Chapter Text
The incident occurs a couple days after Simon’s tour of the ship.
It all started normal, with Simon waking from his sleep a little earlier than expected, and looking around for Grace.
The man had become a little more comfortable, and, after repeatedly asking Simon if it was alright to do so, moved his mattress back into the sleeping quarters.
Simon does still wonder why there are three beds, but maybe Grace decided to go on a solo mission and the other two are waiting wherever they’re headed.
Or maybe they’re dead.
Simon shakes his head to clear that thought. If they were dead Grace would’ve repurposed the resources into something more useful.
Though, considering how resource-rich Grace was, maybe the second theory is more likely and Grace never needed to remove the extra beds. It was such a bizarre thing to Simon, the casual leftover resources going unused for the sake of memory or convenience.
Slipping his legs over the side of his bed, Simon stretches his arm over his head and yawns. He didn’t feel as rested today, probably because of his nightmare, but when did he not have nightmares?
He rummages through a storage box Grace set aside for him and pulls out a shirt to put on. This one has a bright red color and small stitching in the sleeves. They are strange symbols, possibly another language, that Simon can’t figure out the meaning of.
Maybe he should ask Grace.
Wiggling his head and arm through the shirt, Simon gets dressed and makes his way over to the ladder. He doesn’t see any sign of the Rocky creature, so Simon assumes it must be with Grace.
He starts to wander up the ladder, hearing Grace’s voice coming from the lab above. It sounds like Grace had the translator open, for some reason, while he was talking. Maybe he was updating words in it? Regardless Simon can understand him.
Simon then notices the tone of the scientist’s voice. It sounds tired, and distressed, like Grace is exasperated with someone or something.
Peering out the open hatch he sees Grace sitting at a desk, hunched over something and talking to Rocky, who’s in his little bubble-suit thing.
“Rocky, listen, please,” Grace is saying as he runs a hand down his face.
Rocky, in turn, replies in a series of musical notes, probably forgoing the use of the specific program the translator had for him while Simon was asleep.
“We have to give him the meat! He’s still recovering!” Grace says, waving his hands animatedly.
More musical notes sound in reply.
“I’ll be fine. I can increase the production of the Taumoeba farms,”
-musical notes-
“I understand that, but I can’t just let him starve!”
-Angrier musical notes-
“I’ve done it before! I have extra nutrients and such packed away. We accounted for a possible delay when we left,”
-Softer musical notes, but with slight agitation-
“I-I can see that. But that’s why Simon gets the me-burgers,”
Simon startles at his name. He knew they were talking about him, but it’s weird to hear it being said out loud.
His attention is once again on Grace as he sighs and turns back to whatever’s in front of him.
“I did the calculations,” he says to Rocky, “If I can increase the yield of the farms by 50% that should last me the month and change to get to Erid. I can supplement that with nutrients, and the me-burgers can sustain Simon with some nutrient enrichments. We would both be on Taumoeba by the end, but he needs the protein for recovery,”
-Hums and musical trills-
“Fine, fine! I can have one every 5 days. Sound good, question?” Grace said, tapping the table with his index and middle finger.
There’s a happy trill from the alien, and Grace smiles down at him.
Simon decides to make his presence known; this sounds like a discussion that Grace and him should make together, especially if it involves resources like food.
He makes his way up the ladder until his torso is all the way through the trap door and clears his throat.
Grace jumps where he’s sitting in his chair, but Rocky doesn’t seem surprised.
Instead the alien seems to make a chirpy greeting sound towards him.
“Simon! I didn’t hear you wake up. What’s up?” Grace asks, smiling and readjusting his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose.
“I heard you talking about a problem,” Simon decides to lead with after a moment of deliberation.
Grace’s smile drops a fraction.
“Don’t worry about it!” he says as he waves his hands, “I’ve got it all taken care of,”
Rocky trills unhappily again, and Grace shoots him a look.
“How dare you,” He hisses out at the space rock in front of him.
“I want to know,” Simon interrupts before Grace can derail the conversation even more with his and Rocky’s banter.
Grace’s smile is fully dropped now, and he sighs yet again. Did that make 3, no 4 times in the past five minutes? It didn’t really matter.
Rocky sings out something and Grace perks up and turns to his computer.
“Right! The translator, sorry Rocky, I’ll get that up and running now,” he says as he clicks away to pull up both programs at once.
“Hello, hello! Can Simon understand Rocky, question?” Comes the robotic voice from the computer speakers.
Simon nods in acknowledgment, then turns back to Grace.
“What problem do we have?” He asks the scientist, much to Grace’s obvious chagrin.
“We don’t have a problem,” Grace denies again.
“Lie, lie, lie!” Rocky exclaims, tapping a limb against the floor of his bubble.
“Rocky!” Grace exclaims.
“No! Simon, Grace no want to tell you, but not enough food for both humans on way to Erid,” Rocky says gravely.
