Unintelligible Yelling

I wrote another thing for @idgabuck's SimonSays I miss your teacher au (in which the events of PHM still happen). This time: Grace gets to come home (at the end of this, just assume Rocky and Adrian were in the living room, and you hear Rocky's translator after the end go "Why is Grace and Grace mate leaking, question)

They were getting closer and closer to landing in the Pacific Ocean. After years of being gone, years of being stuck on the Hail Mary and Erid, Grace was finally almost home. 

God he can remember when Rocky gave him the news that Adrian, Rocky’s mate and an engineer and scientist on Erid, had found a way to speed up the travel time between Erid and Earth from 13 years to a year. 

Grace had been sitting at his desk when he heard a loud knocking coming from the front door of the house before he saw the door being pushed open. 

“Grace! Adrian found way to get Grace home fast, statement.” The tinny robotic voice of Rocky’s translator called through the small house Grace had on Erid. 

It had been a few years since the Hail Mary had landed on Erid’s surface and Grace had expected to spend the rest of his life on the planet lightyears away from his home… and his husband. 

Thanks to Stratt and her team sending him on the suicide misson of discovering why Adrian (the planet, not the Eridian) was not dimming because of the astrophage. 

Grace stood abruptly from his chair, knocking his knees into the desk, “fudging fudge, that hurt like a motherfluffer! Rocky, please say that again.”

“Rocky mate Adrian found way to get Grace back to Earth fast so Grace can go home and see mate again, statement” 

“Estamated time until landing: 5 minutes” Mary’s voice announced. 

Grace’s heart was racing with excitement and anxiety. Excitement for the fact that he was going home with his best friend and his best friend’s mate, to see and introduce Rocky and Adrian to Simon, to have real food and not just the meburgers the Eridian scientists made, and to see Simon again. Anxiety about seeing Simon again, about seeing Simon married to someone new, about not being able to see his husband again. 

Grace, Rocky, and Adrian braced for impact. 

Grace was finally home.

—----------------------------------------------------------------

After Grace was taken, it took Simon some time to stream again. Whenever he tried right after Grace was taken, he would sit and stare at the “Start Stream” button, but could never bring himself to hit it. The anger and pain of Grace not being able to come in with his fun facts or to bring Simon a snack was too much. 

He recently started streaming again, though, figuring, why not? It had been years since Grace was sent on the Hail Mary, but he would never forget Grace; he was Simon’s Papa Star, and nobody could replace him in Simon’s life. 

Simon was in the middle of streaming when he heard the door behind him start to creak open and shut softly. After Grace showed his face on stream the first time, Simon rearranged the room so that chat could see when Grace would walk in, bringing a snack and some facts into the room with him. 

Grace walked in, ending his walk behind his husband, not saying anything where he was still in awe over the fact his husband was in front of him for the first time in years. 

“Colt, I’m streaming. What’s wrong?” Simon asked. He didn’t look up from his computer screen, completely focused on the game he was playing. He knew that Colt had mentioned that he would be stopping by later that day, but it was still early. 

Chat had noticed the figure behind Simon. A few people that had been there since Simon started streaming recognized the figure behind him, but not as Colt, as Papa Star. Chat exploded into a blur of “PAPA STAR?”, “??????”, and “!?!?!”. 

“Hey, Si,” a soft voice said from behind him

That wasn’t Colt.

Simon paused the game, scared that the voice was a hallucination. He looked over at chat, seeing messages flying past, not being able to read a single word. 

Slowly, Simon turned to face the figure behind him, eyes finally meeting the beautiful blue eyes he thought he’s never see again. 

The light Simon had set up to help light up the space showed his face lose color and his jaw dropping. The headset he was using slipped off his head, clattering loudly on the desk, the game’s audio can still be heard softly. Simon stood up so fast, the chair he was sitting in tipped over violently. 

Simon didn’t care about the stream. He didn’t care about the eventual clips that would come from this reunion or the thousands of people watching this moment. He stumbled forward until he collapsed into Grac’es arms, tears already falling. 

Grace, still feeling weak from his second trip through space, wasn’t expecting to have the full weight of his husband crash into him, causing him and Simon both to fall to the floor, still in the camera’s view.

Simon crushed Grace to his chest in a tight hug. He couldn’t believe it; his husband was here in the flesh. This wasn’t a dream; Grace was home.

After a few minutes of the hug, both men separated a few inches to take each other in. Neither one moved far; their foreheads resting against each others. Just breathing the other in for the first time in years. 

“You’re just as beautiful as the day I lost you.” Simon said softly, voice cracking and breaking the silence of the empty room, letting his eyes slip closed for a few minutes. 

SImon opened his eyes, still locked onto Grace’d face, memeorizing this moment.  

“Please don’t go away again,” Simon pleaded. 

It didn’t work. It didn’t save her. But it’s so very possible that he spent his last moments alive trying to save someone else, one of his crew, and they probably both knew that it wouldn’t work, that there wasn’t a lot of hope in a blizzard on the lakes in November, but he tried … he tried anyway. Even if it did nothing but maybe make her body easier for her family to find.

You know that Mr Rogers thing of ‘look for the helpers’? How many times has someone, facing the end, done something tiny and fragile and maybe hopeless just to try and help someone else? Whether it works or not. How many people went to their graves at least trying?

That has to say something about us. As a people. As monstrous as we sometimes (perhaps often) are, so many times we were also …

Whoever saves one life, saves the whole world.

And sometimes you can’t save one life, sometimes it doesn’t work, sometimes there’s no getting out of this for anyone, but … try anyway. Because it matters anyway.

Im.. Soft 🥺🥺🥺

Qult, Trans*parent, Amnesty a PP spustily hromadnou výzvu! Takže vedle vlastních mailů senátorstvu můžete připojit i svůj podpis zde:

Part 43 Masterpost