Chapter Text
Simon had been living on Erid for about two months now.
It had been difficult at first. It took some time for him to begin trusting the Eridians, even now he was still a bit weary around them, but Simon no longer felt like any of them were going to attack him at any given time. His main support through it all had been Adrian. It was like as soon as Simon woke up, the Eridian had been almost perfectly in tune with him. They sat with Simon for hours on end, usually only leaving for a few hours at a time to see their mate or sleep. Other than that though, Adrian was constantly watching over him.
Most of Simon’s questions had finally been answered after being given his computer, the big one, of course, being how did he get here? The Eridians explained that they had sent probes to Threeworld, another planet in their solar system, and detected a new celestial body in the area. The Blood Moon. They pulled him out of the ocean and nursed him back to health.
So Simon really had survived. When he learned this, Simon wept. Not only from the joy of having a second chance at a better life, but because someone had also gone out of their way for him. To save his life. Adrian had told him about the issue of their star and the astrophage, so for Simon to have been saved when they were already dealing with so much…it was almost flattering. In some ways.
Other times he couldn’t help but feel like a burden. When he woke up screaming from his nightmares, Adrian was there to comfort him, yet he couldn’t help but feel like a child sometimes. Or when his stomach growled loudly and the Eridians would rush to get him food when, on Eden, he could go days without eating. And when his bandages were changed, seeing the piles of used gauze and all the fresh rolls he burned through, it felt like a waste. Simon felt that overall he was a waste of the Eridian’s time and resources, but no matter what he said, they never stopped giving.
One of the things he felt the most bad about was Adrian. They spent so much time here, in the hospital, with Simon, when they have a mate who they could also be spending their time with. Adrian insisted it was alright, that their mate was very understanding, and that Simon’s comfort was one of their top priorities. In the first few weeks of being here, Simon was weary. He was waiting for Adrian to get sick of him and soon be introduced to some other person that would serve as his caretaker, but that never happened. Adrian had been so patient with Simon. They stuck with him no matter what he said or did and got him whatever he needed, including a new arm.
Simon had been trying to get used to operating with only one arm, but it was difficult. He kept trying to grab or touch with it, only for nothing to happen. It was growing to be incredibly frustrating. Eventually, Simon reached the peak of his frustrations about a month in.
His hair had been bothering him all day, and Simon was this close to simply cutting it all off. He was busy decluttering his room from all the gifts he had been given by the Eridians and his hand was full. This was also one of the few times Adrian had stepped out, attempting to either find or replicate a hair tie per Simon’s request.
Simon bent down to pick up a small figure from the ground when his hair fell over his face. Normally it wouldn’t have been a huge deal, but he had other small things in his hand, and this had been happening nearly all day and Simon was fed up. He tried to whip his hair back, but it simply fell back in his face. He growled in frustration and turned his head and tried to blow it away from his face, which was once again unsuccessful.
“Fuckin’ get the hell outta my face!” Simon threw the junk he was holding across the room and tried to bunch up his hair, but with one hand he couldn’t get all of it. Just as he was about to lose his mind even more, Simon heard the airlock open and looked to see Adrian walking in, holding up their hand in triumph.
“Adrian found small elastic band!” Adrian scuttled up to Simon, and as they got closer he could see that they had a black hair tie in the hand they held up. Simon smiled a bit at how excited they sounded, it must have been quite an ordeal to get it since Adrian is usually pretty mellow.
“Thanks, hair’s been drivin’ me crazy all damn day.” Simon said as he took the band from Adrian. Adrian chittered, Simon has learned this means “you’re welcome”. As Simon attempted once more to put his hair up one-handed, Adrian looked around the room.
“Why room so messy question? And why Simon shouting before question?” Adrian tapped their foot twice. Simon paused and squinted, moving his lips and reforming Adrian’s questions in his head. Simon had been learning Eridian and picked up on it pretty quickly, but it still took him some time to translate in his head.
“Well I was trying to clean up, but- God damn it!” Simon shouted. His hair tie had slipped out as he was trying to loop it around for the last time.
“Why Simon having so many problems question?” Simon groaned in frustration.
“I can’t even get my hair outta my face anymore. It’s just…” Simon trailed off.
“Just wrap elastic around hair.”
“I can’t hold it and wrap it or the band falls out.”
“Then just use second hand to- hmmm.” Adrian turned away and sat still for a while, clearly lost in thought. Then, “I have idea.” And they walked out of the room. Simon stood there, a bit dumbfounded. Where the hell were they going?
He eventually picked up the hair tie and maneuvered it onto his wrist, and then just went to lie down, frustrated from nearly everything that had happened that day.
A couple hours passed, it was rare for Adrian to be gone for so long, especially since Simon had no idea what they left to do. However, just as Simon was ruminating on this, he heard the hiss of the airlock.
“Adrian found solution!” Simon sat up from his mattress and saw that the Eridian was once again holding something, but this time it was much larger than a hair tie. Simon stood as Adrian approached.
What were they holding? It almost looked like…an arm?
“Is that…” Simon was stunned. It was. It totally was. Adrian got him a whole new arm.
