Chapter Text
It’s been on Grace’s mind, don’t get him wrong.
It just hasn’t been a… pressing issue.
But now they’ve been dating for almost a year and Grace needs to figure out how to ask Simon what his last name is.
He could look it up in the school directory but that feels wrong, like snooping for info Simon doesn’t want him to know. Everyone he knows refers to Simon exclusively by this first name, the kids, the other teachers, even the principal. It’s somehow more of a secret than what Mona Lisa is smiling at. He did get desperate enough to try to check Simon’s driver’s license but couldn’t find it in his wallet.
And so here he is, eleven and a half months into dating a man whose full name he doesn’t know.
And weirder, eleven and a half months into dating a man who uses Grace as his last name at every given opportunity. (It’s sort of driving him crazy with want every time he hears it.)
Reservations? Simon Grace.
Vet appointments? Simon Grace.
Delivery orders? Simon Grace.
Sometimes Grace wonders if Simon’s been using it for medical appointments too. He itches to ask, what does your dentist call you?
It's nearing six in the morning and he hasn’t slept a bit. He’s been tossing and turning all night over the thought of why Simon won’t tell him his name. Won’t tell anyone his name. He’s a teacher that inexplicably goes by his first name.
“Si?”
“Hm?” He’s a very light sleeper, always on the defense. Grace wonders guiltily if he’s been keeping Simon up.
“I think I’m a bad boyfriend?”
“Why?” Comes the sleepy voice, even deeper than usual with a raspier lilt.
“I don’t know your name.”
“Mmhm.”
“Simon.” He pokes his ribs lightly. “What’s your name?”
“Don’ worry ‘bout it.” He mumbles, wrapping an arm around Grace’s waist. “Not importan’.”
He huffs. “We’ve been dating for nearly a year and I don’t know your legal name. If something happened to you I wouldn’t be able to find you. No hospital will just let me waltz into the room of any Simon.”
“Jus’ tell ‘em Grace. I always do.”
Now he really huffs, sitting up and climbing out of bed. He paces at the door of the bed, the definition of stress. Adrian stirs, head lifting in curiosity.
Simon frowns and sits up, blinking sleep away. “What are you doing?”
“Trying not to be frustrated.”
“At five-forty in the morning?” Simon asks, checking his phone. “What is going on that head of yours?”
“I don’t know, what’s going on in that head of yours?” He looks around the room for something to kick, settling on an inflatable globe he’s pretty sure was supposed to come to work with him for Earth day last week. It bounces around the room, Simon and Adrian both watching as he kicks it over and over, though he knows Adrian is merely hearing where it hits the floor and adjusting afterwards. “You don’t let anybody call you by your last name and now we’ve spent nearly a year of our lives together and I don’t even know your full name.”
Simon continues to watch the globe move around the room. Neither one of them says anything, both waiting for the other. Grace out of stubbornness and Simon out of fear. At this point he wants to grab Simon by the shoulders and shout at him, do you just want to make it official?
Grace leans against the dresser, crossing his arms and legs as he settles his gaze on his boyfriend. “I’m waiting.”
Simon makes a whole show of dramatically flopping back onto the bed with a groan. He slings an arm over his face and counts his breathing.
“Rue.”
“What?”
“My last name.”
He bites his tongue before he can ask, now was that so hard?
“I guess technically it might not be my last name, but it’s the one I went by in Eden. It’s not like I ever saw my birth certificate.”
“You don’t have your birth certificate?”
“I have a birth certificate. One created by Eden. It might not even be my actual birthday, they liked to pick days based more… local to the best harvest.”
He is very interested in what the best harvest is but finds himself too shocked to be able to say anything at all. Stupidly, the first thing he can bring himself to ask is, “do you have a middle name?”
“No.”
“Why… why not change your last name? If you hate it?”
“Because it’s the only thing I have connecting me to my mother.”
He hums, shifting through a thousand different words to find the right ones. “You don’t tell people what it is so they can’t find you.”
“It’d be easier to change it. I should change it. Probably would be safer, but I don’t even know what I’m supposed to change it to.”
A wicked and possessive thing heats his chest. It snarls with a sick urge to claim. “You seem pretty comfortable using Grace.”
His head snaps up, eyes wide in the dark. “What?”
“I know it sounds crazy but-“ He shakes his head. “You’d be safer, right? If you had my- my last name?”
“Ryland, you’re tired, come back to bed.” Simon actually pats the space beside him like he does for the dog.
But he’s actually never felt more awake. He starts pulling clothes from the dresser, moving in a hurry before the doubt creeps in and he second-guesses himself.
“What are you doing?”
“Get up. Get dressed. We’re going to get married.”