace’s mouth. It gives him the freedom to pant heavily while the man makes himself familiar with his chest. He twitches with every slight movement, the touch incredibly foreign to him. He can’t remember the last time he felt human skin without the signature sting of pain. If he’s ever felt it at all.
Grace’s hands retreat back down his torso, fingers dipping into the hem of his boxers, where they halt. Not a word is said between them, just heavy breaths. Slowly, without much thought, Simon nods in permission.
He’s surprisingly gentle, waiting for Simon to lift his hips to drag the garment off of him. He hisses when the cooler air comes into contact with his groin. He doesn’t think anyone besides himself has seen him naked, and it makes him severely self conscious.
The way Grace pulls his eyes away from his dick to his face causes his heart to skip. He anticipates some kind of comment, bracing himself for disappointment. Instead, he gets a smile, small and shy. They’re nearly nose to nose, frozen as if they were both doing this for the first time. Maybe they are. Simon doubts Grace is a virgin. He’s a mid-adult man who spent most of his life on Earth where he is a sparkling example of the beauty standard. At least Simon assumes.
Besides them, Grace has reached over to pull out a drawer in the bedside table, fumbling as he blindly searched. After a long moment of awkwardly blind scrabbling, he sighs in defeat, looking away to find what he’s looking for.
Simon thought he couldn’t get any warmer. Oh, how wrong he was. His eyes widen when a bottle of lube is revealed and his mouth goes dry.
“Hey, wait,” he rasps. “I’m not… I don’t… I haven’t…”
Grace blinks at him, cool light reflected in his blue eyes, an eerie innocence about him. The kind of purity he wished others saw in him. He doesn’t hold a candle to this man. Grace is much like the sun, and Simon is the ember at the end of a cigarette.
“Oh…” Grace, already flushed, deepens in color. “It’s for me.”
Embarrassment swoops in to flood Simon. “Right,” he croaks, no less soothed.
“Hey, it’s fine. I know what I’m doing.” He winks, a charming smile on his lips. “Maybe next time, though.”
He can’t help but gawk. Grace who never swears. Grace who never makes dirty jokes. Grace who is apparently confident in sexual situations. He thought he was done with shocking revelations for the night.
Simon watches in a mesmerized daze as Grace clumsily removes his boxers. He has to tear his gaze away, a foolish attempt to respect the man’s privacy.
“Where did you, uh…” He trails off.
“Oh. Right. I spent plenty of time alone on a spaceship…” there’s a shy and nervous smile on his face. “Many experiments were done.”
“Ah,” Simon acknowledges, trying not to imagine it too hard.
He keeps his eyes strictly on the ceiling, pretending not to notice when Grace reaches behind himself. He isn't uncomfortable, at least not in the way he'd want Grace to stop. In fact, he's relieved when the man leans into him, chest to chest. Simon carefully holds his hips, worried he’ll be pushed away for making any move to touch the other.
He’s wracked with nerves. The brisk pants and muffled moans Grace makes with his cheek against his shoulder is foreign. He’s never had someone so close to him, not in this nature. Simon pets through Grace’s blond hair in an attempt to be soothing. He’s unsure how effective it is, as the response he gets is only more squirming and whines.
“Simon.” His name is muttered against his skin.
“Grace?”
He gets a soft hum in response, the soft scruff of facial hair brushing against his neck. “I’m ready.”
An unsaid question hangs in the air for Simon. Is he ready? Is this what he wants?
Of course he wants Grace. His chest squeezes and aches whenever he sees him. He wants whatever he’s offered. The rapid and deep beating of his heart makes him doubt himself. Is he mistaking his anxiousness for eagerness?
Simon nods slowly, his jaw nuzzling against short and soft hair. He wants this, he wants to feel, hear, and smell nothing but Grace.
“Hey,” Grace pulls back just enough for them to look each other in the eyes. “We can stop whenever you want.”
He sighs, long and shallow. A lump forms in his throat, making it hard to swallow. Everything stings and he doesn’t trust his voice not to crack if he chooses to speak. So both hands come up to grab Grace’s face, and he pulls the man in for a kiss. He receives a startled grunt, but he’s met with acceptance and pliancy.
