Chapter Text
Simon was brooding.
There was no better word for it. The man paced the edge of the biodome behind his cottage like he was trying to wear a trench into the bedrock. He cursed at the projected sky. Sat next to his sapling and pressed his forehead to the ground, then started the cycle all over again. Pacing, cursing, praying.
It wasn’t like Grace thought it would be all sunshine and rainbows, after everything they’d been through. It certainly wasn’t ever easy to talk to the other man. Getting Simon to share any detail of his life before Erid was like pulling teeth from a rabid dog.
But even so, he had thought they’d come to some kind of understanding, or equilibrium, given recent events. Simon had seen Grace at his most vulnerable, and had sat with him through a panic attack. Had waited patiently for him to come back to himself, and then had stayed to make sure he was okay. Had shared something that was clearly deeply personal and meaningful to him, to put them on even footing.
Then he had touched Grace back. Asking for consent through it all, keeping him grounded and present. Being so gentle, so kind, while satisfying Grace’s need to be dominated and taken care of. It was like Simon had read his mind, saying and doing all the right things, bringing him over the edge embarrassingly quickly, in his shorts like a teenager.
It was a light switch moment. Or it had been, for Grace. Two people alone on a planet, figuring out a functional arrangement. They didn’t have to be friends to have mind-blowing, life-affirming sex. Mutual needs met without everything else getting in the way. They could be neighbors-with-benefits, if that was a thing. And if it turned out they really hated each other, hate-sex was still on the table. Grace liked it rough: he could make that work. He suspected Simon could, too.
But instead, Simon had withdrawn again, pulling back from the tentative truce they’d struck. He was, as previously stated, brooding.
Which was extremely inconvenient, since Grace really, really wanted Simon storm back into his cottage and demand… anything, really. Another blowjob, penetrative sex, it didn’t matter. It felt inevitable, that he would come back the next day, or the day after, and continue what they’d started.
But he hadn’t. He hadn’t come back, and it was becoming maddeningly clear he wasn’t planning to. He kept as far away from Grace as possible, wouldn’t even look in his direction. Turned away and stormed into his own cottage, shuttering the blinds, when Grace had so much as taken two steps in his direction.
Simon struck Grace as the sort of man who would rather wrestle a bear than admit he wanted something. Admittedly, his sample size of bear-wrestlers remained limited. But there was a vibe.
From what Grace had managed to piece together, Simon had spent most of his life in some kind of religious doomsday cult. It wasn’t exactly shocking that the man wasn’t emotionally demonstrative. He probably had a lot of stuff to figure out. Grace didn’t want to push too hard, but the man was just so inscrutable, it was impossible to tell what he was thinking. Whether he was waiting for Grace to make some kind of move, or if he just wanted space to process something he didn’t have words for.
It was entirely possible Simon was attempting to respect boundaries and simply lacked the vocabulary to communicate that fact. The man treated conversations like hostage negotiations. Maybe the avoidance was Simon’s version of giving Grace space. Maybe he was worried about pressuring him after the panic attack?
That would be absurdly thoughtful, actually.
With a sigh, Grace picked his way back up the craggy beach toward home. The artificial sun was setting. The Eridians had gotten really good at simulating light changes. It glowed a dusky orange-purple, reflecting off the water in shimmers. It would be nice, he thought numbly, to sit on the beach with someone who could see it. (Rocky was excellent company, of course. But sunsets were lost on him.)
Turns out human beings were social animals. Who knew? It had only taken four years without human contact for Grace to appreciate the value of someone borrowing coffee mug and forgetting to return it. He even missed small talk. Bumping into someone in the hallway. Sitting too close on a couch because there wasn’t enough room. Hugging.
Gosh, did he miss hugging. But he’d easily have settled for conversation, maybe a pat on the back now and then.
Simon’s arrival had turned so many tables over it gave Grace whiplash. There had never been any guarantee that Simon would at all be interested in more than a passing acquaintanceship, let alone friendship. Sharing a breathable atmosphere certainly didn’t obligate either of them.
So, Grace had barely considered anything beyond that point, barely registered the possibility of any kind of intimacy. He had buried that part of his life, had mourned it. Went years thinking he would never have sex again. Made peace. But then Simon had let him go down on him, and—well. It had awoken something, obviously.
Something he couldn’t seem to put back to sleep.
Now, when he climbed into bed, he couldn’t help but think of the possibilities. Sex, mostly, which was irritating in its persistence. And specifically, his brain refused to stop conjuring Simon’s cock. It kept showing up at inconvenient times. When he was trying to sleep. When he was trying to focus on literally anything else.
It was just a normal, human penis. Grace was developing an unhealthy obsession with it, which was new and unhelpful. Remembering its weight in his hand, on his tongue. He was uncut, which was a surprise. Grace had only ever seen one uncircumcised penis before, and—as the flashes of his college days kept reminding him—his sample size was bigger than he’d initially thought.
Simon’s cock was really, really nice. On the larger end of the spectrum without being intimidating; thick, heavy, with a subtle upward curve. It had slid against the roof of his mouth before Grace had relaxed his throat on instinct and taken him deeper.
He dreamed about it. About storming over to Simon’s cottage himself and settling the ‘score’. It was the language Simon seemed to understand about reciprocity. He’d say something like, “You still owe me one orgasm.” Would push Simon back on his bed and straddle his face. Or throw himself down and open his legs, inviting Simon between them, with his lovely, thick cock.
