Chapter Text
Simon is halfway through a book about Earth’s agricultural revolution when he hears Grace’s door creak open behind him. He takes a careful breath through his battered nose and catches a hint of oversaturated sweetness, like sucrose samples that have gotten wet and been left out too long. He keeps his head down and waits.
Knuckles rap against the wall, tap-tap-tap, and Simon feels one corner of his mouth tug up. He cants his leg to keep the screen balanced on his lap and raises his hand, snapping his fingers three times in reply. He still doesn’t turn around.
It takes Grace a few more moments to gather himself, then his unsteady footsteps make their way across the polished floor. He thuds against the back of the ship-salvage couch and folds over it, his face dropping directly into the juncture of Simon’s neck and shoulder on his right side. Even as out of it as he must be at this point, Grace knows better than to touch the left side of Simon’s neck, where the tattoo and the scar tissue and the torn muscles from his arm being forcibly ripped off still ache.
“How’s it going?” Simon hums, bringing a hand up to scratch his fingers through Grace’s sweat-damp hair.
Grace tenses, then relaxes in a rush, collapsing more over the back of the couch and making a garbled humming noise. His arms loop around Simon’s front, moving slowly enough that Simon could pull away if he wanted to.
He doesn’t want to.
“Need anything? Food, water?”
Grace shakes his head, the unshaven scruff on his cheeks scraping Simon’s neck. Simon tries not to twitch, but it tickles, a little. He can feel the soft line of Grace’s lips against his skin, right above the collar of his shirt. Grace’s arms tighten around his chest, his fingers digging into the fabric over Simon’s ribs.
Simon tilts his head, both to give Grace more access to his throat and to attempt to get a look at his face, but all he can see is a flushed-red ear and rosy cheekbone as Grace nuzzles into his skin. He’s hot, and Simon knows that’s the point – it’s in the name, after all – but it still brings a flash-memory of fear, of watching others succumb to illness and infection without treatment, because manufacturing antibiotics went against Eden’s creed.
Not that they would have been capable of it at any scale with the resources they had, but still. They could have pretended to try. Instead, they gloried in advertising their refusal to do so. Simon didn’t have the words for it before, but he’s read enough now to know that the COI was right to call Eden cultists. They were. Simon was.
“Can you talk?” Simon asks. “Or are you past that?”
In response, Grace licks his neck. Okay then. Definitely past the point of coherent verbal communication.
“Stop that,” Simon says mildly, shrugging his shoulder to jostle Grace, who grunts when Simon’s collarbone thuds into his nose and tightens his grip on Simon’s shirt in mute protest. He’s not wearing his glasses, so when he raises his head to glare at Simon from right next to his face, it’s a very squinty expression that makes something soften in Simon’s chest. He may not be very good at smelling pheromones anymore after breaking his nose twice in the sub and getting all the concussions on top of that, but he still reacts to an omega in heat. Any alpha would.
“What?” he asks, dropping his hand from Grace’s head and raising his eyebrows. “What do you need? You came out here for something.”
Grace straightens up and tugs on Simon’s shirt, easily popping the short sleeve over the stump of Simon’s left arm. Simon grumbles and leans forward, reaching back to grab the fabric between his shoulderblades and help haul the shirt over his head, tousling his own hair in the process.
Grace makes a quiet noise of triumph and Simon twists in his seat, moving the tablet to the side and slinging his elbow over the back of the couch so he can watch Grace ball the shirt up and bury his face in it. Simon sighs. Now he’s just a guy sitting half-naked in his own house while his roommate sniffs his laundry. Grace must have most of their wardrobe in his nest by now – he definitely has everything of Simon’s original clothing that could be salvaged. Simon’s been wearing Grace’s shirts (and stretching them out) for the last day and a half, and he’s lost each one in turn.
“You good?” he asks indulgently. “Anything else?”
Grace peers at him over the bunched fabric and shakes his head, then turns and walks back into his bedroom. Simon eyes him critically as he goes. His bare arms are flushed with fever, and his hair is dark and matted on one side of his head, like he’d been marinating in his own sweat. Hopefully that means he was able to get some sleep. The short-sleeved shirt he’s wearing is the last one he stole off Simon, and he’s got on some kind of colorful skirt that comes down to his knees, probably for the added ventilation. But he’s steadier on his feet when he retreats into his bedroom and closes the door, and Simon is pretty sure he should still have water left. His hands weren’t shaking like he was hungry or dehydrated, at least.
