Archive of Our Own

Grace had thought that he was past all adventures and death-threatening situations.

Like getting kidnapped and then unceremoniously thrust into space, drugged out of his mind, without so much as a goodbye and forced to die alone to save the rest of humanity. And let's not even talk about befriending an alien of all things, one made of rock and with a mouth bigger than the Himalaya, but who turned out to be the only thing he needed in his sorry excuse of a life...

Or so he thought.

It was with a bit of hysterics that they crashed into another ship on a random morning. Well, Rocky's ship did, but the Mary was attached to it, using the huge Eridian construct as a propeller and fuel storage whenever the Mary's own tanks were close to being empty. Rocky's ship didn't sustain a lot of damage from the collision, massive as it was, but that had set them off course. And when they saw that what they hit was a fucking spaceship, one that Rocky and Mary recognised as being human-made, Grace had been more than ready to strap his spacesuit on and jump out of the Mary in a literal leap of faith. 

The whole extraction mission had been more than difficult. Rocky had exclaimed that there was a heartbeat inside the smaller ship, weak but alive. That had fueled Grace's frenetic movements and wishes to free the human out of the confines of this metal prison, which turned out to be a submarine (in space?), sealed shut from the outside and drenched in dry blood. Both dread and worry had clashed heavily inside him, but the longing and excitement at the prospect of having another passenger on board, a human at that (no offence, Rocky) had ultimately won over his doubts. 

Discovering that the human, Simon, came from a different universe entirely - not just a galaxy, just straight up parallel worlds - in which there was something called the Quiet Rapture, had been mindboggling.

The state the man had been in had also raised a few questions and alarms. He had a missing arm, bloody clothes, chunks of flesh missing and others infected, and the wounds and pustules all over his skin had made Grace gag and retch on the side. He hadn't meant to, and he had immediately been ashamed of his reaction (thankfully, the man had been unconscious when Armondo had retrieved his body for inspection and medical procedures), but the man had turned out absolutely twisted.

If the Mary hadn't stayed silent, not once screaming about a potential breach or unknown virus invading the whole hull, Grace would probably have hesitated before accepting the ragged body inside. 

Armondo being Armondo, designed to defy even God apparently, managed to heal most of the issues over time. Heavily bandaged, traumatised and stuck in bed for the following weeks, but alive and conscious quickly enough. He had been suffering heavy alcohol poisoning and prolonged radiation exposure, and somehow, all of that... kind of receded as they shot away from the shipwreck of the man's submarine, now probably floating in space until the end of time.

Simon's body had slowly recovered as the weeks passed by, going from extremely fragile and his skin ready to tear away at the slightest move, to him being able to undergo some surgery and remove most excess of dead skin and unsightly protusions that made it difficult for Simon to speak and move (not to mention the… teeth? that had begun to grow on the man’s cheek, and which they had to literally cut and tear off the man’s flesh. Thankfully, all Grace saw was the before and the after of the surgery. Rocky, on the other hand, had the very unfortunate luck of ‘hearing’ every step of the operation, even with music blasting in the lab). 

The stump had been unsalvageable, and it was a blessing that Simon had been able to keep the upper half of his torn arm. His left eye was permanently impaired and stained red as well. But the man had been alive and kicking! Grace could have cried, and then did just so when he heard of what Simon had gone through in his time in the submarine. Simon definitely hid a few things from Grace when he recalled his story, like for example, why he had been a Convict in the first place. Simon had said he had been imprisoned because he had done something bad, but what exactly had never been expanded upon. 

By the look of guilt and the heavy set of his shoulders each time Simon talked about it, there was much more than just 'something bad', but as the man recovered, it had been clear that Simon wasn't about to go on a killing spree.

When Grace had asked, "What do you want to do after you've healed?" (mostly a rhetorical question, since there wasn’t much to do in a spaceship the size of Mary, but one he had needed to ask for his own peace of mind), Simon had answered with glassy eyes that he "just wanted to live..." Grace had crumbled like wet paper, sensing the absolute truth and sincerity in the man’s words. One couldn't fake that much despair and hope in someone's expression, especially when he slurred and struggled to even open his puffed-out eyes, oozing with blood instead of tears, the first time he'd woken up in pain from his impromptu rescue. 

