Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Grace has never had a green thumb. He had tried, multiple times, to have some plants in his apartment. Every year when he put the assignment to grow a bean sprout for his class, he also tried to grow one himself, failing horribly each time. 

He had killed a lot of beans in his years as a teacher, some drowned, some died of thirst, some were victims of his own clumsiness ( a lot of pots also found their end in Grace's hands), so he had given up on having anything related to plants. 

Simon loved plants. 

Simon loved nature in general.

Grace had known that about him from the moment they met. When Grace had no name with which to refer to him and Simon was nothing more than an amputee man that had woken up in a stranger place in panic, screaming at him about tricks and manipulation, and “I would not fall for this”  with mad eyes while swinging at him with killing intentions. Grace can still feel the strong hand pressing against his throat, he is fighting to get any breath. 

The only thing that has been able to calm Simon down was the forest documentary that Grace was watching on his laptop - that had fallen into the ground a miracle didn’t break in the struggle- while waiting for him to wake up. David Attenborough's voice caught Simon's whole attention at the moment he mentioned the word “trees”, and he quickly forgot about Grace, losing the strength in his grab, too mesmerized by the screen showing a tundra forest. 

Grace jumped far from him having the opportunity, pressing himself against the wall closer to the door, protecting his neck with trembling hands and considering if he should call Rocky and Adrian after all. But he could just think in those first days in the Hail Mary, all by himself, not knowing what was going on, how confused he was, how much he would have given for someone to explain what was happening, to tell him that everything was going to be alright.

“I…I know this must be very confusing, but I promise you that there is nothing to be scared of… you are safe here.”

He had expected the man to turn to watch him with that violence still shining in those eyes. He had visualized himself running through that door and locking it behind him, but it didn’t happen. Instead, he saw the man crawl to be next to the laptop and sit like a child in front of the TV on a Sunday morning. 

Grace saw an opening and he clung to it.

“Would you…would you want me to restart the documentary? You could watch it from the start, you know, watch everything and…wait! Do you speak English? Do you even understand what I’m saying? All this could be but gibberish to you right now and I would be just talking…”

“There is… more?

The answer had taken Grace by surprise, he hadn’t heard a human voice in so long that he felt tears burning in the corners of his eyes. The man’s voice was deeper than his, raspy, unused and yet it was so full of hope that Grace found himself kneeling beside the man to reproduce the documentary again.

“Yeah, there are a lot of nature documentaries that you could watch, if you want.”

“I…I would want that.”

And for half an hour they didn’t say anything else, just sitting besides each other on the floor watching the laptop.

Grace had not known what to do next, having both existed in such a weird truce that he didn’t want to break. However, he needed to explain to the man that they were on an alien planet, light years to earth, and that said aliens had found him floating in a submarine filled with blood. But he didn’t know how to start that conversation. 

He had taken a breath of courage and turned to look at the man just to find him already watching him.  

“I…”

“I’m sorry...” The man stayed quiet, looking at his eyes, expecting Grace’s answer, but when he didn’t come with one he shyly pointed at Grace's neck, in which five new bruises in the form of fingers had just formed “ For that.”

“Oh! Don’t worry about it, water under the bridge and all that” The man didn’t seem sure “I understand what you must have been thinking, I bet I must have looked very intimidating, no?”

“Not really”

“Oh…”

It wasn’t until Grace had been looking for a second documentary to watch that something pop to his mind.

“I’m Grace…well I’m Dr. Ryland Grace, not that you need to refer to me with my title or anything, just call me Grace, everyone calls me Grace…I mean if you want to call me Ryland I would be cool with it…. well not super cool, I would need a moment but…”

“I’m Simon.”

“...Nice to meet you, Simon.”

Looking back it was hard for Grace to associate the first image he had of Simon with the man that was currently hanging out in the forest in his backyard.

The Eridians, much to Grace's mortification, pleased him at all his whims, and Grace, fighting his principles of just asking for essentials, asked to add a forest to his dome. The Eridians did so fast and without complaints. Grace thinks that in part because they feel in debt with him –though they shouldn’t- and in part because they were very interested in the idea of having another living earth specimen to study.

The trees were carefully taken care of in a laboratory, making them grow fast and strong to be replanted in the dome. A forest that appeared from one day to the other. Grace remembers showing it to Simon as if it was yesterday.

“Why are you covering my eyes?”

“Because I want to show you a surprise.”

“How am I supposed to see the surprise if you are covering my eyes?”

“Just trust me, would you?”

After that Simon did not ask more questions as to why Grace was waking him up so early in the day,  or why he couldn’t change out of his pajamas. He just closed his eyes and let Grace cover his face with his hands getting out of the house and walking slowly without more direction than the soft guide that Grace gave him by moving his head for him.

Grace made sure to position them with the trees surrounding them and then he let go of Simon.

“A welcome gift.”

Simon opened his eyes, disoriented of having lost Grace’s touch, but all his thoughts went blank seeing in front of him an oak. Green leaves, long branches and a strong, wide trunk. He fell into his knees feeling the soil under him and he extended a hand, he was so close that he could touch the trunk, the wood feeling familiar for his fingers. 

Simon had tears in the border of his eyes, and he then hugged the trunk with his arm and put his forehead against it. Grace, not wanting to interrupt the moment for him, but wanting to show his support placed a hand on Simon's shoulder and that was what the man needed to start crying, sobbing and panting, as a hurt animal.

“I…I thought I would never get the chance to see one in person ever again.”

Simon stayed that whole day and night in the forest. Grace accompanied him through all; hearing him pray to the trees, watching him go back and forth between them as if unable to choose which one to praise, touching and watching and getting completely lost in his own wonder. They forgot to eat that day and Grace didn’t go to give his class, because they didn’t feel the day pass until the night had fallen and Simon was asleep in the ground where he had spent hours watching the leaves over their head.

That day Grace went back to the house for some blankets and even when his back would regret in the morning, he slept all night lying beside Simon with the wind running through the trees to lull them.

But that was months ago, when Simon and him were still little more than strangers met by the coincidence of the odds. Living in a house that felt too small for them to avoid each other. 

They have grown closer. They now have a routine.  Grace would wake up first, making breakfast to then eat together at the table before he had to leave for school; Simon would bring him lunch in his break and they would talk sitting on the beach to then walk back to the house.

Simon would spend his time in the forest when he wasn’t giving advice to the Eridians about human technology; Simon, having lived in a space station that was falling apart with not enough specialized staff to fix it all, had to learn from a very young age to repair, make and disassemble multiple things, which worked wonders for the eridians.

They have found comfort in the life they have built in Erid. They have found comfort in each other

And Grace had been having this idea in his mind for weeks, after that little conversation with Simon.

“I want to stay here”

“What?”

“I don’t want to go back from where I’m from…I want to stay.”

“Of course you can stay.”

Grace wants to think they are friends now, real friends, not by need, but by choice. 

And friends give things to friends right?
____

“I don’t get why you are so nervous about this, just yesterday you couldn’t stop talking about how much this would mean for him.” Rocky, even when he was such a good friend, had never been able to understand the fragility of human interaction.

“Yeah, but today I think that maybe it is stupid.” Grace himself was feeling stupid “I mean he has a whole forest already, what would a little sprout…?”

“And seeds”

“And seeds be to him?”

Grace doesn’t have a green thumb, but he had done his best with the sprout in his hands, he had grown it painfully slowly, not using shortcuts, or tricks, just patience and care and putting a lot of faith in the process. 

The seeds were a hard task to do, trial and error of the right DNA that could resemble different earth vegetables and be able to grow in Erid soil outside the lab. However, they felt more easy to do for Grace than making the sprout germinate. It was different, he guessed, he was emotionally involved with the little shoot in the pot, getting his hands dirty, dripping water fearing killing another prospect of a tree and just wishing for the best.

Today was the day he was supposed to give the sprout to Simon, it had passed its critical stage and it should be strong enough to be replanted.

“You made them for him, you should give them to him.”

For Rocky things always look easier than what they are.

“What if he doesn’t like them? I’m basing this whole gift on a single thing I know about him.”

“Simon is a simple man, he sleeps, he eats, he likes dissambled machines and his fucking trees, why are you overthinking this?”

“I don’t know” He admitted, hiding his face in his hands, sometimes even the smallest decision felt like a life or death scenario.

Rocky, sighed (Grace wasn’t sure if Eridians could sigh, but he was pretty sure that Rocky could) and he left the package of seeds in the coffee table with a delicacy that Grace only saw when he was working with xenonite

“You have been stupid, just give him the sprout and seeds.”

Grace just whined loudly between his hands.

“I have to go, Adrian is waiting for me.”

“Are you watching them sleep?”

“No…we are having a date, it has been a while since we had time for ourselves.”

There was a time in which Grace wouldn’t have ever thought about alien singing rocks having dates, but right now he feels happy for his friend. If someone deserved a good date with their mate, it was Rocky, who, against what some would have expected, was a hopeless romantic, maybe only surpassed by Adrian themselves.

Forgetting his little crisis, Grace stood up from his table and walked besides Rocky to the door. Grace knew he didn’t need a door, not when there were only two people living in the dome able to open it without breaking it, but it gave him a sense of normality that was too soothing to give away.

“Oooh, what were you thinking of?”

“Adrian wants to go out…dancing.” Rocky moved nervously “I haven’t danced with them in so long.”

Grace opened the door making himself aside to leave space for Rocky to pass through.

“Good luck in your date”

“Thank you, good luck with Simon, big words of encouragement.”

And Grace saw his friend walking down the stairs, to then be a little spot moving through the beach until he disappeared in the distance. Now without Rocky as an excuse to postpone his gift giving, Grace sighed heavily and went back inside for the package of seeds and the sprout. Knowing himself he needed to do this now, or he would move it for next week, and then the next one, and then the one after that.

“I got this, I’m just giving a gift to a dear friend, that’s it.”

And then he walked into the forest.

___

Finding Simon was very easy. Even when the forest occupied a big chunk of their biodome, and Simon liked to walk through all of it, he had a predilection to spend his time in the spot in which Grace had introduced him to the forest. Seeing him just lying there watching his surroundings had become a quotidian picture.

Grace walked quietly not wanting to disturb him just yet. He was wearing the sweetpants and the kitten shirt that Grace had left him months ago and that he hadn’t cared to ask back. He was resting his head in his arm, watching the artificial clouds that floated above them. It was good to see Simon so relaxed, so comfortable.

Grace couldn't avoid smiling.

Then he stepped on a root.

In his effort to recover his balance and more importantly not falling over the sprout, ended up impacting against a trunk that he ended up hugging to avoid tripping again.

“Ow!”

“Grace?” Simon was turning in his direction “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, just didn’t see that root.”

Seeing that Simon was standing with the intention of walking to get beside him, Grace quickly hid the pot behind him. Simon didn’t seem to notice, fighting to get a leaf out of his hair. Grace, feeling pity for him, made sure to secure the pot in one of his hands behind him and with the other reached for the leaf and took it from him.

“Thanks” Simon smiled at him and then looked up to the sky again “I’m late for dinner, again? I could swear it was still early.”

“Oh, no! It’s still early I…I just wanted to give you something, you know a gift.”

Simon's eyes shined at the mention of a gift, but his face turned uncomfortable quickly, and his body contracted. Simon sighed to then hug himself.

“You have already given me more that I would ever dream of, Grace.”

“Believe me, Simon, you deserve way more than what you think.”

“You too.”

A silence was made between them and Grace new not to push it, and leave the topic. He had grown to accept that Simon and he were slightly broken, and there was nothing bad with it! but… there were good days and they were bad ones, in the same way that there were some topics that were harder to touch than others. Another thing that Simon and he shared, beside the fate of being sent in suicidal missions, was their little (quite big honestly) self-worth issues, but Grace didn’t wanted to think about that today, not when all what he wanted was his friend to feel appreciated.

He wanted Simon to be able to let go of the weight that always seemed to be pushing him down. Simon deserves the opportunity to be more like the version of himself that came to the forest each day with a little smile, and Grace could just hope that his little gift could help with that.

“Well, like I was saying…I have a gift for you”

He slowly moved the pot in front of him and now that he showed the little sprout to Simon.

“I grew this oak sprout for you, so you can grow it yourself, you know? Having your own tree… that now thinking that we are in the middle of a forest it may be redundant…”

Noticing how small the sprout looked in compare to the trees around them, he realized that maybe this was too small of a gesture like he had feared, so feeling the need to fix it he put a hand in his pocket, taking the package of seeds and offering it to Simon, quickly adding:

“And…and I also made you these genetic modified seeds that can grow here in Erid. You..you were interested in gardening right? We saw that documentary that you were interested in about housemade greenhouses and…anyways, they are just basic vegetables, cherry tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, stuff like that, even some beans. We could expand our menu, you know? I love me-burgers, but some greens on my plate wouldn’t do harm, haha…”

Noticing that Simon hadn’t said anything, Grace looked up and found Simon looking at him with thick lines of tears falling through his cheeks as he was sobbing quietly, he was frozen on the spot as if he was in shock and Grace, not knowing what had he say to make him cry, just keep rambling.

“We could make a greenhouse next to the house, where you can grow them, I would help you of course. I would not leave you all the hard work, if you want my help…or, or you can do it by yourself and it can be your thing, like- like, your hobby…” Grace knew he should stop talking, but his mouth was moving automatically, “I mean if you want them, no pressure.  I’m pretty sure that the eridians scientists would also love to grow them for us as a favor if we asked them to…”

Before Grace would keep digging his grave deeper, Simon turned in a rush to run to the trees and Grace thought that he was running away from him, if he hadn’t seen Simon stop in front of the closest tree suddenly. Simon started jogging between the trunks looking from tree to tree in a frenzy until he seemed to choose one. He got close to one of their branches and with a single pull took one of its leaves and then ran back to where Grace had stayed perplexed with both of his hands extended with his gifts.

Simon stopped in front of him, so close that Grace could feel his heavy breath hitting his face, and could see clearly how his eyes shined thanks to the tears that kept running without a pause.

Simon opened his mouth, and then closed it. Grace wanted him to say something, he wanted to ask what he wanted to say, but he bit his tongue, choosing that keeping silence was better than starting another rambling. That seemed to be the right choice, because Simon acted.

He extended his hand, stopped for a second and then very slowly and gently, put the leave between Grace's head and the leg of his glasses. Simon took a step back and looked at him with a glaze that Grace had never seen in him before, it was so soft and caring that even when Simon hadn’t stopped crying, Grace was sure that he had never seen him happier. He felt his chest grow warm.

Simon let go of a breath that Grace didn’t know he was containing and the next thing he knew was that Simon was hugging him so strongly that if he didn’t know that Simon had long since wanted to harm him, he would have thought that he was trying to break his back. He was pretty sure that if Simon had both of his arms, Grace would already be paralytic by this point. 

Grace had to move his full hands around Simon’s back the best he could, trying to return the hug without making the poor sprout pay the consequences of his need for human contact and end up squashed. It had been so long since someone had carried him like this, that he was this close to someone. He could feel Simon’s nose breathing in his neck, his hair smelled like soil and sunshine and his tears were wetting his shoulder, but he couldn’t care less.

