Chapter Text
Simon
“You could at least act like you aren’t going to enjoy this.”
Grace has the decency to look sheepish as Simon walks into the lab, mostly composed and feeling about as grounded as he can be. There’s a laptop and two different tablets propped up on one of the lab tables already, each with a different diagram of the human jaw on it. Various metal instruments are already laid out on a well-loved towel, but Simon can’t make out what they are. He almost doesn’t want to. Will knowing make this better or worse? His eyes land on an unused roll of bandages lying on the towel as well, and his heart twists in his chest. Waste.
Rocky, though still a being without a face, is rocking from side to side in his ball and clicking his claws in clear and obvious excitement. “Heartbeat! Apology for social discomfort before. Will not ask again, wait for Heartbeat start conversation about new project when ready. Grace explain patience important, Rocky listen. Rocky much excite for new human anatomy lesson!”
“Appreciate it.” Simon raises an eyebrow at Grace. “Anatomy lesson?”
The man continues to have the decency to at least look like he feels bad as he raises his hands in a small surrender. “I did try. I want it on the record that I did try. He’s very persuasive.”
The Eridian bobs and rocks his body in a human-like nod. “Rocky engineer, now also only Eridian human biologist. Leading expert in field. Must learn much so can teach all of Erid about alien biology when return. Portable Earth thinking machine helpful, understand much, but have real model much better. Grace no like show off own orifice, cannot teach and model at same time. Rocky no like either. Disgust. Leaky.” Rocky clatters and shudders as Grace chokes on air, going bright red.
God, these two are weird. Simon rubs his face, absorbing the information. “And this will be better for you, how?” he asks. He’s obviously not going anywhere, and really, Simon doesn’t care much either way. It’s just all so odd.
Just like the sensation of his left side spreading wider than his right, every time he opens his mouth. Discomfort lances through him again, and he fights back a squirm of his own. He wants it gone. He hopes that all of this is worth it.
“Second mouth give Grace easy access to important human oral cavity structures. Grace teach Rocky while investigate structures for Heartbeat. Human anatomy lesson still not pleasant, but very valuable.” Rocky shivers in place again and plants his limbs a bit further apart. “Can do. For science.”
Simon meets Grace’s eyes at last. “For science,” he repeats. And for my own piece of mind. Birds and stones, or whatever. Grace gives him a tentative, flustered smile. “Where do you want me?”
“We have options,” Grace starts, a bit calmer. “If you want to stay upright, you can lean with your back to this table and brace against it. If you want to sit, we have plenty of chairs and stools to choose from. If you want to lay down, I’ll clear a table and you can hop on up. I’ll work around you, don’t worry about me.”
Options. Options are good. Simon rules out laying down immediately– it gives up too much control, and the thought alone sends a chill down his spine. Sitting would be nice, but might still be a bit confined. If he stays on his feet, that may offer him the best chance of keeping a cool head. “I’ll try leaning.”
Grace nods, and gestures for him to come further into the lab. “After you. Get comfortable.”
Most of the tables are filled with various machines, piles of Grace’s notes on half-completed or in-progress experiments, and other clutter– today was obviously supposed to be a cleaning day, before Grace had “cleared his schedule” and turned this into an impromptu anatomy lecture. The lab table with the laptop and tablets must have been cleared especially for this, and Simon takes his place by it. With his back to the tabletop, his hand bracing against the lip he’s now leaning against, he at least feels a little centered as he tightens his grip. “Like this?”
“Works for me. Ready, Rock?”
“Ready. Heartbeat turn head to right side, question? Allow to sense orifice better.” Simon obliges, tilting his head as instructed. With his eyepatch still on, his vision is entirely limited to the far reaches of the lab. He reaches up to take it off, and blinks in the stark, painful glow of the lab lights.
Why does he feel so tense?
Rocky clicks in his direction, narrowing his focus, and Grace must move closer because Simon can hear his footsteps on the metal floor. He focuses on his breathing. In. Out. In. Out. He squints his bad eye, willing it to adjust to the light faster. It burns a little, and shows him nothing yet. In, out. In, out. The metal under his palm is already warm. The lip of the table is pressing into the small of his back. He could move, he wants to move, but he shouldn’t. He agreed to this. He wants to know. In out. In out. In out.
