Work Text:
Ryland Grace was a terrible liar.
He'd always known this about himself. Back on Earth, his students could tell the moment he'd forgotten to grade their papers. On the Hail Mary, Rocky could smell a half-truth from across the cabin. And now, hunched over a pile of astrophage data tablets in the corner of the cave, Grace was lying through his chattering teeth.
He wasn't sick.
He couldn't be sick. That would be ridiculous. He was a survivor. He'd flown to another star system, befriended an alien spider, and saved humanity. A little shivering wasn't going to-
His body convulsed with another shudder, so violent that a tablet slipped from his numb fingers and clattered onto the stone floor.
Damn.
Grace pressed his lips together to stop them from trembling and bent slowly to retrieve it. His joints ached like someone had replaced his marrow with ice water. His head felt stuffed with wet cotton. His eyes burned, and not just from staring at screens.
Don't you dare cry about this, he told himself fiercely. It's just a cold. You've survived worse. You've survived everything worse.
But his throat was already tightening, that stupid familiar prickle behind his nose. He blinked rapidly and focused on the tablet. Data. Numbers. Safe, logical things that didn't make him feel like a fragile mess falling apart at the seams. He just needed to finish this data set. Then he'd rest. Maybe. Four more tablets, he told himself. Just four more.
Simon noticed on the third day. He noticed everything. It was a survival skill from the Iron Lung, the ability to read the smallest change in pressure, temperature, sound. On Eridian, he'd repurposed that skill to read Grace. And Grace was off.
The first day, Simon chalked it up to a bad sleep. Grace had been quiet at breakfast, pushing his nutrient paste around instead of eating it with his usual scientific gusto. His eyes looked red-rimmed, but Simon didn't ask. Fine. Everyone had off days.
The second day, Grace skipped breakfast entirely. He was already at his workbench when Simon woke up, hunched over like an old man, wrapped in that ridiculous thermal blanket. His voice, when he said "morning," was rough and flat, and he wouldn't meet Simon's eyes. Simon gave him a long look but said nothing. He'll come to me if he needs something, Simon thought. That's what he always says to me. But Grace didn't come.
The third day, Simon found Grace's thermal blanket abandoned near the cave entrance. This was wrong. The blanket was Grace's security object. He slept with it. He carried it around like a weird, metallic Linus blanket. He would never leave it lying on the floor. Simon picked it up. The fabric was still warm. He lifted it to his face without thinking... old habit from the Lung, checking for scent, for danger. It smelled like sweat. And tears. And something else, something acrid and sick. Simon's jaw tightened. His chest did something uncomfortable.
He found Grace exactly where he'd been for three days, at the workbench. But now he wasn't pretending to work. He was just sitting there, tablet dark in front of him, arms wrapped around his own torso. He was shaking. A full-body tremor that made the tools on the bench rattle. He looked like a wet cat. A miserable, pathetic, stubborn wet cat who would rather drown than ask for a towel.
"Grace."
No response.
Simon walked closer, his footsteps deliberately heavy on the stone so he wouldn't startle him. "Ryland."
Grace's head lifted. His eyes were glassy, unfocused, and red. He'd been crying. Recently. His face was pale except for two bright spots of fever-red on his cheeks. And his lips were blue. "Hey, Simon," Grace said, and his voice cracked on the second word. He tried to smile. It came out wobbly and wrong. "What's up?"
"You're sick."
"I'm fine. Just a little-" Another violent shudder cut him off. He grabbed the edge of the bench to steady himself, and his eyes welled up before he squeezed them shut and turned his face away.
Simon stared at him. This man had flown a spaceship through an alien star system. This man had calculated orbital trajectories while dying of astrophage poisoning. This man was the smartest, most stubborn idiot Simon had ever met. And right now, he looked like he was about to cry because someone asked if he was okay.
"When did you last sleep?" Simon asked, keeping his voice low and even. The same tone Grace used with him during the nightmares. The I've got you tone.
Grace blinked slowly. "Define sleep."
"Unconsciousness. For more than an hour."
The pause was telling.
"That's what I thought." Simon walked around the bench and stood in front of Grace, blocking his view of the tablets. "You're done."
"I just need to finish-"
"You're done," Simon repeated. There was no room for argument in his voice. It was the voice he'd used in the Lung, the one that meant do this or die.