Simon feels a pit sink into his stomach. He guessed something like that was the case. Back on Eden, and even when he was imprisoned in the COI prison, there was always a resource problem.
There was never enough for everyone, and someone always went hungry.
“I…I understand,” Simon says quietly. Why was he expecting anything different from this place? He doesn’t trust either of the other two beings, Simon reminds himself.
He…he can’t get attached to people who would throw him out the moment they learned the truth.
“Don’t worry Simon; you’re going to make it to Erid,” Grace says, determination etched into his face.
“Dumb, dumb, dumb human idea,” Rocky retorts angrily.
“It’s not dumb!” Grace shoots back before turning back to Simon.
“Simon,” he says, “I have enough me-burgers for a little more than a month. You are going to eat them and make sure you maintain your condition,”
“Grace foolish! What will Grace eat, question?” Rocky trills woriedly.
Simon understands the feeling.
“Grace,” Simon says, the unfamiliar name feeling weird on his tongue.
“I will not take food from you,”
“You wouldn’t be!” Grace says, waving his hands around in the air.
“I have about 50 me-burgers left, that’s enough for 2 per day for you, and I’ll have one every week! That’s plenty,” Grace says offhandedly.
Simon automatically feels the imbalance of this agreement.
“No. We can share,” he says immediately. He feels obligated to this man for some reason.
There’s also some guilt in taking up so many resources. Grace was clearly not planning to have to feed a grown man as well as himself on his way back to ‘Erid’.
“Simon, I want to make sure you’re eating properly. Two meals a day still isn’t great for someone recovering from a medical emergency,”
“I understand that having less than that in any way is even worse,” Simon replies, putting his hand on his hip as he argues his point.
Grace does not seem to have a response to this, so Simon continues.
“We can figure out how to divide the…’me-burgers’ equally so we both don’t starve too much,” Simon says, looking at the floor. He’s not sure why, but he wants Grace to approve of this solution.
He’ll settle for the echoed approval from Rocky as the alien says, “Yes, yes, yes! Simon human right! Do math now, now, now!”
“Fine! Fine, I’ll do some math and figure it out. Might be able to reduce the increase in Taumoeba production too…” Grace says, muttering the last part as he picks up a marker and starts to do some calculations on what Simon can now see is a board in front of him.
Simon watches for a bit as Grace crunches numbers, runs his hands through his hair, and readjusts his glasses. Said glasses have a delicate string of metal connecting the two ‘arms’ together, allowing for the glasses to sit around Grace’s neck when he takes them off to ponder something. He can see small green and blue-ish stones embedded in the metal at regular intervals.
Simon is once again struck by the sheer wealth Grace has in his possession. He has prescription lenses and a decoration for them for root’s sake!
However, even with this vast wealth, Simon causes Grace to suffer the curse of need.
He’s always a drain on resources, no matter where he goes.
Not like he had a choice where he ended up, though.
Shaking his head to clear out those thoughts, Simon decides to ask Grace something that has been on his mind for a bit.
Approaching the desk where Grace is standing, Simon asks, “By the way, what’s a ‘me-burger’?”
Grace freezes for a second, then turns towards Simon.
“Oh,” he says, clearly nervous about the topic, “I forgot I hadn’t told you yet, heh,” He rubs the back of his neck awkwardly.
“Well…” he starts, “When I first got to Erid, I couldn't exactly eat the food there, so we had to make some that was safe for me to eat,”
Simon nods. This all makes sense to him so far, so why was Grace so nervous?
“So…it turns out the best solution to creating food for me to eat…was to basically clone my muscle cells, which were the only protein source left from Earth,”
…
Well, there was certainly a wealth of information to unpack there. Simon wasn’t sure where to even start.
He realizes he does have to reply to Grace in some capacity, so he ends up saying, “Oh. That’s…interesting,”
He doesn’t like how Grace’s face scrunches up at that, so he continues.
“It’s…not bad. I just wasn’t expecting to…”
“Commit ethical cannibalism?" Grace finishes, and Simon nods.
“Yes. But…I’m fine with it as long as I can survive,” Simon says as well.
“Oh, I’m so glad. I was honestly kind of worried what to do if you didn’t want to eat them since they’re, well, human meat. I really don’t want you to starve,” Grace laughs and begins to ramble.
“Human no starve! Rocky and Grace and Simon go home to Erid safe, statement,” Rocky pipes up, joining in on the conversation.
“Of course, bud. Grace, Simon, Rocky go home safe,” Grace smiles, patting the alien on the xenonite ball.
They lapse into silence before Simon processes another part of Grace’s confession.
“Wait…did you say Earth?” Simon asks, bewildered.
“Uh…yeah?” Grace replies, raising an eyebrow in question.
“But…didn't Earth vanish during the Quiet Rapture?”
“What?”