Chapter Text
There was no way he could’ve possibly predicted how this night would go. Simon had the tendency to doom (As Ryland called it) about certain situations by predicting that a certain outcome would always end up with the worst possible outcome.
When he pulled Ryland into that kiss, he was expecting to be pushed away. Even with Rocky’s confirmation that Ryland did want the same thing as him, he couldn’t trust it enough, and there was a part of him that nagged– this isn’t what Ryland wants. You’re pushing his boundaries. He’s going to think you’re a creep and you just ruined your only shot at a relationship with literally the only other human on this planet.
He didn’t expect Ryland to kiss him back.
That was a clearer than yes answer. Ryland would have him.
Simon couldn’t help himself. He tugs Ryland close until he feels him press up against his chest, gripping his waist. He notices that Ryland was taller than him by a few inches, but that doesn’t stop him.
Simon doesn’t allow him to talk or process the kiss for a while. He keeps him close to his body, claiming his lips for himself. Bringing their tongues together and relishing in the little noises Grace was making in between. It was stupidly cute, seeing him come undone like this.
“Someone told me I don’t have 700 years to optimize my decision,” Simon whispers against his lips.
He was thinking of Adrian. How agonizing that must’ve been for them, to wait that long, to live without knowing if their mate was alive.
Simon had waited for so long just to know what it would feel like to feel the sun on his skin again. To see life bloom again, to see nature, trees, those faded pictures from old faded images in his old schoolbooks, poorly photocopied from fragments of data that was salvaged before the internet died. The trees in his schoolbooks all looked like blotchy black and white illustrations, but he knew they were supposed to be green. Bright, verdant green, an array of a million different colors, paired with the sound of animals that would sing their songs.
He’s always imagined what life would sound and feel like, and nothing came close to the feeling of Ryland’s lips on his.
Simon touches him quite shamelessly. He touches the places he’s been deathly curious about since the day they met. He feels up his waist, his lower back. His arms. His shoulder blades. The back of his neck. He feels Grace inhale shakily as Simon’s lips make contact with his neck.
Fuck. This was heaven. He might not have made it to Earth, but he made it to paradise. If Simon could hear angels sing, it would be in the sound of Ryland’s short breaths and shaky sighs. If he could take a drink from the fountain of life it would be the taste of him on his tongue. If he could feel the tender touch of the breeze, it would be Ryland’s skin against his own. Finally recognizing his wants felt like the greatest pleasure in the world.
He doesn’t wanna go anywhere else but here, where nothing bleeds.
“I’ve been waiting so long for you to say that,” Ryland says with a half laugh, half cry. “I’m sorry it took this long…”
“I’d wait for you forever.”
“God,” Ryland chokes up, wiping at his face. Simon wipes it for him. “I don’t even know what to say to that. I’m bad at this. I’m really bad at this.”
“We can be bad at it together.”
They spend that night within the confines of their home, back upon the little hill. Ryland was beneath him, doe eyed and completely enamored by the sight. Simon swallows the pang of insecurity that hits him when he does that. He just had… to open his heart for the first time and trust that Ryland truly loved this, and… saw something in him that he couldn’t.
Ryland was ticklish, he realized. He’d let out little laughs whenever Simon kissed somewhere he didn’t expect.
Simon melted every time Ryland touched him. A brush of Ryland’s hand to his face and he would sigh against it, pressing his cheek deeper against Ryland’s palm. His body had craved intimate touch for so long, after so many years of knowing nothing but cruelty and pain. He couldn’t go back to living without this. He just couldn’t.
At some point in the middle of the night, Grace took over.
He held Simon down, holding his face tenderly between his palms, kissing him with all the love in the universe and cradling him in his hold. He watched as Grace left little kisses on scars that he associated with the worst years of his life. He watched him heal them all with one touch.
He was incredible. He would guide Simon’s hands where to go instead of the clumsy way he tried it earlier. He would coo at him and tell him he was doing a great job, and Simon could tell he was using his teacher voice and he would have to look away every time he heard it, having to glare at a wall because dear lord if that didn’t turn his brain into putty.
At some point he realizes that Ryland was just as desperate for his touch too. He would soak his touch in, expression falling wantonly as he physically indulges in the warmth of Simon’s hand. Everything about it was intoxicating. He’s reminded of how their hug felt for the first time, and how much that single gesture had changed his life. This was even more than that. Simon couldn’t help himself, leaning in to taste his lips again.
