Have we considered Grace and Simon passing notes like school children when they want to talk without Rocky hearing?
Bc rocky can hear fucking everything, right? As Grace says, privacy is at a premium. But there would certainly be things that the two of them want to talk about without Rocky overhearing. And obviously a lot of that is probably when Rocky is asleep, so they don't need to worry about being overheard, but WALK WITH ME.
Grace scribbling something down on a piece of paper and sliding it over to Simon. Simon looking at it for a minute before writing something else and sliding it back. Rocky watches this go on for a few minutes before he goes, "What doing, question? Talking without Rocky, question? Talk about what, question?" Him getting annoyed and a tiny bit petty about it bc new human is STEALING his Friend Grace >:( and they are talking in SECRECY
But in all reality it's probably some dumb giggly gay shit or something idk what they would be talking about w/o Rocky but the idea of them passing notes is very silly to me
Grace would be fascinated by Simon's mutations this, and Grace would want to study Simon that
What about Simon studying Grace? What about Simon tracing Grace's muscles with gentle fingers, idly rubbing circles over Grace's knuckles and wrists. What about Simon watching Grace move about the lab with an almost analytical gaze, taking in every breath, every minute detail. What about Simon taking comfort in being able to watch a completely normal, unmutated human. I'd imagine that he probably didn't spend much time in the presence of other people after childhood, and even then, they were all so wrapped in clothing to stave off the freezing cold of Eden. Not that Simon would have cared to take note of other people. But now? They don't need to wear quite so many layers, and Grace certainly has a preference for short sleeves. And goddamn, if Simon isn't a weak man for the curve of muscle that those stupid graphic tees show off
This could also go hand in hand with the hcs about Simon low-key worshipping Grace
Do you guys wanna know what really fucking GETS ME about Ryland 'stupidpatheticwetcatman' Grace? The fact that he CARED.
He cared so fucking much.
And that's why Stratt had to send him into space.
She found cowardice, yes. But she also found a teacher who kept snacks in the class for his kids. A teacher that has extra packs of pencils stored away in a spare cabinet, bought from his own budget. The cool coworker that bought them all skittles while he was blowing the government budget on literally making a mini venus out of duct tape and wood panelling.
So yes, Stratt found a coward, but she also found someone who had a huge heart.
A heart big enough to shoulder the weight of saving an entire planet. And that's why Stratt had to send him.
Anyone else would have given up immediately. They would have woken up, realized their stakes, and they would have decided that it wasn't worth it. Humanity wasn't worth it. Grace, himself, even threatened to sabotage the mission. (Hence why she had to fuck with his memories but that could be a separate post on its own)
But Grace saw humanity at its whole. And that included quite literally being put in a place where his right to autonomy has been violated. And he still saved them.
And he did it because saving them included saving Rocky.
On Earth, he had no one. He cared for everyone and had no one. He was a deeply lonely person. And that changed when he found Rocky. Because suddenly he had a best friend to save, too. And suddenly the weight of saving a world- two worlds- didn't feel so heavy anymore.
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
---
"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
Simon is The Butcher. He killed people. He's no stranger to blood on his hands. Maybe he regrets it, maybe he doesn't. Maybe he's simply a product of his circumstances. Whatever it is, it definitely wasn't an accident. Simon helped aid in the death of 62 people.
And I'd imagine he has nightmares about it, even long after he joins the company of Grace and Rocky. Sometimes the nightmares are just retellings of the 9 days battle at Filament Station exactly as it happened. Other times? It's worse. Other times, it's not the occupants of Filament Station whose blood he spills, but Grace's. Simon's mind imposes the face of Simon's lover onto those of his victims. And when he wakes up in a cold sweat, with hands trembling and Grace's screams still echoing in his ears despite the other man's snores in the bed beside him- he can never bring himself to cuddle closer, to seek comfort from Grace.
Maybe one night, after they've settled into the biosphere, Simon has one of these nightmares. And when he wakes up, he slips out of bed and walks down to the beach, barefoot and in his bed clothes. And as he sits, watching the artificial waves come in, he thinks about the heavy weight of bearing the title, The Butcher. Because for all the love that Grace gives him, for all the companionship he gets from Rocky & Adrian, Simon can never, ever atone for the lives he took. It's easier to shoulder when he tells Grace about the dreams, and Grace takes his hand, brushes his hair behind his ear and reminds him that he's not the same person as he was when that happened. And he'd reaffirm the trust he had in Simon, how he knows that Simon would never intentionally hurt Grace.