Simon hauls himself to his feet anyway and gets another canister of water, filling it up and leaving it and a wrapped dry ration in the little basket on the floor next to Grace’s door. Then he does a quick visual check of the house – habit, instinct, he’s not going to examine that right now – and heads for the front door.
When he steps outside, he registers just how much the whole house has been permeated with heat-scent. He hadn’t realized until he took a breath of the clear outside air, fresh and with a hint of salt from the waves below. For a few minutes, Simon just breathes, eyes closed and head tipped back. The sky is dim in deference to Grace’s heat-cycle, but the faint light is warm and soothing, a little brighter over the sea than the hills opposite.
Eventually, Simon’s skin prickles in the artificial breeze, and he rubs the stump of his arm and sighs, taking a few steps down to where a xenonite box is tucked off to the side of the walkway. It’s designed for Simon to easily open it with one hand, which he does, flipping half the lid back and surveying his dwindling supply morosely.
Reaching in, he flicks through the fabric and counts, frowning. He’s only got five shirts left. If Grace keeps pilfering the clothes off his back at the same rate that he has been, Simon’s going to be shirtless by tomorrow.
Granted, Grace’s heat should be over by tomorrow, but Simon’s not sure what time.
Movement catches his eye and he straightens sharply, forcing himself to relax once he’s upright. He doesn’t need to defend the house from anything. This is the safest place on the planet. His stupid instincts don’t always get that, though, and he forces his heartbeat to calm as he watches Rocky come trundling up the stairs, facets of his paneled exosuit catching what light there is and glittering like stardust.
“Hello Simon,” he says once he gets close enough, waving.
Simon waves back. “Hey, Rocky.”
“Did you already run out of shirts?”
“Ah,” Simon glances back at the box. “No, but it’s getting close.”
“How is Grace?”
“Fine,” Simon snaps, bristling, then shoves his hand into his tangled hair and sighs. “Sorry, Rocky. You know how it is. He really is fine, though. He’s not talking right now, but he responded to questions and he looks okay.”
“How is his ♪♫♪♬?”
“Sorry, what was that last word?” Simon’s picked up a lot more of the Eridian language than he thought he would, but he still struggles sometimes. When Grace and Rocky really get going, he can barely follow anything.
“Temperature.”
“Oh, his fever? I think it’s okay. He didn’t look too bad.”
“Good.” Rocky settles on the path, folding his legs under himself. “How are you?”
“I’m – I’m fine.” Simon plucks at a knot in his hair and sighs. “I’m just...I'm running out of fucking clothes.”
“You should put a shirt on.”
“He’ll just take it off,” Simon gripes.
“What if you are not wearing a shirt and he wants your clothes?”
Simon glances down at the baggy black sweatpants he’s wearing and blanches, reaching immediately into the box and grabbing the first shirt that he finds. “You’re right, I need to have something. Maybe I can sneak some of them back when he’s not looking...”
“You would steal from his nest?” Rocky asks, his tone disapproving, and Simon sighs again.
“No, of course not. These are all his shirts, anyway – or shirts from the ship, at least.” He’s holding a button-up that’s made for someone with shoulders half the width of his, so not only is it too small, it’ll be tough for Grace to get it off. Simon’s got a red mark on his chest from the day before when he was too slow to relinquish his clothing (because he’d been sleeping at the time), and Grace’s efforts to yank his shirt off had resulted in a fingernail scratching Simon. He’d reacted defensively, giving a rumbling snarl and pinning Grace’s arm to the couch between them, but when Grace had made a shocked noise of pain, he’d backed off immediately. It wasn’t a conscious choice to grab him in the first place – he’d barely been awake.
Jaw clenched, Simon puts the button-up aside and digs through the other four shirts. Only one is a t-shirt – two others are long-sleeved, which is a hassle to tie off one-handed, and the other two are also button-ups, and long-sleeved as well.
“Those are bad?” Rocky asks.
