Chapter Text
Grace and Simon arrived on erid about two years ago. Things had been rough, Grace was starving, Simon was getting sick from how stressed he was, and Rocky was so worried about both of them. It's a miracle the eridians work so fast. Now they had their own home in the biodome and were living, relatively, normal lives.
Grace and Simon had settled into the biodome pretty quickly. Grace would teach most days and Simon would take care of the greenhouse, the eridians could have easily made the greenhouse fully automated but Simon had insisted he take care of the plants himself. Then at the end of the day they’d both get to come home and watch a movie or TV show. It was simple, but nice, and grace wouldn’t change a single thing about it. He loved Simon, and he knew that Simon loved him. It was perfect.
Grace was walking to his class, like usual, when something caught his attention, something was on the beach ahead of him. He couldn’t quite make out what it was so he jogged up to it. When grace was closer he began to make out a figure, laying face up on the shore. Grace ran up to the figure to confirm. Yup, that's a human. Grace quickly pulled the person away from the water, laying them against some rocks. Now, grace tries to be calm, cool and collected, key word there is try, for you see he is neither calm cool nor collected. He is in fact freaking the freak-out. Not on the outside, on the outside he’s checking the pulse of this random person who by all accounts should not be here. On the inside he’s thinking, OMG if they're dead what am I gonna do, holly molly I'm so cooked, and other such thoughts. Once he confirms that their not dead grace takes a breath before moving to pick them up then running as fast as he could back to the house.
Simon, in the meantime, had been sitting in the kitchen sipping a cup of coffee, having a slow, peaceful morning. Then he heard scuffling from outside, then the door slamming open as a very panicked grace runs in carrying a very unconscious person.
“Grace? What's going on???” Simon asked, rushing to help Grace in any way he could.
“I don't know, I just found him on the beach” grace quickly explained “help me get him to Armando” grace said as they both carried him to the living room couch. The robot helper quickly getting to work, scanning and running diagnostics,
‘No major injury detected’ the robotic voice rang out after a moment.
“Thank goodness…” Grace sighed, visibly relaxing.
“Umm…so they just washed up here?” Simon asked after a beat
“Yeah, so I'm really not sure. They’d have to get past the ammonia filled biome that is erid….so unless they can breathe both, I don't know…” grace sat down in one of the armchairs as he thought. It made no sense, like none at all! And Grace didn't like that.
“I'm sure there’s a reasonable answer angel. And you can ask all your questions when they wake up, "Simon said, pulling a chair from the kitchen over to the couch.
“I know I'm just worried is all” Grace nodded watching the rise and fall of their chest. “However they ended up here, it isn’t good”
“I'm more worried about this mask,” Simon said, crossing his arms.
“Mask?” Grace looked, and sure enough they had a gray, metal mask covering the lower half of their face. He had missed that in his panic, the mask had two red lines on either side and the mask seemed to be connected to something with wires running on the side of their face. “Holy… yeah I don't like that” grace agreed.
“Should we try to take it off?” Simon asked, reaching for the mask before Grace could respond. A hand snapped to grab Simon's arm just as it hovered over the mask. Grace could see that the person was very awake now and on top of that, freaking out. “Oh shit!” Simon called as he ripped his hand away, almost falling backward off the chair.
Grace stood up quickly “hey sorry bout that…” he stepped toward the couch raising his hands. They quickly sat up, looking around wildly.
“No…” they mumbled as their breath quickened “ no no no no” they brought their knees to their chest as they lowered their heads.
“Hey, hey it's okay, you're safe” Grace took another step closer to the couch. This was apparently the wrong move as their head shot up, looking at grace.
“Get the fuck away from me!” they yelled as they hopped off the couch, swaying a little. Grace took a step back slowly putting his hands down
“Okay, I'm backing up,” Grace said, taking another step back. They kept looking around for something, then they saw the door. “Hey lets just-” Grace didn’t finish his sentence before they bolted toward the door.
“Oh shit” Simon said, jumping up from his chair
“Wait!” Grace put his hand on Simon's shoulder “don't, chasing them is just gonna make it worse” he explained.