“I promise you that I will be worthy of this honour.”

Grace felt more than heard the words, but he made sure to hug just a little bit stronger. He didn’t know how cultivating a tree and some veggies would be considered an honour, but if Simon felt that way he would not correct him. 

Simon really loved nature. Grace was sure that those were going to be the healthiest and most loved tree and vegetables of all Erid, and Earth all together, because it would be Simon who would take care of them.

Grace patted as he could Simon’s head with the corner of his hand

“I know, I know, you are already worthy, buddy.”

Simon, as if it was possible, cried harder. He clinged to him as if Grace would disappear if he gave up a single bit of his strength to the hug. They were so close and the hug was so tight that Grace was pretty sure that once they separated there was going to be an impression of each other in their bodies, but that was a concern for later. Right now, Grace was just enjoying the hug as much as he could.

Who would have guessed that someone could react like this to be given a little sprout and seeds? Only Simon. 

Smiling, Grace pressed his face against Simon's shoulder, letting himself relax against him. He was happy that his friend could still have such passion for something after all that had happened to him. 

Having a human friend — he loved Rocky, but Grace missed being able to touch someone else, not having to explain his human quirks, to just be human besides someone— for whom to look again was so nice, he missed it so much.

Somewhere else in Erid…

Adrian was concerned that their mate had stopped dancing at half of the song. Rocky had never been the best dancer, and he could get shy from time to time if Adrian teased him too much, but that had never stopped him before.

“What is wrong, love?” 

“Grace has been stupid. I can feel it”

Chapter Text

Simon had never expected to become someone’s husband.

He had spent his life fighting for Eden, taking care of the tree, feeding it pieces of corpses — He would never forget the face of Grace when he cut his own hand and dripped blood over the soil around the trees. It turns out that trees can grow with water, and nutrients that they acquired from the soil, no need for blood — from which he had recived the nickname The Butcher. Simon always thought that from the moment he had got that nickname he had sealed his own fate, a life in solitude. 

Even if there was a small possibility that someone could have ever thought of him like that, all hope died after the incident in Filament Station… Simon had just accepted that, even if he ever got out of prison, he was too contaminated to be anyone's pick for a husband. He wasn’t worthy of such a title. 

In Eden to ask someone to marry you, you had to give them something of high value; rations, weapons, clothes, anything useful. If the person you make the gift for returns the favour and gives you something valuable in return, you get married. 

Simon had heard that in past times people would celebrate, take hours, or even a whole day to make a ceremony and then a party, Simon couldn’t imagine it.  He thought that it had to be just a rumor that lazy people said because they dreamed of an excuse to skip a day of work. Eden couldn’t let its people waste time like that, so after the exchanges of gifts the couple gets married on the spot. 

In Simon’s personal opinion, that was very efficient way; you declared your intentions of living the rest of your life with someone and then if you have luck you are reciprocated and then you are connected to that person until both of you got to rot on the roots of the Last Tree to make your deaths translate to life. 

It sounded so romantic, so meaningful.

On weird and very special occasions people would give things related to the Sacred Tree and the remains of nature. Those unions were thought to not only be quite fancy; thinking about how hard finding something like that in Eden was, but also they carried a certain promise with them, a blessing or even real show of compromise. For someone to give away something that connected them to the little nature that Eden could still keep? That was real love.

Simon can still remember one of the most fanciest weddings he ever attended; Brother Bruce gave his knife that had a handle made of wood from the Last Tree to Sister Sophia. He proposed to her in the middle of the cafeteria at the time of lunch, quite a memorable event, a declaration of his unconditional love in front of the other Brothers and Sisters. It all had happened when Simon was chewing his grey rations,  and he was close enough to Sister Sophia that he was able to see her face turning red and how she had taken off her metal chain that had a little piece of the Last Tree’s roots to give it to him in return, accepting his proposal and getting married then and there. 

Brother Bruce was wearing that same chain the day that they attacked Filament Station. He died in the explosion, Simon hopes his death was quickly. Sister Sophia used the knife to kill herself before the C.O.I got her. They were a very good couple. Simon never imagined that he would have the chance to have something like that.

He couldn’t imagine someone seeing him and wanting to live the rest of their lives with him, wanting to give him something of value. He didn’t have anything of value to give besides his necklace, and he couldn’t imagine giving it away to anyone.

But that was before the ocean of blood, before fighting that thing, before losing his mind, before losing his arm, before losing his necklace… before knowing Grace.

He could still not believe it. 

He had not only survived, but he had been safe. Safe by someone so immensely kind. 

Simon remembers the first time he saw Grace, his hair the color of wheat, his eyes of the color that the Old Wisemen described the sky, more tall than any of the malnourished people of Eden would ever get to dream of. An angel that reduced himself to be in his proximity. He was so sure that it was impossible for such a being to exist, that he had assumed it was one of those monster tricks and he… he just attacked him as the savage he was.

He has nightmares of what would have happened if he hadn’t heard the word “trees” back then. He had been so confused, there weren’t “trees”, there was a single “tree” and it was dead. When he turned to see pictures of no one, but multiple trees in a laptop, he was so hypnotized by it that all violence had left him, thanks to the Sacred Last Tree.

And Grace, Grace didn't have rancor against him. He could have taken the laptop, he could have just run and left Simon in his confusion, but he played the documentary from the start and sat with him, patient. 

After his mind was calmed, his guilt ate him alive seeing his fingers printed in the foreign tan skin, and when Grace had introduced himself… Dr Ryland Grace. He had attacked an Angel that had not only rescued him, and shown him trees (multiple!), and was important enough to not only have one name but two, no, the angel’s name was literally “Rye Land” and “Mercy”. 

Simon knew at that moment that once he died his body wouldn’t rot on the roots of any tree, he would probably be mummified and be shown somewhere as a reminder of what a sinner looked like.

That day Grace had given him clothes, food and a bed. For Simon, who had slept in a cable hammock since he had got to Eden in his childhood, the idea alone of being able to sleep in a snug couch, with clean soft blankets and fluffy pillows, with covers that sat with a comfortable weight over him was the most effective narcotic that there could be. He had to fight against his own tiredness those first weeks, too scared of waking up in the submarine, but it was hard to fight the sleep when you have a real bed.

Then there was the forest. A FOREST! 

He had had a bad night, memories of oceans of blood and lack of oxygen chasing him in his dreams, but then he had woken up to a smiling Grace that was gently shaking him awake. When Grace put his hands over his eyes and told him to trust him, Simon couldn’t do anything more than obey.

Grace's hands were soft, they had calluses from all the notes and handy work he did in his lab in the back of the house, but they were tender, and having Grace speak into his ear was so calming that Simon feared he’d fall asleep standing up. When Grace had let go of him, he had opened his eyes just to see a miracle.

Grace was an angel that Simon didn’t deserve.

Simon had once told him so, and Grace, who just at that moment had fallen into his face after missing a step from the impression, had dismissed him laughing at himself.

“I can’t be more far off from an angel, I’m too human, you see?” He said, showing Simon his now bloody hands that he had used to stop the impact.

Grace might not be an angel in the truest sense of the word. He still got scratches, and he could bleed, and he needed to eat and sleep, and he could get irked and be petty sometimes, as any human would, but Grace was still an angel in Simon’s eyes. What other way could Simon name a person so incredibly kind that was able to ease Simon with his mere presence? How could he refer to someone that had helped save the stars and fought against the odds to make miracles happen, by other means that wasn’t “angel”?

Grace was an earthly human angel, but an angel at the end of the day, and he was thankful that he had taken him under his protection.

He had three meals every single day, waking up to the smell of Grace doing coffee. He had forgotten what coffee tasted like. They would have quiet breakfasts, eat together on the beach for lunch and watch a documentary while they had dinner. Simon now could take a shower with water, had potable water he could drink, and he had clean clothes and a bed.  He would spend his time building things that the eridians wanted to know more about, and he would chat with them about mechanisms and what kind of technology humans use. They would appreciate his opinions and comments and even Simon would dare to say they looked for them. Having the opportunity to hear the Eridians sing when he had never been able to hear music besides the chorus of prayers to the Last Tree before was just a whole new experience.

He had a forest now, a forest in which he could just…go and walk around and touch and pray and he… he would never be able to thank Grace enough.

And then… and then Grace had come with the sprout and seeds, rambling about how they were gifts to him, and the things he could do with and he could have a greenhouse… Simon knew he shouldn’t accept his proposal, Grace had no idea what kind of man he was choosing to be his husband. For the Last Tree’s Roots! Grace's proposal must be the most expensive marriage proposal in Eden’s history and it was directed to  him! 

Simon…Simon was so shocked to be considered so valuable, to be trusted with something so precious as protecting and cultivating life, instead of being the one responsible for taking it away… no one had thought him able to do that and he knew that he needed to be the logical one and decline Grace, to set him free for his own good, but…but he couldn’t, because at the end of the day he was a corrupted and selfish man.

He had been paralyzed by the impression, and he hadn't realized he was crying until he was able to move. He needed to find something valuable for Grace, fast, before Grace regretted his choices and took his proposal back.

Simon had to look at his surroundings and he saw at the trees and their beautiful healthy leaves, and he ran between them, desperate until he found the perfect leaf. He would never pull a leaf in normal circumstances, he had never done it before, but it was the most valuable thing he could think of, and Grace deserved the best.

He pulled the leaf without a second thought and ran in front of Grace who looked confused and surprised. He had meant to say something to Grace, but the words felt so empty in comparison to Grace that he just closed his mouth. He was so focused on getting the leaf that he hadn’t noticed that Grace had his hands full with the gifts meant for him.

Not having more options, and not wanting to lose time, Simon had put the leaf between Grace’s glasses and his hair. He was so gentle, as gentle as he could be with his hand that used to do so much harm, and had never had to do a tender touch before. Then taken by a sudden need to have the whole picture, Simon took a step back.

Grace looked beautiful in that moment, with his hands filled with life and the leaf on his hair, the sunset shining behind him giving him a warm light. His glasses slightly crooked and his sweater falling from his shoulders. He had a confused smile on his face and his blue eyes were looking at him and Simon couldn’t believe his own good luck. He still can’t.

He hugged him. Simon had not hugged someone in a while.

In a world as rough and violent as the one that Simon had grown up in, having so much love for someone, such a need to been in contact with them, to need them close — close enough that they could hurt you, or you could hurt them— and feel their body against yours, was something so intimidating. Something reserved for family and couples, and after his mom had died and he had to leave Mars, Simon had not had anyone to do so, and yet, he now had Grace.

Grace, to whom Simon had promised to become worthy; worthy of the peaceful existence that had been given to him in that small paradise; worthy of the life that has been trusted to him; worthy of the care and kindness that Grace give him so freely; worthy of Grace who believed him worthy to have all this, of having him as a husband, as part of his family.

Simon didn’t expect to become a husband, but for Grace he would become the best husband that there could be.

____

Simon, much to his despair, wasn’t sure of what his responsibilities as a husband were.

After crying his weight in tears over Grace’s shoulder, Simon needed a moment to calm down. He had let himself enjoy the moment; the warmth that Grace irradiated, his arms embracing him, how Grace smelled like soap, clean and fresh. He felt safe, comfortable and so loved. He hadn’t wanted to move, having the alluring idea of memorizing how Grace’s pulse felt against his chest, and then Grace’s stomach had growled.

Grace had tensed and separated from the hug so fast, that Simon didn’t have the time to understand the lack of the contact that instants before he was enjoying and the soft breath hitting his neck.

He had looked over to see Grace, not understanding the radical change. He had looked at Simon in return with wide eyes and flushed cheeks. It reminded Simon a little of Sister Sophia when she got married in the cafeteria.

“I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to break the moment, I just… didn’t realize I’m starving” Grace's admission was continued by another growl from his stomach, making his cheeks get even more red.

Simon hadn’t starved since he had met Grace, always having a place and a warm plate on the table, but he didn’t mind going starving again, if that meant that Grace didn’t have to.

“I know I just gave the sprout to you and that you must be excited to plant it, but it is getting dark, so maybe we could leave that for tomorrow?”

Simon didn’t hear the question, his mind still a little lost, but he nodded and Grace gave him a small smile, so he thought he had chosen well.

Grace placed the sprout and the package of seeds in his arm as gently as he could. Simon made sure to have a good grip on them, and even when they were small, light things, they felt as if Grace had decided to put the world over him. Curiously, Simon didn’t feel pressure, nor did he feel himself squashed by the idea of it. Instead, it making him feel like he was accountable; Grace had been so sure that he was able to take care of them, that Simon himself was feeling confident.

The walk back was quiet, Simon suspected that they had both got tired after such an expression of emotion, at least he was, feeling his eyes dry and his head have a tingling headache, but too happy to really care. They moved lazily through the trees, giving each other furtive looks and silent smiles.

It wasn’t until they had got to the house and Simon had secured the sprout and seeds in the coffee table, and Grace went in direction to the kitchen mentioning making some taupasta with me-balls that Simon got a moment to sit down in the couch to recapitulate everything that had happened in the day.

Maybe the idea of having a whole day to marry someone wasn't as crazy as he once thought, maybe the people of the past just took the whole day to process. Right now Simon would want a whole week to even process the idea that Grace had wanted to propose to him, he would need at least a month to even conceive the idea of Grace thinking that Simon is worthy of a sprout, and he is not even counting the seeds.

He brushes his hair back in an effort to sooth himself and then he remembers it; He has to give his hair to Grace!

He jumped from the couch and ran to the bathroom

“I will take a shower!”

“Dinner should be ready in twenty.”

Sister Suzy used to have the longest, most well cared for red hair that Simon had ever seen, a very hard task to accomplish in Eden, and she had it cut to her roots without thinking twice as a wedding gift for Sister Lyra. 

In a Space Station with scarcity of resources, children were not only a luxury and a burden, but also they were heavily planned. Couples not only needed to show to have the best of genes and be capable integrants of the community, they also needed to have the blessing of the Father to have offsprings and even with the blessing that was a big possibility that the pregnancy just never happened, thanks to the malnourishment and how much stress were the bodies put under, and the true been said even if a child did born in Eden, orphans were more common that a child with parents. 

If no useful genes to Eden’s purposes were lost through a union, people were free to choose who to be with. Little things like that come when you know that the human race is getting extinct and there is not even enough food to try to add to the numbers.

Sister Suzy with her inability to distinguish which ones were the red cables and Sister Lyra with her chronic dust allergies, had nothing to offer to Eden, so they had a peaceful wedding in the control room, and in that same moment Suzy had got her pocket knife and cut her hair.

Giving your hair to your spouse had been a tradition born when things weren’t as bad, and kids were a more common thing to see in the station. The hair has been used to do haircloths for the newborns. However, when less and less babies were born, the tradition changed and some spouses –those brave enough to have long hair in Eden– gave their hair to dress the other.