But sometimes, Simon simply has to bear the weight of it by himself. Sometimes, he just has to sit with those 62 ghosts and watch the artificial waves come in.
Ok so I just posted this , and now I want to talk about that in the context of bloodymary
YIPPIE ITS TIME FOR ME TO BE CRINGE MWAHAHAHAH
Bc THAT ^^^ is why bloodymary works so well, in my opinion. Grace has a heart big enough to save an entire planet, and Simon comes from a place where no one has kindness anymore. It was survival, sure, but Simon hasn't experienced an ounce of kindness in years. Which is exacerbated by the fact that he's a convict.
And Simon doesn't want that kindness either, not on a surface level, and not at first. He believes, very deeply, that he does not deserve such kindness, such patience. That thought process can be changed, of course, but only by someone who thinks that Everyone is worth saving.
And Grace is that person. He has his own issues and traumas, and I wish people would talk about them in more depth but alas. He is a very broken person, too. It's aided by Rocky's presence, and I think that's why a lot of people don't mention it. But you don't go through ALL OF THAT and come out the other side okay.
But I think Simon is a fixer. And I think people forget about that too. He's extremely smart, and he catches on quickly. He doesn't have the tools to help Grace, but by God, he'll learn. He'll figure it out. Because here is a person that gave him kindness when he did not deserve it. Here is a person suffering from the weight of their past, of which Simon very much understands the feeling. And what can Simon do? He can fix it. He can figure it out. He's good at that, and he wants to return the kindness he's been given.
And that's what makes them work so well together. Especially because of how similar they are, overall. People keep saying "opposites attract" for them and it's not true. they're not opposites. In fact, I'd argue that at their cores, they are the exact same. They are two deeply lonely people, put in horrible situations "for the sake of humanity" and neither of them had a choice in the matter. But they both, at the end of it all, still chose to do their part. And they deserve some softness on the other side.
I know it in my heart and soul that Simon would love to cook.
Obviously there's not a lot to be done w that on the Haily Mary, Erid, or even in the Iron Lung universe. But I know it in my HEART AND SOUL.
He'd love having control over the kitchen, knowing exactly where everything was and how much of everything they had. He'd love taking care of it, washing dishes by hand and sharpening the knives. He'd love the act of cooking, preparing meals that he could take pride in. He'd love the way it gave him a straightforward task and the ability to execute it. He'd love having his own little space that Grace could wander into and out of, without ever really being worried about anyone getting in his way.
And Grace LOVES it. He doesn't have to do dishes? Score. An upgrade from freezer meals and boxes of Mac and cheese? An absolute win. Simon is an amazing cook and Grace will never stop talking about that fact. And it only gets bonus points for the occasional morning that he wakes up in an empty bed, only to stumble bleary-eyed into the kitchen and find Simon cooking breakfast in nothing but sweatpants.
Take my hand. Imagine a modern or teachers au where they're married. And Simon loves to cook.
I can't pretend to be normal anymore unfortunately. Heed the mature warning (minors DNI, you will be blocked)
Simon and Grace making out, lounging on Grace's bed. It's slow, it's loving, it's everything the two of them need. Simon, of course, gets just a tiny bit overzealous, and nips at Grace's lips. The noise he gets in return almost makes Simon panic, thinking that he hurt the other, but when he pulls back, Grace is blushing fiercely. It takes Simon only a moment before it clicks that, no, he did not hurt Grace. In fact, Grace seemed to like that a little more than Simon expected. With renewed energy, they return to kissing, but it's more heated now. It's hands wandering under shirts, tongues and teeth mingling and exploring. Its warm. And Simon absolutely relishes every sound that he can drink from Grace's lips. Every tiny breath or muffled moan.
Simon focuses his attention on slowly trailing kisses down Grace's neck, taking extra care whenever Grace's breathing studders. His hands are in Simon's hair, as he tries to focus on anything but the feeling of Simon's mouth on him. He can't help himself from tugging lightly when he feels teeth against his collarbone.
The instant that Grace lets a quiet, breathy "fuck" slip from his lips, Simon is pausing but only for an instant, before he's focusing back on the canvas of Grace's skin. He hadn't realized that was an option. Obviously he was enjoying the effect that he had on the other, but swearing? When Grace typically took so much care to censor himself? Simon makes it his personal mission to draw as many obscene words and noises as he possibly can from Ryland.