There’s a flicker of movement on Simon’s left side, his vision slowly swimming back into focus in the bright light at last, and he flinches. Hard. Rocky lets out a strange trilled note as the movement stops, and when Simon turns to look forward again Grace is only a few inches away from him, face schooled into neutrality but with a cloudy expression. How has he gotten that close already? He’s practically standing between Simon’s legs, boxing him in, in out in out in out–
“You know,” Grace starts carefully as he takes a step back, “it will be easier to look at the mouth if we can pull your hair back, I think. Right now, it’s kind of in the way. Can I tie it back for you?”
The words take a second to register in his brain, and Simon blinks again. His breathing slows just the slightest bit, and he nods. Grace takes another step back, and Simon’s hand unclenches from where it had gone white-knuckled against the table. He flexes his fingers absently.
Maybe the leaning position was a bad idea after all. At least Grace noticed.
Grace noticed.
The man is beckoning to him again, drawing him away from the table, and Simon comes willingly. “Here, sit for a second. Gonna grab a hair tie." He pulls out a chair and waits for Simon to settle into it before walking over to a box on the far side of the lab.
“Heartbeat okay?” Rocky peeps, rolling closer. “Heartbeat have discomfort again?”
Simon is still blinking, his breathing nearly back to normal after…that. “Good, Rocky,” he manages, and it isn’t a total lie. “I don’t know what that was…bad position, maybe. Didn’t know that before.”
Rocky bumps around him for a second, rolling his ball on strange angles until he’s maneuvered it next to Simon’s chair on the right before he settles and loafs next to him. After a moment, Simon reaches his hand out to press it to the very top of Rocky’s ball and leaves it there. The Eridian trills softly, but doesn’t move.
Two and a half months ago, he’d been a monster to Simon. Funny, he isn’t so bad after all.
Grace doesn’t take long to return to them. “Couldn’t find her hairbrush, but got the tie. I’ll just use my hands to straighten it out, okay?”
Simon knows exactly where the hairbrush is. He used it yesterday morning, it’s probably still in the dormitory right where he left it because he never returned it here, where Grace must have seen it last. He could let him know, Grace could leave to get it, and in a few more minutes they would be ready to start.
He looks at Grace’s hands instead. Hands that had just held his, a little bit ago. “That’s fine.”
“Alright. I’ll be gentle, I promise.”
Simon isn’t sure what he was expecting Grace’s hands in his hair to feel like– maybe like the hairbrush does, a dull clinical scratch? The sharp, warm tingles that spread over his scalp the moment Grace’s fingers find him make every sound in Simon’s head go quiet. His whole body tenses on instinct, then relaxes at the slow, soft drag through his locks, tracing his crown with dull fingers until they catch on a small tangle and have to pull free. Grace moves to the ends of his hair instead, gently pulling and tugging at the strands to help them unravel. Simon’s eyes slip closed of their own volition. Oh.
When was the last time someone had touched him like this? A caretaker on Eden, maybe, once? His own mother, in a half-remembered memory? Simon doesn’t know. All he knows is he never wants Grace to stop. The fingers find his scalp again, tracing down the curve of his skull searching for more knots, and Simon melts as blunted fingernails meet his skin. Oh, god.
Grace works him over slowly, methodically, and–surprisingly–without a single word. Simon couldn’t even hold a conversation if he tried right now, too lost in the sensations flooding his body. Even the occasional tight pull on his hair as Grace’s fingers find a particularly rough tangle feels good. Every nerve ending above his shoulders has lit up like a circuit and sings with every pass Grace takes through his hair. Simon feels golden and light and like nothing at all. It’s heaven.
He doesn’t know how long it takes, for Grace to detangle his soft waves and curls. The first time he manages to run his fingers from Simon’s hairline all the way down through the ends, unimpeded by a single knot, is equally bitter and sweet. Simon’s entire body thrills at the very touch, indulgent and hungry and quiet, so quiet, but a part of him knows that this means that Grace has finished his job. The touches are going to stop. He prepares himself, mourning the loss before it even happens as Grace cards his fingers through the strands once, twice, three times without a knotted interruption.
Four times. Five times. Six. What…what is he doing? Simon is about to rouse himself and ask when Grace’s fingers dig into his scalp ever so slightly and scratch.
His world cuts out entirely. He must let out an incredibly undignified sound, because Grace answers him with a sound of his own at last: a chuckle. “You like that, huh? I’m sure it’s been a while.”
Simon has no words. Simon’s never had any words. All Simon can do is feel, and for once he never wants to stop. And Grace doesn’t.
He lets himself float, just a little longer.
~~~
“That better, Heartbeat?”