Sister Lyra used to cover her small, fragile body with the red sweater she made with the hair every time she was having a particularly bad episode of allergies, it seemed to comfort her, and Sister Suzy couldn’t look smugger every time she saw Lyra wearing it. 

Simon needed his hair to be clean, and soft and perfect, as perfect as his unruly hair could be. He took his clothes off as fast as he could, to then fold them delicately because at the end of the day, those were clothes that Grace had given him. He turned on the shower and rushed in. The cold water hit first, then it slowly warmed and he took the soap to start lather until his skin shines, while the water erased the salty tears that had dried in his face and the dirt and grass stains in his hand that had been touching the forest ground…had his hand been this dirty when he hugged Grace? He surely hoped he hadn’t stained him. He didn’t have time for that, he needed his hair to be unpolluted.

He used the shampoo he shared with Grace, and made sure to massage it until his scalp couldn't take it anymore, and then he put –for the first time, but Grace didn’t need to know that— the conditioner to make his hair softer, and then… then he didn’t know what else to do with his hair.

So he just finished his shower and dried his hair with the towel, and put on the same clothes that he had come in with. In the rush he had forgotten to bring new clothes with him, and he felt that he was too much of a newlywed to just wrap his towel around his body and get out of the bathroom, and pass in front of Grace like that to then get to the room for new pajamas. He didn’t want Grace to think that he was a perv!

Then he brushed, and he brushed for a long time, over and over until he thought that he could see his hair actually obeying the rules of physics for once. They were some barber scissors under the sink, Grace had told him so the first days he had arrived. 

Now the hard time…cutting it.

He had let his hair grow since he had come to Erid, it had surpassed his shoulders, falling over his back and it framed his face in a way he kind of liked. The truth is that even if it wasn’t the most practical hair, the long curls reminded him of his mother, and he always thought that she had such pretty hair… he just wanted to look a little more like her. But Grace deserved a good quantity of hair.

He had located the scissors just over his ear when he heard the door opening. The house had no locks, Eridians did not find a purpose for them.

Grace came in with his hand covering his eyes, the leaf still trapped between his glasses’ leg.

“Sorry for coming in. Dinner is ready. You have been here for a while…  I have been calling you, but you didn’t respond and I thought that something may have happened.”

“You can open your eyes, I’m dressed”

Grace opened his eyes and looked at him from head to toes, Simon knew he was trying to determine if he was injured or not.

“Are you cutting your hair? I thought you liked it long?”

Simon did like it long, but that is irrelevant.

“It means to be a gift…for you” Grace blinked at him slowly “For the sprout and…the seeds”

“Oh!”

Grace sounded so surprised, so taken back that Simon could feel his cheeks getting warm for the shame. Did Grace not believe he was capable of giving him his hair? Did he think he was so vain that he couldn’t give him something so simple as hair over a sprout? And seeds?!

Grace must think Simon is the most selfish husband ever, and he hasn’t even been husband for more than two hours!

“I don’t need…” Grace looked at his eyes and he must have found something in Simon’s eyes, because then his confusion was gone and he smiled at him with ease “I don’t need a lot of hair.”

“But…”

“Wait here! If we are going to cut your hair, we are going to make it right.”

Then Grace had got out of the bathroom, leaving Simon still in his spot, not wanting to do a thing until Grace came back and he did so shortly, carrying a book under his arm, a cloth napkin in his shoulder and a chair from the dinner table.

Grace put the book over the sink countertop and the chair in the middle of the bathroom, looking at the mirror. He placed the cloth napkin beside the book, with a ceremonial gesture. He turned to look at him and put his hands on his hips as if wanting to give off confidence.

“I have some experience cutting hair, I used to cut my own hair on Earth all the time. The salary of a middle school teacher doesn’t give you a lot of opportunities to go to the barber, you know?”

Simon looked at the chair and then at Grace. He wasn’t sure if the tradition had something against the hair being cut from someone else than himself. If he had thought he had the opportunity to get married at any point he would have made more investigation!

His silence must have been a little too long, because Grace kept talking

“I can help, but only if you want.”

“Yes…I mean I would want that, yeah.”

“Then jump in!” Grace patted the chair in a joyful gesture and Simon sat as quickly as he could, giving the scissors to Grace.

Grace took a towel and put it over Simon’s shoulders, and after securing that it would not fall he started brushing his hair, in long brushes that didn’t try to placate Simon’s curls, just guide them in the same direction. 

Simon couldn’t remember who was the last person who had touched his hair without using it as a weakness against him. In more than one fight Simon had greasy hands taking a handful of his curls just to pull them with the intention of harming him. Grace's long fingers were very meticulous, working as fast as his hands could go, finishing brushing before Simon had the chance to enjoy it.

“So how short do you want it?”

“You can cut it as much as you want, it-it is for you after all.”

“But it is your hair, you should have said, don’t you think?”

Simon was about to say that he didn’t care, but he then saw Grace glaring at him through the reflection of the mirror, and he knew that lying, even if it was in something so little, would make Grace sad, and Simon couldn’t allow that.

“I… I like how it feels against my jaw, and how it frames my face…”

“What about I cut it so it is at your shoulder's length, hmm?”

Grace using his fingers mimic the gesture of cutting his hair, just where his shoulder started, cutting little more than three fingers of hair. Simon liked the idea of leaving his hair a bit long, yet, he could avoid to think that:

“Isn’t that too little to be your gift?

“No, no! Like I say I need very little hair, honestly!

And by the way Grace smiled at him Simon believed him.

Simon really needed to become a good husband, Grace was already a fantastic one… at least in Simon’s opinion.

Chapter Text

They ended up having to reheat the taupasta and me-balls.

Grace had taken his time cutting Simon’s hair, forgetting he was hungry, or better said, he had been so focused on the process of doing it that it just slipped his mind, he missed a lot of the meals in this way. He let the minutes pass as he inquired Simon's opinion through the process, and for every cut he would collect the hair carefully so it would not fall on the floor, deposited delicately in the cloth napkin.

He didn't know why Simon would want to cut his hair, he was pretty sure the man liked it when he had his hair long, but Simon had been so determined to cut it, that Grace felt the need to intervene.

Then he had heard Simon's intention of giving the hair to him and he couldn’t help but feel flattered, a little confused, but deeply moved. He didn’t know that Eden had a tradition of giving hair as a payment for a gift, but again, for what Simon described it, Eden conditions were harsh as best, having the time and means to take care of something as vain as hair seem like a waist of time, so having nice hair must take a lot of care, representing a great emotional value. 

After calling for Simon for more than 15 minutes, Grace decided to go into the bathroom fearing that Simon had fallen in the shower, or had hurt himself and was in too much pain to call for help. All he found was Simon with the scissors just above his ear. 

With the fear of Simon being injured gone, a new concern came to Grace, how Simon with shaking hands was about to cut at least 25 centimeters of healthy, beautiful hair that Grace knew Simon was proud of. He could know for all the time he spent in the morning brushing it, and how he would like to play with it when he was thinking hard and how just after Grace left for school , Simon would try to do little hairstyles just to fail and decide to go with his hair down, and still carry a hair tie in his arm all the time.

If Simon was determined to cut his hair, even when he seemed to doubt so much about it,  to give it to Grace as a way to thank him for the sprout and seeds. At least Grace could make it less painful for Simon.

So Grace sat him in a chair and took the scissors, and if the haircut ends up looking bad, at least Grace can carry that guilt, instead of Simon.  He brushed Simon’s hair with care, being careful to not pull his curls. Simon’s hair is wet and still warm from the hot water of the shower, and still feels soft on Grace’s fingers. He then realized that maybe he was touching Simon's hair too much, and accelerated his brushes.

He starts telling Simon about how he recreated the seeds. He knows that Simon just understands some pieces of it, and that he may not be able to remember the entire process that he is explaining to him, but he also knows that Simon dislikes silence.

Simon is not a very talkative person, at least, not yet. Grace is sure that he just has to find a topic that would loosen his tongue —He is hoping that the sprout would motivate Simon to speak more, because the closest thing that Grace ever had of a rambling from Simon was that time in the first weeks living together in which he bombarded him with questions about how it was to live in a place with trees, just before he had realized he wasn’t giving time for Grace to answer, and ended up shutting himself up— so Grace works as a sound machine for moments like this one, in which Simon seems too deep in his own mind to be able to have a conversation, but still appreciates the sound.

Knowing that Simon may not tell him if he is uncomfortable with his haircut experience, Grace looks at the mirror reflection every now and then, just to make sure that Simon is not panicking. Everytime he looks up to the mirror, Simon is looking at him back through the reflection. Grace notices that Simon seems nervous of having connected glares, as if there would be consequences for being caught in the act. Trying to not make him more nervous than he already is, Grace pretends not to see him throwing glares at him. After a while Simon seemed to have taken it as a little game, because he starts smiling a little when he thinks that he has got his way with his glares. 

It is nice to see him joke around, to be comfortable enough with Grace to make him the end of a joke, even if it is something so innocent as throwing glares without being caught.

Grace finishes the last cuts, and while he collects the last hairs, he catches Simon looking at him, and he smiles back. Simon looks down fast, and Grace pretends once again that he can’t see his face getting redder.

Grace puts all the hairs in a cloth napkin, to then fold it carefully so the hair is secure in the middle.

“ I almost forgot!” 

Grace opened the book beside the folded napkin and took the leaf from behind his glasses’ leg to collocate in its white pages and then close it slowly. He balanced the little package of air over the book and knocked them gently to show them to Simon who watched with curious eyes.

“How come you have a book? I thought we didn’t have books. You are always reading from your tablet.”

“Oh, the Eridians tried to replicate a book once, but they didn’t get the words inside, it is just white paper” He showed the content of the “book”, it was a beautiful cover, but mostly white pages inside. “It is a notebook where I write important stuff, so I don’t forget, and is a perfect place to guard the leaf you gave me.”

Simon looked at the book again, and then looked at Grace, he suddenly seemed more relaxed.

“Your gifts to me are completely secure, now.” Grace clapped his hands and returned to position himself behind Simon, passing his fingers through the haircut to make sure it looked good. “Well, what do you think?”

Simon touched and pulled his hair, which was now dry and curling just over Simon’s shoulder and still tickling in his jaw, as if he was trying to make sure that it would not fall off.

“I like it… What do you think?”

“I think you look very handsome.”

Simon's cheeks went red once again. He smiled shyly at Grace, tangling his hair around one of his fingers, and then the moment was broken by Simon’s stomach growl.

“It seems that someone is hungry”

Simon went even redder. Grace patted him on the back with ease

"I'll reheat dinner and you look for something to watch, okay?” Grace was already walking through the kitchen when a shiver jolted through him. “ Could you please also bring some blankets? Tonight I feel like I'm freezing.”

“Leave it to me”

____

When Grace got to the living room carrying two plates of pasta, the sprout and seeds were no longer on the coffee table, probably because Simon judged wisely to move it to a safer place now that they were going to be eating there. In addition, the whole couch was covered in blankets and pillows, even some spilling to the floor as a contemporary human nest. Maybe Simon had got a little excited with the blankets, not that it seemed like a real issue.

Grace didn’t see him at first, thinking that maybe he was looking for more things to add to the collection of fluffy and comfortable items, but when he got close enough, he found Simon sitting on the couch, with a blanket over his shoulder and his whole body hidden by it. Grace could only see part of his face that was  shielded by his unruly hair that had decided to frizz. He had his hand getting out of the protection of the blanket just to click the controller looking for a documentary with a determination that Grace had never seen since someone scrolling through Netflix.

“Would you mind moving a little bit, please?"

Simon looked at him and jumped out of the blanket, to then move to one of the sides of the couch in a rush. Grace must have popped his little bubble by accident, poor guy must have been really invested in Netflix’s catalogue.

Grace sat down on the couch on the left side of Simon to then offer him one of the plates.

“Be careful, the plate is hot.” Simon took it as carefully as he could, putting in his lap before taking the control remote. It was then that Grace realized he had forgotten something. “Aargh! I forgot the glasses in the kitchen! I will be back in a sec.”

He was about to stand up, but Simon was faster. He put his plate on the coffee table and stood up to then walk to the kitchen, before stopping, looking directly into Grace's eyes and yell:.

“I got it!”

And in two leaps he had reached the kitchen. Simon took the two glasses of water in his arm and ran to the living room. Grace saw some water splash his shirt in the hurry, but Simon didn’t seem to notice, too focused on putting the glasses on the table and to return to his spot on the couch beside Grace. 

He collapsed on the couch, and in a single move he took a blanket that was hanging from the armrest and threw it over their legs in a smooth move. It wasn’t until that moment, in which Grace started to feel a nice warmth covering his legs that Simon seemed to relax.

Simon accommodated the plate in his lap and then looked through the window, Grace copied him. He loved to see the darkness and saw the biodome’s night sky simulation. The eridians had found the star maps in the computer that Grace had given them and they decided to replicate it, some nights they even recreated the milky way, sometimes they would add an extra star in a constellation to see if Grace would notice the error, a little game between them. 

When Grace looked away from the window, he found Simon tense, throwing looks between the pasta and the TV that had the documentary waiting to be started, ending by glancing sideways at Grace. Suddenly he reached for the control remote and started the documentary, to then look down at his plate and grab the fork with a shaking hand.

That was weird

“Aren’t you going to do your prayer?”

Simon stopped his efforts to get any pasta with the fork, turning to look at him, wide eyed.

“It is getting late…”

“What about it?”

“I don’t want to delay our dinner more, not for… me”

The way that Simon spoke, with such a little, low voice, as if he was confessing something, just to end with a tone so full of self-louathing… Grace would not have that!

Grace took the remote, rewinded the documentary, and paused it in the second 00:00. Making sure to keep a hand over the control, so Simon would not try to steal it from him.

“Do your prayer. I will wait for you.”

Simon looked at him, and for a fraction of a second, a small millisecond, Grace saw his face reflect relief, just to be quickly covered by stubbornness. 

“The pasta is going to get cold.”

“I can reheat again.”

“We… we may not have time to finish the documentary”

“We can always finish it later.”

Simon, who was still fighting to force himself to use the fork, ended up leaving it in the plate, defeated.

“Why are you making a big deal of this?”

“Because I know how important it is for you to do your prayers. It is a big deal to you, so it is a big deal to me.”

Simon seemed ready to keep fighting, but after hearing Grace he took a long breath and quickly adopted his position to pray. Grace had observed him do it so many times that he had already memorized it; Simon would put his hand on his chest, and make a punch to them slowly opening his fingers along his prayers.

“We are grateful for the nourishing fruits that the Sacred Tree has conceived. Undeserving, we clutch our heads in awe of the blessing that its branches have allowed to reach our tables...”

Simon's prayer was almost a whisper, but it carried a certain frequency, repetitive and almost musical tone that Grace would catch now and then. He has never had the courage to ask him about the prayers, or anything about its faith, too scared of making Simon retire to his shell once more but he had started to pick things. 

