Chapter Text
Grace waits until Simon can keep his eyes open for more than ten seconds at a time to lean forward, hand clutched in both of his, and whisper fervently, “That was the grossest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Please never get surgery again.”
“I’ll...try not to...need it,” Simon rasps back, then coughs weakly, and Grace lets go of his hand to get him some water. Simon sips it carefully as Grace steadies the glass. He didn't have to prop Simon up in the bed because it's already at an incline, keeping his head and torso elevated to allow the chest tube to drain properly. Grace can hear the dripping from the other side of the bed. There's a reason he's staying on this side, and it's not just because this side has Simon's hand to hold.
“They get everything?” Simon asks once he's caught his breath. He already sounds better – his inhales don't have the wet whistle they gained just before Adrian dragged him away.
“See for yourself.” Grace leans back and gestures, drawing Simon's gaze to the xenonite container on the floor beyond the foot of his bed. Simon shifts forward a touch and winces, but holds himself where he is as his eyes trace over the thing extending out of the container.
It can't be called a tree – it can barely be called a bush. Grace knows enough about gardening to know that plants need to be exposed to the air and the sun in order for their stalks or branches to grow strong and support their own weight. This thing has been living exclusively inside Simon's chest, and it looks like the cave-creature version of a plant, like an olm versus a salamander – pale, drooping, and frail.
But there's something there. Some of the tendrils are darker, and, having been out of Simon's body for several hours now, some are even firming up, their exteriors hardening to look more like bark. Grace scraped some pre-prepared dirt into the container – Adrian pulled it out of a bag; Grace doesn't want to know where it came from – and he did his best to get the roots down and the branches up. That part was relatively easy, in the end: the roots were white with little root hairs soaked red with Simon's lung-blood, and the branches had tiny pale green leaves and paler white leaves. Grace had assumed those were petals, before, but they're not: they're spaced out like leaves on the spindly branches, and the larger leaves are a slightly darker green. None of them are anything close to the rich emerald Grace is used to seeing in plants – but then again, none of them had been exposed to sunlight until their removal from the cavern of Simon's chest.
Now, Simon squints at it. “Huh,” he says. “I thought it would be bigger.”
“Bigger?” Grace laughs, running a hand through his hair. “What, that's not big enough for you?”
“It felt bigger when it was eating my lung,” Simon shrugs, leaning back with a nearly inaudible groan. Grace tugs a pillow up behind his back and he nods gratefully.
“It didn't eat your lung.”
“Felt like it. What's the damage?”
Grace grimaces. “Not much, in the end. Adrian said your lung tissue was starting to grow back almost as soon as they cut anything away to free the roots. They said you should be back to normal in no time.”
Simon gives him a level look. “They did not say that.”
“Well...not in so many words, no. But that was the takeaway I got.”
Simon hums and tips his head back, closing his eyes. “Where are they, anyway? I would have expected them or one of their team to be here.”
“It’s been a few hours, but Adrian's probably still having a minor freakout over doing surgery on you again,” Grace shrugs. “They'll be fine. Rocky's with them. There are at least two members of the biodome team in here at all times, but I heard them arguing about something in the other room earlier and at least one of them stomped outside, so if you need something, we can ring the bell.” He points to a delicate silvery device on the table next to him, and Simon opens one eye to look at it, then nods and closes both eyes again.
“You gonna stick around?”
“What?” Grace isn't sure how to take that question.
“Now that I'm awake,” Simon clarifies.
“Of course,” Grace tells him, baffled. “Why wouldn't I?”
“Dunno what time it is. You might have class or prep or some shit.” His eyes are still closed, and his hand is loose in Grace's grip. “Plus, I get the idea I kind of freaked you out with the feelings bullshit.”
Grace opens his mouth, then closes it again. He should have seen this coming. Simon is a bulldozer for confrontation. He hates having things hidden between them – some remnant from his past that he refuses to explain to Grace, possibly because he can’t explain it to himself.
And he’s got to admit he relaxes a tiny bit at the confirmation that Simon still has feeling for him. Once they got to talking about it, this didn’t sound like a classic case of the affliction, but a part of Grace was still worried that Simon would wake up a blank shell, hollowed out by the removal of the bloody plant matter in his chest. He’s pathetically glad that isn’t the case, even though it still means Simon feels something for him that he can’t feel in return.