Simon’s eyes are unfocused and probably glassy when they finally flutter back open. Grace’s hands are on his shoulders now, light and unmoving. How long has it been? “What the fuck did you do to me?”
That surprises Grace enough that he lets loose a quick bark of laughter, which must spook Rocky because he jolts in his ball– oh, Simon’s hand is still splayed out over it. Had he been like that the whole time? “I’ll take that as a yes,” Grace says, smiling when Simon tilts his head back to look up at him. Finally able to think coherently again, a million thoughts race through Simon’s brain.
Surprisingly, all that comes out of his mouth is “Thank you. You didn’t have to do that.”
Grace’s smile softens, and he pulls his hands away from Simon’s shoulders. He mourns their loss intensely. “I know. I wanted to. You’re welcome. Now let’s get your hair out of the way.”
Simon stiffens up in the chair a little. “You didn’t even pull it back yet?” Sure enough, Simon’s hair is still loose, if now at least smooth and untangled, around his shoulders. “Why?”
At that, Grace gets a little red again. “Ah, well, you know…”
“Grace enjoy touch Heartbeat hair. Simon heartbeat decrease while Grace heartbeat increase. Simon also enjoy, question?”
Grace starts sputtering, flush quickly dominating the rest of his face. “That– He doesn’t– You don’t– Rocky, that’s not–!”
“Yes.” Grace freezes. Simon’s cheeks feel like they’re glowing– they’ve felt like that a lot lately. “That was nice.”
Grace must have liked it, too. That’s why he did it. That’s why he wanted to do it. A small, deep-down part of Simon hopes that maybe, one day, he’ll do it again.
“Good good, all understand. Time move on, Rocky want learn human anatomy. Am very patient. Grace teach now, question?” At least one of them still remembers why they’re here.
“Yes! Yes, Grace teach now.” His voice breaks a little in the middle of his sentence, and he clears his throat. “Well, after I do this braid.”
Braid? Grace is going to braid his hair, not just do a simple tie? Simon opens his mouth to ask why, and then stutters on an inhale as Grace’s hands run through his hair one more time, gathering it close.
Oh. More? He gets more already? Simon shuts up immediately.
Grace starts to section his hair out, and passes Simon the hair tie to hold while he works. He twirls it between his fingers, mind a little bit more his own this time as Grace starts to weave his hair together, high on his head. “Who did this hair tie belong to again?” he finds himself asking, his tongue loose in his mouth. “What was her name?”
Grace had told him their names a few weeks ago, the pilot and the engineer who hadn’t survived their comas on the way to Tau Ceti. He doesn’t talk about them much, the former humans of the Hail Mary, but two-thirds of the things that they wear, that they use nearly every day, belonged to them. Grace had known them.
The man in question stops for a moment. “Olesya,” he finally says, quietly. “Her name was Olesya Ilyukhina. She was…fearless. Hilarious, in a cool, deadpan way. She would have liked you, I think,” Grace says thoughtfully, hands still in Simon’s hair. “She definitely would have loved Rocky, I know that for a fact.” Rocky hums a proud little song at that.
Olesya. Olesya Ilyukhina, who might have liked him had she lived. Simon does his best to let the name settle into his bones, so he won’t forget this time. For not the first time, he wonders if hers is the bed he’s now claimed in the dormitory. Oh, well. It’s not like Simon’s never slept in a dead person’s bed before. He’s long made his peace with that. Everywhere he’s ever gone, he’s been walking on graves.
Grace is continuing to tug gently on his hair, smoothing it, gathering new sections to braid together. Another emboldened question spills out of Simon: “How do you know how to do this?”
He can hear the smile in Grace’s voice when he answers. “I have two answers for you. Which do you want first, the good one or the real one?”
What an odd thing to say. Simon’s instinct is to choose the real one, always. But that might mean that Grace finishes touching him sooner rather than later, so he says “The good one.”
Grace hums. “One of my kids, back on Earth. My first year teaching, I had these two girls who would eat lunch in my classroom every day instead of in the cafeteria. I would grade papers, they would eat and chat and sometimes ask me questions about topics that we didn’t have time to cover during normal classes. When I got roped into sponsoring the school’s Science Club, they would stop by sometimes to talk then, too. On the last day of school that year, one of them insisted that they teach me how to braid hair, as a way of saying thanks for teaching them the way that I did the rest of that year.”
He’s right, that’s a pretty good answer. “And the real one?”
