Chapter Text
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“Grace.” Rocky calls out.
“Uh-huh?” He returns, not at all paying attention.
“Grace.”
“Mmmmyeah, bud?”
An annoyed melody followed by the stamping of many limbs.
If he had a mind—and eyes—for anything else except his mate, he would be able to tell how irritated his best friend was getting with him for his continued slip in attention. But he doesn’t.
Hasn’t, for the past fifteen or so minutes.
Can anyone really blame him though???
Honestly, if anyone was to blame, it was Rocky.
Hanging from the ceiling in the sunny room with Armando is a punching bag. One that Simon has been putting to frequent use ever since being gifted it a few weeks ago by the Eridian. Grace sits in his office chair, pupils blown out while chewing the tips of his glasses, not a single scientific thought in his mind, although that is what his best friend is currently demanding of him.
No, all that’s on his mind is how nice it would be to lick the beads of sweat that serpentines down Simon’s bare chest. How satisfying it would feel to sink his teeth into them and feel the firmness of those taut muscles. There is something mesmerizing about the way Simon’s pecs bounce with each strike of their fists.
Its times like this where he wants to take up sketching.
Or photography beyond capturing sentimental family moments.
Something drops from the ceiling onto his lap and he shrieks, his glasses flying from his grip and landing off somewhere with a gentle shatter.
On his bruised, aching lap was Spindle, who had been hiding in one of their many, many ‘webs’ that they’ve woven around the house; draped across the ceilings and extending from corners like hammocks, little ropes hanging down here and there to allow them to climb up. It was Spindle and Spindle alone that could climb vertically, because they were very light in weight compared to other pebbles and had better mobility due to their additional limb.
“Spin!” He admonishes, scooping them up in his arms. “That hurts, you know? You might be small but you’re still heavier than a human baby.”
“Grace deserve this.” Rocky snips, yet they move closer to him and gently massage the spots on his thighs that were going to end up marked up very shortly. “What was last thing Grace heard?”
“Uhh…” He thinks, while Spindle climbs all over him, even blinding him momentarily when they climb on top of his head like a very heavy hat, their black limbs falling over his eyes. He parts two limbs like a curtain to be able to look at Rocky. “You mentioned something about the Eridian-Human exchange? Which, as I recall, we officially finished?”
“Eridian-Human exchange finished on earth.” Rocky says.
“...Wait. Are you saying you guys want to study me? Make me your test subject and have me give a bunch of samples?” He quirks a brow.
Rocky does a sort of tap dance in their sudden discomfort.
“Because I’m all for that.” He says, and they brighten.
“Grace mean this?” They say incredulously, having expected some arguing, but clearly delighted at his open-mindedness.
“Yup! So long as its noninvasive, I don’t mind what you guys do.” He shrugs, looking back over to Simon only to find the man gone from their spot in front of the punching bag. He jumps again when a xenonite prosthesis slips into his peripherals to offer his broken glasses. “Should probably get another pair before we do any tests…”
He takes his glasses from Simon and hands them over to Rocky.
Or he tries to but they get snatched up by Spindle.
“Oh, right. Yeah, you can keep them. Make the glass into beads.” He relents to his pebble, and they rub against him in thanks before skittering off him back up into one of their webs to begin polishing the glass in their preferred space.
Now that his lap was free, Simon takes a seat on the ground by his legs and rests their sweat-slicked face on his thighs, pressing a kiss to the bruised flesh before resting comfortably. He likes their hair so much he doesn’t even care that the locks are heavy with sweat; running his fingers through them with the same enthusiasm he usually would.
His mate’s hair has grown past their shoulders now. There’s enough he can braid it. Brush and style it into a ponytail. The thought of gripping that ponytail and the noises Simon might make completely obliterate any scientific thought in his mind.
“Simon get out while Grace and Rocky discuss science!!!” Rocky erupts, throwing some of their limbs up with their annoyance, much to his embarrassment, and Simon’s great amusement, the man laughing like some cartoon villain as they rise to their feet and steal a few deep kisses from him just to piss off his friend before heading upstairs to wash up.