They don’t go all the way. He doesn’t think that was a priority for either of them. They were just so eager to be close, that… the most they did was hold each other and kiss each othe’rs bodies, and yet it felt nourishing enough. Like you could throw him back on the SM-13 and all he’d have for a life support system was Ryland Grace’s touch. He’d live for a million years.
He couldn’t believe this was his future, now. He went from nearly choking and drowning to death in the SM-13 to… experiencing a life that was better than anything he could’ve ever imagined.
He wished he wasn’t dreaming, but if he was, and it turns out he was still on the SM-13 dreaming up a life that was better as his final thoughts…
Then, he could die right about… now.
But Ryland kisses his lips again, and Simon keeps living.
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7 years later.
“Uncle Grace! Uncle Grace!”
“Yes, kiddo?”
“Tell me about Earth evolution again!”
Little Aven runs around the room, knocking down the light fixture that he’d just put up. He swears, the little rascal was almost exactly like Rocky in every way. The color of his carapace and limbs were a bright verdant green with different shades of purple and blues.
His name wasn’t really Aven, of course. It was a series of long, beautiful notes, similar to Adrian’s name. But when Adrian tasked them to give him a human name, he and Simon had to brainstorm for a good long while.
Eventually, they end up with Aven.
Ava, and Eva.
Dedicated to the two people who gave everything for their cause, including their own humanity. Part of letting go of their pasts meant letting go of the hatred and pain. They had been the ones to bury them by sending them off on one way trips with no chance of survival. But if they hadn’t, humanity would’ve gone extinct, and Ryland and Simon never would’ve met.
They betrayed their own kind by sending them off to die. In doing this, Ryland hoped their humanity would find its way back to them. Silently across the universe, through the pitter patter of this little Eridian child’s feet.
“That’s your favorite topic, isn’t it?”
Ryland chuckles as he bends down. The Eridian suits have been modified now. They’re barely visible, and they clung to their bodies snugly. Ryland doesn’t know how it works exactly, but he’d trust Adrian’s engineering with his eyes closed. The best part of it is…
Ryland reaches out to give the little guy a noogie. He rubs his little head, and Aven trills in response.
“Yes, yes! It’s my favorite.”
It became much easier to distinguish between Eridian voices the longer time passes. Before he used to be proud that he’d gotten the grammar and basic translation down, but he didn’t really know hiw to differentiate their voices. There were a million different names in the Eridian language alone, and humans weren’t capable of replicating the sounds they make without sounding like really weird whales.
“You know, you’re supposed to be learning with the other kids. You can’t just get private lessons cuz’ you’re Rocky’s kid.”
“Papa said I’m allowed.”
He snorts. Eridians also had a different word for parent. There weren’t any gendered words for it. Parent was synonymous with provider, protector, and giver of life.
But Ryland liked thinking of them using Earth honorifics anyway.
“Well, your papa’s turning you into a bit of a nepo baby.”
“No understand.”
Ryland laughs. “It’s okay. C’mon, I’ll take you into the lab with me. I’ve got a whooole bunch of history there that I wanna show you.”
He lifts the baby Eridian in his arms… and immediately regrets it.
“Okay—yep, still heavy,” He mutters under his breath. He doesn’t know why he expects him to weigh like the average sixth grader.
He has to remind himself, consciously, that Eridians aren’t built the way humans are. They were compact and what passes for skin was actually armor. If they lived on Earth, they would’ve been the apex species without a doubt. Grace adjusts his grip, shoulders tightening as the weight settles in his muscles. Terrible idea.
“Alright, bud—” He exhales, already feeling the strain creep up his spine, “You might wanna use your step stools.”
Aven clicks curiously, little limbs shifting as Grace carefully lowers him toward the nearby platforms, which were raised, reinforced structures designed specifically for interactions like this. Human-accessible and Eridian-safe. A compromise, like most things here.
Grace guides him on top, a little slower than he would have seven years ago.
“Yeah, you’re gonna wanna use these,” He says, straightening up with a soft groan. Holding onto his cane, which was thankfully resting nearby. The cane was made of Eridian steel, with both his and Simon’s initials engraved on the handle. Seeing it makes him smile, until he hears Aven letting out a series of trills.
Grace huffs out a laugh, shaking his head.
“Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up.”
Seven years on Erid, and his body has adapted. It was stronger than it used to be because it had been conditioned to higher gravity. But not without a lot of effort. His joints ache more than they should. His back complains nearly every day, and recovery takes forever if he pulls something.
He glances at Aven, steadying himself against the platform, the corner of his mouth lifting despite it all.
“Good news is,” He adds, a little breathless but smiling anyway, “You’re getting stronger, buddy!”
