I commented this on someone else's tiktok video but I need to elaborate on my thoughts here so bear with me.
I really really like the idea of Adrian being the one to find Simon like, a decent chunk of time before Grace and Rocky return, and him and Adrian having their own deep and complex relationship outside of Grace and Rocky. Then by that point when Grace arrives sick and starving, Simon has to be the one to act as caregiver and learning to be gentle in that way, not Grace babying a PTSD riddled Cult-raised Soldier.
Because yeah, all the fics seem to have the same mentality of, Grace has finished his journey/character arc, so all he needs to do now is nurse this sweet owo baby back to health and show him the stars and everything will be alright.
Give Simon some agency! Let him be the one to care for Grace for once, especially when there's nothing immediately benefiting him to do so, (EI, he's not already in love with Grace, or feels he owes Grace anything for caring him before, or because he worships him as an Angel) he's simply doing it out of good faith.
This starved to the point of looking skeletal man named Grace apparently helped save Adrian's husband, and the whole planet of Erid? That's all well and good but its not like the Eridians have an unlimited supply of human food or oxygen. This man might not get better and even then, until he does, he's a drain of resources. All of his life experiences and training tell him its better just to end the poor man's suffering now and lay him to rot.
He'd begged Adrian to end his own suffering months ago, back when the worst of his wounds where still in the new stages healing and he couldn't see the end of his pain.
It was thanks to Adrian kind stone-like claw that Simon had healed as well and he had. It was thanks to Adrian that Simon had some place to call home, something he hadn't had since his Mother had been culled all those years ago.
Adrian of course had told him all about their mate, a brave and smart engineer who'd gone to space decades ago on a mission to try and save the stars.
Rocky had returned, not only with a solution to save the star, but a Human man of his own that needed caring for immediately. Though not nearly in the same ways Simon had needed help when he'd first arrived. There had been a lot of trail of error with his treatment early on.
This man, Grace, was on deaths doorstep, and it was up to Simon, Adrian and the small team of Eridians who'd helped Simon live comfortably on Erid to save him.
Of course it was mostly Simon who had to do the bulk of the manual work, seeing as the Eridians couldn't comfortably enter their oxygenated spaces, specifically made for Simon, but quickly being adapted and modified based on what Rocky could share about Graces preferences. He couldn't say he LOVED the idea of a large body of water, some would call an ocean, being added to his not-so-little-anymore biosome, but apparently Rocky had been adamant about it though. So Simon only asked that Adrian expand the green house area and add a crop field on the opposite side of the dome for him as compensation.
Adrian agreed, but reminded him that if he needed anything else he just needed to ask, no compensation required.
That was still a hard lesson for Simon to unlearn from Eden and the COI, but Adrian hadn't lied to him yet so he was doing his best to believe them.
He's really pretty sure he's not gonna like this Grace guy once he regains consciousness though, if only because every human aside from his mom has lied to him or manipulated him at some point in his life, but he's starting to get the impression Eridians can't lie at all.
So basically even when Grace wakes up and is super excited to have a human friend on Erid, Simon is basically ignoring him in favour of either working with the Eridians to test more human food varieties/develop botanical life in the dome, hanging out with Adrian, or any other eridian at that point.
Simon be like 😒😠 rocks over jocks! Fuck off! 🖕
And Grace is like 😢 even 50 light years away from earth im socially award and can't make friends 😭