So there they were now.

Two humans and an Eridian, on their way to save said Eridian's planet. 

Simon had strangely been absolutely fine with knowing there was an alien onboard, just kind of blankly staring at Rocky, who had waved excitedly at him behind his xenonite barrier. From what Grace had learnt, there weren't any aliens in Simon's universe. Just him, the stations, the Quiet Rapture, and maybe that huge monster God that bleeped out all stars and planets' existence and now rested in the depths of a blood ocean, but no Mars Attack or Star Wars kind of aliens.

Still, Simon had simply waved back at Rocky, and that had won the Eridian over. Simple as that, apparently.

Well, Simon made it easy to be loved. Aside from his broken appearance, though he had improved in leaps and bounds in the following months after finding him stranded in the middle of nowhere, he could have passed off for any other human being from Grace’s Earth: he was just mostly silent and a constant, comforting presence in the back of the others' mind. He could have some violent reactions and outbursts, but they always deflated right after, hanging his head low and apologising in his gruff, grumpy way. Anyway, it wasn't like Grace himself didn't have a few mental breakdowns on his own. Being stuck in the Mary for several years did that to someone's mind. 

However, Simon always seemed to understand where Grace came from whenever his mood swing severely tilted into the truly bad day territory. While he was absolutely useless when it came to talking, probably too traumatised and socially stumped after prioritising survival of the fittest for so long in a world where resources were rare and fought over by the skin of his teeth, Simon always made sure to stay close to Grace whenever he felt down or his mood dropped. 

He smiled more too. A very awkward and bizarre thing. Not really out of happiness, the lines on his face dug deep into his skin and showed years of wariness and stress, yet he did his best. A little thing here and there. The videos helped. The VR room was a revelation to Simon as well. The food was another thing of its own, bringing bloody tears to his eye. The clothes too, in their own way, as Grace found him one day huffing at one of the t-shirts' bad joke written on it. Which Grace counted as a win! He also smiled bitterly when talking about his past and Eden, reminiscing about his Brothers and the Tree, the Father and his mother. 

Grace always listened and made sure to share his own story, though it definitely looked a lot less exciting or interesting compared to Simon’s. Nobody wanted to hear about him battling with his thesis papers or the kids he was teaching. Even his involvement in the Project Hail Mary was... kind of underwhelming: find the astrophage was a living cell, train a crew, get drugged and then thrown in space when it didn't work. Period.

Still, he provided as many details and descriptions as he could to Simon, who always listened with a sort of focus that bordered on silly seriousness, as if he were about to get a test exam afterwards asking him about the latency of a rocket launcher, with a diagram and formula attached to it. However, his one live eye (the red one was always hidden behind a stand of hair, ashamed about its appearance despite Grace's reassurances. All he ever got was a grimace and a sneer, though mostly against himself, rather than towards Grace’s words), his black eye was shining with interest and a thirst to know of a world that fared better than his.

Or at least, that's what Grace was desperately hoping. He knew the Beetles he had sent were faultless, but it still didn't prevent him from feeling absolutely jittery and stressed once in a while, almost having a nightmare or a panic attack about what if the coordinates were wrong? What if I was wrong? What if I fucked up?! 

During those times, it was Grace who would end up bundled in his cardigan and blanket, shoved on the small couch, with the Mary playing a few of Grace's favourite songs and with a movie in the background. Or he was not so gently pushed towards the VR room with Simon awkwardly asking Mary to put on a soothing simulation, rigid as a board. Either Mary had managed to develop an awareness of her own, or she had a very advanced software, because she never put on the simulated beach or the aquarium bay if Simon was inside the VR room. Instead, she would put the forest or the mountains with birds and a small hamlet in the background, green grass 'tickling' their ankles.

They would stay huddled against each other, squishing Rocky's xenonite barrier between them, for a long time, surrounded by the low hum of the Mary advancing towards their destination.

While the VR room was one of Grace's favourite places to relax, he also liked the lab whenever he felt like his mind was a bit too loud and he needed to focus on a task to forget all of his worries. 

