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It was a random morning when he noticed.
He rolled out of bed, trying not to wake the older man up, when he realized Grace slept differently since they started sharing a bed. Always on the right side of the bed, laying on his right, facing Simon.
Simon used to sleep alone in the bed. Whenever he'd stumble out into the living room after a nightmare, Grace would be sound asleep on the couch. On his left side. Every time, without fail.
Eventually, Rocky found out that they were sleeping in separate rooms and got very scared. It was the first time he heard about “the day Grace almost didn't wake up.” Rocky was worried something would happen to Simon while his injuries were still healing, or Grace would magically re-concuss himself (which honestly wasn't impossible. He was pretty clumsy for a teacher).
For a few nights, Rocky would go back and forth between the rooms and watch them sleep. He voiced how worried he was each time he left one of them, though, and Simon finally asked him why. That's when he learned about Rocky's entire crew “sleeping and never waking up.”
Then, Rocky came into the bedroom while Simon was having a nightmare. He was trying to pull himself away from the submarine's walls. He could hear Ava's voice screaming as she was torn apart. He could hear all of the other convicts begging for mercy or an escape out of that fucking fish-
“Simon breathing bad, moving a lot. Simon leaking!”
His eyes widened as he thrashed himself off of the bed, hitting his head on the ground with a loud thunk. He felt Rocky's arm on his side, rolling him over to check on him. Simon just looked at him as he caught his breath. grounded himself. He was safe, he was on Erid, everything that happened is over.
“Simon not dead, just sleep bad, question?”
He didn't know how to respond to that, but tried anyway. “Not dead, no. I always have a hard time sleeping.”
“Rocky never seen you shake like that.”
“It’s… been a bit better, since you've started watching me.” That was far too close to admitting he liked feeling less alone. That would be a weakness. “But they still come a lot. A lot of bad shit to unpack.”
“Yes, Simon was in bad shape when he arrived. Grace and Rocky knew from injuries, must have seen bad things.”
Simon slowly tried to push himself up, but he found it was still hard to handle his weight with just one arm. He stared at the barely-there stump that remained of his left arm and sighed.
“Should talk to Rocky and Grace sometime,” the Eridian poked his hands together - a trait he'd definitely stolen from Grace - bashfully.
“You aren't my fucking therapists, you don't need my burdens.”
“They aren't burdens, and we're actively asking to help you.”
Standing in the doorway, Grace gave him a small, sleepy smile, with his glasses hanging off his ear.
“Trying to be the helpful school teacher?” Simon grumbled, feeling guilty for waking him, "I'm not your student.”
The blonde shuffled his way through the moonlit room, stopping next to Rocky. “No, I just had my fair share of nightmares and know the only way they got better was when I opened up to Rocky. We just wanna help however we can.”
Before Simon could complain about how he “didn't need help,” he saw Grace reaching an arm down, offering to help Simon up. He didn't forcefully grab him or treat him like a weakling - he offered him help, just like he would've if he still had both of his arms.
He took the help.
After that, Rocky sat them both down and asked them to sleep in the same room, so Rocky could watch both of them sleep. Grace agreed, but Simon hesitated.
“I don't really wanna share a bed with another person.”
“Oh, uh- of course not,” Grace laughed awkwardly. “I assumed we could ask Adrian to make us another one.”
And Adrian did.
They shared a room for a few months like that. Grace would sleep on his left side, on the left side of the bed. More nights than not, Simon would see him curled up in a little ball.
Different Eridians would come in and out to watch them sleep, giving Rocky more time to spend with Adrian. One night some of Grace's students came to watch, supposedly studying human sleeping patterns, but they were far too noisy for Simon to be able to sleep. He'd picked up on a few words, though - and he remembered smiling when he realized they were talking about how fun Grace's lectures were.
So, the next day, Simon sat in on one of his lectures. …He sits in on them about once a week, and now he ends up as some sort of TA when he's there.
