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Simon is dying. It was hard to tell with the amount of weird shit that constantly happened to his body. Things were constantly moving or growing where they shouldn’t, so somewhat painful movement in his lower gut hadn’t been immediately alarming. About thirty minutes ago, his lower abdomen had tightened in the worst full body cramp he had ever felt. It had him seeing spots, doubled over, gripping the counter.
Grace is beside him now, supporting most of his weight. The pain lasts about five minutes before his body finally relaxes. But something had moved. He yanked up his shirt and heard Grace gasp in horror. His stomach had visibly protruded outward, new weight sitting below his belly button.
They stare in disbelief for maybe a minute before another five minute round of searing sensation has Simon incoherent and collapsing to his knees. It feels like everything below his ribs is ripping apart and rearranging itself. By the time this bout of pain was over, the swell had doubled in size. What the actual- no time to even panic. Simon screams as his stomach begins to rip.
He can’t see or hear anything as white hot agony tears through him. Simon had never expelled something like this, never this big. Unless his mutated body had decided he didn’t need his organs anymore. More pain as whatever was forcing its way out further stretched against his lower stomach. All he can think to do is lie down so his intestines don’t come flying out. Grace hoists him up to the couch but doesn't make it as the skin splits, teeth peeling out between the flesh to open like some disgusting fly trap. Simon screams in agony as the pseudo mouth opens. He has to keep his legs apart to accommodate the lower stomach bulge, hunched over the edge of the couch. There's so much blood.
The hideous mouth opens and some pink colored sack starts squeezing its way out, blood dripping out around it. Simon almost blacks out as the thing fully detached and plops onto the ground.
The maw that had formed on his stomach shuts itself after it had essentially just vomited an… unidentified organ onto their living room floor? Simon is gasping for air as the pain subsides but all either of them can do is stare at this pale water balloon like thing covered in. When an extra limb or unnecessary growth started coming in, his altered body rejected it or re absorbed it.
The sack seemed to be full of fluid, with something dense in the middle. They both flinched when something pulsed inside. Simon immediately thought of one of those tumors that grew their own teeth and hair. An eel-like multilimbed tumor creature. The last tumor they had removed from his back had its own bones. Grace holds him upright still, repeatedly asking Simon if he’s ok, glancing between the sack and his stomach as it closes. Grace slowly lowers him to the edge of the couch and the thing moves again, this time straining against the thin walls of the sack. Simon grips the couch, ears ringing, as nausea washes over him and he locks eyes with Grace.
The sack creature can’t seem to escape its prison as it pushes in vain against the membrane walls. It resembles a pudding blob, just sort of wiggling on the floor. Grace hesitates, but Simon insists they need to know what it is. Grace's hand shook a little as he kneels down and pressed a scalpel into the membrane. Cloudy fluid weeps onto the carpet as Grace forces his index into the opening to tear it the rest of the way. Simon watches Grace's face change from disgusted to terrified in a split second, all squeamishness abandoned as the membrane tore open.
Simon's heart stopped entirely as he watched in complete shock as liquid sloshes everywhere and a tiny arm shakily frees itself from the fleshy opening. Grace was now frantically trying to pry this thing from the fluid sack membrane, scooping his hand under the solid mass in the middle. Simon still couldn’t process what he was seeing and Grace just kept saying oh my god over and over and asking for a towel but Simon couldn’t breathe let alone think. That was not a tumor.
Grace lifted something small and round out of the sack. It was pale, covered in liquid and chunky white residue. Simon can't hear Grace at all anymore as he stares at this thing wriggling around on top of the deflated skin sack. That is not a tumor. It had little arms and legs that were slowly extending from its very human looking body, stretching like it just woke up. Grace is panicked because the thing isn’t crying. Simon cannot comprehend why a tumor should be crying. It’s very purple. Then for some fucking reason Grace shoves a finger down its throat!? Simon wants to yell at him but more fluid dribbles out of its mouth almost instantly. And then its face scrunches up as Grace withdraws his hand and lifts the thing off the ground. Everything sounds like it’s under water. The creature , which had a head of dark hair, finally opened its blueish gummy mouth to gasp, it coughs, sucks in a big breath, and screams.
He hadn’t heard a baby cry in more than a decade. The sound pierced through the fog in his head. There was a baby crying, in his house, on his floor. And it had just come out of his body. HE, fully biological male, had just had a fucking baby? Simon couldn’t think and a hundred different things were flying through him at once. When? How? Why the fuck did it come out like that? Was the baby ok? Did the fall hurt it? Was it mutated like he was??? How were they going to feed it, Simon had no way to- unless he DID?! He’s desperately grasping for any half ass useful knowledge but the man’s brain is just static. Grace scoops the little baby into his arms and Simon realizes he’s started crying at some point. Grace is shaking and trying to cradle the infant close to his chest, momentarily locking panicking eyes with Simon and blurting out another hundred questions he couldn't hear.
He looked at the little thing that had just fallen out of him onto the floor, oh god. Its crying had turned to long winded wailing, eyes squeezed shut, lip quivering, chubby fingers curling and uncurling. Simon had never seen a newborn in person. Births were few and far between, and he had been military by the time he would’ve been old enough to assist in something like this. Simon needs to focus and freak out about this later.
He leans over slowly and places his hand on the baby's chest, feels its lungs heaving but a steady heartbeat. He’s mumbling to himself, shaking as he feels the back of the head for any swelling or dents. The baby has thick dark swirls of hair, slicked down by amniotic fluid. Simon is terrified at how soft the skull feels, but it is perfectly round. Simon whispers an apology as his thumb swipes reside from the infant's eyes. Its skin was so soft. Simon is so afraid to touch it, to hurt it by accident, he’s never cared for a child a day in his life. Long dark eyelashes flutter open at his touch. His mouth falls open a little as two completely normal pale blue eyes stare back at him.