Grace rests his weight against him, a hand on his shoulder and the other shamelessly gasping this hilt of his cock. Simon muffles a deep moan as the other sinks down, taking his time with taking him in.
He hadn’t expected the feeling to be so warm or constricting. He shudders and grips Grace's hips tightly to slow him down. Even when he's settled his weight fully onto him, Simon feels horribly overwhelmed. This is much further than he's gone with anyone. It's not as if he touches himself frequently either.
Both of them take a moment to adjust, equally overwhelmed with each other. The man before him grasps his shoulders, subtly rocking back and forth. Against his will, Simon's hips shift in tandem.
It feels… really good. Like an itch he didn't know needed scratching. His body reacts separately from his mind, arcing towards Grace's warmth. He finds himself embracing the man, trembling and overwhelmed.
In his arms, Grace squirms. It's subtle but enough to convey he's being constrained uncomfortably. “Simon,” he utters between a moan and a wince.
“Sorry,” he whispers, loosening his vice grip.
“You're okay?”
“Yeah,” Simon pants, rubbing Grace's lower back. “Yeah, I'm okay. You?”
Warm muscle twitches under his palm. He never grew to know how reactive skin is under his touch, but he savors it dearly. “Yeah.”
Grace rocks his weight back and forth over him, the sensation kicking him low in his gut. Simon bites back the noise he wants to make, tucking his face into the crook of his partner’s neck. He grits his teeth, shame pooling in his stomach.
His hips twitch to match Grace’s tempo, a halfhearted attempt to dampen his innate desire. Slow and steady, it’s already overwhelming. On top of him, the scientist is bracing himself around Simon. His movements quickly become disorganized and sloppy. He doesn't doubt it’s hard to concentrate in that position.
Simon, who has recently discovered his boldness, leans back against the wall. Both hands vice on Grace’s hips, he bucks sharply upwards, eliciting a sharp yelp from the other. He falls forward, temple to temple while Simon thrusts with abandon. The iron hot coil inside of him demands more. He cannot help but to take and take from the generosity bestowed by Grace.
It’s not so hard to toss the blond around, despite him not being small by any means. The little, pitiful sounds coming from Grace only encourage him, refusing to let up so soon. Pride and doubt war at him, especially as Grace stops moving himself and lets Simon take over. It feels right, but deep down something feels wrong.
Breathy ‘ahs’ and ‘uhs’ punctuate every jerk of Simon’s hips and it crosses his mind that he may be too rough. Slowing himself to resemble more of a roll than a punch, he dampens his instinct.
“You don’t… have to,” Grace strangles out.
“Hm?”
“Don’t bother being gentle. I can handle it.”
With deep uncertainty, he returns to his previous fast pace. The noises he gets blurs the line between pleasure and pain. If it were pain, he’d want Grace to stop him. He’d rather anything than to dish out even an ounce of pain onto the other. However, he wants to please. He wants to perform well and satisfy Grace.
“Sorry, sorry,” He whispers against warm, sunkissed skin, a worried frown etched into his expression.
He doesn’t get a wordy reply back. It’s okay, he doesn't mind. Not when he’s been permitted to freely rut against the man who saved his life.
It’s his turn now to hide his face, deep into Grace’s shoulder. He puffs warm breaths and hushed gasps, feeling dizzier by the second. So overwhelmed by the physical and emotional stimulation, his vision blurs. He’s shaky and unsteady in his rhythm, grasping for dear life.
If not for the way their lives happened to plan out, if they had met under other circumstances, Simon believes he’d never have caught Grace’s eye. There’s no meet cute or otherworldly force of attraction that would bring them together. If not for the series of coincidences and isolation both endured, Simon would have been a fleeting, pitiful figure in Simon’s life. Still, the fire in his chest does not flicker or fade. His own attraction to the man is powerful. Enough to delude himself into believing it is reciprocated.
The blurriness in his vision spills into hot tears, splattering onto Grace’s skin. He thinks he’s gotten away with it for a while before Grace pries them far enough to look Simon in the eyes. How he manages to look so beautiful and attentive while being roughly fucked, Simon doesn’t know. It may just be the distortion of tears.
Large hands cup his face, fearlessly touching the foreign side of it. Struggling to brush their noses together, Grace connects their lips in a surprisingly sweet, chaste kiss.
“I love you,” he manages. “Simon.”