However, they found out very quickly that Simon absolutely loved the VR room and would find himself hiding inside it for a long time, even hours on some days, before coming out. Grace supposed when you were told and retold over and over again that the last tree growing in a dying galaxy was the last thing you would see, and that your body would serve as soil whence you died to try and preserve the last speck of life in the void that was Simon's galaxy, it was perhaps cathartic to be able to see a whole forest inside the VR room. Unable to touch the forest, but seeing it cover his whole vision, it had to be liberating. 

Still, Grace would do his best to gently hush Simon out sometimes, worried about his health. Huffing and mothering the man back to the main room, telling him to do something other than sit in the middle of the VR room and look almost despondent. 

Sometimes, Simon would help Rocky as much as he could, fabricating a construction made of xenonite figures. Other times, he would serve as a human portable storage box, transporting heavy equipment and following Grace around when he needed his stuff moved. Grace himself wasn't scrawny by any means, but wow, Simon had bricks for muscles. While he only had one arm left, as soon as he was able to move without his muscles tearing apart from the receding radiations, he was back to do his workout routine to stay in shape (that particular radiation trick had left them all speechless, but they had theorised that the farthest they went away from Simon's "point of entry" in their galaxy-slash-universe, the less influence the radiation and the impact of the blood ocean lasted on his body).

That had also raised Grace's suspicion about the 'why' Simon had been a convict, but he never mentioned it. His best bet had been that he had been a soldier back in his own universe. The 'bad' he talked about spoke for itself then.

Grace simply looked the other way and guiltily rationalised: not his universe, not his problem. 

Still, today, Grace hadn't seen Simon at all for the whole day. The overhead clock stated it was close to 7 PM, dinner would be ready in an hour and soon after, the lights would dim to give a sense of darkness and night inside the ship. 

He had seen the other man only when he shuffled out of his bed this morning.

Grace himself had been busy with Rocky, who had found a new way to entertain themselves with a scientific discovery in the Mary's database. He had been so absorbed in discussing it with Rocky that he hadn't seen time moving. Before he knew it, he had skipped lunch, swiftly grabbed a snack, and then went back to excitedly experimenting with Rocky's theories until the end of the afternoon.

Now, with a crick in his neck from having been seated at the lab desk for the whole day, he was walking towards the VR room where he suspected Simon to be hauled up in. 

However, he hesitated, his steps faltering before he arrived.

He stopped, just a few meters away from the sealed simulation room, looking at it pensively. Then his eyes strayed towards the round-shaped window where the galaxy could be seen. If Simon wasn't in the VR room, then he most likely would be found sitting cross-legged on the floor, looking up at the stars with that same blank and glassy stare he had whenever he saw the simulated forest. It seemed that he had a hard time coming to terms with the fact that here, the stars were still dying instead of being straight up dead, swallowed by the eldritch eye of a nameless god. 

The vision of Simon's slouched form, looking up at the stars with an expression of pure, childlike awe, and whispering "This is all yours?" to Grace had been heartbreaking. 

"I don't own anything out there," Grace had softly laughed. 

Simon had shaken his head, "That's not what I mean. It's just. You can almost touch them. It's not that you have or own them but, they look at you as much as you look at them. I..." he grunted, frustrated with his inability to convey what he meant. "All our stars disappeared," he finally said. 

"You told me that," Grace nodded, in an encouraging tone and ever patient, even as Simon remained annoyed at his own lack of words.

"My stars," he insisted, then shook his head. "This is stupid, forget it," he muttered and went to stomp away, but he froze when Grace spoke up again. 

"It’s not stupid. And, they're yours too now, you know?" Grace simply said. He would never truly understand Simon’s words, but the importance of them was not lost on him. "Do you want to go to the database? I'm sure we can find a map or something to tell more about them, if you'd like."

Simon's eyes had widened at Grace's suggestion, and it quickly morphed into a soft, tentative expression, muttering a little 'why not' before letting himself be dragged towards the lab by Grace's excited steps. He himself didn't know much about galaxies and stars, he wasn't an astronaut, but the crash course he had to get on par with the other members of the Project Hail Mary had begun to surface again in the midst of his foggy memories. 

They had ended up hauled in the lab with Rocky giving a long lesson on the stars present in the stellar construction he had created when he and Grace had made first contact. Lecturing and judging both their 'dumb human brains' with a fondness that bordered on snark but that was just so Rocky it always brought a smile out of Grace and a roll of Simon's eye on his best day.