Grace pauses, nearly at the end of the braid. “Hair tie, please.” Simon passes it over. As Grace loops it around the tail, he says “I don’t know why I know how to do this. Maybe it was one of my kids who taught me after all. Maybe it was Ilyukhina or Annie Shapiro, back on the Vat– I know I was close to them, to a degree. Maybe it was a coworker from back when I was teaching, or someone I tried dating in college, or maybe it was someone I haven’t remembered yet. All I know is, that’s not a memory that’s come back. At this point, it might never come back at all. But not even coma-amnesia could take away that muscle memory.” He flicks the finished braid over Simon’s shoulder. “At least you get to reap the benefits.”
Ah. Even Rocky freezes at that, and there’s a beat of perfect stillness between the three of them. Grace seems eager to move on from the topic entirely, because he soldiers ahead and drags them both with him. He clears his throat. “Last chance to back out, Simon. No questions asked, no hard feelings. You sure you’re okay with this? We can always try another day. We’ve got nothing but time up here.”
“Yes. I’m fine. I don’t care.” That’s a fucking lie. Simon does care. Simon cares a lot. But for the thought that there might even be a chance at getting rid of these fucking teeth, Simon can sit through anything.
“Okay. Want to try leaning against the table again?”
Absolutely not. Simon shakes his head. “Right here is fine. Just do it.”
Grace comes around to his left side, and Rocky clicks back to attention on his right. “Oh, now here’s a question. Do you know if you can control your cheek part separately from the rest of your mouth?”
Simon has no idea. He’s never tried before, the most he’s done is trace the damn thing in horror while taping it up. “Dunno.”
“Can you give it a try?” Grace asks, voice already taking on a fascinated edge to it. Absently, he tucks a lock of hair that’s already fallen loose from the braid back into place. Simon shivers.
If Grace keeps doing that, Simon can do anything for him.
He distracts himself from how vulnerable he’s let himself get by honing back in on his cheek. “How the fuck am I supposed to do this?”
“Wish I could tell you, man. You’re on your own there. Just…feel it.”
Spectacularly unhelpful advice, really. Simon tries anyway. He focuses on his left side, on the split in his face. He imagines moving it as he clenches what remains of his normal jaw.
The teeth twitch, and not much more– Simon can feel the small spasm. Grace sucks in a breath. “Amazing.”
Simon’s heart sinks in his chest. “That’s bad, right? If you’re getting excited, that’s gotta be bad.”
“No, no, that could be a good thing. If it can’t move on its own more than that, it could be a point for team mostly-cosmetic. Musculature development and full independent movement would make me think that its roots in you could be more serious,” Grace rattles off, briefly stepping away to grab a chair of his own to sit down, flush against Simon’s side. He starts to pull on a pair of gloves. “This is a good sign, Simon. You’re doing good. Try one more time, now that you know the way to do it?”
Its roots. Like it isn’t a part of him. Like it’s not him at all. Simon doesn’t know if Grace’s words were intentional, but his heart stops sinking regardless. He tries again. Nothing more than a twitch.
“Alright, we can move on. Open your mouth wide for me to flare the teeth. Rocky, you still got a good angle or do you want to come around?”
Rocky hums a negation as Simon obliges, the Eridian giving a slight, barely there shudder. Simon only knows that because he feels it roll through his ball under his hand, still resting on top of it. “This okay. Angle good. Grace teach.”
Simon bites back a hiss when Grace’s hands finally touch his skin and his jaws–both of them–snap closed. Even after all that time spent buried in his hair earlier, even through the neoprene of the gloves, Grace’s fingers are like icicles.
The man jolts back like he’s been burned. “Sorry! Did that hurt?”
“Your hands are cold. They always are. Just startled me.”
“Oh. Well, uh, you’re always freakishly warm.” His eyes widen as his brain catches up with his mouth. “Not that it's a bad thing! Being warm doesn’t make you a freak!”
“This example of Grace put foot in mouth, question?” Rocky asks. “Use colloquial human phrase correct again, question?”
Grace groans and takes his glasses off, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Rocky, please.”
“Just ignore him. Keep going.” It was a great joke. Simon taps Rocky’s ball beneath him with one finger, twice. Rocky peeps in delight and reaches up to tap twice back. The little guy is growing on him, that’s for sure.
Composure reestablished and glasses back on his face, Grace leans back in. “Right. Okay. Uh, try not to do that again if you can help it. I don’t want to get bitten. Open up.”
Simon does. For science. For his own peace of mind.