He chokes on nothing, a quiet sob bubbling up from deep inside. How is he supposed to believe such a thing? How could this not be anything more than hormones and impulsive words?
“I love you,” Simon says back. “I love you, Grace.”
It’s true to him, so he chooses to believe the other. Just once, it couldn’t hurt to soften up. Just once, he should allow himself to regret something, rather than killing it before it comes to fruition.
He feels Grace smile against his lips, even as he sucks in a shaky sharp breath.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You’re not hurting me.”
Embracing Grace fully, Simon gingerly rolls them over in an awkward, tangled mess of limbs. Laying over Grace, he situated himself to the best of his ability. He can feel the tight grip on his arms, long legs wrapping around his midsection.
Starting up again slowly, Simon rests his forehead against the pillow. He can feel the tension in Grace’s jaw, even as it pops open when he ramps up the pace. The steady streams of moans greet him again, the man under him clawing at his scarred back.
“Oh,” Simon stammers. “Grace, I-”
Grace seems to read the tension in him well. He sounds equally displaced in his attempts to speak. “Go ahead.”
The speed in which Simon’s mouth clamped onto the junction of Grace’s shoulder is faster than either of them can properly register. He imagines the bloom of pain sets in at same time as the signature tang of iron. Blood spills into his mouth as he spills into Grace, rutting into him while he rides out a high that has his vision doubling.
He moans into Grace’s shoulder, shuddering as he quickly comes down from that place. He doesn’t recognize when he transitioned from biting to licking the wound. The motion is apologetic, each lap of his tongue soothing what must be a burning pain.
Underneath, his newfound lover writhes, discomfort likely washing over him. Simon pulls back, reluctantly leaving the safe and sacred warmth of Grace. There’s a telltale stickiness coating his lower stomach, where he doesn’t dare wipe it away. Not after the intimacy he’s been so generously granted.
“I’m so sorry,” Simon croaks.
“No, it’s okay.” Grace says, gingerly holding the new mark. “It’s not… bad.”
Thin, cherry red blood paints his hand. “It looks pretty bad.”
“It’s fine. It’s not deep.”
Simon carefully removes Grace’s hand, taking a look at the damage he’s dealt. Sure, it’s not deep. It’s not nothing either. He knows it’ll bruise and lightly scar.
“I should’ve stopped myself.”
The warm, gentle smile he’s offered is horribly out of place. “It’ll heal fine. Besides, I’m weirdly honored.”
Simon huffs. A poor disguise for a laugh. “Honored, huh?”
Grace shrugs.
Crawling closer, Simon slots himself against the other. He sighs, wrapping himself around Grace. When he isn’t shoved away or hit, he returns to licking the bite, hoping to calm the reddened skin.
He’s painfully aware of Grace breathing into his hair, rubbing his back. He isn’t deserving of this, but he supposes with no other options available, this was inevitable.
“Stop overthinking.”
Simon’s brows draw together. “How did you know?”
“You’re usually talkative.”
“Maybe I have a lot to think about.”
“Could you save it for tomorrow?”
A small, sincere smile twitches at the more human side of Simon’s face. Tomorrow is promised to him. For the first time in his life, Simon can plan for the far future. “Maybe. What’s in it for me?”
“I’ll make breakfast.”
“That’s a threat.”
“No. I’m an amazing chef!”
He snorts, patting Grace’s cheek. “I’m sorry, you cannot apply your chemistry knowledge to a kitchen. Please, don’t make breakfast. Stick to ramen.”
He doesn’t need to see the man’s face to know he’s pouting.
“This here is good enough,” Simon concedes. “I’d like to wake up in a bed that isn’t empty.”
“Me either.”
“Good.”
“Good.”
Neither of them escape the judgemental body language of Rocky the next day. Especially not Grace, who can be heard in the other room, desperately defending himself to his friend. He only catches bits and pieces. Enough to know there is no secrecy between them and the Eridian.
“Grace mate disgust.” Rocky teases.
“You encouraged this!”
“No. Rocky encourage Grace to mate. Human ritual… gross gross gross.”
Simon gives an awkward sidelong glance to Adrian, sitting deathly still besides him. It doesn’t take much to understand the Eridian scientist is observing him with deep curiosity, parallel to Rocky’s disgust.