“Then what are we supposed to do?” Simon asked, looking back at grace
“We can go look for him in a minute?” Grace sighed “he can't go too far”
“Didn't you have a class today?” Simon deadpanned
“....” grace had completely forgotten about that “fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu-”
Ranboo looked behind him as he ran, expecting to see people chasing him, which is why they were confused to see a lack of people. When they finally slowed down, they got a chance to really look around. Something was definitely wrong, I mean it looked real, but it also felt… fake… manufactured, that's the word! It didn’t really matter to be honest, ranboo knew it wasn't real, somehow. But ranboo was going to have no part of it. They kind of just wandered around for a while, they wouldn’t make the exit easy to find, surely, but it was just beach, rocks, and… well that's about it. That was until ranboo came across a huge wall of glass. On the other side it looked like a room with mostly more rocks. Ranboo couldn’t see much past the rocks, mostly because any light was from a few at the front of the room, past them it was essentially pitch black. They walked the length of the wall for a moment, looking for a hidden door or crack they could squeeze through. At some point ranboo threw the biggest rock they could find at it, but sadly it did nothing, after banging his head against the wall ranboo noticed a sound, it was music? Like little harmonies coming from the other side of the wall.
“Hello!? Is anybody there??” ranboo yelled, banging on the glass as hard as he could “please! I'm in here! You have to help me!” they watched the room closely as the music got louder. They could hear movement from further in the room, further than he could see, for a moment ran was relieved, there were people! And they could help him. After a moment the music was the loudest it had ever been. From the darkness ran saw... rocks? But not like the ones already in the room, they were moving, each had about 5 legs and there were a lot of them. ranboo didn't really have time to count them all, as before he knew it they were all rushing toward the glass wall much faster than he thought a rock creature could. ranboo reeled back, away from the wall as all the little rock creatures pushed past one another to get as close to the wall as they could. ranboo assumed they wanted to eat him or rip him to shreds, whatever they wanted ranboo didn't want to be the one to find out. He ran as fast as he could and ducked behind one of the larger rock formations. He ducked his head and prayed to whatever was listening that they couldn't get through.
“alright!” ranboo heard a voice cut through the musical notes. “I'm very sorry, but I have to cancel class for today” as he said that there was a chorus of low tones, ranboo poked his head above the rocks, it was one of the men from earlier. “Yes I know, but we have to deal with some things” the man put his hands on his hips “ now everybody go home” and all the rocks shuffled out of the room, the man sighed and turned around. ranboo ducked back down as quickly as he could, hearing the sound of gravel get closer to him. “Are you alright?” the man asked. 'Damn it, he saw me' ranboo reluctantly stood up from his hiding place.
”What was that?” ranboo asked, breathes still shaking
“they were my students” he answered “I'm a teacher”
“You teach a bunch of rocks??” ranboo didn't think this could get any weirder, he keeps being proven wrong.
“Yeah?? There not rocks though, there eridians” he said that like it was the most normal thing in the world “I'm sorry they scared you... they can be excitable” he said, sheepishly
“what. The fuck. Is going on” ranboo couldn't be more confused if he tried. He wanted to go home. He didn't know where that was but the point still stands.
“Your on erid, you washed up on the beach over there” he pointed past ranboo “I was hoping you could tell me how you got here?”
“I-i don't remember..” they took a step back
“Oh, it's okay! What do you remember?” he asked slowly sitting on the ground
“Um…” ranboo thought for a moment, he couldn’t remember anything, why couldn’t he remember? He should remember! “I- i don't” their breathes became shallow and quick “i cant” his chest became tight as he sat across from the man, back pushed against the rocks.
“ Hey, it's alright… can you look at me?” ran looked up from the ground “can you try copying my breathing?” he said as he took exaggerated breaths in and out. Ran nodded and tried to mimic the man, they were still shaky at first before eventually evening out, and after a moment ran realized they felt more calm too. “Thank you, I know this can all be a lot.” the man said after a moment of silence “do you wanna head back to the house?” he asked
Ranboo was so tired, and where else was he gonna go? And the man seemed harmless enough. “...yeah, that's fine”
“Sweet!” the man stood up and walked toward ranboo, reaching out his hand. Ranboo reluctantly took it and stood to his feet “ I'm grace by the way” he said already walking with ranboo following behind.
“I'm ranboo…”