Remembering this and the alleviated expression on Simon's face the next time he had been seen looking up at the stars, Grace turned around and power-walked towards their bedroom with newfound determination. He rummaged through his belongings, inside the small plastic trunk he had placed where he slept, forced to clean up and tidy up his mess inside boxes now that he shared the room with another person. He had almost had an aneurysm when he had forgotten that tiny detail when Simon had first been introduced to the whole Mary, and they had stumbled upon Grace's mess strewn everywhere on the floor. 

When he fished out what he wanted, he looked at it with a sudden spark of doubt, but steeled his resolve. Rocky had tried many times to convince him to give it to Simon early on, but each time, Grace chickened out, feeling absolutely silly and afraid the other man would take it badly.

While everyone on board seemed to get along, it didn't mean there weren't a few hiccups once in a while, tensions arising to an uncomfortable degree. The most memorable time had been when Grace accidentally came unannounced inside a room in which Simon had been hauled inside, back facing the doorway. Scared out of his mind, Simon had suplexed him. Just. He yanked his arm, threw him over and violently against the floor. He wouldn't have been able to describe it any other way because he had been much too disoriented and in pain, his back screaming at him while he tried to regain his breathing, light blinking in and out of his vision while Rocky was screaming beside him. 

He had been rushed to Armondo, and thankfully, aside from the shock of the fall itself, he hadn't suffered anything else. But that specific event had put a freezing wall between Simon and Rocky. Grace himself had sheepishly coughed that he had been sorry and that it hadn't been Simon's fault: he should have known that, given everything that happened, the man would be more than twitchy and should have given away his presence first. However, Rocky had been adamant to put all the blame on Simon, worried beyond belief for Grace. For the following days, Rocky had shadowed Grace as if he had been afraid that his best leaking friend was about to get hurt the second he was out of his direct sight. The message had been heard loud and clear by Simon, who had withdrewn in himself, probably beating himself up and drowning in his own guilt and resentment. The man was prone to shut himself away from everything until it exploded right in everyone else's face. 

It had been Grace's job to constantly prod and nag at them both to try and relieve the atmosphere, pushing the two to make amends while he himself suffered from a migraine at seeing his two best things in the entire universe at odds with each other. 

Thankfully, the matter had been resolved later with a group hug, but man, it had stressed him out, choking in the thick, tense atmosphere weighing in the whole Mary. At some point, he had even thought they were about to crash-land on some random planet from how heavy the air had been. 

So it came as no surprise that he was a bit wary of Simon's reaction to the gift he wanted to give him. 

He fiddled with the object for a long time, pondering whether he should just put it back in the trunk and forget about it or not. But Rocky was right, once again, and had sternly repeated more times than he could remember that: "Give nothing, get nothing." 

So he took a deep breath and retraced his steps, hands tightening around his gift. 

This time, he rapped his knuckles against the door that led to the VR room before entering, and while he didn't hear any response, he knew that Simon had heard him. He slowly opened the door, and there the man was, sitting cross-legged, hair put in a half-bun while brooding, looking down at the herb that swished around him. 

It seemed he had chosen the immense meadows with the vivid colours of spring. The sun was shining brightly overhead, a small breeze was passing through the white flowers, and a few birds were chirping and flying overhead. Some clouds hung above and there was a big tree under which Simon sat.

Grace smiled and went to sit beside Simon, a small distance apart, knowing that the man still wasn't ready for sudden touch but close enough to feel the man's warmth. He was running much hotter than a human being should, perhaps another mutation from his stay inside the blood ocean, "One amongst many others", Simon had bitterly snorted. Grace had shrugged and said, "You're alive, that's the most important thing," throwing Simon's plea back at him. That had been enough to shut the man up. Grace was still very smug about it even months later. 

Simon looked at him from the corner of his eye but didn't move or react much besides scooting to the side to give Grace a bit more space. 

They fell into a comfortable silence.

Simon rarely ever started a conversation and Grace didn't normally mind much, but at the moment, he felt himself shifting nervously, his eyes jumping from one patch of grass to another without really taking anything in. 

“If you could bottle up a star, which one would you choose?” he suddenly blurted out, words almost imploding inside his mouth from how suddenly he spoke out. 