His chair has to be manually rotated away from the direction of the stairs so he stops staring at Simon’s rear as they leave.
“Okay, okay, okay, I’m sorry!” He squeaks as Rocky shakes him. “Tell me more about all these funny little tests you guys want to do on me. You have my full attention, I promise!”
From upstairs, another laugh rings out.
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“Okay,” Grace says with thinning patience as he raises a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, “Can you guys please just tell me what you hear already so I can join in on whatever it is that’s been distracting you the past couple of minutes?”
His many students start jumping and dancing in place as dozens of different voices say:
“Grace’s mate nearby!” “Simon visiting! “Spindle late for class!”
His students have been hearing his mate and pebble approaching on the sand for a while now but their arrival only becomes apparent now as he peeks his head out of the cave and sees Simon treading the sand with a sparkle in their dark eyes. Clinging to their right shoulder is of course Spindle, who is practically vibrating with their good mood, the source of which becomes obvious when, with a toothy grin, Simon pulls their prosthesis from behind their back where they’d kept it hidden to reveal the freshly picked clean carcass of an avian about twice the size of Spindle.
“Spin caught this fucker midair with one of their webs. Little badass.” Simon brags.
His entire class breaks out in fearful shrieks.
He slaps his hands to his face and groans.
It was going to be a pain in his butt apologizing to all the Eridian parents…
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A blue limb peeks through the kitchen window and neatly places his new glasses on the bridge of his nose for him.
“Thanks.” He smiles, kissing Adrian’s retreating limb before throwing an apron on and turning the stove on. “We should probably expand the house. Could maybe use what you made for Simon’s and combine it with this one? Its such a shame you can’t be in here.”
“The expansion would need to be very large.” Adrian muses, their magnificent appearance reduced to just a wall of blue in front of the open window. “But yes, my darling, we can do this. It will take less than a day. I am happy that you would make changes to your own home to accommodate me.”
“Of course! You guys have made about a hundred accommodations for me. Its only right. And besides, I love you. I want to be closer with you. The picnics outside are nice but sometimes I don’t want sand getting in the way of us cuddling.” He says with a light red dusting to his cheeks.
“Cuddling, as well as other things.” Adrian teases.
They sneak a limb back through the window to caress his face.
Its hard not to lean into the touch and press kisses to their suit covered carapace; the craggy three fingers about two feet in length and four inches wide. It must look like Adrian is about to squeeze his head into pulp. With how big and warm they are, it felt like his head was in one of those hair dryers that you sat at.
He kind of smacks his head a bit on the palm of their claw when he jumps in response to the sound of Simon bolting into the living room, laughter trailing after them like breadcrumbs for Rocky to follow, his best friend cursing up a storm in their hasty pursuit.
“EDM does NOT suck.” Rocky argues haughtily, suddenly cutting into view as they skitter across the entrance of the kitchen to ram against Simon’s legs.
“It does NOW since you said Nine Inch Nails sucks. What was it you called it? Noise, instead of music? Well, EDM is just BEEPS and BOOPS. How’s that for shit music?” Simon retaliates while kicking them.
Rocky knocks Simon onto the ground.
Simon lunges on top of Rocky.
The two start rolling around on the ground as they wrestle. They do this often; always getting into petty fights. The two thrived off annoying each other, that was for sure, because these fights of theirs never devolved into anything with true animosity.
It was just two buffoons wanting to roughhouse.
They roll out of his line of sight and the second they do he hears a crash.
Things go eerily quiet.
Taking a deep breath, he turns off the burner and exits the kitchen with his hands on his hips to assess the damage. Sees an impressive hole in the wall near the stairs because Simon had knocked Rocky off balance and his nearly three hundred pound friend catapulted into the wall.
“Are you kidding me? Do I need to ask you two to play outside???” He fusses.
Rocky dislodges themself from his wall sheepishly while Simon pushes up from the ground, avoidant of meeting his gaze.