Simon would use a different prayer depending on the situation, Grace hadn’t been able to distinguish which ones depend on which situations, because Simon would always pray as quietly as he could, like if it was a secret. Most were little murmurs that were gone in seconds, but the one that Simon dedicated to his food took around 5 minutes to be recited, being one of the longer ones that Grace had heard him say.

But 5 minutes weren’t a long time to wait for food if you asked Grace, and if he had to give a little of his time so Simon could eat in peace, then he would give it no problem. He himself would not be comfortable knowing that Simon was unable to eat at ease, all because he was impatient, ridiculous.

Grace didn’t follow any faith, but he had always admired how Simon was so dedicated to him, even when he could get shy about it. It was in the little things he did, how he would treat the trees as they were made of glass and more valuable than the gold. How he would thanks in the mornings and start his day by touching the grass, or the dirt or the sand, or in moments like this in which he would find something to which he was so grateful and didn’t know how to honored more than dedicated it a prayer, as if everything around him, every detail, was deserving of such a prestigious thing, but him.

Grace wanted that Simon loved himself a fragment of what he loved everything else, maybe in that way he would not find reasons to minimize his needs, thoughts and opinions. Maybe in that way Simon would forgive himself for being an imperfect human.

Once Simon finished his prayer he looked shyly and Grace who as fast as he had paused the documentary restarted it and then they ate in a comfortable silence for the first minutes of the documentary. Simon had chosen an episode of miniseries where they explained how every little detail and individual counts for the well fusioning of an ecosystem.

Simon lost himself in the documentary, eating without looking away, as if he was afraid that if he looked down to his plate he may miss one of the wonders presented on the screen.

If the pasta in Grace’s plate was slightly cold, Simon didn’t need to know that. In the end it even tasted better like that.

_____

As Simon had suspected they did not finish the documentary.

After they had finished their dinner, and were too lazy to pause the series to wash the dishes in the moment, they ended up leaving the plates on the coffee table. Somehow while they kept  watching the documentary, they ended up getting closer.

At the start it was subtle, just Simon’s leg against his, but neither of them really noticed it… well, Grace noticed, of course he noticed the warm nice presence against him, but Simon doesn’t mention it, and Grace doesn’t want to make it weird, so he doesn’t say anything, either.

But then Simon just, without a better way to describe it, melted against Grace.

His arm touches Graces and at some point, his head is resting against his shoulder, and Grace doesn’t know how to react.

He hasn't touched another human intimately in so long that he just freezes. 

He had casual touches with Simon, hands brushing when passing things to each other, or their arms rubbing when they walk too close along the beach, but nothing this domestic, nothing this long, and warm and nice. Their hug in the forest has been their first proper hug. Not a side hug, not an awkward effort of Grace trying to comfort Simon in those first days that he had arrived, in which Simon had needed physical confirmation that Grace was real, a human being and not another hallucination that his mind had created. That hug between the trees, that Grace could return properly for having his hand full, had been their first real hug.

In the forest Grace had not known how to react, worried about overwhelming Simon, he had returned as gently as he could, not wanting to break the moment that Simon was having, not wanting to be too much in such a delicate instance, but this contact was more relaxed, more comfortable and Grace didn’t feel as if he was walking over eggshells. 

And that had awakened something in him, something that had given up a long time after years of no contact; Grace was feeling touch-starvation.

Grace knew what touch- starvation was, he also knew he had it, had felt it before, all those years in the Hail Mary with no more comfortable touch than the xenonite crystal around Rocky. Grace carried scars to commemorate the only time he had even touched his best friend; a claw-print in his right forearm, his left arm and part of his back burn until it had left in his skin an eternal sensation of numbness. He knew that that touch could never repeat; Rocky had been burned by oxygen and frozen by the temperature of his atmosphere, he had been burned by the ammonia, his skin melting where he had entered in contact with Rocky. It was too dangerous and too painful to worth it, and yet, back then, when he had been looking for a casual brush of someone else's touch, and his skin seemed to hide ants under it and he had felt so understimulated, an ammonia burn seems better than nothing. 

He remembers that in a moment of desperation, he would touch his scarring burn skin, because it felt as if someone else was doing it. If the pain didn’t eliminate his desire, the incapability of distinguishing his own touch had made him feel a little better.

 When Simon had first appeared, Grace had already accepted to live the rest of his life carrying that longing, in a way his body that had been screaming from touch had just become a whisper and Grace had known to comfort himself with the touches through the glass. In addition, Simon was so skittish of everything and everyone back then, that Grace had not even considered trying to find comfortable contact with him. 

Their hugs were practical, violent and ephemeral, just a touch for Simon’s mental health sake . Most times they didn’t even hug, Simon would touch him in the arm, pat him on the back, always at an arm distance. Just a little “You are here” touch and then they would both carry with their day. 

Grace couldn’t think of those touches as contact, not really, they were so measured and in a way calculated, it wasn’t really contact, more like a procedure.

But now, Simon was lying against him, having covered both of them with one of Grace's favorite blankets and… and Grace felt so comfortable.

He liked the weight against him, the warmth, the softness, the security that he wasn’t alone. 

Grace had lost all the plot about the documentary, too focused on not reacting, or not making Simon conscious of his lazy cuddling. In getting to savor it, because he didn’t know if this is something born of the moment, of Simon needing a rock to rely on after all that crying and emotion that he had been dealing with today. Maybe just as when they had met, Simon just needed a reminder that Grace was real, and that he was alive, outside of a bloody submarine in the middle of nowhere. Grace doesn't know if tomorrow all this cosiness is going to once again disappear, and even when he knows he shouldn’t be taking advantage of this, of Simon being open like this, he is taking what he can.

Simon ends up sleeping on Grace's shoulder, calm, with regulated breaths against his neck, completely out of the world. He must be really tired, Grace hasn't ever seen him wanting to miss a fact about Earth’s life, and yet he is lost in his dreams, his deep breath turning into a low snoring and his head finding a better position in Grace's boney shoulder. It is a big difference from the Simon that Grace knew, that would fight against falling asleep too afraid to discover that all was nothing but a dream, always sleeping with an eye open. Now, now he looks so peaceful, so perfectly asleep. Simon had just accepted the dream to take over his body and had let himself sleep soundly.

Grace is happy. Happy for him. 

Grace, who is fighting against his own tiredness trying to be awake just a moment more, to have this just a moment more, only has time to turn off the TV before falling asleep.

____

Grace was woken up by the smell of smoke, and he had opened his eyes just to see in the distance how Simon was panicking in the kitchen while he was using the italian coffee maker, or at least trying to use it. The image itself was so strange; Simon with his hair in all directions, while running one side to the other in the kitchen trying to find a way to take the coffee maker out of the stove, that Grace thought he was still sleeping, and had closed his eyes again.

Then the sound of something falling to the floor echoed in the kitchen, and Grace was fully awake. He had a hard moment in taking the blankets off him, noticing that there were more over him than the ones they used to sleep.

He stretched his muscles and walked lazily to the kitchen, his back complaining for each of his moves, just to find Simon kneeing in the floor with some paper towers, cleaning a stain off the floor, who turned to look at him as if he had caught him red-handed.

Grace took some of the paper towels from the counter, kneed beside Simon to take the handler of italian coffee maker and put it aside carefully to avoid the hot iron to then help him finish cleaning.

“Did you get burned?”

“No, no! I’m fine! I was just…doing breakfast”

Simon gestured his head to the stove, and when Grace stood up he could see more clearly that in the counter there was a bowl with some mix on it, and the stove had a frying pan with some panc-ebas.

“How thoughtful of you!”

“...It was nothing.”

“I will make some coffee, as a thanks.”

“Yeah, I…hm, don’t know how to use that thing.”

Grace knew that the italian coffee maker could be a little scary to use for those who had never use it before, and he also knew that it could be a little too… fancy, but it had been one of the little whims he hadn’t been able to resist to ask for when the eridians were asking what did he need.

Good coffee was essential for humans, or at least that was what eridians believed, and thankfully, even when Simon wasn’t familiar with coffee per se —Eden didn’t seem to have a lot of coffee, not a lot of people had the opportunity to try it. The drink was only given in very small portions to essential people that couldn’t leave their jobs or spots for long shifts, Simon had just taken a drink of it once or twice before coming to Erid — he had not denied the little lie that Grace had spread.

Grace had the good luck that the Eridians had been able to make some coffee beans, based on the remains kept in the coffee maker in the Hail Mary and a lot (really a lot) of tries they had finally got to a good quality coffee beans that Grace could pulverize to do his needed good coffee.

“I got it, don’t worry.”

Simon threw the paper towel and then walked to the front of the stove, and he kept diligently doing some panc-ebas. Grace moved beside him, and followed his little morning routine with the little addition of having Simon at his back. It was a nice change.

Grace put some water to heat in the teapot, and then unscrewed the italian coffee maker to clean both pots and filter it in the sink, carefully. He then put some water in the lower pot, some freshly crushed coffee beans in the filter and colocated it surely in the lower pot to then screw the top pot securely and put it in the stove. He then turned, following this muscle memory, the cabinet with the mugs. Grace could feel Simon moving behind him, but it felt nice feeling his presence in the kitchen doing his own little duty. 

Grace had a predilection for silly mugs, he took his favorite that says; “Don’t believe atoms, they make up everything” with a little atom picture on it, and he also took Simon’s favorite —He had never said it aloud but Grace knew by the way he would choose every time he could — a mug that had a cartoonish tree with a happy face and a blob saying “all my puns are treemendous.”

He waited until the coffee maker sang and he filled half Simon’s mug with coffee, and then filled the other half with the hot water of the teapot, and then filled his mug with dark coffee until the brim.

“Sorry for the delay, but I have fresh coffee!”

He turned to watch at the table where Simon was already sitting, resting his face in his arm, half laying in his spot, watching Grace, relaxed and lost in his thoughts. The poor man must still be half asleep, but he had arranged the table, putting two plates with panc-ebas put in little messy towers. There was even the substitution of honey that the Eridians had been able to do with Grace glucose.

“There you go”

He put the mug in front of Simon who took it slowly, to then see how his coffee was a lighter color than Grace’s.

“Why did you put water on me?”

“You wouldn’t like how bitter it really is.”

“You don’t know that…”

“Do you want to try mine, then?”

Grace offered his mug, and Simon took it confidently to then doubt a moment before, smelling and taking a sip of it. Grace could see how his eyes opened wide and his face fighting for not reacting, but his eyebrows were, and the corners of his mouth were subtly frowning.

“How was it?”

“I like mine better.”

Grace saw Simon take a sip of his own coffee, but he seemed to still have a bitter taste in his mouth.

“Do you want to put some honey on it?”

“Can I do that?”

“Of course!”

They ate lazily, wearing the same clothes that they had used yesterday, having the whole day to themselves, since it was the equivalent of Saturday and they didn’t have anything in the agendas; no class, not meetings with scientist eridians, not visits from Rocky who had wanted to spend some quality time with Adrian. Just both of them eating with small bites and having each other as company, it wasn’t until they had finished and Grace was washing the dishes while Simon dried them with a towel that Grace remembered something important.

“Where are you planting your sprout? Have you think in any good place”

“Oh, hmmm, could I… could I plant it in front of the house? I know there is the forest behind the backyard, and that it must be a good place for another tree, but I…, it’s just that it is… it is…”

“Special?”

“Yeah, it is and I would… like it to have a special spot.”

“Then the front of the house it is.”

They spent the whole afternoon digging a hole in front of the house, just beside the start of the stairs, where the wind of the beach hit smoothly, and the sun was visible but not burning thanks to the clouds.

Grace had been the one to go back into the house to pick the sprout and ultimately leave it in Simon's hand, who had received it shaking, and trembling. He had slowly, oh so slowly taken the sprout from his pot and looked at the sprout closely, detailing the little, skinny roots that stood up from the soil and even gasping when a finger touched one.

“Grace! I’m touching a root!”

“Yeah, awesome right? To think how something this small with some care can get to be a whole three is a marvel.”

Simon nodded, to then look at Grace with fire behind his eyes

“I will take good care of it. I will make it grow bigger than any of the other trees in the forest, even bigger than the Sacred Last Tree.”

Grace didn’t question Simon, because he believed him, even when in the back of his mind he remembered that oaks took at least five decades to grow completely, he was sure that Simon would find a way.

The rest of the day they sat on the couch, making blueprints and writing notes that cover more and more of the coffee table, planning for a greenhouse that could be done besides the house. They talked about walls of glass, and a method to keep a regulated temperature inside, and how to distribute the space, while eating me-burgers.

When the day was over, Grace had found himself sleeping in the couch beside Simon again. He had just closed his eyes for a moment, and the next thing he knew was that the artificial sun was on the horizon. Simon, had once again found a resting spot breathing close to his neck and both of them were covered by a blanket. Not wanting to wake Simon up, Grace had to be very careful while letting him down onto the couch.

Grace had to skip his breakfast to get to his class on time, but at least Simon had a couple extra hours.

___

Grace thought that sleeping with Simon on the couch was going to be an “only once” kind of thing, a little part of their bonding weekend, maybe an accident that could become more recurrent now that some kind of “barrier” has been lifted between them and they have started to feel more at ease around each other. However, counting tonight, there would be a whole week in which they had found a way to sleep together on the couch after dinner.

They would eat their dinner and just…not stand up, letting the sleep come to them there and then, instead of being normal adults and going to each other's beds.

Grace had the intention of mentioning something, he had, but the truth was that he slept better when he could feel the weight of Simon, and he could feel his heartbeat against his body, and he could feel his hair tickling against his skin. His back didn’t like the couch though.

Grace knew that it was becoming a problem.

 It was a problem in the way that Simon and him spent the whole day cracking bones due to the fact that two grown men weren’t meant to sleep squeezed together in a small couch, in the way that they were sleeping later and later, trying to spend more time awake against the other.

In the way that Grace was wishing to touch Simon more and more. A crack had formed in the walls of his mind after that first night sleeping in the couch, and night after night he spent next to Simon he could feel the crack growing and growing and now… now he could see a solution for his touch starvation just in front of him and he couldn’t let himself have it.

Simon didn’t deserve to get involved in Grace’s problems, he had enough on his plate before Grace came along and put some more. Especially not when after all this time, Simon had finally started opening up, Grace could not let himself mess up that.

Accepting that this whole problem was his fault; it was Grace who had been the one with the idea of watching a documentary for dinner and sitting in the couch and getting all comfy with blankets, and he had wanted a positive contact for so long that he was just taking advantage of the situation and he couldn’t just pretend he didn’t know better. He could have been making Simon feel like if Grace was sleeping on the couch, he also had to do so, he could be loyal like that, or just think that because Grace had made the bad decision of sleeping on the couch, he didn’t deserve to have a good night's sleep in an actual bed.

Grace couldn’t carry on with the guilt of depriving Simon of a good rest, that buddy needs the z’s he could catch.

That night Grace in an effort to solve this little “sleeping problem”, he had decided —much to his own pain— to cut the evening earlier. He chose a shorter documentary and when it finished he had jumped off the couch to run to the kitchen to wash his dishes, making Simon flinch for the impression.