“Yes, yes! Adrian had mate make Simon new arm with xenonite.” Adrian held out the prosthetic, but all Simon could do was stare at it. “Take! Take! Adrian mate work very hard on it.”
Simon could feel tears welling in his eyes. He didn’t deserve this. How could he? They already saved him, why were they so willing to give him so much? Simon sniffled and let out a shaky exhale, determined to not let any tears fall.
“I can’t take this.” Simon mumbled.
“It is for you. Think of it as gift.”
“All you guys have done is give me gifts,” Simon gestured around the room “I can’t just keep taking from you and giving nothing in return.”
“Why Simon deny solution to problems? Life much easier with multiple limbs, Adrian can even get Simon more limbs.”
“Wha- No. I just… I just can’t.”
“Why not question?”
“Because I don’t deserve any of this!” Simon shouted, exasperated. Adrian paused and lowered the prosthetic. The two sat there in silence, staring. Simon was breathing heavy, willing tears not to fall.
“You oughtta send me back into space. You would if you knew what’s good for you.” Simon’s voice was breaking. He didn’t really mean it, but it was all too much. They had already patched him up, they should have sent him on his way the second he was on his feet. Why…why would they keep someone like him around? He was alive, that was all he had asked for, so why-
He saw something in the bottom of his vision, his laptop. It was open with the translation software already fired up. Simon slowly took the computer from Adrian as they spoke.
*Life is not about deserve, life is for living. Simon cannot live when constantly deciding what is and is not deserved.* The words appeared on the screen and Simon just stared at them.
He read them over and over again, until his vision went blurry with tears. He blinked hard, sending those tears rolling down his cheeks.
*Simon is leaking*
Normally he’d have some snark response, but his throat was aching and words were lost on his tongue.
Adrian was right. He hated that they were right. Life was for living. His life up until now had been surviving. Survival was about assessment, what was or wasn’t needed, who was or wasn’t deserving. Simon didn’t have to survive anymore. He had asked to live, and that was what he got.
______________________________________
“Two months!?” Grace couldn’t help but feel hurt.
“Apology, Rocky was told not to tell Grace.”
“Wha- What for?! Seriously, I’m the only other human here and nobody even wanted to mention it?” Rocky shifted and let out a garbled chitter, not quite words, but an expression of guilt nonetheless. Grace let out a huff and ran his hand over his face, pushing his glasses to hang at his chin.
“Can you at least tell me about them?” Grace asked.
“Other human asked to be kept secret,” Rocky paused, “from Grace specifically.” Grace sputtered a bit in disbelief.
“We’re the only humans around for over a dozen light years and they’re hiding from me?” Grace was growing suspicious. Why would they not want to meet? Unless they knew him somehow? Is it really someone sent by Stratt? In which case, how did they get here?
“Other human is in a delicate state. He was found on new moon near Threeworld. Moon was covered in blood, like oceans on Earth and Erid.” Grace was pulled from his thoughts with this. A new moon? Moons don’t just appear, but for it to be covered in that much blood? What the heck was going on?
“I want to meet him.” Grace was determined, though this was probably against his better judgement. No wonder Rocky asked if he missed other humans, Grace had such complicated feelings towards missing other people. He needed to know though, if it was really as bad as he made it out to be. He knew he was being selfish, but he had been through enough of being kept in the dark.
“Rocky doesn’t think this is good idea.”
“I don’t care.”
“Other Eridians will not like.”
“I. Don’t. Care.”
“Grace-”
“I’m sick of having decisions made for me! I figured you’d be one of the few people to understand that.” Grace was being unfair, he knew this. Rocky said it was the other person’s decision, and pulling the ‘drugged and sent to space’ card on Rocky was a bit low, but he was desperate. He couldn’t lose control of his life again.
Rocky tilted his carapace down and paused in thought.
Then,
“Ok. Rocky will take Grace to see human.”
Grace and Rocky left the alcove and walked to the farthest edge of the beach from Grace’s house, and to the airlock doors. Grace put on his own xenonite suit and the two stepped through the doors. They closed behind them and the room hissed as oxygen was expelled and the room filled with ammonia. The doors in front opened to reveal a long, dimly lit hallway.
Rocky had explained that the new human was being kept in Grace’s old hospital room while they worked on building a more permanent home for him. Grace wasn’t exactly excited to return. He had very nearly died in that room when he had first arrived on Erid. He had been severely malnourished and underweight. The Eridian’s solution for the gravity difference also wasn’t perfect, it was noticeably stronger than earth’s gravity and it was even more of a shock to his body after having experienced so much zero gravity. All that to say, he was bed ridden for weeks before he had any hope of moving around again. It took lots of physical therapy for Grace to be able to walk around normally again and even more gross slurry meals to satisfy his weak stomach. Going back to that room certainly wasn’t his favorite thought, but he had to get through it.
The pair continued walking for a few minutes until they came to a large observation room. There were about six Eridians all at various stations clearly hard at work, doing what? Grace couldn’t say. Rocky approached one and began asking questions, but Grace stopped listening when he spotted the door across the room.