Rolling his eyes, he turns towards the kitchen window.
“Mates, huh?” He says to Adrian with a shake of his head.
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During a picnic on the cliff near his home, Rocky and Adrian keep trying and failing to subdue their laughter at his mate’s expense.
“What?” Simon snips as they vigorously use a mortar and pestle to grind some bone and organs into paste, the movement causing Spindle to be jostled in the baby sling across his mate’s chest.
“Spindle is old enough to make their own paste.” Adrian explains.
“I like doing it.” They insist, now grinding the paste with more force than necessary.
“Simon spoil pebble.” Rocky chimes in.
“They’re mine to spoil.” His mate returns defensively, only for their face to turn scarlet upon noticing how fondly everyone is staring at them. “Oh fuck off.” They huff and turn around to finish preparing Spindle’s meal in peace.
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Its rare for Simon to be the one tasked with waking him up.
His snores cut off at the feeling of his shoulder being shaken.
“Hmm? What’s wrong?” He slurs while clumsily reaching over to the nightstand for his glasses.
“Where’s Spindle?” Are the only two words needed for them to say for him to be shocked into complete wakefulness; adrenaline pumping through him now with the same potency as if he had jumped into a frozen lake.
He abandons his cane in lieu of holding onto the crook of Simon’s arm as the two of them scour the second floor of the house, then descend the stairs to pick apart the main one, making sure to turn every light on the way.
When his ears pick up on a faint noise like a retro doorbell running out of batteries he stops dead in his tracks and looks up.
Sees Spindle tucked away in the shade of a ceiling corner, huddled in one of their hammocks. They were shaking all over. As if feeling guilty for making any noise at all, his pebble quiets when noticing they have been found. They visibly try to stop their shaking and fail. It feels like someone’s ripped his heart out and stomped on it.
“Hey…” He says quietly, and sadly, as he walks over to the corner of the room with his arms outstretched. “What’s wrong?”
They don’t say a word.
It takes his and Simon’s combined pleads to convince their pebble to climb down from their hiding spot. He pinches the collar of his oversized sleep shirt so there’s a comforting burrow for them to crawl into. Spindle rushes inside. He tucks the hem of his shirt around them and positions his arms like he’s a pregnant woman clutching her stomach so they don’t fall out. His heartbeat is always a surefire way to calm them down so its no surprise he feels them press as closely as they can to his chest.
Simon leads him over to the couch and takes a seat with their thighs spread wide so he can lean his back against their chest. Their mismatched arms curl around his middle. Their chin rests on his shoulder.
“Its okay. We’ve got you.” He soothes as he rubs Spindle over his shirt. “You know whenever you feel like this you can wake us up, right? It won’t bother us. We want to be there for you.”
Spindle weakly pounds their tiny limbs against his chest as if saying ‘no, no, no’.
“You can.” He insists, “It would make us happy if you did. Please?”
They weakly call out each of their names.
His eyes soften.
“We’re here. You’re not alone. See? That’s all you need to do when you feel like this and we’ll be here.” He tells them.
Spindle crawls up his chest and out of his shirt to cling to him and Simon like a face hugger.
A very cute one.
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“A break is needed, I think.” Adrian speaks up to suggest to Simon, who has been hard at work bringing some of the potted plants from the greenhouse home to decorate the newly added rooms that connected from the kitchen, the main room of which the large Eridian currently occupies, the ceiling so tall, and domed, that the peak of their blue form doesn’t even hint at scraping against it.
The transparent, domed ceiling makes this room a perfect, secondary sun room, so it only makes sense that his mate is so eager to cover it from top to bottom with greenery. Its been hours of this, and while he’s tried to get Simon to take a break too, he hasn’t put all that much true effort into it because its so nice seeing them excited about something.
Adrian doesn’t take too kindly to being ignored, though, and once his mate has set down another plant and is within reach, the blue Eridian grabs them like a doll before pinning them down on their back with a single limb perched onto their chest, not even a tenth of their full strength used to keep Simon right where they want them to be.
