so you know that version of soulmate aus where there's a red string connecting them?
grace's goes straight up. only he can see it. (otherwise he would be on the news for it, and i don't think he'd turn out to be the same guy with that different of a life in the spotlight as like, the guy who proves both aliens and being soulmates with them are real. i'd read a fic about this different guy, sure, but we're talking about grace rn. just like a batman with living parents is no longer batman imo. there is a line between au and "oc that looks like a character". those ocs can be cool and interesting, but still calling them "the character from that thing" feels inaccurate at some point. i'm aware this is a hot take. and the line is debatable bc it's ship of theseus shit. anyway.)
he knows he's going to space someday, or it's coming to him (slightly ominous, but okay, cool. he thinks). despite this, when he joins the hail mary project, he doesn't plan on going. they can come to him, and he's kind of scared. he's realized he's not attracted to anyone, as he's aged, and worries what that means.
he still freaks out when he's asked to go, and as he's sedated he looks up and sees it. fear and relief and acceptance battle as his consciousness fades. he knows he's not attracted to people, and hopes he'll be attracted to this alien (the paths diverge here on whether you make him only attracted to eridians or be aroace for all creatures, where they'd be queerplatonic soulmates, depending in part on whether you want smut or not. maybe he has an awakening when rocky eats in front of him, maybe they're the best best friends in the universe).
on the ship, for a while, he doesn't remember what soulmates are. maybe he didn't want to. he just knows there's a line going to his destination. then, when he gets there, to a ship, and then rocky. rocky doesn't say anything because they have other shit to deal with.
i don't know if he'd choose to leave in this au, but it'd be very easy to find his way back.
also the scene where he's following the burn marks on the floor to where rocky got back into his atmosphere, grace follows a flickering line along with the wreckage, bc rocky is so near death.
also, you can like, metaphysically feel the thread as well, for eridian "seeing" puposes and blind people on earth. fate cares about accessibility idk. rocky follows one of his threads on erid, and when the mission is announced adrian sees him off, being one of the few people he's told about his second thread (bc you can pull the polyamorous eridians headcanon from my dead hands. like, why would aliens have to be monogamous? fight me).
i may write for this even though i usually don't love soulmate aus, bc this idea is fun. we'll see. i have so many wips and promised myself i gotta finish one of the three i'm actively posting for before i start a new one.
if you wanna add simon as well just give him two strings, bam, easy. (maybe simon has two strings too, one to adrian. maybe rocky and them bond over that when they talk about it). again, you can go qpr with it, or make grace gay. to an outside gaze, comphet and being aroace can look similar, which is why both readings are valid imo (the difference is being not attracted to anyone vs not attracted to the opposite sex [which you were taught was your only option]. this does not mean ace people are actually gay, i am talking about different interpretations of a character's behavior). i'd lean towards aroace bc yall deserve some rep. if there's dimension crossing involved in getting simon there then maybe the string doesn't show up until then, and simon's soulmate(s) understandably freak out thinking he was just born, bc holy agegap batman.