Simon flinches minutely. He hadn’t forgotten Rocky was there, but his instincts don’t detect the Eridian as anything in particular – not a rival, not a threat. In response, Simon’s heat-scent-addled brain sometimes just...sorts Rocky out of his perception, letting the alien fade into the background. Logically, Simon knows Rocky is harmless to himself and Grace, and his instincts seem to have filed that away and placed him in the same tier as the house: part of the habitat, non-threatening, safe.
“They’re, uh, hard to get on and off,” Simon explains, shaking the last remaining t-shirt out and poking his head through, then his arm, before reaching over and angling the stub of his left arm through the arm-hole on that side and then tugging the hem down. “This kind is better.”
“In general, or just for ♪♬♫♪?”
Simon can assume what that word means from context clues. “In general, yeah. How’s the progress on your fabricators?”
Rocky wiggles one claw in a so-so gesture he must have picked up from Grace. “Measurements are hard for humans. You do not have the correct number of limbs. It is very inconvenient.”
“Hey, I’m trying to make it easier,” Simon jokes, gesturing at his left side. Rocky makes a disapproving noise, and Simon grins at him.
“Removing limbs does not make it easier. You have too few limbs to begin with,” Rocky starts, then pauses and angles his carapace upward. Simon turns to look at the house, but nothing appears different.
“What?”
“Grace is up again.”
“What – already?” Simon growls, eyeing the button-up shirt again. “Fuck. If I put this one on really quick –”
“He’s looking for you,” Rocky interrupts, and Simon’s head snaps up. “He is unhappy.”
“Why would he be unhappy?” Simon asks blankly. “He’s got his nest, food and water, all my fucking clothes; you’ve changed the whole damn biodome so it’s not too bright –”
“He is looking for you,” Rocky repeats, rising to his feet – and suddenly Simon’s instincts are perking up and paying attention, because Rocky is moving like a predator: slow, deliberate, measured.
Simon takes a step back. Rocky climbs another step of the staircase after him.
“Are you herding me?” Simon blinks.
“Grace is unhappy,” Rocky says. “And he is looking for you.”
“Yeah? I can just – oh. Oh, I get it.” Simon shakes his head. “It’s not – he doesn’t – we’re not like that, you know?”
“I know,” Rocky replies, pausing his movement and tilting his carapace slightly. “Does he know, right now?”
“I’m not sure what that means,” Simon admits.
“He is looking for you.”
“Yeah, I – I got that.”
“You said you would not steal from his nest.”
“Hey, I stashed these out here right when his heat started,” Simon protests, pointing at the box of shirts. “They were never part of his nest to begin with!”
“I do not speak of the shirts,” Rocky says patiently. “I am speaking about you.”
Simon frowns at that. “Me?”
“Are you not a part of his nest?”
“Well, I didn’t think I was,” Simon says, baffled.
Rocky makes a sound, a clattering buzz that must come from his vents. His own clothing is green, and Simon wonders what Grace would do with some of Rocky’s clothes in his nest. He probably wouldn’t even need Simon around.
“We’re not like that,” Simon says again.
“You are something,” Rocky replies, waving a claw. “And, I repeat, he is looking for you.”
“Okay!” Simon tosses his hand up in the air and spins around, stomping up the last few steps. “Okay, fine, you win, I’m going. I was going anyway,” he adds, turning back to point at Rocky, who looks far too smug for someone without a face.
“Of course you were.”
“I was! I was just getting another shirt.”
“I know.”
Simon glares at him, and he returns the look guilelessly. Simon huffs and turns back to the house, putting his hand on the door. From here, he can hear Grace shuffling around inside.
“Rocky?”
“Yes, Simon?”
“Please ask your fabricators what else they need to make more clothes,” Simon says plaintively, and Rocky chirrups in laughter.
“Good luck, Simon.”
“Thanks,” Simon sighs. “I’m gonna need it.” And he pushes the door open.
Grace is on him immediately, his hands tight on Simon’s shoulders so he can look him over, his brow knitted in concern as he lets out little subvocal whines. Simon feels like a dick – he knew Grace was past the point of verbal communication, which means he’s running more on instinct than anything else right now. Expecting Simon to be there and finding him gone is probably fucking with his head.