“Dont you… wanna watch something else? It is still early.”

“I just feel really tired today, you know?”

“Oh…”

For how Simon had said it, so resigned, Grace was tempting in introducing LOTR to Simon right in the spot to do a whole marathon and forget about his hours of sleep, but he was doing this for the best of both of them, they couldn’t keep sleeping on a small couch! It wasn’t healthy!

Grace couldn't get accustomed to this.

It was for the best.

“Good night, Simon.”

“Good night.”

And that was it, such simple words just solved the “problem”. They started to sleep with each other by his own.

They followed their routines as usual with little variation; Grace would do breakfast and go to give his class, Simon would bring him lunch, they walk closely in the beach, but now the walks are a little bit more quiet, a little more shy.

Simon would divide his time to take care of the little sprout and after he would build the greenhouse, sometimes eridians would be rounding around him trying to study how humans built things, but Grace had clarified then that they needed the consent of Simon first. Grace knew how little Simon liked to be observed, much less without being told beforehand, and even when there were days in which Simon had denied the entry to the eridians, more than once Grace had found the scientists not only studying Simon, but Simon using them as second hands.

By the rhythm they were going, the greenhouse would be finished in no time.

Everything turned out to be mostly normal, besides the fact that their silences sometimes were more awkward than comforting, Grace had returned to his bad sleep, and that Simon seemed to be… watching him more than usual.

Simon was always observing, he liked to know what was happening around him, but this time, Simon seemed to focus on him for a reason. In the mornings, even when his eyes could barely stay open he would make sure to see Grace from head to toe; he would do the same through the day, throwing him looks and then analysing him, as if looking for something.

He also had eyebags, as Grace, but he was sure that once they readapted to sleeping by themselves those problems would be gone. However, Grace still found himself fighting against his own desire for contact. He would find himself wanting to brush arms with Simon, or to pass his hand over his hair, or lie against him, but he couldn’t just throw his needs over Simon, knowing him he would let Grace use him as a human pillow if he asked, and that is why he couldn’t do so.

I didn’t matter how much that contact had helped him to sleep.

It was in his sixth day without sleeping at all, and doing nothing more in the nights than rolling on his blankets, when he decided to maybe drink some warm me-ilk, would help.

He had put his glasses on and walked with clumsy steps, pressing a hand in the wall, trying to get to the kitchen in the shadows, not wanting to leave a thread of light just to wake Simon who had a pretty light sleep.

He opened the fridge and took the me-ilk to then realized that he would need to turn the stove on and pour the me-ilk there to warm it up, and decide to just drink it cold, serving it in the first mug his hand could reach. He didn’t realize how much he would miss a microwave until now.

“Can’t sleep?”

“Fudge!”

Simon was there, possessing nothing but some loose pyjama pants and a face of complete tiredness. He didn’t have his band in his hair, letting it cover his face. He looked like a masculine version of the Ju-Ho, but more sleepless than scary, perse.

“Sorry, did I wake you?”

“No, I was already awake… I haven’ t been able to sleep these days.”

“Me neither.”

The awkwardness became palpable, and Grace could do little more than playing with his mug. Then an idea, probably a bad one because it was just going back to cycle, popped in his mind

“Do you want to watch a random show on TV until we feel sleepy?”

“Yes”

Simon's answer was so fast and loud in the middle of the night that any sleep that had been trying to cling to Grace had evaporated, but he didn’t mind. He passed Simon, who followed him closely until they were both sitting once again on the couch. Grace turned the TV just to put one episode of house remodelations, thinking that maybe Simon could use it as inspiration for his greenhouse, or at least see how houses were back on Earth.

Grace was about to take the blanket to cover his legs, when he had felt Simon slipping on the couch, until he was resting his head in his lap. Grace could feel how tense Simon was, ready to volt at any given moment. Grace found himself playing with Simon’s hair even before he was able to think about it and ask Simon.

As he remembered Simon’s hair was soft, and it curled in his fingers as if responding to his cares. He could picture Simon with longer hair and Grace braiding it, if Simon wasn’t such a defender for nature life, Grace would have loved to put flowers in his hair.

“It is so soft…”

“Then why don’t you wear it?”

“Huh?”

Simon, who had been stubbornly watching at the screen as if that would not give away his nerves, has turned to lay in his stomach and look up to Grace with, what Grace was pretty sure thanks to his years teaching, where devastated puppies eyes and a pout, the worst thing is that Grace wasn’t sure that Simon knew what he was doing, looking legitimately sad.

“I gave you my hair, but…but you didn’t do anything with it.”

“Do something with it?” 

Taken by his own coyness, Simon started playing with his hair, half hiding his face in Grace’s thigh, not daring to look at his eyes. 

“You know, like stuff, something special… clothes or even jewelry."

Grace hadn’t thought he needed to do something with the hair, he was just… keeping it.

“Like hair cloth?” Simon nodded “I… do not know how to do that…”

“Oh…”

Like that Simon seemed to deflate, his body becoming slack over Grace.

“But I know how to make a bracelet, would that work?”

Simon's energy rose once again.

“Yeah, sure, I mean…if you want a bracelet.”

“Wait right here.”

Grace stood up from the couch leaving a confused Simon who was about to stand to but Grace stop him with a gesture, going back to the lab to look in one of the cabinets for the book he had left his little napkin with hair and then go back to the living room, where Simon was sitting watching him, having lost all interest in how people destroyed their houses to make them again.

Grace turned the light on and sat down on the floor to have the coffee table as his workplace. Simon, who had recovered energy once he had seen Grace return with the napkin in his hands, had sat beside him on the floor.

“I must say that it has been a while since I had worn a bracelet, so it may not be the most elegant piece of jewelry ever seen.”

Grace did a knot to keep the hair in the start,  so he could start braiding it with attentive fingers. He was rusty, years without handcrafted bracelets with your students on the breaks do that. He knew the process, or at least his fingers had an idea of it, but he still had to redo some parts and repeat the same process over and over, his fingers having a hard time getting a grip of the smooth hair, but when he finished the final knot he had a bracelet.

“There you go, not too shabby ah?

The braid was a little asymmetric, and some hairs just didn’t stay in the braid, too short or unruly to stay still, but it was soft to the touch and Simon seemed mesmerized by it. Grace was about to tie it up around his wrist, but he stopped.

“Could you help me and put your finger here?”

Simon did so, as he was hypnotized and then Grace finished tying up the bracelet so it was secure in his arm.

He sat back on the couch and Simon was quickly putting his head against his thigh once again, still staying on the floor, giving his back to the TV, as if he had forgotten his previous excitement of watching something, now focused exclusively in the bracelet. Grace, played with his hair mindlessly, making sure to not use the hand with the bracelet, so he wouldn't interrupt him

“Do they hurt?”

“Hum?”

“The burns, do they hurt?”

Grace looked down to his arm and noticed he had put the bracelet in his scared arm, maybe Simon wasn’t looking at the bracelet after all.

“No, they don’t, most of the time I don't even feel them.” 

Simon hummed, satisfied with the answer, and let himself close his eyes, relaxing into Grace's cares, not a lot of time passes before Simon breaths start getting deeper and his body gets heavier against Grace, who decides to start standing up. He pats Simon gently

“Hey, you can’t sleep like this.”

Simon growls a little, and pressing his head against Grace's thigh harder, stopping him from standing, as if in that way Grace would let him sleep on the floor.

“You have to go to bed.”

“Can we stay like this a little longer?... please?”

And Grace gets it, he himself feels how the tension starts evaporating from his body with each brush he gives to Simon hair. Grace about to try to allure Simon to go to sleep in his own bed, but Simon murmured something first:  

“I miss this”

“What?”

Simon, who is lost in his thoughts and doesn't seem to be all that conscious of what he had said outloud, too focused on playing with the hair bracelet, responds without thinking.

“Sleeping on the couch with you…I miss it.”

Grace finds himself having to take a moment to process what Simon had just said, stopping his soft care over Simon just to be able to take in what that meant, but this just motivates Simon to explain himself.

“I… I sleep easier when I can touch you, your presence is soothing… It really helps me to calm down.” Grace didn’t know how to answer that, but Simon kept talking. “It keeps the nightmares away and your touch is…a relief.”

“I know, I know. It also helps me to sleep.”

That snapped Simon out of his reverie, who in a flash turns to look at Grace with big eyes.

“It does?”

“Yeah.”

In that moment Simon squirmed until his chin was resting in Grace’s knees, his hand taking his tight as a support, watching Grace from below with confused eyes.

“I thought… I thought I had scared you away…that I must have been having nightmares I didn’t remember and been screaming and waking you up or-or something and you had decided to sleep by yourself to avoid all that fuss.”

“Oh, Simon, no.” Grace took Simon’s cheeks with both his hands. “It wasn’t you. You never wake me up nor did you scream when we were on the couch, anyone can have nightmares, it is normal to have them, I wouldn’t have stopped sleeping with you for that.”

“Then why did we stop sleeping on the couch?”

Well that was the big question wasn’t it?

Grace hadn’t… he hadn’t wanted to use Simon, he hadn’t wanted to depend on him. He knew that Simon, even when Simon himself would never admit it, was kind, maybe too kind. In those nights they have shared on the couch after the first night, it was always Grace who started the hugs and the little touches, and he was so hungry for contact. Simon had never complained about Grace cuddles, not his fingers playing in his hair, not his arms trying to wrap him whole, but he had never mentioned liking them either.

Grace's mind could only think in the worst scenario; Simon enduring Grace's gestures, too kind to refuse, feeling too in debt with him to deny him something. Grace had not been able to sleep thinking about that; did Simon even know he could say no to Grace? He had never done it, he would mostly go with what Grace said, what if Simon was doing so just to avoid conflict? To avoid seeming ungrateful? Simon always cared to be grateful…

“I…I don’t know… I just didn’t wanted to-to take advantage of you.

“Take advantage of me?”

“I’m touch starving and…I think I was using you as a solution for that.”

Following Grace’s serious tone of voice Simon stood up from the floor and sat beside him, leaving some space between them. Grace didn’t know if it was out of alarm or respect.

“What is touch starving?”

“It is the need for physical touch, your skin feels hunger for contact.”

“Like…kisses and stuff?”

Grace looked at Simon just to confirm what he had heard, Simon had said such a thing with such a serious voice that he was sure he must have misheard him, but from the way Simon was brushing and avoiding his glare he must have heard clearly the first time.

“What? No! I mean…maybe? I’m not sure, but it is not the case for me. I was referring to hugs, skin to skin contact, you know… like what we did while we sleeping in the couch" Grace felt his heart accelerating with panic, to then turn to face Simon who was still trying to dissimulate his flush, “You know you are not supposed to kiss, or…or do anything with anyone if you don’t want right?”

“I know.” Simon murmured to then look Grace to the eye, “ You thought you were taking advantage of me while we were sleeping on the couch?

“I mean…yeah? I always started the touches without asking you if you wanted them and-and sometimes you were so tense, and it wasn’t my intention to discomfort you!” Grace sighed, putting his head in his hands, while he felt a weight finally getting on his shoulders, now that he can finally confess his wrongs. “ I should have had better control of myself, me having touch starvation is not an excuse. I…I’m so sorry.”

Grace felt the tears burning in his eyes and he fought his wish to cry. He could not cry right now, not when he was trying to take responsibility for his actions. Yet there was little he could do to stop his breath to cut itself in the middle of his throat, and how spams made him shake from head to toe. 

Simon put a hand over his knee, slowly as if expecting Grace to jolt, but when Grace did not move, he said;

“I do like when we cuddle on the couch, and the hugs, and the little brushes, feeling you close in general if I’m honest. I-I think I’m touch starved too, I just didn’t know, I have never had a lot of this.”

“This?”

“The soft touches, contact that makes me feel safe. I’m new to it, most of the time I don’t know how to respond, but I do like it.” Simon this time turning to see Grace, “I do like it. You didn’t take advantage of me Grace, because I wanted that contact with you, so please do not feel guilty.”

Grace burst into tears.

Tears of relief, but tears in the end of the day

Simon hugged him from the side and Grace let himself hide his face in his chest, until he had swollen eyes and a pink nose.

Suddenly he felt very sleepy. The best way to get to sleep is feeling a weight leave your shoulder and have a good cry, Grace suppose, the physical and emotional effort could knock out anyone.

Simon must have felt the same, because he took his hand to guide him, since Grace found himself having his eyes almost completely closed.

“Where are we going?”

“To bed”

“The same bed?”

Simon turned to look at him incredulously, for a moment Grace felt stupid, but then he thought that he was very tired, so he forgot what he was thinking.

“If it helps you to sleep, and it helps me, then why not?”

Yeah, why not?

“I want the left side of the bed.”

Chapter Text

Grace looks beautiful laying in the grass, his hair looking like a halo around his head, glasses slightly crooked over his nose, his eyes focused on the sky. 

He had come with Simon to look at the clouds from a spot they had found on the beach. The truth was that any place on the beach was a good place to just lay and rest, but they had found certain predilection in a place in which the grass of the forest came to meet the sands of the beach, close enough to the ocean that if they advanced a couple steps they could bury their feet in the sand, and let the waves wash their feet. Somehow that little spot was more theirs than the whole beach.

Grace taught him the wonder of cloud gazing a couple of weeks ago, in one of their lazy afternoons in which the weather was good and the sky that the eridians reflected in the roof of the biodome was clear. Simon had discovered a childish joy in trying to define the form of a cloud, he wasn’t good at it, his mind a little too square to really get wild with the guesses, not like Grace, who in that moment was describing the form of a samurai dragon with robotic arms, Simon didn’t know half of what Grace was saying, but he loved to see him so excited.

He had stopped looking at the clouds a long time ago, too mesmerized by how Grace's hair was being brushed by the wind, while his hands moved from one side to the other pointing to the sky. Before he could look away, Simon had been caught by Grace, who had turned his attention to him, connecting glares, smiling, while denying softly.

“Are you even hearing me?”

Before he could realize what he was doing, Simon found himself turning on his stomach to then crawl over to Grace, the man looked at him with curious eyes, and then smiled. Grace always looked the best when he smiled.

“Simon, what are you doing?”

“This.”

And their faces were getting so close, Simon could feel the breath of Grace against him, against his mouth, he could almost flavor his lips, he could feel his heart beating faster and faster, his hand getting sweaty and suddenly Simon couldn’t breathe, Grace was just so close, his lips were right there, they were just waiting for him to…

“I can’t!”

Simon jumped from the bed, agitated and gasping for air as if he had been chased. His hair was sticking to his face thanks to the cold sweat running from his forehead. He looked to his left and the bed was empty, Grace must have gone out to jog. He had been doing that since the eiridians had found a way to reduce the gravity inside the biodome a few weeks ago, something about wanting to keep the body stimulated and healthy.

It had been a dream, just a dream… a perverted dream!

“Why do I have to be tempted with sinful thoughts?” Simon hid his face in his hand and sighed, he couldn’t keep his mind in check.