~~~
Simon makes a disgruntled sound at the poke to his gums, flashing Grace a look through his ghost eye. It’s still a little blurry and unfocused and very sensitive, starting to water in the bright lights, but the glare does its job. Grace pauses his excited tirade to Rocky for the third time.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’ll tone it down. It’s just…gosh, Simon, you have no idea how cool this is for me.”
Simon has a lot of an idea, actually. Grace hasn’t stopped gushing since they’ve started this in earnest. Apparently, the biology behind the thing tearing his face open is revolutionary.
He has two parallel rows of teeth on the left side– his normal human molars inside his jaw where they should be, that Grace has been taking detours to talk about as he teaches Rocky all about teeth and saliva and digestion, and a second external layer of needle-like fangs beyond them. Grace has deduced that they aren’t connected to the jaw itself, which is allegedly a “huge win,” but that they might be affecting his bisected Masseter muscle, whatever that is. Grace has also determined that, like a normal tooth, they’re full of nerve endings that have been repurposed from somewhere, which might mean that removal could affect sensation to the entire left side of his face if done improperly. A big risk. Not a "huge win."
Simon has a headache. And a toothache, from where Grace has just jabbed him again with his fucking metal tools. He grunts again, fixing Grace with another glare. Thankfully, he gets the message and finally backs off.
“Okay, jaw break. How are you feeling?”
Simon clicks his mouth shut, feeling all of his teeth lace together as he does. It’s an awful sensation. “Like I’ve just been poked in the gums with a piece of metal for half an hour.”
Grace winces. “Noted. Um, good news, I should be able to give you a break there for a bit. There’s something else I want to look at. Not exactly teeth-related, but I think it fits into the broader narrative of what’s going on here.”
“And what’s that?”
“These veins on your body.” Grace ever-so-gently traces one of the raised dark lines on his skin, from the corner of his left eye to the split in his cheek. Simon goes completely still. He doesn’t even breathe. “One’s on the inside of your mouth here, too, I saw it while I was talking to Rocky about your molars. I think the mouth, your eye, and the veins might all be connected on more than just one level.”
Simon squirms. If touching them himself feels strange, the feeling of Grace running a finger over a vein makes him want to seize up entirely. “Can this be the last thing for today?” he asks, and curses the slight tremble in his voice.
If Grace notices, he doesn’t say anything. “We could stop right now, come back another time. I’ve learned a lot. This was all super helpful, right Rock?”
Rocky trills and shifts his weight from side to side in his ball. “Yes yes, thank thank thank. Rocky learn much from Heartbeat. Need long long break, question?”
Simon desperately wants to be done, but the thought of needing to do all of this again is worse than sucking it up and holding out a little bit longer. “No, keep going. I don’t want to have to do this again later.”
“You’re sure?”
“Grace, please.”
Thankfully, that gets him a nod. “Okay, we’ll keep going. Last thing. Hold still.” His fingers find Simon’s face again, pushing it to tilt further to the right, and presses lightly on the closest vein. Simon jumps and shies away. Holy fuck, he doesn’t even have a word for what that feels like.
Grace pulls back again, frowning. “Still cold?”
Simon shakes his head, tense and tight. “Just a lot. Feels weird. They’re sensitive.” He swallows. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to stop myself from moving while you do that.”
There’s silence for a moment, and then Grace stands. “Can I try something, then? To keep you still? It’s gonna be a little weird, but it’s all I can think of right now.”
Simon nods. At this point, he’ll let Grace try anything once.
He’s not expecting it, when Grace walks to his front and straddles his legs, lowering himself into Simon’s lap. His brain entirely stops working, and he goes tense and stiff. “Is this okay?” Grace asks, shifting a little on Simon’s thighs to get comfortable.
Simon is frozen in place. He couldn’t move even if he wanted to. “How the fuck is this going to help?” What the fuck are they doing?
Grace is so close. He’s so close.
“It’s a better angle, for one. For the thing inside your mouth, the vein.” Grace is being way too nonchalant about this. “The faster I can see what I need to, the faster we’re done. And if you’re worried about moving around, I can keep you still like this.” Doubt finally starts to creep into his expression, and he shifts in Simon’s lap again as if he’s only now realized what he’s done. “If…if you’re still okay with it. If it’s too much, just tell me.”
Oh, this is absolutely too much. Simon never wants him to stop. “It’s fine. Stay. Do what you need to do. For science, right?”
Grace relaxes just the slightest bit, and one hand comes up to rest on Simon’s shoulder. The other reaches for a pen light from the table next to them. “Right. For science. Open up again, and please try not to bite me.”