There was another human on the other side of those doors. Grace felt like he was about to throw up, either from fear or excitement. It had been so long, it was hard to believe it.
Distantly, Grace heard the conversation between the Eridians heat up, but Grace was stepping forward before thinking. He approached the door and hit the button to let in the ammonia to the airlock. The door hissed open and Grace stepped inside, then pressing the button to let in the oxygen. The doors closed behind him and he could hear distant chords of alarm, but Grace ignored them.
Once the room was safe, Grace shucked off his xenonite suit, his heart was pounding in his ears. His hand hovered over the button. Was he really ready for this? He held his breath, and then Grace opened the door.
___________________________
It had been a bit of a boring day for Simon. He and Adrian were continuing his Eridian lessons, Simon had been improving greatly and rarely needed to glance at the laptop anymore. Adrian had figured it would be best for Simon to learn Eridian before going out and meeting any other Eridians, or possibly getting a job. The sound of a job very appealing to Simon. He had to admit it was quite boring sitting around all day simply poking around on his laptop or doing basically nothing. He wasn’t sure what kind of job he would even be able to do here, but anything is better than nothing at this point. So he threw himself into his Eridian lessons and had become decently fluent.
He was practicing his sentence comprehension when he heard the outer airlock door hiss open. It was a bit rare for other Eridians to come in, but it wasn’t entirely uncommon either. Adrian, however, paused and turned slightly towards the doors.
“That idiot.” Simon sat there perplexed. It was unlike Adrian to be so openly crude, whoever it was must have messed up big time. Simon chuckled to himself.
The doors took awhile to open, the anticipation was killing him. A part of him had grown to love hearing all the Eridian drama from Adrian, apparently they were pretty far up in the chain and supervised a bunch of morons, though the words they used had been a bit more colorful and didn’t really translate well to English, even with the vast new vocabulary of swear words Simon added to the Erid-English dictionary.
Adrian had just begun to move towards the doors when all of a sudden, they hissed open. However, instead of an Eridian standing there, it was a human.
A human.
What
Simon’s eyes widened as he took in the man. Decently tall, blond hair, a cardigan, ratty jeans, and shoes that looked like they were just waiting to completely apart. The other human. The one he specifically said he didn’t want to talk to. Their eyes met and Simon snapped out of his stupor. He shot up off the edge of the mattress, but he almost felt like his legs wanted to betray him. His brain was screaming at him to run, but there was no other exit, the next best option was for him to stand his ground.
Grace stepped forward just past the doors of the airlock, which immediately closed behind him. The man sitting on the bed had stood up with an angry, but frightful expression. He was slightly shorter than Grace with shoulder-length black hair, he was wearing grey sweats, some slippers, and- was that one of Grace’s shirts?
Just as Grace was about to open his mouth, Adrian spoke “You should not be here Grace.”
“I just wanted to-”
“No.”
“Wha- What do you mean no?”
“You can’t just barge in here.”
“Adrian-”
“Grace.” Adrian’s tone was cold and it seemed like they were about to continue scolding Grace, but the door behind him opened and Rocky walked in.
“Adrian! Grace insisted and made Rocky feel guilty for not telling him about other human.”
“Snitch.” Grace crossed his arms and looked up at the other man. He had yet to say anything and had a very bewildered expression on his face. Grace was tuning out whatever argument Rocky and Adrian were having and examined the other in greater detail. From what Grace could see, his skin was littered in scars, the left side of his neck almost seemed like it had been covered in boils. Though looking further down showed that the man’s left arm was entirely metal. Definitely Eridian made, most likely xenonite. It seemed entirely functional too. His hands were clenched into fists, the metal one perfectly imitating his flesh hand. Though maybe fists aren’t exactly a great sign.
Simon almost couldn’t believe it. He told them he wanted nothing to do with this other human. Apparently he had insisted on meeting him? That was never a good sign. He had never seen Adrian so mad, and he was pretty sure that was his mate he was talking to. This other human, Grace, had guilt tripped his best friend’s mate so he could meet Simon? Well he seems like a dick, not to mention now he’s gawking at Simon like he was something straight from a freakshow. He was so pissed, so then, why was he shaking? He should make him leave right now, forcefully if he really has to, but his legs are about to give out on him.
Why
All of a sudden, Grace is approaching him. He’s walking a bit slow, and the Eridians have finally stopped their bickering. Simon’s breathing picked up, but he was stuck. Why wouldn’t his body obey him? His feet were glued to the floor while his knees wobbled slightly, his fists were clenched and he dug his nails into his skin. All Simon could do was track the other man’s movements.
Grace stopped in front of Simon and took a deep breath. He stuck his right hand out, and with a shaky voice, said “My name is Ryland Grace, it’s nice to meet you.”
Simon just stared. He tried to do something, literally anything other than stand there looking stupid. Eventually his xenonite arm reached out and he grabbed Grace’s fingers, moving their hands up and down. A handshake in the most literal sense of the word. It was incredibly awkward, but finally Simon found his words.
“I’m Simon.”