Simon had been living his best life the last one month and a half. 

He would wake up still feeling the warmth that Grace’s body would leave in the space of the bed at his left, just to hear the shower running, sometimes accompanied by the little melodies that Grace would sing.

Grace would then get out of the room ready to start breakfast and Simon would pretend to still be asleep just a little longer, to then stand, walking slowly to the kitchen to look at Grace move from one place to another, while he arranged the table.

Their routine hadn’t changed that much after they got married. Keeping to their peaceful lifestyle with ease. Simon would water his sprout and the little garden he had started to grow in the greenhouse; Grace would now run in the mornings, and they would sleep in the same bed.

Simon loved to sleep in the same bed. He loved how Grace would hug him with his arms and legs embracing him completely, keeping him safe from the outside world, letting Simon rest his face against his chest to be lulled by the rhythm of his heartbeat. Simon had tried to stay up late at night, just to hear that beat for a little bit longer, but between Grace's comfortable weight over him, the feeling of security that his arms gave him, and the soft breath of Grace hitting his hair, he just finds it too hard to resist the arms of his personal Morfeo.

“Oh! you are awake.”

Simon looked to the door threshold just to find Grace, sweating, with his sport shirt that read “Check out my Abs” still clinging to his skin and carrying in his hand with the hair bracelet the clean clothes he was going to change into after he took his shower.

“Yeah…I wanted to get ready for today.”

“I was about to wake you, I will take a short shower and then the bathroom is all yours, okay?”

Simon nodded as he watched Grace getting out of the room and hearing how the door of the bathroom was closed in a soft click, before the sound of water running started, the little melodies followed it soon enough. Just as Simon knew it would happen, his little matutine sang on time as always, there to wake him up and announce the start of a new day .

There has been a time in which Simon had been left with no more company than the silence, the voice of indescribable horrors and a monster whispering in his ear. He had carried in his heart the certainty of dying in the middle of nowhere with no more future than to be an object that once used was thrown away and forgotten to rot.

Now he is lying in a warm bed in which he had slept along with someone who he could feel safe with and love, feeling the artificial sunshine touch his skin through the window, while he heard his husband singing a song without lyrics from the shower.

Simon was having a pretty good life.

The only problem was his dreams.

They started two weeks ago, when they had started to pop up in his mind as little greedy pests, asking for more, always for more because it didn’t matter how much Simon tried to control himself he found himself longing in his dreams. He couldn’t understand why.

Maybe it all started the first night in which he and Grace had finally shared a bed. 

Simon can still remember guiding the hand at Grace, who with swollen eyes, had trust in him. He can still picture Grace laying in the bed, letting a sigh leave his lips and finding comfort in the blankets and pillow. Simon had laid there, on the right side, tense, knowing that he was the one that had the idea of sharing a bed, but he hadn’t thought it through. Simon hadn’t ever shared a bed like this, he had slept on a mattress on the floor next to his brothers and sisters most of his life, always so close that if he extended an arm or a leg he would end hitting someone, but this was different, he could feel it.

Back then Simon remembered always sleeping with an eye open, just in case, you can’t predict when a sibling may wake up from a nightmare and take a knife that they hidden under their pillows trying to hunt their own fears away. However this was different, Simon knew it was, but he didn’t know if there was something he was supposed to do. He had never known what the married couples did in cases like this, in which they found comfort in sleeping one against the other, believing blindly that the other would not harm them in their vulnerable state, such a proof of trust. 

Simon was about to ask if there was something he needed to do, when Grace had turned to face him just to wrap his arms around Simon with an ease that made Simon question himself if this was some kind of custom for those who sleep together.

Grace had embraced him in his arms, resting his head over his and then falling asleep shortly after, fatigued by the tears and the rollercoaster of emotions he had. He didn’t flinch when his hands touched Simon’s bare skin, nor did he seem to care.   Simon found himself resting his face against Grace's chest, hearing his heartbeat as his hair was brushed by Grace's breath. Their legs intertwined and Grace’s arms and body were covered completely, as if he was afraid of Simon getting far from him in dreams.

Simon wouldn’t have moved a millimeter away, not letting that soft touch escape his grasp if he could help it.

It took long minutes in which Grace was already deep in his sleep, but Simon had been able to hug Grace back, passing an arm over his waist and just getting him a little bit closer. After that day they would always sleep like that, as if their bodies were two pieces of a puzzle that had found their way together. Simon hadn’t slept better, nor more relaxed in his whole life than when he was in Grace's arms, now he couldn’t imagine sleeping in another way, much less alone.

Yet the dreams had shaken his peaceful nights. 

Dreams of Simon being brave enough to take Grace’s hand when they walked back home after Grace finishes his classes; Simon resting his face on Grace's shoulder while he made breakfast or did one of his experiments in his lab; Grace curling casually over his lap while writing in his laptop; Grace playing with his hair… The dreams were cries for touch, but Simon had learned to live without any of them in his life so he could deal with them fine, he was mature enough to know that his dreams were asking for something that was beyond him. He could touch Grace every night, feel him close and tender under his finger, against his chest, and that satiated most of his yearning.

Then they watch a movie, Grace saying something about how Simon needed to learn what a romcom was, and Simon saw a kiss on the screen and since then it hadn’t stopped haunting him in his dreams.

Grace kissing him to wake him up; Grace kissing him before going to work; Grace kissing him goodnight. Simon kissing him just because he can…such perverted thoughts hadn't left him alone since that romcom, staining his mind.

The thing was that kissing didn’t have any functional purpose. 

Simon remembers how people in Eden would look sideways at the couples who kissed and grabbed hands in public, or those shameless enough to make out in one of the halls from the station, trying and failing to go unnoticed. How everyone thought that it was a waste of time. “If they have time to be all lovely-dovey they have time to be working on their tasks.” people would say, and Simon back then shared the same point of view, what purpose had to put your lips over another person? Why expending so much energy and precious minutes just trying to touch someone? It seemed to be nothing more than a game where couples would indulge in an excuse to spend time together, but in Eden there was no space for games.

Now…now Simon thinks he understands.

He understands wanting to do nothing more than to feel someone close, to make time stop just to have an extra moment beside them, to not want to let go because it is with them that you can really feel seen as a whole.

Simon doesn’t feel worthy of those things, he knows he is not . He hadn’t even courted Grace at all, how can he be thinking of grabbing hands and sitting in laps, or even worse, kissing when he hasn’t moved a finger to win such privilege?!

When has he become such a lazy greedy man?!

The door of the bathroom opens, and Simon has enough time to get out of his mind before he sees Grace getting in the room with clean clothes, his wet hair and shining skin, trying to dry his hair with a towel, to then put the towel over his shoulder and rest his chin on his fingers in a thoughtful pose.

“I could make some me-hamburgers that we could bring with us for lunch, so we don’t have to return to the house too early. I don’t want the first field-trip to be cut short…”

“It sounds good”

Grace turned to look at him, as if he hadn’t realized that he was speaking out loud and then smiled softly.

“Thank you for accepting to accompany me and Rocky today, I know I gave you very little warning, but Adrian had to get to this emergency thrum out of nowhere and we needed the extra help, I just didn’t want to postpone it…”

“It is no problem, really.”

“Thanks all the same… The bathroom is all yours!”

Grace left the room in a rush, mentioning things about how they must have a quick breakfast to be on time.

Simon stood from the bed, feeling his head become heavier than usual, but he couldn’t say if it was his sleep still clinging to him or just all the thoughts he had. He made the bed with quick but effective movements as he did all mornings. He chose the “I had potential” shirt that Grace had given him so long ago and some pants that he had to reduce with needle and thread since Grace's legs were longer than his own.

He walked to the bathroom that still had the vapor of the warm water that Grace had used, the soft essence of soap and shampoo floating in the space. He opened the water, jumping in even before it had the opportunity to warm and when the cold water hit his hair, an idea popped up in his mind.

“Of course!”

He needs to court Grace.

_____

Simon was so distracted in thinking what could be considered as good courting,  looking at Grace who had been speaking about an interesting experiment he could do in his classroom, that he hardly could taste his sweet coffee and the soft oatmeal, just chewing mindlessly. 

He finished his breakfast first yet he didn't move until Grace had emptied his plate and mug and it is at that moment that he took the dishes as quickly as he could to wash them in the sink.

Grace was about to say something, but Simon had finished cleaning the dishes and was almost running to the door.

“Wait.”

Grace walked calmly to be beside him, putting his hands at the sides of Simon’s face, and Simon could do nothing but freeze. He could feel the usual cold hands of Grace playing with his hair to then put himself behind him and let it go. Simon remembered the dream he had some nights before, in which he had lean his face against Grace’s lap and he had stayed there happily resting while Grace read a book and passed his fingers through his hair

It took Simon a moment to understand that Grace had made a half ponytail with his hair and that he was in fact awake.

“In this way the hair would be out of your face.”

And without saying more Grace took his bag besides and opened the door of the house.

“After you.”

In the walk to the classroom, Grace is trying to summarize the plans for the day to him, but Simon can barely hear him; There was something about the pebbles being able to learn more of how an earthly environment worked, and just making it a fun field trip for them, and Grace even tried to explain to him a bit of the purpose of having a new dynamic for the pebbles to learn, but the truth is that when Simon got to the front of the classroom he hadn’t expected finding what he saw.

He could recognize Rocky, standing with his suit in front of the classroom. However, what was surprising was all the smaller rocks with their small glass geometrical balls behind him.

Simon should have paid more attention to what Grace was saying.

“Good morning class, are we ready for today’s small trip?”

The little rocks shrieked in excitement, jumping up and down and even running in small circles, notes and melodies mixing and ringing in Simon's ears, he could get some words here and there, things about curiosity and questions, but there were said so fast and loud one over the other that Simon could only get the idea of it. But Grace put a hand up and everything went quiet and still, the pebbles getting organized in a group paying attention to him.

“First of all, I want to present you to Simon, the other human who is living in this biodome. He will be accompanying us today along Rocky. ” 

Before the pebbles could start speaking again, Rocky walks ahead and deposits a case in Grace's hands, who opens it to get some earphones. He moves beside Simon, and moving his hair out of the way he puts both airpods in Simon’s ears to then turn to the pebbles.

“Simon can’t speak eridian fluently yet, so he would be using the translator, and if you want to talk with him you have to use your moderate voice and one at the time.”

“Humans can’t hear certain frequencies.” Rocky remind the pebbles, because eridians may have perfect memory, but not perfect attention

The pebbles, who seem to be shaking in excitement seem to have put their attention on Simon, who now has been in the spotlight doesn’t know what to do.

The truth is that this is not the first time he had seen the pebbles, he would see them leave the classroom sometimes, when he goes to the classroom to have lunch with Grace and walk home together, but this is the first time that he has to face them. 

“Hello, Simon here.” He says waving his hand a little.

He immediately regrets. Grace has already introduced him; there is no need for him to introduce himself again. However, he gets a wave of more than a dozen pebbles waving back at him.

“Hello, Sandy here.”

“Hello, Skipper here.”

“Peter, here.”

“Amathyst, here.”

“Rocktolome, here”

And the names just go and go; Ambar, Dwayne, Micah, Perry, Petra, Steno, Hutton and more, by the end of it Simon can hardly remember what his own name is. The worse thing is that since all the pebbles have said their name over the other, Simon can’t distinguish which name goes with which pebble. There were too many sizes and shapes and colors. He turns a little panicked to look at Grace expecting to have some aid, maybe a catalogue with photos of the pebbles labeled with their name, but all he sees is Grace fighting a laugh while covering his mouth with a hand.

“Well it seems I would not have to take attendance.” He says while laughing a little in the end, unable to contain himself.

Simon really needs to figure out how all this courtship works.

____

In Eden, courtship was based on service actions, repairing things like panels and pipes, or even electronics and computers. It was a way to show that you were interested in the other person's wellbeing. However, much to Simon's dismay, there is nothing in the biodome that he can fix. Eridians are just too good at keeping everything in perfect conditions, even worse, even if Simon got to the radical decision of breaking something on purpose —something he would never do, because the poor things weren’t at fault that Simon had no idea of what to do— he isn’t sure that he would be able to repair them. The technology is too old or too alien for him to comprehend. He is a lost case.

Walking along the biodome’s beach following a herd of pebbles that are led by Grace and Rocky gives Simon time to watch over the biodome, looking for anything that could be out of place, something that he could fix, but everything is terribly perfect. Grace is speaking about how they will go to the forest where he would teach them how a tree is able to nourish from the sun. 

Simon tries to recall any courtship example that he may have. Brother Bruce had done a pretty good job adjusting the vent of Sister Sophia’s workplace giving her a nice warm place in comparison to how freezing Eden Station could get from time to time. Sister Lyra had fixed Sister Suzy’s old recorder that could only repeat a single song without lyrics. Simon could recall the little melody following Suzy around the whole space station. Even Brother Jeremiah, who Simon always thought hadn’t had a single romantic bone in his whole body, had improved the bunsen burner and sharpened all the knives of Sibling Uriel’s, who had been the best surgeon in Eden and always said it was all thanks to their tools.

Now that Simon thought of it, Grace was wonderful at courting. He had changed his whole biodome to adjust a forest for Simon, and had made sure that Simon had the best things in his disposition and he even helped in small things, like with his hair that morning. Grace was natural at all this courting thing, he was charming by default.

What could Simon do in comparison? Where everything was perfect and the things that may need improvement were beyond him? He wouldn’t be charming even if he spent the rest of his life trying.

His husband was perfect and Simon could hardly have good health!

He was a lost cause.

Simon, too inside his own mind, despair making him do plans related to checking out the vents of the house,  isn't able to stop his feet from hitting something that makes him stumble to the floor face first. 

The taste of sand and dirt gets in his mouth.

“Here we are, this is Simon’s forest, he was kind enough to allow us to come here, so what do we say—Simon are you alright?!”

Simon stands in a jump, looking with horror how Grace and all the pebbles have turned at him, he does the best he can to clean his face and clothes, and pretend that everything is fine.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine, I must have stumbled on a rock or something.”

“Did Simon kick Rocktolome?”

Simon looks behind him, finding out that what he had thought to be a rock is his way, is actually a pebble in his way. The pebble had a dark royal blue shell, edged ends and a very indignant tone.

“Oh, fu-logs! Oh, logs! I didn’t see you.”

“Rocktolome doesn’t see Simon either, but Rocktolome is not kicking Simon.”

“...I’m so sorry.”

Rocktolome made a little sound that sounded too much like a buff, and then they turned to run to the group of pebbles. After that Simon paid his whole attention to the field trip and made sure to look to the floor, half because he didn’t want to step on another pebble and half because he didn’t want anyone to see his face blush of shame.

___

Truth be told, Grace didn’t seem to need Simon’s help more than to herd the pebbles. Even Rocky, who Grace referred to with questions that Grace knew the answers to but acted as though he didn't, was mostly some kind of tool being used for the dynamic of the class, but Simon was sure that he would have done a fantastic job even if Rocky and him weren’t here.