Grace opened his mouth. Closed it. Another shiver ran through him, and his teeth clicked together audibly. His lower lip trembled and then his eyes overflowed. "Sorry," Grace whispered, swiping at his face with a shaky hand. "Sorry, I don't know why I'm- it's just a cold, I'm being stupid-"
"You're not being stupid."
"I'm crying, Simon. Over nothing."
Simon sighed. Then he did something that still surprised himself, even after months on this planet, he reached out and pressed the back of his hand to Grace's forehead. The skin was burning hot. Fever-hot. "You're freezing," Simon said flatly, "and you're on fire. That's not nothing. That's bad."
"I know how fevers work," Grace mumbled, but fresh tears were sliding down his cheeks, and he wasn't even trying to hide them anymore. He just looked exhausted. Defeated. So, so tired of being strong.
Simon didn't wait for permission. He grabbed Grace's arm gentler than he used to be, and pulled him up from the stool. Grace swayed, and Simon caught him with an arm around his waist, pulling him close against his side. "I've got you," Simon said quietly. His turn to say it. His turn to be the solid one. Grace made a small, broken sound half laugh, half sob and his hand clutched at Simon's shirt. "Come on," Simon murmured. "You're going to sleep. For real this time."
" 'M not tired," Grace lied, even as his head lolled toward Simon's shoulder.
Simon didn't dignify that with a response. He half-walked, half-carried Grace across the cave to the house and to his room, a pile of thermal blankets and salvaged cushions arranged. Rocky had built a small forge-heater nearby, and the air was warm and dry. Simon lowered Grace onto the blankets. Grace immediately curled into a tight ball, arms wrapped around his knees, still shaking. Still crying, silent now, tears soaking into the fabric of his sleeve.
"Cold," Grace whispered. "And I don't- I don't know why I can't stop-"
"Hey." Simon knelt beside him and placed a firm hand on his shoulder. "Look at me." Grace looked. His eyes were huge and wet and miserable. "You're sick," Simon said, slow and deliberate. "You're exhausted. And you haven't let anyone take care of you in three days. You're allowed to fall apart. I've got you."
Grace's breath hitched. "Simon-"
"I've got you," Simon repeated. And then, softer: "You always take care of me. Let me do this."
That was what broke him. Grace's face crumpled. Not the quiet, suppressed tears from before, this was a full, ugly cry, the kind he'd been holding back for days, maybe weeks. His shoulders shook. His breath came in wet, ragged gasps. He pressed both hands over his face like he was ashamed, and Simon felt something crack open in his own chest.
Simon sat down on the blankets. Then he lay down, right beside Grace, and pulled him in. "Come here," he said, wrapping an arm around Grace's waist and drawing him backward, so that Grace's back was pressed against Simon's chest. He tucked Grace's head under his chin, one hand coming up to rest on the back of Grace's neck, thumb brushing gently through his hair.
"You're warm," Grace said, his voice muffled and watery.
"Eridian metabolism," Simon said shortly. "We run hot. It's for the cold nights." It wasn't entirely true, but Grace was too feverish to argue.
Simon pulled the thermal blanket over both of them and tucked it around Grace's shoulders, making sure there were no gaps. Then he just… held him. The shivering didn't stop immediately. Neither did the crying. Grace's body was a mess of tremors and sobs, and Simon held on through all of it, his hand moving in slow, steady strokes up and down Grace's back.
"That's it," Simon murmured, his voice low and rough. "Just let it out. I'm not going anywhere."
Grace clutched at his arm, the one wrapped around his waist and held on like Simon was the only solid thing in the universe. "I'm sorry," Grace choked out. "I'm sorry, I know I'm getting your shirt all-"
"Don't care about the shirt."
"But I-"
"Ryland." Simon's hand moved from his back to his hair, fingers threading gently through the sweat-damp strands. "Stop talking. You're sick. I'm not going to judge you for being human."
Grace made another one of those broken sounds, but this time it was different. This time it sounded like relief. Slowly, minute by minute, the sobs quieted. The shivering eased. Grace's body relaxed, muscle by muscle, as Simon's warmth seeped into him. His death-grip on Simon's arm loosened into something gentler. "Simon," Grace whispered.
"What."