He grimaced as soon as they came out, repeating a series of idiot, idiot, idiot in his mind. He almost had the mind to bash his head against the railing in his embarrassment.

Thankfully for him, Simon was as awkward as him when it came to talking, and the only thing he got for his out-of-turn question was a raised eyebrow, then a deep frown of confusion.

“That’s a stupid question," he simply said after a small moment.

“Indulge me on that one, please," Grace begged, furiously rubbing a knuckle against the side of his nose without looking at the other, glasses askew. 

“I don’t know…" Simon shrugged, "As long as it's a star, I'd get it before it disappeared. I have no preferences. You?" 

"I don't really know either. I just... Well, you said once you missed the stars, right?" 

"Ah, that. Yes, I guess," Simon said awkwardly.

The conversation in question had been when Simon had talked about the blackness of his entire stellar system, devoid of any life. He had said that he had never seen the stars himself before they disappeared, the Quiet Rapture happening before he was even born. But he had also admitted that he had been able to see them in old books back in Eden, "I saw them, and I missed them as if I knew what they were and how they looked like. I was wrong. Whatever I deluded myself in, it can never compare with what they really look like. I did them dirty," he had said while looking at the stars from the window of the Mary. It had sounded subdued and sad. Grace had hated it with his whole being. He hadn't tried to hug Simon, but had still stayed with him for a long time, ignoring the way Simon's breath shuddered once in a while. 

"I asked because..." Grace swallowed, back in the present and still fiddling with the object in his hands, "Look, if you don't like it, tell me right away and I'll just throw it away, and probably it was pretentious of me to assume. You clearly don't truly want to think about the past, and here I am-" he cut himself off and took another big breath when Simon's hand landed heavily on his shoulder, the man looking at him with a serious expression of awkwardness, worry and fondness mixed together. 

"You're doing it again, Grace, breathe. I... won't be mad," the hesitation was clear in his words, but Grace still smiled at him at the reassurance. 

Simon always thought himself in the worst light, but Grace knew that his definition of 'mad' was most likely a result of Simon being hurt and trying to hide it. Probably an aftermath of his stay in the submarine, taking orders, always more dangerous than the previous one, to please Ava and hoping to get away from the blood ocean before he was torn apart from the inside. 

Seeing the man's hesitant yet encouraging press of his hand on Grace’s shoulder despite his reluctance for human contact - mostly in fear of his radiated skin (which Grace still tried to tell him wasn't contagious) but sometimes simply because he wasn't used to it - Grace took another steadying breath and... 

He shoved his gift into Simon's lap, rushing in to say: "You said you missed the stars even when they weren't yours? I... Well, Rocky and I got a solution. I know it's not much, and it's probably dumb and useless, but I wanted to cheer you up and-" Grace cleared his throat, at a loss for words, stopping his rambling while Simon took his arm away to look at the thing dumped on his lap. 

It was a testament of his steadying resolve that he hadn't flinched when Grace all but shoved the object on him. Perhaps a few months back, Grace would have ended up on the floor and crushed-slash-strangled by a rabid man not truly in his right mind and hallucinating bloody ghosts and an all-seeing eye attacking him.

Instead, he slowly took the bundle in. Grace had put it in a plastic bag, not having the material to properly wrap it, but Simon opened it carefully all the same and fished out a round construct. It was similar to the tube Rocky had sent to the Hail Mary back in Tau Ceti, black with ridges, but it was rounder with a flat surface at the bottom and riddled with holes. It wasn't really big, but enough to take his whole palm and fingers.

"What is it?"

"Ah, it's, uh. A starry lamp... It's dumb, I knew it, I'm sorry I shouldn't have-"

"How does it work?" Simon cut Grace off before he deflated on the floor as was wont to do whenever he panicked himself to ebullition. 

It struck Grace at that moment that Simon probably didn't know what a starry lamp was. He had said that electricity and batteries were a rare resource in Eden and were probably used for more useful utilities like flashlights and engines, rather than aesthetic, useless alien-like things like the one Grace just dumped on his lap.

He almost facepalmed in dismay at his oversight. 

"Wait, I can show you," he scrambled to his feet and went to the VR panel. "That's fine if I shut it off for a second?" he stopped and turned towards Simon, to which he received a nonplussed shrug. 