…
Simon had just… given birth in the most disturbing way ever. Impossible as it should have been, Grace was holding a newborn.
Grace just stared, dumbstruck. Holy moly. They had a baby. There were very suddenly three humans here.
Grace was full blown panicking. Simon is hyperventilating, stomach partially open, shaking, and in tears. Neither of them knew- he couldn’t have known! He had never gotten any bigger or - why would they ever have assumed even if he had !? There's a dissociative look that Grace really doesn't like on Simon's face. And a screaming infant he can barely hold because he's shaking just as bad as his husband is.
Because this really was a whole human being! That literally appeared out of thin air. Sort of. He glanced down and winced, Simon was holding one arm over the gaping wound while the other was busy inspecting the child for injuries. Grace had almost forgotten the poor baby had hit the hard floor. The gravity was higher here too, god forbid anything was broken!! It was so small and Grace had zero idea what to do if something was wrong.
Simon was still checked out, fingers stroking the baby’s cheek. He didn’t respond when Grace asked if he was alright. The baby was trembling a little and its lips were tinged blue. Lack of oxygen, or circulation? Cold? He can’t remember if that’s normal. Grace needs to know if they're both ok. Then he can process that this is happening. He takes a deep breath and tries to get Simon’s attention. He’s still on the edge of the couch looking very pale.
…
Simon barely registered Ryland telling him to take off his blood soaked shirt, or that he was following the order at all. His heart was pounding and his ears were still ringing. Ryland says something before slowly standing up. Simon is struck with panic at the thought of him dropping the slippery infant. He raised both his arms to steady Grace, injury momentarily forgotten. Ryland was telling him something he couldn’t understand. Suddenly he was leaning down and setting the baby against his bare chest.
The baby was now bundled up in Grace's sweater and laying on his bare skin, snuggled under his chin. That felt right. The weight and the warmth of the tiny body soothed him in a way he didn’t fully understand. Simon couldn’t stop crying, still in disbelief. His stomach had knit almost fully back together, in a fairly neat line.
Grace was gone from his side. He heard something about a blood pressure cuff. He wanted to sob and beg him to come back, before he felt a tiny hand ball up on top of his collar bone and pull on a loose strand of hair. He looked down.
The baby looked exactly like him, minus the blue eyes. Same nose, same lips, the same ears even. A weird combination of fluid and blood and skin smell floods his nose and calm washes over him.
His mutations made him sensitive to chemical changes and imbalances. And his hearing was almost on par with the Eridians. He could tell people apart from a mile off by scent alone now, or if Ryland’s iron was low. This scent was like his own but not. It was a baby boy, a perfectly healthy little boy , he could literally smell it. Simon could hear the baby's rapid heart beat slowing alongside his frantic one as he started rubbing circles into his back. The little boy’s cries falter and soften into steady whimpers.
Simone mumbled a hello into the top of his head. The baby stopped squirming as much and his eyes widened at the sound of-well. Simon was (kind of?) his mother. That felt very off. Either way, this was his kid. Simon’s heart twisted and tears started flowing again.
“Hi. You're okay, oh my god,” he said, choking up,” your okay sweetheart, hello, oooohh my god!”
Grace seemed to appear from nowhere beside him. He leans down to meet Simon’s eyes and it finally sinks in. Grace is this kid's father. He and Ryland have a son.
…
Watching Grace hold him, after the initial hysteria, might’ve been the scariest part of the whole thing. They had never talked about anything like this. He knew Grace loved working with kids, but raising them was entirely different. This was all happening really fast and it occurred to Simon as he handed the infant over that Grace might freak out. He wouldn’t ever hurt the baby, Simon knew that, but that didn’t mean he would accept him instantly.
Simon, to his own surprise, was in love. He’d bonded with him so strongly it should’ve been alarming, probably influenced by the alien DNA. But you'd have to be a heartless mother fucker not too though. Their son was the fattest creature Simon had ever seen, with a neck roll and everything! His pudgy pink cheeks squished his lips into a pout as he lay sleeping on Grace's chest.
His anxiety was soothed over immediately when Grace took one look at their chunky baby and tried to suppress a sob. Simon actually had to stop himself from laughing at the face Ryland was making.
He had never once even thought about children before Grace, for so many reasons. There had never been someone he’d want that with. More importantly, he would have never subjected another human being to living in a dying world. To suffer as he had. Two years on Erid had changed that. He had a wonderful, stress free home, a husband who adored him, friends, and a job he loved, all while growing plants to place along the coastline of his house. His large, safe, warm house, full of color and light, far away from the cold vacuum of space. No cult, no COI, no eel.
There were obviously going to be a lot of unprecedented issues, this was an alien planet with a synthetic environment and no other humans. But this child would never know a world without stars, and his son would never be a soldier .That alone was enough.
He loved this little boy so much he was overwhelmed. He never once thought he could have this and never even entertained the idea no matter how much he may have wanted it with Grace. It shouldn’t have been possible. He was so afraid to look away in case this was a dream and his beautiful boy disappeared.
There was a lot to figure out in terms of raising him, but at that moment? Watching the love of his life kiss their son's forehead and hold his tiny hand? Simon was so fucking happy. This little boy had his whole heart. He’d do fucking anything for him.
He was so excited to get to know every little thing about him.