He realized how much he'd started to smile around Grace, or how he got happy whenever Grace made time for them to do something together. Grace showed him videos from the Hail Mary. Simon started slowly opening up about the Iron Lung.
“Ryland.”
“What?”
“My first name,” the teacher started, “is Ryland."
“...Why doesn't Rocky call you that?”
“It was easier for him to just call me Grace. It's kinda hard to translate names between languages, y'know?”
For some reason, being the only person on this planet to know his first name felt intimate.
About a week later, Simon woke up to hear Ryland tossing and turning. He heard him mumble something akin to “don't take him from me,” and imagined it might've been about his twin brother he was taken away from at a young age. Maybe his older brother…? He'd heard even less about him.
He got out of bed and came closer to the older man, and he realized he was crying. He knew Rocky would wake him up right about now, but the Eridians stopped watching them sleep as often, now that they'd reassured them they'd watch over each other.
…Right, Simon was supposed to watch over Grace.
He put his hand on Ryland's shoulder and shook him lightly, stumbling back a step when he immediately turned around and shot awake.
“Ffffudge stripes, Simon? Did I wake you?”
“No,” he lied, “..was already up. Are you okay?” The teacher shook his head. “...Anything i can do..?”
“...You can say no, but…”
That's how they started sharing a bed.
They fumbled around, awkwardly shifting until eventually Simon turned away from him. They did that for a while, at least a few weeks, before Simon had another full-body nightmare.
His dreams had mostly died down to simple ones, where he was maneuvering the Iron Lung around, or where he'd take pictures and see creepy alien shit. There was one where his brain replaced that Jack guy with Ryland - that one sucked, but he knew it wasn't real.
This one, though. This one replaced Ava with Ryland. Which was nice at first (even dream Ryland could never be mean to him), until it devolved like every dream about her did, and he heard Grace screaming.
That was the first time his mind decided to give him imagery of what the fish did to her, but instead to Grace. His body torn in half, teeth growing on his face like they had on Simon's (he still wasn't sure how Rocky and Grace saved his face as much as they had), and boils all over his remaining arm and leg.
“Simon…”
He was screaming. Banging at the walls of the sub. Begging for someone to help them.
“Simon… Simon!”
He was awake. There were arms around him. Two arms. There was a warmth against his back. A half-shaven beard barely tickling his neck.
He heard the sob escape him before he realized it was happening.
“Simon, hey, it's okay,” Grace soothed, pulling him closer. It wasn't close enough. He missed human touch like this.
Simon had never learned love. Can't even remember if his mother ever held him like this. But Ryland isn't scared of holding him, even after learning about filament station.
He found the strength to toss himself around to face the blonde, awkwardly tried to maneuver his arm below his waist (which Grace lifted himself up enough to allow), and crashed his face into his chest. He let the tears flow. He used to think crying like this was weak, but after Grace cried in front of him a handful of times, he knew it was safe here.
“You're okay, promise. Safe on Erid. Safe with me.”
“Why?!” He finally let himself scream, knowing no one but Ryland would hear him. “Why do you keep me safe?! It would've been so much fucking easier to throw me away and never deal with Simon the fucking butcher again-”
“Hey, no, don't go there-”
“-I'm more trouble than help, I can't do shit for the Eridians-”
“You've actually helped a lot-”
“-And you're so fucking nice and I'm such a goddamn asshole-”
“Language, calm down-”
“And I don't understand-” his voice broke, cracked a little, and a shaky breath escaped him. Ryland waited. “-Why I’m still alive.”
“Because we found you,” he answered, plainly. “I think we were meant to find you. Ava promised you your freedom. and we fulfilled that promise. You're free.”
A soothing hand ran up and down his back. Another hand found its way to his hair. It was intimate, but it didn't have to have a label. It was them, and the moment they were sharing.
“I'm so glad we found you,” he whispered. Without Simon's sobbing drowning it out, he could hear the gravely sleep hindering his voice from getting much louder.
“...Thank you.”