“Did Simon forget that I am much larger? And stronger?” Adrian asks in a hair raising tone, the claw of their limb bumping Simon’s chest testily like they were tapping a foot.
Simon’s eyes are huge.
Blown out wide with the man’s shock.
Second by second, their face flushes until its so dark it teeters on being purple.
He could tease about how strongly Simon reacted to this display of strength but…
He’s no better.
He can’t remember the last time his face has been this hot.
Without a word, he approaches the two and crouches down to take a seat above where Simon’s head sits. He takes both the man’s arms and pins them over their head to the ground by the wrists, leaving them completely at Adrian’s mercy.
Adrian pushes the man’s shirt up to their chin and exposes their heavily scarred, and very grabbable torso. Their blue claws gently rake down Simon’s chest, earning a hard swallow, and the twitching of their muscles. The claw travels south, tickling the curly, dark hair on the soft lower belly until an inorganic digit catches on the waistband of their sweats, having enough power to simply tear them off, but instead pulling them down slowly, teasingly, that grant of mercy somehow bolstering Adrian’s power play instead of softening it.
Almost entirely exposed, Simon shakes like a leaf under his and Adrian’s attention.
When he smiles down at them their dick twitches hard with interest.
He bends in half to kiss them, partly because they’re so handsome that he can never resist, and also because he wants the exact moment Adrian wraps their claws around their dick to be a surprise. And its a very nice one, too, with Simon gasping against his mouth, back arching, at the feel of something big, hard, and hot engulfing them.
He’s demonstrated more than enough to Rocky and Adrian that both of them could potentially be experts at hand jobs, but the blue Eridian doesn’t want to give that endeavor a try this time around. Instead, once Adrian finds the exact way they like holding Simon, they start purring—which is a first! He’s never once heard them purr the entire time he’s known them and the reason why is obvious. Since Adrian was so large, their purrs had force. It made the ground tremble. And now, as they hold Simon’s dick in hand, their limb vibrates just like one of the toys from earth he’d been sent but at strength that was dizzying.
Simon, red faced and struggling in his grip, can’t decide on cursing brokenly or choking out Adrian’s name and ends up doing an attractive mixture of both as pleasure suffocates them.
“So pretty.” He praises with a kiss to their forehead and that’s the final nail in the coffin, his mate’s eyes shutting tight as their body spasms; Adrian’s suit covered claw becoming stained with the evidence of how they bent the man to their will. “Ready to take a nap now?”
Limp and teary-eyed, Simon nods.
After he cleans everything up he drags a few blankets and pillows with him and makes a nest in the cozy spot between Adrian’s two front limbs. He pets Simon’s hair until they fall asleep. He could go for a nap himself, to be honest.
Almost comes close to falling asleep until he hears Adrian speak.
“Rocky is very fond of being pinned down.” They share with him.
Okay, well now he wasn’t going to be getting any sleep, far too enamored with all the ways he could torment his best friend with this information.
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Things...weren’t supposed to turn out this way.
One drink led to two, led to three, led to waaaay too many.
He and Rocky just wanted to let off some steam with a couple of drinks but clearly moderation was the last thing on either of their mind’s that evening. Having become hot from the vodka, dancing, and growing pain in his joints he would not feel until hours later when the buffer of alcohol wore off, he had taken off his pants at some point and was now in a t-shirt, heart covered boxers, and...a cowboy hat he doesn’t remember ever putting on his head.
Rocky has one too.
Huh.
Its in this sloppy, even clumsier than usual state that Simon finds him.
“Heeeey handsome.” He slurs in greeting as his mate arrives home from the greenhouse with Spindle in the crook of an arm. “And my little cocoa pebble.”
He shambles over and smothers both of them in kisses.
Only Spindle accepts.
Simon pushes his face away like a cat.
“You stink.” They tell him with a frown. “And what the hell did you just call our kid?”
