Chapter Text
Grace never had many friends. He’d only had one real romantic relationship and that clearly hadn’t worked out. Even when he was on Earth, working on the Astrophage problem, people had kept their distance, either due to his status or because they found him odd.
All of this to say: he wasn’t used to touch.
He was starved for it. Sometimes it got so bad his skin felt itchy and he wanted to rip it off of him. But he managed still.
Rocky helped as best he could. He was warm, even through his xenonite suit, and it scratched his itch for a while but it wasn’t the real thing.
He would never have it again so he never complained and tried his best to not let it get to him.
That was until Simon showed up.
Simon had washed up on his artificial beach on a nice cool night cycle, and Ryland had dragged the bloody and beaten man to Armando.
The touch had rekindled his craving for human contact. But it had also brought something else with it.
Fear.
The first thing Grace noticed was the scars and mutations that littered the man’s stout and built body, even through all the blood.
The left side of his body seemed to have taken the brunt of…whatever, happened to the man. His skin was red and angry, stretched painfully around his body. His left arm was completely ripped off, all the way to his shoulder, shreds of skin dangling from the wound. He had a few open wounds on his face, one on his left eyebrow and on his lips. A dark red gash stretched from just above his right eye, across his nose, and tapered off his left cheek. Speaking of his cheek- there were teeth - sharp, thin and long. Not human.
Grace scanned his body, taking mental notes, growing increasingly worried and on edge.
What happened to him? And should Grace be afraid?
After about a week of monitoring the man had woken up, scared and wild, screaming and lashing out. It took a while to calm him, but eventually he had settled enough to listen to Grace.
Ryland told him everything he knew, from the Astrophage, to Erid. His ramblings earned him a few disbelieving shouts, filled with very creative and very unnecessary curse words. From the few things sprinkled in between the screams and curses, Grace found himself very confused. Nothing the man said made sense, but when he asked for more info he was quickly shot down by even more cursing.
He had a feeling they weren’t gonna get along.
The man was quiet and reserved, only asking for things he absolutely needed and couldn’t get himself.
He would thank Grace for the food and water when he brought it to him but that was the most he could get out of the man.
It took surprisingly very little time for him to adjust to their Eridian neighbors, only being stand-offish for a few weeks. He seemed especially comfortable around Adrian, which Grace was grateful for, having been worried Simon would not handle them well.
When it came to his injuries, the man refused to let Grace, or even Armando, touch him, opting to handle it himself. Despite being down an arm, he seemed to do a decent job.
Grace gave him his space. And weirdly enough he felt… relieved?
He was starving and craving touch, but now that a human stands before him, he finds himself comfortable to keep a distance. He tries not to think about it. It doesn’t work.
After a few months, the man warmed up enough to tell him his name: Simon. He even started helping around the house and talking more. Grace learned a few more things like the SM-13 and the blood moon. He also learned a tiny bit about the COI and Eden, which directs Grace to theorize about quite a few earth shattering possibilities.
It takes a lot of effort, but he doesn’t try to pry for more information, deciding it best to just be happy with his progress.
But then Simon puts a hand on his shoulder, saying “thank you,” and Grace freezes. Fear shoots down his spine and his body reacts on its own, feet jumping back, out of the touch, as his breathing quickens.
Simon stares for a second, studying Grace with a startled expression that quickly melts into an emotionless mask.
Grace just stares back for a second before he realizes what happened.
“Oh my god- I’m so sorry- I don’t know what came over me-” His arms are flailing and he can’t seem to look Simon in the eyes.
“It’s fine.” Simon cuts off his frantic babbling of apologies, Grace wincing at the emotionless response.
Simon just nods and leaves him standing alone in the room, trying his best not to cry.
Grace sat on the edge of his bed, head in his hands, shaking violently as he sobs.
It’s the worst case scenario. After so many years alone, and with the last time he felt human touch being so… cruel, his body has now switched to seeing touch as a threat.
He tries to take a deep breath, but it comes out in a shudder and a pathetic whimper. He knew that it would affect him somehow, but this was cruel. Just thinking of the shoulder touch has him reeling back into those memories of being chased, pinned, and drugged.
He feels cold and hot at the same time, and he clutches to his sides as he curls into himself.
It hurts. But Grace can’t tell how.
He tries his best to hide it. He avoids touching Simon, trying and failing to keep it subtle.
When handing Simon something, he flinches back anytime he feels even the slightest heat from his fingers, muttering how he just had an idea and runs to his office to ‘write it down.’ One time he had been handing Simon a mug of warm tea, accidentally grazing his fingers, causing him to flinch back so hard the mug dropped and shattered on the floor.
He avoided him a lot after that.
When passing him in the hall, he flattens himself against the wall to give Simon as much space.
When sitting on the couch to watch a show or movie, he sits as far away as he can.
He enjoys Simon’s company. He’s nice and incredibly smart, picking up engineering from Rocky very fast, as well as gardening when he found the greenhouse. He had practically begged Ryland to let him tend to the plants, and he was more than happy to turn over the task, having killed quite a few of the plants in his attempts.
He even picked up Eridian fairly quickly. He wasn’t fluent by any means, but he could hold basic conversations and needed the translator less and less.
He didn’t hate the guy, far from it. But he couldn’t help the chill of anxiety and nausea at any form of physical contact. It all brings him back to that day.
The day where his free will was stripped away. The day he was murdered by humans just like him.
They may have been right in their trust in him, but it didn’t take away the pain and betrayal he felt.
And now after years of pushing it down and running from it like he always did, like the coward he was, it came ripping out of him against his will, reopening those old wounds.
It was his problem. It wasn’t Simon’s fault and he wouldn’t dump it on him. The man had been through enough. He didn’t need to worry about Grace’s trauma from a decade ago, that he himself hadn’t handled.
And he would handle it. He could figure it out. He saved the stars for fudge sake! He just needed a little time and then everything would be fine.
Everything has to be fine.