just finished TGT in less than 24 hrs, twas sooooo so good!
Do you have any thoughts on what rumors there might have been amongst IL-universe people about Simon and Grace post-TGT? Like does anyone else know/care they've got something going on and are basically living together on Erid? If I were on the Needle when they were attacked and learned that the Convict had single-handedly incapacitated almost all attackers to get to Grace, and then I always saw them attached at the hip, I might have thoughts. Idk hand wavy something about scary dog privileges and Simon's devotion to their savior.
Since you also mentioned that Eden might start worshipping Grace as a savior, and seeing as Simon already had a reputation as the Butcher, are there any stories that come from this?
ooooo i imagine it would've been like-
genuinely from the start i think everyone sort of assumed grace had a master plan for dragging simon up with him. nobody believed him when he said the convict was his friend, so everyone in the hangar, esp ava, had the thought that this doctor grace isn't just book-smart but also street-smart since he must recognize keeping a strong man chained to his side would provide him with some protection from anything they might want to push him to do. like everyone was always constantly aware that those chains were only holding simon back on principle, not in practice LOL
this belief never gets challenged as time goes on. they just sort of start wondering what simon's side of the situation is like, so they begin to suspect something happened in the sub that made simon indebted to grace. like maybe grace promised him something, maybe the 'keeping a dangerous man with him as a precaution' was always an agreed deal between the two of them (since it technically got simon out of prison)
but then the first attempted kidnapping happens and ava has the thought that neither of them behave as though that was what was going on. like simon seems far too distressed he had to protect grace because the coi let this happen, and grace seems far too caught off guard that someone tried to do something to him. so she begins to suspect that something else must absolutely be going on, and as simon cusses her out for being stupid, she has the thought that the convict looks way too affected by this if grace hadn't promised him anything.
so ava is the first one to suspect simon might be developing something for grace, she just keeps the thoughts to herself. this is of course further reinforced on the attack on needle when simon begs her to let him go find grace.
nobody saw the hug, for the record, but that doesn't stop them from being very aware that simon is absolutely sticking to grace like a guard dog, and everyone suspects it's not just because ava told him to. everyone after the attack just knows that.
i don't think anyone bar ava would suspect with any seriousness that simon was down bad for grace? mostly because in their eyes it looked more like grace saved simon's life and simon, an eden fanatic, is obviously just clinging to his savior. crucially nobody thinks of this as strange, they all just accept this as like- yeah of course he would, i mean have you seen doctor grace? if doctor grace had saved me from such a dangerous mission and granted me partial and then complete freedom and essentially absolved me of my sins in his eyes, fuck, i'd look at him the same way the butcher does. ava does also agree with this take, she's just had a bit more interactions to clock that, on top of all of that, simon is just also down bad for the man. like those aren't mutually excluisve sentiments in her eyes (she's right)
so when simon just goes to live in erid with grace, nobody thinks it's strange? like yeah of course the butcher would want to keep devoting his live to the man that saved him, and of course doctor grace would want to keep his bodyguard around. everyone (bar ava) is still lowkey convinced grace's plan all along was for simon to protect him, so this isn't strange; and ava just assumes that grace must've been telling the truth and he genuinely sees simon as a friend so of course he'd cling to him, the man is clearly too good for any of this and in desperate need for company.
so the entire story would probably get passed down like- doctor grace, the man that saved us: his first act of mercy was to save this sinner, recognizing his strength and keeping him around so he could protect him and work to atone for his sins. and the sinner, proving himself worthy of doctor grace's grace (lmao), chose to devote himself to humanity's savior as both a form of absolution and because only a saint like doctor grace was able to welcome such a man to stand by his side like an equal. the sinner is now redeemed in their eyes by devoting the rest of his life to keeping their savior safe and accompanied, and their savior remains the saint he always was by choosing the sinner to be the one to stay by his side, thereby setting the rest of them free to do as they please
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