“Hey, hey, sorry,” he apologizes, raising his hand to rub his palm in broad strokes up and down Grace’s side as the door closes behind him. Apparently satisfied with his examination, Grace tugs Simon closer and buries his face in Simon’s neck again – still the right side, so he’s in there somewhere, even though he forewent the usual check-in to make sure Simon was open to touch. He can probably be forgiven for that – this time Simon was facing him, after all, and clearly expecting the contact.
“Easy,” Simon soothes, tilting his own head to nudge his nose against the hot skin under Grace’s ear. “You’re okay. I’m sorry I went out. Didn’t realize it would be such an issue.”
Grace inhales deeply against Simon’s throat, then leans back, his eyes a little clearer. He meets Simon’s gaze, at least, which is more than he was doing a moment ago. He’s still flushed with fever and damp with sweat, but scenting Simon seems to have helped. It’s why he does it, and why Simon makes himself available during Grace’s heats. Grace says close contact with an alpha shortens his heats, and as long as it’s just contact, Simon is on board. Neither of them really go in for the more physical aspects of their designations, which is lucky for them both.
“You good?” Simon asks. “You get your alpha-drug hit? Gonna go back to your nest now?”
Grace’s expression shutters and he lets go of Simon and turns away. Simon feels his jaw clench again. He doesn’t need Rocky to tell him this time. It’s obvious that Grace is unhappy with something; Simon’s just not sure what. But by the time he gathers himself to try to sort out the jumble of his thoughts, Grace’s door is closing behind him.
The basket with the water and dry ration is untouched, and Simon finds himself grimacing at it before he returns to the couch, retrieving the tablet and waking it up to find his place in his book again.
Within minutes, even his damaged nose can smell the sour pheromones that permeate the room, oozing out from under and around Grace’s door. Simon’s teeth ache and he has to keep consciously relaxing his grip for fear of cracking the tablet’s screen. He can hear Grace moving in his room, clearly restless and frustrated by something. He needs to sleep, or to nap at least. If he doesn’t, the fever will only get worse.
After a few more minutes of rustling and thumping coming from behind the door, Simon takes a deep breath and gets up. He fills another canister of water and picks up two more rations, depositing them and the tablet in the basket and setting the basket itself on his hip before he leans against the doorjam of Grace’s room.
“Grace?”
Everything goes silent inside.
“You need to get some sleep,” Simon says to the closed door. “Is there – can I help with anything? I’ve got more food and water here, and I...”
He trails off as the door creaks open. Grace is propped against the back of it, one hand clutching the edge of the door above the latch. His fingers are trembling. Simon takes a deep breath and nearly gets bowled over by the cocktail of unhappy omega pheromones projecting from Grace’s very pores.
Yeah, Simon’s fucking this up somehow.
“Grace?” He ducks his head and bares his neck a little, trying to catch Grace’s eye. “What do you need?”
Grace swallows thickly and reaches out, still half behind the door, to tangle his fingers in Simon’s shirt. Simon purses his lips but starts to shift the basket so he can pull his shirt off again when Grace’s grip tightens and he yanks Simon into his room, pushing the door closed in the same motion.
Simon barely has a chance to take in Grace’s nest – a tangle of bedding and mixed clothing arranged haphazardly on top of his bed – before he’s being spun around and shoved directly into it. He stiffens immediately. He’s never been near an omega’s nest, let alone in one during a heat, but he knows any wrong move here could lose him a finger, or an eye, or worse. Nothing fights more viciously than an omega defending what’s theirs.
Eden loved omegas for just that reason. Alphas were fine fighters (though betas were more reliable), but nothing matched an omega for sheer brute violence. Omega soldiers burned bright and died fast, and Eden adored them.
Grace pulls the basket out of Simon’s grip and deposits it on a bare section of mattress, then leans over Simon and puts pressure on his shoulders until he drops onto his back, tense and wary. He’s not sure what to expect, but it isn’t for Grace to arrange him like this, tugging his legs up onto the bed and shuffling him further into the middle of the nest, before climbing up and flopping down half on top of him. Simon holds very still, and Grace heaves a colossal sigh that sounds like it comes all the way from his toes.
Simon swallows and breathes carefully. Grace’s face is mashed into his throat, but he makes no motion to move. Simon brings his arm up and wraps it slowly around Grace’s back. Grace huffs and relaxes more, going boneless on top of Simon.
“Okay,” Simon murmurs to himself. “Sure. Good. Why not?”