 Grace was quite graceful as a teacher —maybe the only way that graceful and Grace could be said in the same sentence — he moved through the topics and the questions of the pebbles with ease, pointing to them with counter questions and making the pebbles feel as if they were the first beings to discover the photosynthesis. Simon himself was feeling like he had discovered what a leaf was.

Simon by now had accepted that the field trip would not give him an opportunity to show his value and court Grace more than looking pretty in the back of the herd—he was trying really hard to at least do that, but it was hard when Grace was hardly looking at him, preferring to look over the pebbles —, and had chosen to just let himself get lost in the picture of a comfortable and confident Grace moving beside the waves of the artificial sea, when Simon’s opportunity arise.

“The waves took Hutton and Steno !” Rocky screamed, extending his arms to the sky in panic.

“What?!”

Grace and Simon turned to the sea. Simon could hear Grace gasp in horror, but it took him a moment to actually see what he had: Two small xenonite balls floating between the waves. Simon could hear them saying something, he thought at first that they were shrieking in horror, but they were actually giggling in fascination.

“Jijiji” 

“Wiiiiiii”

The little pebbles, unlike the adults, were having the moment of their lives extending their arms, moving their little hands, and letting little purrs and melodies vibrate their bodies that sounded further and further  by the second.

This was it. This was Simon's opportunity to make himself look like a hero in front of his husband. Simon was pretty sure that acting heroic worked as some kind of courtship, right? It would at least give him some points, right? People loved heroes. Maybe Grace would kiss his check as a thanks, like those romcoms!

“I will get them!”

“Simon, you don’t know how to swim.”

Oh.

“Oh.”

There could be other ways. Maybe if Simon got some ropes they could try to lasso the pebbles, but they were just getting farther in the sea. Grace didn’t give him time to think of those other options, he just started to take off his shirt. Simon, who knew to do better than giving his dreams more material to work with, turned away just to feel a hand on his shoulder and be face to face with Grace only using his boxers with the theme of caricaturish spaceships.

Simon couldn’t avoid looking, too taken aback to be able to do a single logical thought. He could see the lean body, slim muscles made for practical use, strong legs, tanned skin. Simon couldn’t blink, feeling his blood get to his face so fast that he felt a little nauseous.

It took him a minute to notice that Grace was offering him the folded clothes he had just taken away with his shoes and glasses. Simon took them as fast as he could.

“I will get them, you take the other pebbles and wait in the start of the forest, okay?”

“Rocky will ask the staff to stop the waves!”

And before Simon could even react Grace jumped into the water and Rocky ran to the direction in which the classroom was, leaving him with 17 pebbles and a set of clothes to take care of.

“We…we should move over there.”

He walked in front of the herd, leading them to the front of the forest, the pebbles following them dutifully. Simon looked over his shoulder counting heads over and over again, Grace had given him 17 pebbles and he would get 17 pebbles back.

The moment they got to the start of the forest, Simon looked to the sea, trying to distinguish the figure of Grace swimming through the waves. Simon had never seen someone swimming, water in Eden was a privilege that couldn’t be spent in something recreational as a pool. He had faith that Grace knew what he was doing, but Simon couldn't say if he was diving or drowning.

“You are the other human, statement ”

“Yes” He answered absently. 

“Simon and Mr. Grace mates, question?”

Surprised by the question, Simon looked down to 1..6..10.., 17 pebbles that had their whole attention on him. A small, purplish and roundly pebble, was standing in front of his feet, waiting.

Simon didn’t know how much Grace had said about their marriage to their classroom. 

In Eden marriages could sometimes be quite private after the exchanging of gifts, some people just wanted their business to be their business. However, Grace hadn’t mentioned anything about keeping a low profile, and he didn’t seem to have changed any of their routine eating in the beach behind his classroom where any of the pebbles could see them if they stayed a little bit longer after class, nor he has done any effort to hide the time they spent together or their little touches …besides Simon wanted to said aloud at least once.

“Yes, we are”

The pebbles danced and shrieked excitedly, happy with the idea of their teacher having a mate, maybe associating that to all the lovely stories they have heard about mates before. Simon could feel his chest grow warmer, what tasted as pride in his tongue… 

“You don’t act like mates.”

Simon tried to look who had said that, and he wasn’t surprised to find Rocktolome. Grace had explained to Simon that eridians have perfect memory, that had influenced the way they thought, and speak, and even had made them never have the need to create something like a computer, but Simon had not thought how that would relate to their holding a grudge until that moment.

Simon would like to say that he knew better than to reduce himself to the level of a pebble, but honestly he didn’t know better.

“Oh, yeah? And what do mates act like, hmmm?”

The question was directed at Rocktolome, if the little smartass said that they didn’t act like mates, they must have some ideas of how to, but the pebbles took it as an open conversation, because everyone started speaking, and Simon remembered suddenly that he had actually never interacted directly with an infant more than from a couple of minutes, much less a group.

He took a big breath and then tried to remember Grace’s tricks.

“If you want the word, you need to put your claw up.”

17 claws went up. It seems that everyone had opinions on the subject.

Simon pointed to a pebble that was bigger than the other ones, almost as big as Rocky, with a green and teal shell with orange details. He chose them mostly because their claws were the easiest to see.

“Mates sing to each other.”

Some pebbles made a noise or agreement, but others just jumped into the conversation.

“Well…hmmm, what was your name?”

“Dwayne.”

“Dwayne, what kind of things do mates sing to each other?”

The pebble moved in their post, suddenly realizing that the little answer they had given would lead to a longer conversation that they had previously predicted. Simon saw how the giant Dwayne tried to hide between the other pebbles, with no success.

“Love songs. Nice things…”

Simon, feeling the awkwardness of Dwayne as his own, decides to thank the pebble and set them free, to then point to another pebble, this time a yellow pebble that reminds Simon of a pyramid with their pointing shell.

“Giza thinks that dancing with your mate is very important.”

“That is not true!” 

A rectangular flat red pebble jumped in the conversation, crawling to face Giza with determination, but Giza did not yield.

“Brick says that because Brick has no coordination!”

“Giza is a liar!”

“Brick is a sore loser!”

Brick jumped over Giza and in seconds Simon found himself in front of a fight circle made of pebbles, all the dynamic forgotten in favor of seeing the two pebbles fight as well as they could do inside their little xenonite balls. Simon didn’t want to risk putting the clothes and glasses of Grace under his arm and crush them so he found himself having to separate the two feisty pebbles with his feet, so very delicately he rolled the xenonite balls with one of his foot trying to work as a wall between them.

“Rocktolome told you! Simon likes to kick pebbles!”

Brick and Giza turned in the direction of the voice just to scream:

“Shut up, Rocktolome!”

Simon, having a moment of clarity, put the glasses over his hair and the clothes under his arm and this time he was able to knee in the floor and actually put a hand over Brick ball to stop them.

“Okay, okay, that is enough, why don’t we calm down?” 

The pebbles seemed to want to push it for more but Simon would not let himself be intimidated by two baby rocks, so he stood firmly in his spot until they ended rolling shoulder to shoulder, pushing each other until they were outside the improvised fight ring. 

Simon saw how Dwayne walked to be between them, and very slowly, put an arm in front of them, as if he was trying to stop any future conflict by copying Simon and being an immovable  mountain.

“Dancing may be very important for some mates, but I’m sure that there are other things you can do right? What do you say, Brick?”

Brick stay still for a moment, paying attention to him for once instead of angrily shirked to Giza, thinking to then answer:

“Jewerly, mates give each other jewerly.”

“ I did give Grace a bracelet, or, better say I gave him my hair to make that bracelet.”

The pebbles gasped in wonder, but quickly enough they were overtaken by questions.

“What is hair?”

He just took some strands of hair and played with them.

“This is hair.”

“It is part of you?

“Yes.”

“So Simon gave Mr. Grace a part of him so Mr.Grace could wear it?”

“I mean, kinda, yes.”

“That is very romantic.”

If Simon was surprised because Rocktolome was the one to make the comment, he did not show it, but he flavored the comment and felt his chest grow bigger.

“What about you, Rocktolome, what do you think mates do?”

Rocktolome, maybe not expecting to choose for Simon at all, stood as tall as they were (that wasn’t much) and answered solemnly:

“Watch each other sleep.”

Many pebbles booed.

“Everyone watches others sleep.”

“That is basic, no mates exclusive.”

“Yeah! No special”

Maybe Rocktolome and Simon had started with the wrong foot, this one kicking Rocktolome by accident and technically being also the reason why Simon could still taste sand between his teeth, but something in Simon's chest hurt when he saw Rocktolome made themselves small.

Simon sat crossing his legs and looking at the blue pebble, paying him all his attention.

“Why do you think that, Rocktolome?”

“Mates…mates should feel safe with their mates.”

“That seems very wise”

The class took a moment to reflect on what Rocktolome had said, and then a quetzal wave of approval noises came from the pebbles. It seems that in the end Rocktolome was right.

“I have them!”

Simon turned to watch the sea, where Grace had got to the shore once again, panting for air as he carried two small xenonite balls under one of his arms. Grace was quick to locate them and walk in their direction and Simon had the need to count 1..7..12…17 pebbles! He nailed babysitting!

Grace gave quick steps, leaving a trail in the sand of foot prints and drops of water and when he was close enough the pebbles ran to surround him, Simon walking behind them.

Once they were face to face, Grace took one of the pebbles with each hand and put them in front of him, showing them to Simon. It wasn’t until that moment that Simon noticed that the two pebbles —that were small enough to be carried in a spoon— , were actually identical in shape and grey tone with the only difference been that one of them have green marks in their shell while the other one had purple

“Simon I want to present to you my two terrors, and the reason why we will be cutting this field trip short, the twins, Steno and Hutton.”

While the other pebbles were complaining at the news of the field trip being cut short, the twins had the audacity to wave to Simon, not guilty at all. 

“Hi”

“Hello”

“I’m Hutton”

“No, I’m Hutton”

And then both giggle, while Grace sighed.

Simon looked at Grace who just seemed… very tired, dripping water and with his eyes half closed trying to focus his sight. Simon came closer and took the glasses off his head and put them in Grace's face, getting even closer to push them up his nose when they fell.

Simon could feel the breath of Grace in his face and it felt a little too much like his dream for him not to take a step back just to be sure to not make anything crazy, then he remembered that he still had the clothes of Grace and had to walk in to him once again to give it to him.

Grace took them with a hand and then put Steno and Hutton on his arm to quickly dress himself.

Simon nodded, mesmerized by how the sun shone in Grace glasses and how his hair was half stuck to his face by the water and half spiking everywhere, as if he had taken a shower and gone to sleep just to be woken up, reminding Simon of this morning. Grace shivered, just a bit, and yet Simon found himself putting the pebbles down to then take off his shirt in a single move and offer it to Grace in less than a blink, not caring about going topless if that meant that Grace could recover some warmth.

“Thanks”

Then Simon felt a soft push in his leg and he remembered that they weren’t alone. When he looked down Rocktolome was standing over Dwayne trying to get their attention.

“Do we really have to go, already?”

Simon was pretty sure that the little sad tone Rocktolome had used in the end was the pebbles version of doing puppy eyes, and Simon discovered he wasn’t as immune as he would like to be. Grace on the other hand had grown to have a cold heart.

“Yes, it would be better if we go back and in that way we avoid more accidents.”

 What Simon thought was Brick said: “But it was Steno and Hutton's fault! Steno and Hutton should be the ones to go home!” 

“It was just an accident, it could be anyone. I promise you that we will do another field trip later on, okay?”

The pebbles just made a collective sad sighed and accepted the deal. 

They started to walk back to the classroom in a defeated silence from part of the pebbles, when one of them asked:

“Will Simon come to the next field trip?”

Grace looked to Simon who just shrugged, it wasn’t like he had the most strict schedule.

“Yeah, sure.”

And the pebbles spirits seem to light a little, and with them Simon’s, thought he would never say so. Grace claps his two hands making pebbles and Simon turns to pay attention to him.

“To avoid more accidents before we get to the classroom I want everyone to walk with a partner, side to side, like this” And then Grace took Simon’s hand in a secure grip, taking with him any logical thought Simon had been trying to keep through the day.

Pebbles started to form couples following their example, but before the twins could get together, Grace picked both of them under his arm.

“You two would come with me.” He announced ignoring any complaint from part of the pebbles.

Simon was a little surprised to see how a flat and smooth looking pebble walked confidently to be beside Dwayne who did nothing to protest, and how Brick and Giza even when they were unhappy vibrating, had stubbornly stood close against each other.

“Can Rocktolome walk beside Simon?”

Simon noticed at that moment that the total number of pebbles were uneven, and while everyone else had a couple Rocktolome was alone.

“Of course,  buddy, but walk beside me or I may kick you by accident…again.”

To Simon’s delight, Rocktolome did some kind of happy purr, seeming to get the joke, when he looked up Grace was looking at him with a soft smile and Simon could feel his face light like a candle.

Even when Grace had let go of his hand when they arrived at the classroom, Simon could still feel his touch on his palm through the whole way back home.

_____

Simon didn’t consider himself a proud man, of course he has his moments now and then, he is just human, and he would talk all day about the little veggies that had started to grow in his greenhouse giving the chance, but he didn’t think he would do something out of pride alone. However,  he wouldn’t exactly scream to the winds how his ideas of courtship came from a conversation with eridians infants after been roasted for not acting “mate” enough.

He wasn’t the best in this, okay? The inspiration was very well needed and appreciated.

The truth is that it took him a little over a week to reunite the courage to actually do any of the courtship. He wasn’t like Sister Georgina who had a grave and rich voice, or Brother Jeremiah that had always had a certain way to get to the right note for the singing prayers. Simon was — using an expression that Grace had taught him once — “winging it”.

He tried to seem nonchalant about it, trying to replicate some kind of melody first, to recall any lyric he could dedicate to Grace, to then realize that he only knew the chorus of some prayers, and he didn’t think that singing about how the bigger honor for Brothers, Sisters and Siblings was to end as fertilization for the Last Tree was something that lovers were supposed to sing to each other, so Simon had limited himself to stay with the melodies. 

Grace had introduced him to his music a long time ago, explaining the different genres and playing him all from classic to hip hop, and Simon had learned that music could take many forms and meanings. He was still pretty fond of those first songs that Grace had made him heard once he had known of Simon's own background of singing prayers; “Am the Bread of Life”, “One Bread, One Body”, “Taste and See”, “Gift of Finest Wheat”, and others. Simon had not understood why the song had to be related to bread though, and Grace had explained him something about the Holy Body and how it was consumed in each mass, and Simon couldn’t avoid thinking that maybe that was the reason why Grace seem to be totally fine with eating his own cloned flesh, but he did not question further. He had grown to appreciate the music more, but he still had no song that spoke about the specific love that Simon was referring to.

He had tried to create little songs but his creativity was lacking and he found himself just singing what he was doing at the moment, something that Grace did constantly, so it didn’t seem to impress him at all when he found Simon doing it, he would just not comment anything about it, or just also start signing his own actions, following Simon’s example, which Simon would take as some kind of recognition and advance.