“Your feelings aren't...bullshit,” he forces himself to say, noting when Simon cracks an eye open and gives him a delighted, if tired, smile at the forced swearword. “I just – I just don't understand how you can feel...that...and still be okay with me not feeling it.”
Simon shrugs, eyes closed again. “I know you,” he says. “I know what you're like, and I like you as you are. I don’t expect anything more than what we already have. It's...kinda nice, actually. Takes all the pressure off me to do any of the romantic shit someone else might expect.”
“Oh, well, nice to know I'm easy,” Grace huffs.
Simon coughs out a laugh and winces. “Grace, you're anything but easy. It's fine, though,” he adds, gaze soft as he grins, half his face obscured by the pillow under his cheek. “I'm used to it. I like the work.”
Grace frowns down at their joined hands, not entirely sure how to take that. “When did this even start?”
“Fuck, I don’t know,” Simon sighs. “Does it really matter?”
“Maybe. Maybe it’ll go away.”
“Sure, maybe. Anything can happen. But it hasn’t yet.” Simon’s grip tightens on Grace’s hand. “Hey. So what if I don’t remember the exact moment I fell in love with you? So what if there are too many moments like that to count? You’re the most important person in the universe to me. You have been for months. That’s not gonna change.”
There's a warm, blooming feeling in his chest that he recognizes as relief. Maybe this could be easy. Maybe this kind of thing will work out for him, for once.
“You’re the most important person in the universe to me, too, you know.” Grace keeps his head down. “But...what about the future, huh? What about when you get...pent up, or want something physical?”
Simon hums. “Hasn’t happened yet. But I still got one hand. I can take care of myself.” Grace makes a face and Simon chuckles in response. “Anyway, it's not very likely. Never really got in the habit. First the whole religious cult thing, then prison...close quarters, y'know? Not really the best environment for developing those kinds of needs.”
“People in cults still did shit like that back home,” Grace mutters.
“Well, then maybe I'm more like you in that way than them.” Simon's hand jostles as he shrugs again, and Grace laces their fingers together to keep it from sliding sideways off the bed. This is nice, actually. The contact. He's noticed it at night when they end up touching, and just figured it was the feral animal of his body craving physical touch, the whole reason they agreed to share a bed in the first place. He hasn't really let himself think about it before. But it's nice. This is nice.
Squeezing Simon's hand, Grace glances up to see his eyes drifting shut again. “One more question, if you can stay awake for it.”
“I’m awake,” Simon mumbles, eyes closed.
“When you coughed up the first leaves, on the staircase,” Grace starts, because he’s been wondering. “You looked around like you were looking for me, and seemed relieved when you didn’t see me. It’s one of the reasons I thought this was the affliction – because people normally try to hide it.”
Simon cracks both eyes open with apparent effort. “What? I wasn’t relieved I didn’t see you. I was fucking disappointed. It meant I didn’t know where you were, and that meant I had to deal with some new fucking bullshit mutation all by myself.”
“Oh,” Grace blinks, leaning back. “That...makes sense. That’s why you called Adrian?”
“I called the main line for help,” Simon corrects. “I just got lucky that Adrian was there. But I would have taken anyone.” He shivers a little. “I’ve had enough of being alone.”
Well, if that isn’t a damning statement, Grace doesn’t know what is. “You’re not alone,” he says, squeezing Simon’s hand once more. “Between me and the Eridians, you’ll never be alone again.”
Simon smiles into the pillow, a sliver of color still showing under each eyelid. “The Eridians are nice, but I prefer you,” he says muzzily, and the blooming feeling in Grace’s chest swells into something bubbly and warm. It feels like connection, comfortable and steady.
It feels like home.
When Grace looks up, Simon’s eyes are closed again. “Hey, you should sleep,” he says, reaching up to brush loose hair back from Simon's face where it's tickling his nose, judging by the wrinkle of his brow. “You're still coming out of sedation. You need the rest.”
“I'll remember this, right?” Simon mumbles. “We haven’t...had this conversation before?”
“We haven’t, no.” Grace smiles, glancing at the willowy plant in the container on the floor, already standing a little straighter, the palest leaves a little darker in the fresh air. “I'll remind you if you forget,” he says – but Simon's already asleep again.