Aven clicks again. “Stronger than Uncle Grace?”
“Waaaay stronger than me.”
He spends the rest of the afternoon bonding with Aven, teaching him about human evolution. Where humans came from, how they developed intelligence and cognition. The age where humans discovered fire all the way until they established monarchies. Aven had a million questions, as always.
As he’s listening to Aven talk, a memory appears in his mind.
Laughter. Him holding one of his students close after he found out they’ve been getting bullied, and they were too scared to go to any of the other teachers. Or one of his kids laughing after he intentionally loses an arm wrestling competition while pretending to struggle, just so he could see that kid get cheered on by his classmates. Patiently listening to a kid talk to him for an hour after class had already ended because she had been working on a sci-fi story, writing every page by hand in a worn notebook, and she wanted him to read it. And of course, he did. The story itself was a mess. Full of impossible physics, made up theories stacked on top of each other, entire paragraphs that made absolutely no sense if you looked at them too closely. But that didn’t matter. What did matter was the look on her face when he complimented it. Her excited little nods and jumps when he started giving her notes on how to legitimize the science. He would never forget it.
Eridians were different from human children. They were insanely smart and they had rapid development of their cognition and motor skills. They had perfect memory, so whatever they learned, they’d never forget. They didn’t stumble through learning the way humans did. There was no long, uneven pathway of trial and error, no forgetting and relearning the same thing over and over again. If a human baby was just starting to crawl, an Eridian baby would be doing backflips.
And their cognition developed at such a freakishly rapid pace. Concepts that would take years to fully grasp on Earth seemed to click for them in days, sometimes hours. Their motor skills followed just as quickly. Humans love romanticizing perfect memory but they don’t truly understand what it means or what it even entails. Eridians remember the first time they hatched from their egg and escaped into the outside world. They remember their first steps, their first breath. Information was integrated into their very bodies. Once an Eridian learned something, it became part of them, permanently woven into the way they understood the world.
Every lesson he imparted with them mattered ten fold. Ten times the importance! Each word he said, every explanation, every offhand comment all had weight, because there was no guarantee it would ever be revised or softened by time. He wished he could tell his former scientist colleagues now. He’s become the perma-human-internet for an entire alien species. Now that would blow all their PhD’s out of the water.
He never stops thinking of his students. They must be much older than him now. Some of them were probably gone. But they lived on in his memories.
“So this is where you both are!”
Ryland turns his head. Rocky was in the lab entrance, tilting his carapace. Ryland has long since identified that as how Eridians smile.
“Hey, buddy.” Ryland greets. Aven explodes in a series of chirps as he tumbles his way over to him, bounding up and down. Rocky nuzzles Aven’s carapace, and tells him to go play outside.
It’s just him and his best friend now.
“Grace,” Rocky greets, resting his carapace on Ryland’s knee as a form of greeting. Ryland chuckles, bending down to give his suit a pat. “You sound like you wanna tell me something.”
“It’s about Sol.”
Ryland’s breath gets stopped in his throat. Sol. The sun! Earth’s sun!
“What about Sol? What happened to it?!”
He’s been enjoying life on Erid for so long that he tries not to think of whether or not the beetles even made it back home. He was finding out for the first time, now.
“A thrum of Eridian astronomers verified it the other day. Sol has returned to full luminosity.”
His breath catches so hard it hurts. His hands come up instinctively and he braces onto his cane as he leans forward.
“Wait—wait—” He stammers, voice breaking immediately. “You’re… you’re sure? You’re sure?”
“I wouldn’t tell you if I wasn’t sure.” Rocky says.
His vision blurs before he even realizes he is crying.
“They… the beetles— they made it?” He laughs tearfully. “They actually… oh my god…”
His knees nearly give.
It worked.
It worked.
Earth is okay.
He brings a hand to cover his mouth as shaky sobs escape him.
Years. Years of not knowing. Years of pushing it down, of not letting himself think about it too hard because the not knowing would have destroyed him. All those people. All those lives. His students! They could live! And if not them, then their children! And their children’s children, and every generation beyond them!
He’s so happy it feels like he’s going to pass out. He thinks of everything. He thinks of his kids, he thinks of strangers, he thinks of Eva Stratt. He thinks of the entire Petrova Taskforce. He thinks of everyone who would finally have a future… and he kneels down in front of Rocky and pulls him into a hug.
The Eridian can hug him properly now, and Rocky already knew how to distribute his weight to make sure he didn’t crush his legs. He situates himself on Grace’s lap and hugs him back as best he can.