And that was when they became something more than roommates.
There wasn't a label. They didn't even do that again. That night was a one-and-done thing. They didn't talk about it when Grace poured them “Eridian Lucky Charms” (which he claimed tasted just like the real thing) into their bowls, or when he left to teach. They didn't talk about it when Simon came back from a walk with Rocky and found Ryland on his side of the bed, fast asleep.
“No one was watching you,” he mumbled. He couldn't believe he was thinking that way. “...Dumbass,” he smiled, laying down next to the man.
And he never questioned why they magically switched sides that night. Well, not for a while, at least. He did one night after they stayed up far too late watching videos of Tau Ceti and the Petrova line.
To ignore how beautiful he thought Grace looked in the video, he just blurted, “Why'd we switch sides?”
“What?” He laughed. Simon used to think that was an awkward laugh, but now he knows it's the sound of him getting caught red-handed.
“You always slept on the left side of the bed. On your left side. Now you do the opposite.” He rolled towards him - an act that's gotten much easier since he first woke up. “Why?”
“Man, you really have taken to Eridian customs if you watch me sleep that much-”
“Why are you avoiding the question?” He didn't know why it bugged him so much.
“We can switch back, if you want? I mean, I don't really-”
“Ryland.” He didn't actually say his first name very often. That shut the teacher up for a moment.
He took a long, deep breath as his eyes turned away from the younger man next to him.
“...Don't yell at me?” Simon made a noise of acknowledgement. “...Your arm.”
“...What?”
“Your arm,” he said with more confidence, now turning his body to face Simon. “You- that night when we- you had that really bad nightmare? You said your arm hurt the next morning, and I think it's because my weight was on top of it. so I-”
“What.”
Simon stared at him, knew his eyes must've been wide in surprise. He thought back to that night, and he vaguely remembered his arm feeling weird and tingly when he woke up, but he hadn't thought about it again after that.
“...Are you mad?”
“No, no,” Simon reassured, though still puzzled. “I just- I could've just slept on my left side like I always did, you didn't have to switch sides-”
“But, uh… if something like that, y'know… hypothetically happened again, I didn't want you to be uncomfortable.” He was looking down at Simon's good arm now. “...Your arm wouldn't hurt if it was over me.”
Holy shit.
Simon just stared at him for probably far, far too long after that. Grace puffed his cheeks and blew air out nervously, then laughed again.
“It was stupid, sorry-” he started to turn around, “-don't wanna make you uncomfortable, which I probably did-”
Simon threw his arm around Grace's waist and pulled him back to face him. With the way the moonlight framed his face, he could see the tears welling up in his eyes.
“Fucking idiot,” he mumbled out, but moved closer to the other man. “Have- have you been thinking about that night, too?”
The blonde just nodded, then seemed to notice the word at the end of his sentence. “...Too?”
“It- I mean, you held me and combed your fingers through my hair. Of course I've been thinking about it.”
“Shoot, I thought I'd imagined that part,” Ryland smiled a bit, nervously. “I've… imagined things with you, but I didn't even know if you liked…”
“I’ve never liked anyone. The people at Eden all called each other family, and in prison we didn't exactly do anything out of love.” He shook his head, trying not to focus on the past. “...But I've been imagining things with you, too, I think…”
“You think?” Grace's body finally seemed to take the permission to slip his arm up and over Simon's waist, resting his hand carefully on his lower back and still keeping a bit of space between them.
“...That night, I was so fucking scared because my nightmare was about you.” He closed his eyes so he wouldn't see Grace's reaction. “...You dying, specifically.”
“Simon…”
“And it made me realize that I don't know if I smile during your lectures because I'm just glad to be around another human, or if I think you're attractive because you're my only option-” he cut himself off, opening his eyes. “But I can't stop thinking about you, and what it would be like to-”
There was an arm snaking its way between them, and fingers slowly resting on the branded scar on his neck. “Can I?” was all he asked.
And that was the first time they kissed.