He drunkenly explains the concept of the earth cereal he was referencing while sharing the bathroom space with Simon so he can brush his teeth as the man washed the dirt off themself. Rocky, just as drunk as him, is slumped on the ground against the bathtub, barely reacting to Spindle drawing all over their suit with permanent marker as they listen along.
“Why are most of the nicknames you earth humans have based off food?” Simon asks.
“Ask me again when you aren’t shirtless.” He says, eyes glued to their bare chest.
Shaking their head, Simon throws on a new shirt and leads them all safely down the stairs and to the living room, where they have them all crash on the couch to watch a movie on his laptop while they wander into the kitchen to get dinner started. When he thinks Rocky isn’t paying attention, he slips off the couch and into the kitchen.
“Don’t start anything.” Simon says in warning without even turning to look at him; the man looking so cute with their hair tied back in a low ponytail and a pink apron tied around their middle as they cooked up some spaghetti and me-balls.
Just thinking of what he nicknamed the dish has him giggling like an idiot and only makes Simon more suspicious of him as he approaches.
“I won’t.” He answers both belatedly and without a shred of honesty as he settles behind his mate, already kissing at the nape of their neck as his hands wandered under their shirt.
He hums approvingly when Simon lets out a high pitched noise in response to him sinking his teeth into their neck.
“Later.” They choke out, the hand gripping the spatula so tense that the veins were dancing, “You can do whatever you want to me later. But you need to let me finish dinner, okay?”
He considers the logic of that bargain.
Finds he doesn’t really care about logic.
“I could just drag you outside and have you naked under the stars now, though.” He points out, mouth rising from their neck to hover just near the shell of their ear, which he lays a gentle kiss to before working tentatively between his teeth; his mate gasping as they lean their full weight against him, desperate for more than just teasing.
He’s about to sneak his fingers into Simon’s mouth to let them draw his blood when Rocky stomps into the kitchen, grabs him by one of his pant legs, and bodily drags him out.
As soon as they’re all done eating his face snaps over to Simon, who blushes hard, then clears their throat to ask Rocky if they were sober enough to watch over Spindle, who had fallen asleep mere minutes after finishing their paste.
Rocky shoos them off with a grumble, annoyed they can’t join, so he makes sure to give them a bunch of kisses before he drunkenly hobbles his way up to his bedroom to grab a few things before meeting with Simon at the front door.
“Here. Let me.” Simon offers after kicking the front door closed, the meaning lost to him until they scoop him up into their arms like a bride. “Tell me where to go and I’ll take us there.”
He makes that hard for them because he pulls them down for a kiss and doesn’t relent until their knees are shaking.
“Grace.” They whine.
“The cliff.” He answers breathlessly as he pulls away from them. “I wasn’t kidding about having you naked under the stars.”
Its a feat in athletics how quickly Simon gets up to the usual spot without suffering any accidents at either of their expense. He’s set down so Simon can lay out a blanket and the very second there’s a spot to sit comfortably, Grace suddenly finds himself pushed down onto his back. He clumsily pushes up to lean on his elbows so he can watch how Simon tears out of their clothes before sitting on top of him.
“I could stare at you all day.” He smiles as he cups their hips with both his hands.
“You already do.” Simon mutters.
“Does that bother you?”
“...No.”
“Thought so.”
“Fucker.”
He laughs and pulls them down for a kiss. Grips their pony tail and uses it to crane their face to the side to suck at their pulse.
“I’ve got something for you.” He whispers against their stubble as he reaches into the bag he brought along and pulls out two things: a bottle of lubricant and transparent fleshlight. “Can you close your eyes?”
It strokes his ego like nothing else that Simon obeys him without any hesitation.
He gets the fleshlight slicked up, does the same for Simon, then finds the position that works best to hold the toy between their bodies, having the man adjust a bit so they were standing on all fours over him instead of sitting on him.
He holds the entrance of the toy flush to his mate’s tip.
Exerts a little force and their dick slowly gets swallowed by it.
“What the fuck!” Simon moans high pitched and breathy, hips shaking at the feeling of something tight and wet taking them in.