Simon’s jaw splits for Grace easily. In response, Grace clicks the light on and puts it in his own mouth, biting down to keep it stable. Oh, shit. Simon has to close his eyes.
Rocky squeaks and shudders, clamoring in revulsion. “Oh, Grace disgust! Grace horrible, warn Rocky next time.” He stamps three limbs against the ground in indignation to really drive his point home. Grace just laughs around the obstruction in his mouth, and then Simon feels his gloved fingers press against the soft inside lining of his cheek. He shudders too, but not in revulsion. His shudder is too complicated to have a name.
Grace is so close. Simon is inches away from his skin, he can smell his sweat and the shampoo from his last shower and that unique, ever-present human undertone that reminds him of Grace’s quilt, Grace’s bed, Grace’s clothes, just Grace. He’s everywhere. He’s all around him.
He’s on top of him. He’s touching him.
Grace’s fingers must find their target, tucking in against the hidden twisted vein that apparently lives inside of his mouth, because Simon spasms under him as his nerves are suddenly lit up in a confusing barrage of sensation. It’s not pain, but it’s not not pain. He smothers a whimper in his throat and his back comes off of his chair. Grace doesn’t even budge in his lap, the solid grounding pressure on his thighs keeping Simon as steady as he can be under the onslaught washing over him. It's so much.
“Bingo,” is all Grace says, muffled around the pen, and he quickly retracts his hand before spitting the light out. “I was right, the vein-thing wraps around to the inside. This one seems relatively self-contained on a surface level at least, but that’s all I can say for certain…” He’s still rambling, but Simon has long stopped paying attention.
All he knows is that Grace is still in his lap, and part of him wants to melt into the floor under this deep, grounding pressure forever.
When there’s finally a lull in the one-sided conversation Grace is still trying to have with him, Simon untangles his tongue enough to ask “The verdict, Dr. Grace? Is there anything we can do about this fucking thing?”
Grace blinks like he’d totally forgotten that’s how they got here in the first place. His cheeks are flushed from excitement again. “It’s not the worst it could have been,” he says. “I’m still no expert, but…yeah, I think there’s a chance. It would be a hard recovery, even if you keep up your track record of accelerated healing. Probably no way to avoid heavy scarring, and nerve damage is a real concern. I’m worried about those veins too, I don’t have any idea what’s going on there and messing around could be risky. But if getting rid of this is something you want, I don’t think it would be impossible.”
Simon’s head falls back, and his breath leaves him in a sharp whoosh. There might be something they can do. It may be an option. There’s a chance.
After a lifetime of losing streaks, Simon might be on the up-and-up after all.
The familiar sound of gauze tearing brings Simon back to reality. Grace, still perched in his lap, has leaned over and grabbed the roll of bandages from the table earlier. His heart, briefly lightened, drops again. “Wait, stop, I said I don’t need it–”
“Shush. Just stay still, close your mouth. I’ve got it.” Grace leans in before Simon can say anything else and checks the measurement of his bandage against the length of the maw. It shifts him the tiniest bit closer in Simon’s lap, and his brain short-circuits again. Not fucking fair.
“You’re not taking anything,” Grace is murmuring under his breath as he starts to smooth the bandages over Simon’s skin, almost like he’s talking to himself. Simon can only hear him because he’s so close that his breath is dusting over Simon’s face, just the slightest bit, on every word. “You’re receiving it. Call it a gift. Will that let you use it, if it’s a gift? Something that’s been freely given?”
Leave it to Grace to be looking for a fucking loophole to try and get through to Simon. He stays quiet, reluctantly, because whether or not the words are intended to be heard, Grace is right. It does make him feel the smallest bit better.
When the gauze is finally affixed to his skin, a piece of Simon feels like it slots back into place. He opens his mouth a little, and his cheek doesn’t move with it. “Better?” Grace asks. His tone is sincere. He’s not trying to prove a point, he’s actually checking. Simon just nods.
Satisfied, Grace finally gets up and Simon instantly feels colder and unmoored without him. “Thanks for indulging me and Rocky, I know that can’t have been easy. You did really well, though. I’ll clean up in here, can you take these back to Armando in the dormitory?”
It’s like nothing even happened. Simon doesn’t know whether to be grateful, or disappointed. He nods again regardless and takes what he’s handed– the towel full of tools, and the bandage roll. Leaving the lab feels like he’s both walking on air and drowning in it.
What does he have to do to get Grace to do that again?