Grace grumbles into his throat and Simon stops talking, instead opting to stick to tried-and-true methods of calming him down, like running his palm in soothing sweeps across Grace’s ribs and spine and occasionally reaching up to scratch through his hair.
This seems to be the right thing to do, because Grace’s breathing slows, his scent flattening out, the sour notes dissipating. Simon stares up at the dim ceiling and tries to figure out if something in his life has gone very wrong or very right. Is Rocky still outside, keeping watch? Instinctively, he hopes so. He can’t defend either himself or Grace right now – not that they need it. They’re in the safest place on the planet.
Grace snuffles awake an hour later, supremely unsurprised to find another body in his nest, which was a genuine concern for Simon. If he’d woken up hostile, Simon wouldn’t have had enough mobility to get away. Instead, he’s able to ply Grace with water and a few bites of food, wishing he’d thought to bring some kind of damp cloth to put on his forehead or something. He’s still burning up.
He tries to tell Grace as much. “If you let me up, I can get an ice pack or a cold compress. That would help, right?”
Grace gives him a glare, his mouth turned down at the corners.
“Or we can stay here,” Simon sighs, thudding his head back into the nest, and Grace smirks at him. Wait a minute...
“Oh, you asshole,” Simon says wonderingly. “You’re doing this on fucking purpose.”
Grace gives a huff of laughter at that, and Simon looks him over again. He’s still flushed, but the feverish red spots that have been on his cheekbones for days have gone, and his hair isn’t as dark with sweat anymore. If a mere hour with an alpha in his nest was enough to progress the heat this much, why haven’t they been doing this the whole time?
That’s a question for later, when Grace is fully back to himself again. Now, he reaches over Simon and taps the tablet, tilting his head in a silent query.
“What am I reading?”
Grace nods.
“Uh...it’s about the Fertile Crescent,” Simon starts, but Grace drops his head to Simon’s neck again, his breath puffing hot across Simon’s throat as he laughs weakly. “What?” Simon asks. “What’s so funny?”
Grace shakes his head, hair rustling against Simon’s chest, and reaches up to tap his fingertips to Simon’s mouth, then opens and closes his hand several times in front of Simon’s face.
“You want me to talk about it?”
Grace nods again.
“If I can get my arm back, I could read it to – fuck, ow, okay, shit.” Simon drops his palm back to Grace’s head and Grace’s fingernails release their death grip on his wrist. He tucks his arms into the space between their bodies and Simon goes back to scratching gently at his scalp. Grace closes his eyes and nuzzles into Simon’s shirt. There’s a faint rhythmic buzzing coming from somewhere in the room, rattling Simon’s ribcage when he concentrates on it. It feels weird, but comfortable, so he ignores it and tries to remember the last section of the book he was reading.
“Okay, uh...it was talking about r/K selection of plant species in the area, which was really important for increasing annual seed production. Oh, and the type of pollination was important – and irrigation! Oh, let me fucking tell you about irrigation...”
Grace grins against his chest, his eyes closed, and Simon keeps talking, his hand constantly running through Grace’s hair even as his wrist starts to cramp from the ceaseless motion. He lets himself ramble, his voice low and steady, and waits for Grace’s skin to cool and the heat to break. He smells much better even to Simon’s nose, the sickly-sweet of dissatisfaction and the sour scent of unhappiness both long gone, mellowed into the softer perfume of a pleased omega – and more importantly, a pleased Grace. Simon’s not entirely sure what he did, but he did something right. Probably just following Grace’s lead was enough.
Against all odds, Simon trusts Grace. He’ll follow his lead wherever that takes them, even into the terrifying depths of an omega’s nest. Simon supposes it’s a little less terrifying because it’s Grace’s own nest, and because Grace clearly wants him here. He’s still wary, but he’s starting to settle the longer he maintains all his current limbs. (He’s already down one; he’s got to protect what he has left.) But feeling Grace’s chest buzz against his and hearing his breathing slow into sleep soothes something in Simon that has been coiled up tightly for days, maybe since the start of Grace’s heat, maybe even before that. He takes a measured breath of warm air and exhales, his breath ruffling Grace’s hair, and feels himself begin to relax at last.
The biodome may be the safest place on the planet, but here in Grace’s nest, Simon is in the safest place in the universe.