“How does it feel fucking me?” He asks with a wolfish grin, not even realizing he had cursed, or how rough his voice was, and that all those things combined were why his mate whines like an animal in heat and starts thrusting into the toy almost violently.
“G-Godamnit, this isn’t fucking fair. Its so hot. You feel...fuck, Grace you feel so fucking good. I can’t take feeling these things and hearing you say all this shit.”
“I’m not giving you a choice, sweetheart.” He purrs, practically slamming the toy onto their weeping dick, his mate crying as they fill it with their cum. He keeps stubbornly moving the toy after, forcing Simon to stay hard even through the teeth-gritting sensitivity that followed after. “Bite me. Put those cute fangs of yours in me. I don’t like pain but...something about seeing you drink from me...the satisfaction in your eyes. I dunno. Maybe I just love the idea of being inside you so deeply. Maybe I love being what sustains you. Haven’t figured it out exactly yet.”
“This is so fucked.” Simon says weakly, “You can’t get drunk like this again. I can’t fucking handle it. God. You make me fucking crazy. I feel like I’m going to die from a dick induced heart attack.”
They sink their teeth into his neck and latch onto him hard as they fill the toy to point of excess with their spent; thick streams of it spilling out and staining his fingers and clothes.
...Late into the afternoon of the next day, when Grace wakes up with his head pounding and his neck feeling as if a shark had mangled it, he finds that he cannot at all remember what transpired the night before.
When he trudges downstairs for something to fill his gurgling stomach and Simon takes notice of him, his mate is quick to give him their back. Not out of anger. There was no way to miss how their face had flushed even in his hungover state.
“Foods almost done. There’s a glass of water and some pain killers on the table.” Simon relays to him timidly.
Whatever trouble he got into last night, he’s glad they liked it.
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“Welcome home.” Simon smiles at him as he enters the room with the tall ceiling where he finds his mate, pebble and Adrian basking in the colors of the setting sun in a very cozy looking nest. “When the hell are you and Rocky going to finish with that new project? Sick of you coming home late.”
“Unfortunately the biology of us leaky blobs is a lot more complicated than the efficient forms of the Eridians, so its taking a lot longer than we thought for the Eridian biology team to grasp all the wonky ins and outs of our bodies.” He explains with a sigh. “They’re having a blast, though. So much that they asked Rocky to stay for a bit longer to double check all the notes they made. He should be here any minute—” The front door bangs open. “Yep. There he is.”
Rocky finds them all within seconds and as his best friend approaches, they shed the few work belts hanging off them on the way until there was nothing left as they slumped into the communal nest.
“Long day, my beloved?” Adrian asks sympathetically.
Rocky chimes wearily.
“Surprised you’re not as tired as him.” Simon remarks as he tucks himself against them and Rocky.
“The massage I got made me tired but the discussion kept me too alert for that tiredness to stick.” He casually explains.
“Massage?” Simon repeats with a blink.
“Hmm? Oh! Yeah, the Eridian doctors are so thankful I’m this cool about letting them do all these tests on me that they practically begged me to let them give me a massage as thanks. They’re getting pretty good at it.”
Simon sets Spindle down next to Rocky and fixes him with a look that makes his blood run cold.
“You politely tell me to fuck off each time I offer to give you a massage but people that aren’t family get to?” Simon asks him with a gleaming edge to their tone.
“I don’t tell you off!” He says with severe insult, “And they’re doctors! They’re already learning about my body—why is it so wrong for me to let them do this?”
“Its the fact that you don’t let me do it.”
“Look,” He tries to say calmly, but it comes off as anything but, “I just don’t want you to get hung up on my health like you have a habit of doing so can we just...not argue about this?”
He thinks that yelling at Simon would have yielded the same hurt look now on their face.
His mate nods and leaves without a word.
He drops his head into his hands.
Takes a minute for himself to calm down before he stands up next.
“Can you guys—”
“We’ll watch Spindle.” Rocky assures.