(They were good dreams. Too good. Dreams that left him tense and wet and aching. But Grace had never been the sort of person who was good at asking for what he wanted, let alone for sex. Linda had always been so good at knowing when he needed it. Even before he knew he wanted, she would be petting his hair, whispering filthy things in his ear and then dragging him to their bed. Oh, that was a new memory. Interesting. He liked dirty talk?)
There was a knock at the door.
Grace’s heart leapt. It was more tentative than he’d expected. He kicked off his quilt and then nearly bounced off the wall in his hurry to get to the front door. Smooth, Ryland, he thought. Real smooth. He ran one hand through his bedhead self-consciously, trying to recover some of his scattered dignity, and then threw open the door as casually as he could.
“Good morning—” There was no one there. He looked down. “—Rocky!”
Rocky tipped his carapace to one side, like cocking his head. A habit he’d picked up from Grace.
“Grace sounds disappointed to see Rocky,” he trilled, his body dipping shyly.
Grace felt his heart plummet. “Of course not! You just caught me at a bad time.”
It wasn’t like he could explain that he’d hoped, for a second, that Simon had come to his senses and had come over to apologize for being distant. Preferably with his mouth and fingers. Yikes on bikes.
A blush flashed hot across Grace’s cheeks as he toed into his shoes. One of the laces had snapped; he’d replaced it with a length of thin fiberoptic cable from the box of odds and ends he kept at his desk. He struggled to tie it, the PVC having no grip.
“Is same time as always.” Rocky whistled a little laugh. “Grace so forgetful. Rocky always visits on sun day. Whole day set aside for friend time.”
They stepped out into the sunshine. The environmental team had insisted on having one day in seven be set to full luminosity, for the sake of his vitamin D intake. Grace had taken to calling it Sunday, without a hint of irony about being bad at naming things. It was the one day a week when he basked like a lizard under a heat lamp, before they turned back on the fog.
“You know I love friend time,” Grace sighed, leaning down to run a hand over Rocky’s suit. It was warm to the touch, even now, after all the improvements. But he could touch his best friend without having to pull his hand away, and that meant the world to him. “I just lost track. What’s on today’s agenda?”
“Grace teach Rocky to swim!”
“Race you to the water?”
Rocky was off like a shot. “Rocky faster than humans! Always win!”
“Always cheat,” Grace murmured, then bolted after the Eridian at full-tilt.
After a nice long swim (Rocky had sunk to the bottom, completely non-buoyant but unfazed), they sprawled on the sand like starfishes. Grace had even taken his shirt off (“Better for light-vitamin absorption!”) and was enjoying the feeling of sun-warmed sand on his back.
Something moved near the perimeter of the dome. Grace shielded his eyes against the sunlight with one hand. Simon was pacing again, walking circles around his cabin. Grace raised his hand in greeting, a small little wave. Just, hey, I acknowledge your existence.
Simon froze. One second he was pacing; the next he was perfectly still. He clearly saw Grace and Rocky on the beach—the Eridian was currently kicking up sand with three of his legs, building a ‘sandcastle’ that vaguely resembled the shape of the Hail Mary—but he didn’t wave back. After a moment, he seemed to double-take, then turned away in a hurry, bunching up his shoulders as he ducked inside his cottage.
Oh, Grace thought. He’s flustered. Or rather, bothered.
A small, pleased smile settled itself on his face. He couldn’t help it. The thought of tall-dark-and-brooding having an existential crisis over being attracted to awkward, nerdy Ryland Grace was kind of funny. It was sweet, really. Took the sting out of his annoyance.
“Is human-Simon in distress, question?” Rocky chimed suddenly.
Grace blinked.
“Uh, no, I don’t think so. Why?”
Rocky resumed building his sand-Mary.
“Agitated behavior.”
“He’s always like that,” Grace reminded him kindly.
Rocky had been downright despondent when Simon hadn’t immediately wanted to be Rocky’s friend after he woke up. (Covered in radiation burns, missing a limb, screaming about drowning in blood—he really should have tempered his expectations.) But Rocky was Rocky, and had tried his best to fix it. He even built Simon a prosthetic arm, which had not been well-received. The prototype was currently sitting in Grace’s cottage among a bunch of spare ship-parts.
“But I’m working on it.”
Rocky perked up.
“Working on fixing human-Simon, question?” he squeaked excitedly. “Yes yes good, Grace and Simon become friends, Simon and Rocky become friends, Simon wear new arm!”
Grace laughed.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, bud. He’s a bit skittish.”
He risked a glance at Simon’s cottage. He had drawn his blinds against the sunlight.
Maybe next week he’d knock on Simon’s door, if Simon hadn’t worked up the courage.
Just to talk.
Probably.
Somebody had to make the first move. He wasn’t great at keeping score, but it seemed like maybe it was his turn. Grace rolled onto his back and looked up at the false blue sky, beyond which he could almost make out Erid’s rings.
One more week, he decided. No: three days. If Simon was still hiding in his cottage after three more days, Grace was going over there himself. Three days, then he’d drag Simon out of whatever existential crisis he was currently cultivating, whether the stubborn jerk liked it or not.
The thought left him strangely light, almost giddy. Which was ridiculous. Two blowjobs and one awkward conversation should not have been enough to reboot his enthusiasm for life. Yet apparently the bar was now somewhere beneath sea level.