“Thank you. Rock, thank you. You saved my planet. You have no idea how much this means. I…”
“I have a faint idea,” Rocky speaks fondly. Yes, he could identify their emotions from their pitch, now. Rocky became 10x more eloquent in his mind when he figured that out. “You did the same for me.”
Sometimes he remembers how this is where they started. Two creatures who had been desperately trying to see each other’s perspective, because it was necessary to save the world.
“Earth will be waiting for you.” Rocky hums beside him. “They will want their own to come home.”
“I know.”
“Both of you. Do you want to go back?”
The answer comes surprisingly easy. He’s had over seven years, and a fully stocked Hail Mary to think about it.
“No, Rock. My place is here, on Erid. With you… with everyone. I’ve never been more happy than I am now.”
Rocky coos by his ear.
“That makes me really happy. Thank you, Ryland Grace… for all you’ve done. You know that Eridians never forget. Our memories never erode. You will be remembered for the rest of Erid’s future.
And one day we will reach for the stars again, and the stars will know you, too.”
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“Okay,” Simon mutters, placing his hands on his hips. “Walk me through it again.”
Beside him, Adrian lets out a series of low, structured tones. Ryland was right, he ended up picking up Eridian fairly quickly, and now he was fluent in it.
“Objective remains unchanged. We are mapping optimal traversal paths through variable density medium.”
“…Right,” Simon says, nodding. He doesn’t know what it means, but sure.
The model in front of them changes shape again. A three dimensional projection blooms outward. It was thicker in viscosity than water, and closer to what Simon had described from the SM-13. Currents move in slow, heavy patterns, layered over each other, intersecting in a hundred different ways.
“Okay, so…” Simon gestures vaguely at it. “You’re trying to… what, predict movement through this?”
“No. Optimize.”
He leans closer to the projection anyway. This part, at least, he understands.
Definitely not the math part, but the feeling, maybe. “That current there,” he says, pointing. “That one’s wrong.”
Adrian tilts slightly.
“Clarify.”
Simon squints at it.
“It’s… too smooth,” He says slowly. “In something that thick, movement doesn’t look like that. It kind of drags. Stutters, almost. Like it’s fighting itself.”
He makes a vague pulling motion with his hand.
“You get pockets where everything slows down, then suddenly speeds up again when it breaks through.”
Adrian is quiet for a moment.
“Adjusting model.”
The projection flickers.
“For navigation,” Adrian continues, “This creates instability in the trajectory calculation.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” Simon mutters. “You can’t just chart a straight path through that. You’d get thrown off.”
“Then how did you succeed?” Adrian asks.
“l… uh, kinda felt it out.”
Adrian stares. He swears he can feel Adrian staring even if they didn’t have any eyes.
“Explain.”
“It’s not—there’s no formula for it,” He says. “You just move, and then adjust. Constantly. You pay attention to how the medium’s pushing you, and you work with it instead of against it.”
He gestures at the model.
“If you try to force a direction, you’ll waste energy. Or worse, you’ll get stuck. You have to… let it carry you a little. Then correct when it starts pulling you somewhere you don’t want to go.”
“Your method lacks predictive structure,” they say finally.
“Yeah,” Simon snorts. “Told you. I’m not like him, I’m not a scientist.”
“But it demonstrates adaptive real time correction.”
Simon blinks.
“…That sounds smarter than what I said.”
“It is the same statement,” Adrian replies.
The model changes yet again. Path lines begin to form, but they aren’t straight. They curve and adjust dynamically with the simulated currents.
“…Oh,” Simon says, leaning in. “That’s…”
“Adaptive navigation algorithm,” Adrian explains. “Based on your input.”
“You just turned ‘winging it’ into math.”
“Correct.”
The simulation zooms out, and now he’s seeing different kinds of pressure gradients, or zones where movement becomes nearly impossible.
Simon winces.
“Oh, those,” He mutters. “Hate those.”
“Explain.”
“They crush you,” Simon says simply. “Not instantly, but… you can feel it building. If you don’t get out fast enough, you won’t.”
Adrian inputs something.
“Threshold levels?”
Simon hesitates.
“…I don’t know exact numbers.”
“Estimate.”
He studies the model, thinking back to his body memory more than anything. How the SM-13 would feel every time he went deeper and deeper in the ocean. Nowadays, memories of the SM-13 felt so far away that he couldn’t feel the confinement of it anymore. He was no longer haunted by it.
“…When movement starts getting sluggish,” he says slowly. “And every motion takes twice the effort it should. That’s when you leave.”
“Noted.”
They work like that for a while.
