Hello my little blood eels, I have more food for you
Now, some of you may already know that Ryan Gosling has what we like to call a lazy eye. And I also happen to have a lazy eye (though, almost undoubtedly different types, mines pretty uncommon), so walk with me as I project my specific disability onto my favorite pathetic middle school teacher turned astronaut
And this time! It's in the form of a drabble, rather than aimless rambling! Pls enjoy
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"What's wrong with your eye?" Comes from across the lab, startling Grace out of his focus. He looks up as Simon continues, "sorry that- came out wrong."
Grace just smiles, setting his pen down and leaning back in his chair. "No, it's okay," he says. "I'm used to it." Regardless, Simon still shifts uncomfortably. He's curled up a few feet away from Grace, finding residence on the windowsill. He couldn't look at the stars while the centrifuge was going, but Grace supposed the spot had become Simon's at some point along the way.
"Did..." Simon speaks again, "did something happen?" The words are cautious, and he doesn't make eye contact as he asks.
Adjusting his glasses, Grace smiles. "Nah, nothing happened. It's called a lazy eye, and I was born with it. Well-" he pauses. "Technically, 'lazy eye' is just a colloquial term. Specifically, my condition is called amblyopia." He uses finger quotes around the term. He'd never been too fond of it, but it didn't bother him enough to make a stink. That's just what it was called, unfortunate as it was.
Simon nods, and Grace takes it as an opportunity to continue. "My eyes don't work together very well," he laughs quietly and stands, pulling an empty white board over to his chair, angling it so Simon can see. He draws a lopsided circle and sits. "Let's say this is your eye." On the inside of his circle he draws a smaller circle, sitting right up against the edge of one side. "This is your lens. It sits right behind your pupil and- sorry, this is a bad diagram, I'm not. I don't do eye stuff." He laughs quietly to himself.
The only reason he knew any of this was due to his own condition being explained by actual eye doctors. He continues the drawing, placing the optic nerve opposite to the lens. "And that's your optic nerve. When you're an embryo, and your eyes are still developing, the lens needs its own blood source, so a temporary artery connects the optic nerve to the lens." He draws a single, squiggly line between the two on his rudimentary diagram. Pausing for a second, he glances back at Simon as he realizes that the other man hadn't asked for an entire demonstration.
Simon shakes his head before Grace can start overthinking or try apologizing. "It's interesting, keep talking."
Grace nods once, wordlessly. Turning back to his diagram, he attempts to keep the embarrassment off his expression. Did he really think that loudly? Or did Simon simply know him well enough by now to clock it when Grace was overthinking? Clearing his throat, he continues, "For most people, the artery disappears after they're born. Mine didn't, at least not in that eye." He sets the marker down and leans back in his chair. "The artery is still there, obscuring my vision. And because of that, my brain deemed the stimuli from that eye useless, and sort of uh-" he pauses to adjust his glasses. "Left it to do whatever it wanted. The muscles never learned to work together."
Simon's own eyes are wide, and he's nodding as he looks at Grace's horrible rendering of the human eye. "So, you can't see out of it?" He asks carefully.
"I can," Grace corrects. "Just not well. And since the muscles never learned to work together, my brain never figured out how to process both inputs as one. I've got double vision, and it really messes with my depth perception." He laughs quietly to himself.
Nodding, Simon says, "So you can see two of me?"
Grace says, "Yep!" Popping the 'p'. "Two slightly different angles, which is more obvious when I'm closer to something. Most of the time I don't pay attention to what the lazy eye sees, though. Too much stimuli." He smiles easily as he moves to wipe the drawing off the whiteboard.
With a contemplating expression, Simon falls silent for a moment before speaking softly, "I'm sorry."
Grace turns to him, tilting his head. "What for? It's just the way it is, it's not like I've ever lived any differently, I mean-"
Cutting him off, Simon shakes his head. "No, I- I'm sorry you have to stomach seeing me twice." That stuns Grace into silence for a moment, processing Simon's words. The other man is staring at the ground, curls falling out of his messy ponytail and into his eyes. "I know I'm not exactly easy on the eyes."
"What?" Grace asks before he can stop himself. "Simon- I don't- I don't mind. I think you're pretty."
Pause.
Oh no. Oh no no no no. Oh shoot. He totally screwed that up.
Internally cursing his mouth for running faster than his brain sometimes, Grace freezes. It wasn't incorrect. He did think Simon was pretty. Unbearably so. With warm brown eyes that threatened to swallow Grace whole, and dark curls that were far softer than could possibly be considered fair. And that was all without even mentioning his muscles, or the little frown he got when he thought a little too hard, or-
Simon's eyebrows pinch together as he looks up, and Grace waits for him to get angry.
He's speaking again before he can stop himself, "Sorry- I didn't- I overstepped and- shoot, Si, I'm sorr-"
"Ryland."
He shuts up.
Simon continues, "It's okay." His expression evens out to the smallest of smiles, something almost like amusement or fondness in his eyes. "I-" he hesitates. "I appreciate the sentiment, but you don't have to spare my feelings."
Grace really needs to get a handle on how his mouth likes to speak against his will. "I'm not. It's true." He'd applaud himself for how even the words came out, if not for the fact that he wanted to curl up and disappear before he kept saying things like this.
Watching him for a moment, Simon soaks in the words. Grace can see as the cogs turn in his head, trying to parse out whether Grace was genuinely being truthful. He nods softly.
"I think you're pretty too, for the record."
Oh, so Grace is going to explode now. The stars are doomed. Sorry, Earth, the guy you shot into space died of heart palpitations caused by a man with pretty eyes and a soft voice. Hope everyone enjoys their slow, frozen deaths.
Speaking of, is it hot in here?