"This is…" His voice cracked. "I didn't realize how much I needed this. To be held. By a person. Rocky's hugs are great, but he's- he's not-"
"Human," Simon finished. "I know."
"After the coma," Grace said, and his voice was so small, so quiet, "when I woke up on the Hail Mary, I was alone. For eleven years, I was alone. And all I wanted was for someone to hold me and tell me it was going to be okay. But there was no one. Just the ship. Just me."
Simon's arm tightened around him.
"And then Rocky was the first one who held me," Grace continued, tears still leaking from the corners of his eyes, "and it was wonderful, it was so wonderful, but it wasn't… it wasn't this. It wasn't another human being." He turned his face into Simon's chest, hiding. "I've been so alone, Simon. For so long. And I didn't even realize how much it was still hurting until-"
He couldn't finish. The tears took over again.
Simon pressed his lips to the top of Grace's head. It was a small gesture, almost unconscious. But it made Grace gasp softly and hold on even tighter. "You're not alone anymore," Simon said quietly. "You've got Rocky. You've got me. And I'm not going anywhere."
Grace cried for a little while longer. And Simon held him through all of it, rubbing his back, murmuring low reassurances, being the anchor that Grace had always been for him.
His turn, Simon thought. After everything he's done for me, holding me through the nightmares, talking me down from the panic attacks, never once making me feel like a burden—it's my turn to be the strong one.
Eventually, the tears stopped. Grace's breathing evened out, deepening into the slow rhythm of approaching sleep. But just before he crossed over, he whispered one more thing. "Simon?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you. For being my person."
Simon's throat tightened. He blinked once, twice, and refused to acknowledge the wetness in his own eyes. "Go to sleep, you idiot," he said, but his voice was gentle. Grace smiled, small and sleepy and soft and closed his eyes.
When Rocky finally clattered into the room hours later to check up on Grace, he found them exactly like that. Grace curled against Simon's chest, Simon's chin resting on top of Grace's head, one of Simon's hands still buried in Grace's hair. Both of them dead to the world.
Rocky's eyestalks swiveled. It had been worried about Grace, the human had been acting wrong for days, sharp and sad and cold. But now… Now Grace smelled warm. Safe. Held.
"Good, statement," Rocky hummed softly to itself. "Simon is good. Grace is good. This is good." It turned off the overhead lights, dimmed the forge-heater to a gentle glow, and tiptoed away on seven careful legs. But not before draping one more blanket over both of them. Just in case.
Three hours later:
Grace woke up slowly, drifting upward from the heaviest sleep he'd had in weeks. He was warm. Really, genuinely warm, for the first time in days. And something was pressed against his back, solid and steady.
He blinked.
Simon's arm, still wrapped around his waist. His chest, still pressed against his back. Heartbeat, slow and even, thumping against Grace's shoulder blade.
Oh, Grace thought. Oh.
He remembered now. His eyes welled up again but this time it wasn't from sickness or loneliness. It was from something else. Something warm that filled his chest and made it hard to breathe in the best way. He turned carefully, slowly, until he was facing Simon. Simon's eyes were closed, his face relaxed in a way it never was when he was awake. He looked younger like this. Less haunted.
He stayed, Grace thought. He held me all night. He didn't let go.
Grace reached up with a trembling hand and brushed a strand of hair off Simon's forehead. Simon's eyes opened immediately, always alert and focused on Grace's face. "How are you feeling?" Simon asked, his voice rough with sleep.
Grace's lower lip trembled. "Better."
"You're crying again."
"I know." Grace sniffled and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. "I just... you held me. All night. You didn't have to."
"I wanted to."
"But-"
"Ryland." Simon's hand came up to cup the back of Grace's neck, firm and warm. "You take care of everyone. You take care of Rocky. You took care of me when I couldn't even look at myself in a mirror. You're allowed to be taken care of too. Got it?" Grace's eyes overflowed again. He nodded, not trusting his voice.
Simon's thumb brushed across his cheekbone, wiping away the tears. "Good. Now go back to sleep. Doctor's orders."
"You're not a doctor."
"I'm the closest thing you've got on this planet." Simon pulled him closer, tucking Grace's head under his chin again. "Sleep." Grace didn't argue. He closed his eyes, pressed his face into the warmth of Simon's chest, and let himself be held. He didn't wake up again for another nine hours. And when he did, Simon was still there.