Adrian translating his messy, instinct based experiences into clean and data. Simon was trying to put things into words that make sense outside of his own head.
At some point, Simon leans back, exhaling.
“…You know,” He says, glancing at Adrian, “I still have no idea what half of this means.”
“Understanding is not required for contribution,” Adrian replies.
Simon huffs.
“Good. Because I’m definitely not understanding.”
A pause.
“…But I guess I’m helping.”
“Yes.”
That’s all he’s ever wanted to do.
“You optimize your decisions quickly now, Simon.”
He smiles to himself.
“Wonder who taught me the importance of that.”
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Ryland always greeted Simon with a kiss.
This time, the kiss is much happier than Simon anticipates. He laughs, holding onto Ryland’s lower back as he leans in to kiss him back.
“Hey, Ry…”
His days consisted of making himself useful to Eridian society. His endurance, as he later came on to realize, was incredibly useful.
He’d volunteer for experiments and allow them to test on him as long as they’d like (so long that he doesn’t die or get hurt, obviously). They couldn’t risk Ryland doing it, so of course, he had to. Sometimes he’d teach them navigation, other times he’d be the volunteer in their experiment. The only difference was that he was actually allowed to stop and take a break if he needed it and they’d give him a sweet glucose filled treat to show their appreciation.
This was all the break he needed.
“You look happy,” Simon hums, gently touching Ryland’s face and adoring every line.
“I am happy,” Ryland leans against his neck. Then he pulls away, and Simon sees those pretty blue eyes welling up with tears.
“Rocky told me that Sol… our sun is back to full luminosity. Our sun is healed, Simon! Earth is saved… it’s going to be okay…”
Simon isn’t as stunned as Ryland. Deep down he’s always known he succeeded. It was a gut feeling in that way. He always knew Ryland would be Earth’s savior. He lets out a small, disbelieving huff, shaking his head.
“I knew it,” He murmurs, a faint smile pulling at his lips as his gaze settles back on Ryland. “I knew you’d be able to do it.”
He steps closer, closing the distance without even thinking about it, drawn in by the gravity of the moment and by the one in front of him.
“You deserve this,” Simon says softly. This closure.
“I mean…” Simon adds, “I always figured it’d work out. You kinda have a habit of doing the impossible.”
Ryland buries his face in his hands. He sees the tips of his ears turn red, and he laughs.
“Hey… look at me.”
A pause.
“I love you.”
Ryland groans and shakes his head.
“Si, you’re going to end up killing me like this. If you keep doing that… that thing you always do…”
“What thing?”
“When you say that! You know it’s my weakness!”
“I love you?”
“Stop! I love you too but stop!”
Simon lets out a boisterous laugh he didn’t think he’d hear come from his own mouth.
He kisses Ryland again.
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In the history of the Eridians, we know that there once lived two humans named Simon and Ryland Grace.
Ryland Grace was a human from the planet Earth. Earth’s star is called Sol, or Sun.
The shape of Earth is near spherical, and the shape causes an equatorial bulge.
Earth has three layers named the Crust, Mantle, and Core.
Crust is where the humans live. The core is very hot, and creates a magnetic field.
Earth has solid, liquid, gas. It often cycles between the three, and it causes phase change cycles.
We know all of this because Ryland Grace taught it to us, several hundred years ago.
Today, you can ask any Eridian about the story of Grace, and they will be able to recall it as if he lived yesterday.
But there is another human.
Simon.
Simon was Grace’s mate.
He was a human from a parallel universe who survived through an extreme and continuous exertion of will.
As is well documented, humans possess short lifespans. On Eridian scale, they approximate the duration of an Eridian juvenile stage.
Yet this brevity appears to function as a catalyst. Limited time produces intensified decision making. Humans are, therefore, remarkably efficient in moments of crisis.
They are capable of extraordinary outcomes under constrained time.
Their lifespan, in theory, should make them insignificant.
We have studied longer lived species. We have observed stable civilizations that persist for durations far exceeding human timelines.
None of them behave as humans do.
Humans act.
They act while afraid. They act while uncertain. They act without complete information.
They form bonds rapidly, without guarantee of return.
They know how to communicate even without knowing each other’s language.
They assign meaning to one another with little regard for efficiency.
They will give up their own, already meager lives for the lives of many.
Ryland Grace demonstrated this.
Simon demonstrated this.
And now, we are here.
. . .
Are you receiving this transmission, humans?
Yes, we copy you! Who are we talking to? Can you give us a name?
My name is Aven. I was told I was named after one of you.
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end.