Simon chuckles quietly, his smile deepening into something so, so fond. Grace's stomach does a funny twist at that, and he forced his lungs to remember that they need oxygen.
"Really?" he asks, but the word is small and unsteady. He clears his throat. "I always thought I was sort of, uh- average looking."
Huffing out a small laugh, Simon raises his eyebrows.
"Nevermind," he corrects. Why did he even ask? "I uh- I'm going to go grab uhm. A snack. Do you- want anything?" He's making a fool of himself, he's sure.
Shaking his head with that oh, so fond look still plastered on his face, Simon says, "No, thank you."
And Grace is thankfully relieved of the conversation, scuttling off to hide somewhere for a while.
And if anyone is curious, here's a (better than Grace's) diagram
AU where the whole bit about the taoameba leaking out of the xenonite never happened, and they said goodbye to Rocky and were able to go back to Earth with (relatively) no issue (I say relatively bc I Don't Know how they would have solved the whole "running out of food" situation- but for all intents and purposes, this is irrelevant to the fic). And at some point, they're able to reconnect with messaging systems on earth and let everyone know Grace is alive and with a Super Cool, Definitely Not Viscously Traumatized Friend. And it's within a few days of being able to receive messaging, that the pair wake up to see a small blue marble, hanging in the void. It's still a ways off, of course, but it's close enough to see.
And it's home.
And it's a moment of absolute, unadulterated wonder. Simon, of course, has never seen anything like it. Never thought he would either, and it's striking to him how full of life it is, even from this distance. And Grace? He's technically been in space for almost 2 full decades at this point, has seen countless suns and planets, etc, from space. Most notably, Adrian. But seeing his home? After so long of either being sure he'd never see it again, or too nervous to hope for it? It's the most incredible thing he's ever seen. The petrova line was beautiful too, but nothing quite beats the sheer joy of seeing your home at a perspective like this, after so long of knowing you'd die far from it.
And they share this moment together. And it's kind of sort of a first. Because Simon has obviously had many of these wonderfilled moments. And Grace has truly enjoyed watching and taking part in those moments. But to truly experience a moment like that with Simon? It's probably the single happiest moment of his life.
Chip notices it slowly. It starts with a couple of ladles in the kitchen that he sometimes stole from Earl to cook. And then the hair ties he steals from Gillion start to include more yellows and marigold tones. They look great, contrasting with Gill’s sea foam green hair. The jewelry and accessories that he’s gifted by Jay start only being gold and yellow silver.
Then, they’re in town. A small town, with a tiny gift shop that Ollie begs to check out. They go in, begrudgingly, but as they’re perusing, Chip finds himself enjoying the things his crew finds, the things that make them laugh. Gillion pulls him over to show him a sweater and sweetly proclaim, “Chip! They have your favorite color!”
He smiles, and he gets it. Because goddamn it, Gillion Tidestrider makes a solid point. Its his favorite color for a reason. And it lives very warmly in his closet only to be pulled out on special occasions, in cold places, and when sleeping in a pile with his other captains. Over weeks, and months, it becomes something of a comfort.
And one night, he’s making cinnamon rolls again- a highly requested dish- and he’s wearing the sweater, because it’s been a quiet and calm sort of few weeks on the ship. And he looks for the rolling pin- a newer one that Queen had bought as a gift to the crew. He finds it, and turns to roll out the dough, but he pauses. The color yellow is suddenly in everything. Nothing truly matched or had been acquired at the same time but somehow, along the way, yellow became a color that overtook his world, and he hadn’t even noticed. He hadn’t been the one to find or purchase most of these items, and yet they were all in his favorite color- the pin, the ladles, the sweater, the oven mitts that Gryphon found, the mug he’d made of hot chocolate.
Then, a dawning realization hit him. All of the “well, I don’t care what color it is- besides, Chip likes yellow, just do that” and “hey chip do you want the yellow ones or the red ones?” Comments had turned into real, tangible proof of his crews’ love. Physical evidence that they knew his preferences and went out of their way to make their mundane things special to him.
Tears would well up in his eyes then, and he’d smile so hard it hurt. After so many years of being loveless and alone, he finally had people that cared enough to make even the little things matter, to make his interests feel seen. If their cinnamons rolls were just a touch saltier, no one said anything, too distracted by the sound of each other’s laughter.
So I just got done outlining my Bloodymary Apocalypse AU (which now has a title! It's called Not Entirely Alone, and will be given a custom tag)
The outline alone is 1300 words. I have concepts of a sequel. I have concepts on a one shot from a different perspective that happens in between NEA and it's sequel.
Its going to be FIFTEEN CHAPTERS. Guys I'm. I'm ill over this au
Hellow and welcome back to 31 Days of fic ideas day 9
Yes i skipped a few, dont worry about that
TODAY IS SONADAMY BABEY a rare commodity
Amy And Rouge get coffee together often, usually followed by a girl’s day out on the town. Today, Amy mentions how she’s no longer disastrously crushing on Sonic. No, no, now she’s crushing on Sonic and Shadow. It’s a disaster, really, it’s going to ruin her life.
And Rouge snorts, of course, because boys are fun until they’re drama.
And Amy’s prattling on about she doesn’t even know how she managed to fall for both, or how either of them would feel about that, or how she was supposed to choose, anyway? So, Rouge cuts her off there. “Just make them do the work for you.” When amy is understandably confused, Rouge explains. Casually let it drop to each of the boys that the either is planning to court Amy. Their own competitive nature will do the rest. They one up each other constantly just to earn the title of who would be the better boyfriend.
Its an added bonus that Amy would end up getting spoiled by both in the process.
Amy asks if that would be cruel, and Rogue just shrugs.
If Rouge sets the plan into motion purely for her own entertainment value, that’s no one’s business but her own. And Amy wakes up with two vases of roses sitting at her front door.