After doing just so, he went back to sit near Simon and made a grabby motion with his hands. It warmed Grace's heart a bit to see Simon hesitate, his fingers instinctively flexing around the small construct for a second before reluctantly handing it over. 

Plunged in the dark and squeezed in the VR room, door closed shut for a bit of privacy (though Rocky definitely could hear and see everything even from the other side of the ship, not that he would admit it), it took a bit of shuffling for him to find the small button at the bottom of the sphere. 

"There's a button," he explained, "Press it and... There," he said at the same time as the lamp switched on. 

Rocky was truly a genius. When Grace had talked about his idea, one that had been borne out of sleep-deprivation after one too many nights spent nitpicking at an experiment way past his usual sleep schedule, Rocky had simply said: "Rocky can do it. Grace tell what he wants," with such confidence that he had been a bit doubtful. But the Eridian had been true to his words. He had managed to incorporate a small lightbulb inside the construct and then sculpted the whole stellar system with a meticulousness that was astounding. 

As soon as the light flickered on, the VR room was bathed in a blueish light. He didn't really know how the Eridian did it but the small dots that represented the whole galaxy they were currently passing by moved with each slow movement of Grace's hand. The bottom stayed firmly against his palm, but the whole round construct shifted as a system of interlocking panels rotated inside. And here, if you could squint hard enough against the illuminated ceiling... 

He put the construction down on the floor very gently as Simon gaped, looking up with stars literally reflected in his eyes and leaning against the railing, almost trembling with overwhelming emotions which Grace hoped were positive. Then he stood up and, fearing he would lose all of his courage, he began to scour the whole galaxy in search of- 

"There, look, that's us!" he finally exclaimed, pointing at a specific small shape that wasn't a dot, but a small rectangular shape, smaller than the size of his pinky nail. 

He went to take the ball back in his hands, but Simon almost twitched and jerked to stop him, though he abruptly stopped himself, hand outstretched, before falling back on his lap.

Understanding immediately reaching him, Grace slowly took the lamp, seeing how Simon's face twisted, his eyes never leaving the small construct in his hands. The other man watched him approach, tensing but not outright jumping out of the way when Grace slowly went to his knees, pressing the outside of his thigh against the other’s, and gently put the lamp back on Simon's lap. Then, as if possessed by the devil, he stretched out a hand and was elated to see Simon not slapping him away when his fingers brushed against the other's hand. Feeling courageous and emboldened by the amount of trust the other was showing, he took Simon's hand and slowly guided it to take the lamp again, this time making sure he was gripping the bottom flat surface and making him twist his wrist. 

The lamp shifted and the interior engraved panels rotated, the stars twinkling above them. But most importantly, the small rectangular dot Grace had pointed out seemed to move. While the stars around them blinked in and out like they were dancing around them, the small rectangular dot was calmly wading through one side of the ceiling to another as Grace guided Simon's hand to move one way and then another. 

"I just thought. You know, you have the stars in the palm of your hand now, uh..." Grace whispered with a hesitant smile, cringing internally at his dumb joke. 

It had sounded so intelligent when he had first thought about it, giddy with excitement, but now he doubted it was even appropriate.

He looked up to try and check Simon's face, almost fearing his answer, but the man seemed hypnotised by the stars around them. A few of them shone on his skin, and he continued to move the construct, a small laughter bubbling out of him. Even if he wasn't smiling, his eyes shone with the amazement of a man fulfilling his grandest dream. 

They stayed like that for a long time. Simon was watching the stars around with a dazed expression, his eyes jumping from one light to another. They truly were surrounded by them, the dots illuminating the walls, the ceiling, and even the floor. He watched everything with an avidity and possessiveness that made Grace break all over once again for the man who was easily amazed by something as simple as a starry lamp. 

Simon stared at the stars for a long time.

Grace looked at Simon, smiling softly for both of them. 

Their hands did not let go of the starry lamp once, their fingers almost intertwined. 

Simon never let go of Grace, and once he looked back at him, his expression was one of pure adoration and sincere gratitude. 

Silently, they looked upwards once more.

No words were needed, aside from the sweet twinkling of the stars in between their palms. 

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