He offers a thanks as he gathers his cane and exits the house, feeling and knowing without a shadow of a doubt, that he is the biggest jerk on Erid. He goes to his mate’s usual haunts. The cliff. The greenhouse.
They know he’ll be checking these places so they’ve gone somewhere unusual, it seems.
Nowhere near the water, is his only clue.
He spots a familiar shape on the fridges of the biodome where there is nothing else of interest. Just rolling hills of grass painted with moonlight. Moonlight, which shines off Simon’s dark hair in the same pretty way light touched a crow’s plumage; the inky black suddenly having depths not previously made plain to the naked eyed, shades of blue and purple almost seeming to sprout out when there should only be the warm shades of brown.
“Fuck off.” Simon tells him as soon as he becomes within earshot of where they’re sitting. “You said you didn’t want to argue about it. So we won’t.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“You really want to piss me off, huh?” Simon returns nastily while whipping around to glare at him, “Its not enough I’ve had to deal with you coming home late all the time. Its not enough that I always hear all the other adults fawning over the ‘savior of the stars’ within earshot of me. No! Now I have to learn that you’ve been letting the fucking doctors do things for you that you won’t even let me do! Even though you said you’d let me help you anyway I could. It makes me so fucking mad I can’t think!”
“Simon. Take a breath. Please.” He pleads softly as he lowers to stand on his knees in front of them, holding their face between his cupped hands. “In and out, okay? Deep breaths. Just like that. There you go.”
“I can’t help how much I love you. Or how much I worry.” They say so quietly he barely catches it.
“...I know, sweetheart.” He sighs, and moves to take a seat fully on the grass so he can pull them against him. “That was mean of me. And unfair. You can give me massages. You can do whatever you think will help me. And if you don’t like hearing the Eridians say that kind of stuff then you’re more than welcome to give them a little scare. Flash those pretty fangs of yours at them and threaten to eat them like a jaw breaker.”
Having recently learned about various candy from all the ‘How its Made’ videos he stayed up late showing them, Simon fails to fight off a small laugh.
He encourages that laughter.
“What do you think Rocky would taste like? Brown sugar? Adrian would definitely be blue raspberry.” He continues.
“You’re a jackass.” Simon says while fighting off a smile.
“I’d rather be that then a jerk that makes their mate cry.” He tells them. “I’m really sorry. I’ll do my best not to be so dismissive in the future but...I can’t promise it’ll be all that easy for me to let go of my stubbornness. I’ll still mess up here and there. So try to be patient with me, please.”
He turns their face to the side so he can press his forehead against theirs, blue eyes boring into dark brown.
Simon gives him a quick kiss then hides their face against his neck.
“Apology accepted.” They mumble, ears red.
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“Morning, everyone~!” Grace greets cheerily as he steps into the Eridian medical lab with Rocky at his side. “I hope you guys don’t mind a small change in how we usually do things.”
“Not at all, Dr. Grace.” One Eridian says to him only to drop the tool they had been holding when they see Simon and Spindle following right behind him.
“I don’t think I told you guys about this one specific piece of earth culture.” He begins with a grin as horror arises among his coworkers as Spindle jumps from his mate’s arms and starts to run around the lab excitedly. “This is what’s known as ‘bring your kid to work day’.”
“And this increases work efficiency???” An Eridian asks with a yelp as Spindle trips them up with a rope of xenonite his pebble had been weaving on the walk over.
“Oh, absolutely !” He lies through his teeth, “And I thought, since Spindle would be here, why not bring my mate? So he’s going to hang out with us too. Isn’t that fun ?”
Simon offers a smile with too many teeth.
When he changes into a medical gown a few minutes later, the usual excitement all the Eridians displayed is nowhere to be found. The usual quiet of work is instead punctuated by the sound of Spindle swinging off things, breaking them in the subsequent impact, and the warning growls whenever Simon thinks one of the Eridian doctors is getting too handsy. Things only become more hectic when Rocky runs off to find Adrian, and now with those two together, their flirting is what dominates most of the conversation in the lab.
All in all, its a great day with his family.