Until one day, Grace, who had perceived his new love of music as a golden opportunity, decided to sit him down a Friday night and play him Mamma Mia, that —for what Simon was getting from Grace's interpretation— was something like one of the most relevant musical movies ever, and if Simon didn’t watch it, was considered close to a sin by itself.

Simon was having a hard time understanding the movie, he couldn’t get his mind around the idea of people just starting to sing out of nowhere, and when he had asked Grace if people have really communicated like that in the past, Grace laughed and explained that it wasn’t like that, the musical just used the songs to express the feeling of the characters in the moment, or to be part of the narrative, and that Simon didn’t need to take all that literally. Grace had been trying to contain himself from singing through the movie, Simon could see him mimicking the song with his lips as if trying to sing in mute, and before Simon could ask him why he wasn’t just singing Grace had turned to him with an idea.

“We should do a karaoke night!”

“A karaoke night?”

 After Simon had a quick explanation of what a karaoke night was while Grace had jumped to get the control of the TV and try to find videos of the songs with their lyrics. Simon found himself with an opportunity.

 Simon had struggled with "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" by Aerosmith, doing his best to not die of shame while trying to keep eye contact with Grace to the song. Grace, when not screaming the lyrics in the moments he saw himself trapped more for the feeling than the real melody of the song, had a voice so nice and with such emotion that Simon found himself feeling once again courtship three times over. Grace had nailed “I’m Just Ken” with such a level of intonation and feeling that Simon knew at that moment that he could not court Grace via signing.

 Grace had not only the face of an angel, he also had the voice of one.

Simon had caught some notes here and there when Grace was showering, but now that he could see the whole package he realized he could not serenade him like Grace was doing with him, and even when the effort was useless, seeing Grace had such fun led to spending the whole night signing. Simon doing his best to not look like a loser, while Grace seemed to be wrapped by an easy happiness that motivated Simon to keep shouting out of tone lyrics he didn’t understand completely

By some point Grace had started choosing now and then songs that needed to be sung at duet, so they both sang together, Simon didn’t know why Grace would want to do such a thing, when it was pretty obvious that Grace new the both parts of the songs and that Simon intervention would do nothing but worsen Grace’s performance, but Simon didn’t have the strength to deny him.

Grace not only sang, but acted the songs, screaming, pretending to cry or be angry, and moving his hands, and by some point he had jumped out of the couch as if he needed to move his whole body to be able to feel the music, forgetting his excitement to choose the songs, he let the videos to play themselves, it seemed like Grace knew all the lyrics anyways, and Simon let himself watch him in silence, absorbing his image and energy, wanting to memorize him like this, wearing his pyjamas with his unbrushed hair, sweating with his cheeks pink and a smile in his face while letting himself flow with the melodies

Then a song, more slower than the previous ones, had started playing and without any advice, Grace had turned to look at Simon to then extend his hand to him doing a little reverence.

“Would you dance with me?” Simon blinked at Grace, perplexed, to which Grace quickly added “it could be fun and even if we are horrible no one would know, so…”

“Okay”

Simon was panicking, but he would not let the opportunity slip through his fingers. He had thought he would have some time before he had to move to the next courtship ritual, he was planning on watching some videos, getting good at it before he invited Grace to dance, but once again Grace had surprised him with his openness.

Simon wasn't inept, he knew how to dance… in a group, he had gone to one or two parties in Eden, but they were mostly circle dances, and there were always at least four people in each single, dancing with a single person? Dancing hand in hand and body against body with someone through the long minutes of a song guided by the melody? It was…too intimate to be done in public in Eden perspective, Simon hadn’t seen or participated in a dance as a couple since he had left Mars. Simon’s mom was the last dancing partner he had in that sense, when he was still small enough to step on her feet so she would take the lead and Simon's hands could hardly reach her waist.

Noticing the lack of one of his hands more than ever and feeling the one he had heavier than usual Simon didn’t know what to do undecided of how to accommodate himself.

Grace must have read his struggle in his face, because he took his hand slowly and then put his free hand over Simon’s waist with such a delicate touch that Simon could hardly feel it.

“I could…lead if you want me too…I mean you can also lead if you want…” Trying to retire his hands, but Simon was quick to grab his hand between his fingers before it escape away

“Teach me how to dance like this.”

Simon saw Grace's cheeks turn even more red and look aside.

“I…I hadn’t danced since my prom night, and I sucked at it, so maybe I’m not the best…teacher for this.” In a voice that Simon almost didn’t catch Grace added:”maybe this wasn’t as good idea as I thought”

“What is a prom night?”

“Oh hmmm, it is like a night in which teenagers party for having finished their studies…and it usually means to make memories and…stuff.”

“Well, I didn’t have a prom night, so you know more than me already, isn’t that enough to be my teacher?”

“I suppose.”

Then Grace had once again put his hand on his waist and even when the song had changed, Grace kept his calm and taught him some easy steps that were meant to be repeated over and over through the song. Simon was mortified for stepping  over Grace’s feet more than once, but Grace just laughing it off and commenting that he would probably also step on Simon’s by accident, that it was normal, and Grace did step on Simon once or twice, but Simon wasn’t sure if they were real accidents, or just an effort of Grace to show his point. Grace assures him that if he keeps watching their feet they would just struggle more and to distract him he restarted singing the songs, this time lower in volume, mostly like a murmur, and incited Simon to copying him, and it let Simon’s mind to find peace long enough for him to start grabbing the trick of dancing.

At some point their stiffness had evaporated with the runs of song after song, having the melody rock them with ease, making a slow rotation in the space between the couch and the tv. Simon hadn’t noticed how they had become quiet, Grace forgetting to keep singing  and Simon to copy him, until Grace was resting his head against his and murmuring something in his ear.

“You know what? This song reminds me of you”

“Yeah? Why?” 

Simon in that moment noticed that he hadn’t been paying attention to the songs, to focus on moving with Grace, in hearing his breath in his ear and feeling his heart beating against his chest, and how their callus hand seemed to have been made to be holding each other, remembering how fast he had to let go of Grace back in the field trip, and now that he could, Simon grabs his hand a little bit stronger, just to feel their bones press against each other. 

They weren’t even rocking to the rhythm of the music anymore, following their own pace and Simon couldn’t say how long they had been doing so, but he felt like he could keep doing it forever.

“The lyric talks about doing things in your own way, no matter how hard they are to do.”

“Oh really? And that reminds you of me?”

“I think you would love Frank Sinatra.”

And Simon wished at that moment to have known enough songs to tell Grace of a song that reminded himself of him, but he wasn’t sure that a single song would be able to summarize Grace. He rested his face against Grace's neck, half trying to think of something nice to say, and half because he wanted to let himself smell the little essence of sweat, cleaning products and shampoo.

A song had started to sound and Simon thought that they would once again ignore it as they have done with most of them, but then he noticed that Grace had raised his head from over Simon’s and he had frozen in his spot, Simon looked into his eyes, finding Grace looking petrified at something behind Simon. 

Concerned, Simon turned to look at the screen of the TV just to read the title of it: Sign of the Times.

“Grace is eveything…?” 

Simon cut himself at how suddenly Grace had turned to look at him in the eyes, his face unreadable besides his eyes that shined with a pain that Simon hadn’t seen in him before.

Grace had locked glares with him, not watching him at all, blinking a couple of times, to then let go of Simon and take a big step backwards and walk to the couch with quick shaking steps. Before Simon could ask him anything, Grace had got the control in his hands to turn the TV off letting the comfortable silence between them feel heavier.

Grace looked at the black screen with wide eyes as if expecting the TV to turn on and play the song on its own, and once he seemed convinced that this wasn’t going to happen, he looked at Simon with a smile on his face that was so big and forced that it was painful to see.

“Look at the time! We should go to sleep, tomorrow we have a lot of things to do!”

Simon didn’t tell Grace that tomorrow was Saturday and that neither of them had work or consult to do, nor visits for Rocky or Adrian, nor have they planned anything besides sleeping late and maybe eating outside besides the sprout in front of the house as they used to do on the weekends since they have started sleeping in the same bed.

He knew better than that, after all Grace have always given him the same mercy when Simon had to get out of the house because he felt like the walls were closing around him, or how he would get some afternoons in Grace laboratory just to ask Grace to narrate everything he was doing so he could hear his voice.

They knew that sometimes it was better not to push it.

And even when Simon could have never slept again if that meant dancing with Grace for a little bit longer, he concede easily:

“Yeah, I’m so tired that I can’t even feel my feet.”

____

Simon is usually the one who has to drag Grace to come to sleep, always speaking of experiments he has to do, notes he has to finish and watching just one more episode. When Simon arrives to the bedroom after having changing to his pyjamas in the bathroom since he hadn’t do so before dinner as Grace had, he finds a new human size bump under the blankets of the bed and Simon has to assume that it is his spouse hiding under the blankets by how a little of blond hair is visible in the pillow.

Simon turns off the lights and goes to his side of the bed, and he tries to not think too much of it, but he can’t really avoid it, not when he lies there without Grace’s limbs embracing him for the first time in weeks.

He feels naked, in the open, as if something could come in the night and take him away, as if something could take Grace away while they sleep and Simon would not be able to notice his absences until it is too late. He lies on his side , avoiding crushing his little bump with his weight, hoping to see Grace's face, but all that he sees is the back of his neck.

It was quite easy for Simon to see Grace’s figure showing his back, thanks to the soft light of the artificial nightsky. Back when Simon was new in the biodome he had discovered that once the lights of the house were gone by the night time, all lights of the biodome turned off with them until the start of a new day. Simon, who had grown in a space station that always had the faint light of the bottoms in the control commands, the screens or emergency signals even when the lights were off for the day, had felt nothing short of terror once all light had been gone. Grace had to explain to Rocky and the eridians that humans despise complete darkness, making them feel vulnerable, and he has made sure to notify Adrian, leader of the eridians taking care of the biodome, to change it to solve the problem.

It wasn’t until weeks later that Simon realized that while he hadn’t been able to deal with a single night of pure darkness, that Grace had to be living with it until Simon's arrival. Simon knew how little Grace liked to ask the eridians for things, and yet Grace had been the one to complain in Simon place, when he asked why he had done such a thing for him Grace had answered with an easy:

“I want you to feel safe.”

Simon looked at his own shadow covering Grace and all he could think is that he would want to be able to reciprocate at least a part of the care that Grace had shown to him, and he has tried. He has tried, but Grace doesn’t seem to understand that he also deserves to be taken care of.

Grace has the bad habit of giving everything he had for someone else with a smile on his face, maybe a sad smile, maybe a resigned smile, but always with a smile and he gives his love as if it is something that everyone deserves. Simon knows better, he knows that not everyone deserves the little things Grace had done for him since he had got to the biodome; not everyone deserves Grace cooking them dinner, and putting sugar in their coffee to make it more bearable to drink, and helping them to brush their hair, and giving them the best bed since the first night in a new confusing home, and changing the whole night sky for them. Simon was sure he didn’t deserve any of it, and yet Grace had done it for him, and a jealousy part of Simon, the one that made his thoughts get twisted, was sure that Grace would have done the same for anyone else if he could.

Simon knew that the whole idea of courting Grace was silly, there wasn’t a real need for Simon to do so, they were already married, and all those little things were usually expected in a couple at the start of their relationship, not in their marriage life. Besides, Simon sucked at it, but if Simon was honest with himself this was never about trying to accomplish his dreams of hands holding each other and soft lips against his, no, Simon just had wanted Grace to know that he deserved to be courted, and to be taken care of and for someone to think of him.

And if Simon had to court Grace everyday so Grace would finally feel a portion of the love that Simon had received and felt from Grace, he would do so.

Slowly, and knowing that both had their bad days about contact, and making this a gamble, Simon passed an arm over Grace's waist and hugged him, pressing his face and chest against Grace's neck and back. Simon felt how the body of Grace tensed for a moment to then relax under his arms and before Simon could decide between closing his eyes and trying to sleep a bit, or just let himself look at Grace's neck until he memorized it, Grace turned on his back to face him to then look at him surprise.

“You are still awake.”

“You too.”

Grace moved uncomfortably, and when Simon was about to take off his arm, Grace stopped adjusting better to be between Simon’s hug.

“I…I remember something…something that won’t let me sleep.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No”

Simon doesn't ask more about the topic, choosing to make little circles in Grace's back, as Grace usually does to calm him down when he has nightmares.

“I could watch you until you fall asleep.”

Grace looked up at him, looking at him with a complex expression, then denied with his head.

“You need to sleep, I know you are very tired.”

The white lie Simon had said had come back to bite him.

“My feet are well rested now, besides the adrenaline hasn't let me feel sleepy at all.”

“I couldn’t ask you to do that.”

“You are not asking, I’m offering”

That seems to make Grace stay quiet, for a moment he does nothing more than to look at Simon at the eyes, slowly blinking, as if looking for a moment of hesitation, but Simon has no doubt of his offer, which makes Grace give up and rest his forehead against Simon's shoulder. 

“But…but just until I fall asleep and then you have to go to sleep too.”

“Of course.”

A beat pass and when Simon thinking that their conversation is over, Grace quickly adds:

“Thanks.”

“Any time.”

Then Grace squirmed until his head was well hidden between Simon's neck and the pillow, his hands resting against Simon’s chest, his knees slightly stabbing Simon in his stomach, and his feet grazing his thighs . Grace has tried to make himself small, a ball of warm skin, pointing bones and shaking muscles, and has tried to incrustrate himself in Simon’s body. 

Even after they both had admitted their needs of contact Grace has been the one to start most of his interactions even now. Simon has tried to be more casual about it, to brush hands, and shoulders, but he usually lets Grace take the lead in these things, because Grace’s touch always seems to be more concerned in giving comfort to Simon instead of himself and Simon not knowing how to comfort Grace had let him do it instead, hoping that Grace finds as much solace in it as Simon does

Right now, with Grace uncomfortably pressing against him, beyond the small touches and awkwardness that they sometimes present, and clinging to Simon not caring  if it is a cozy position or not, Simon smiles into the night.

He doesn’t move, nor does he complain, and even knowing that keeping this position would do nothing more than make him be in pain in the morning, he is just too happy to care, because Grace is comfortable enough with him to have chosen his own coziness over his for once. It must be strange to celebrate something such as Grace’s selfishness, Simon couldn’t be prouder of how his relationship with his spouse has led him to this point in which Grace can let himself be selfish; to a point that Grace would take something from Simon because he needed it for his own ease.

Simon let himself memorize how this feels, to savor it; Grace breathing against his neck, how it tickles, the perpetually cold feet on his thighs making it hard to keep warm, the knees pressing against his ribs. He passes his hand through Grace's back, making circles and writing things with his fingers and drawing happy faces and flowers, thinking in all the silly ways he can try to court Grace tomorrow, in the little things he could do.

Grace didn’t need to know that Simon didn’t fall asleep until the sun had started to shine through the windows, after all they did sleep late and no harm was done.