jadeinretrogrde

https://archiveofourown.org/works/87254321/chapters/231104811

Summary:

So, dead or alive? Abandoned or absolved? What was he– Simon the Convict, Simon the Butcher– against this backdrop of blackness? Nothing? Everything? Inconsequential? Pivotal? Thoughts eddy through his mind until he is drowning in them.

Until he hears a noise.

A sound that takes shape and defies his muddled understanding of his current existence. Wavelengths that weave the shredded actuality of Simon back into something whole, something that very nearly makes sense.

A voice.

~OR~

https://archiveofourown.org/works/87254321/chapters/231104811

Summary:

So, dead or alive? Abandoned or absolved? What was he– Simon the Convict, Simon the Butcher– against this backdrop of blackness? Nothing? Everything? Inconsequential? Pivotal? Thoughts eddy through his mind until he is drowning in them.

Until he hears a noise.

A sound that takes shape and defies his muddled understanding of his current existence. Wavelengths that weave the shredded actuality of Simon back into something whole, something that very nearly makes sense.

A voice.

~OR~

They are due to arrive in Erid in just three days. After nearly four years of travel, it feels like a miracle to Grace. Not the only miracle, he thinks, as he watches Simon’s steady grip on the flight control. He’s practiced several maneuvers they think will be necessary and done them all with a refinement and calm that left Grace a little breathless. Outside of his sporadically flaring temper and increasingly frequent nightmares, Simon was a bastion of composure. Even when Hail Mary blared an alarm because she didn’t particularly like where Simon was trying to fly, Simon never flinched, never wavered. He just calmly corrected his error. 

Grace could never. Strapped into the seat beside Simon, he mumbles a litany of worries under his breath. 

“Grace distract Simon, statement,” Rocky reproaches when Grace lets out a probably unnecessary squeal as Simon veers too close to an asteroid floating outside. Hail Mary declares a warning and Grace’s knuckles clench around the seat harness so hard they crack.

“Yeah, sorry about that. Nervous flyer,” he chuckles anxiously. 

“It’s okay,” Simon replies evenly. “I’m not distracted.” 

Grace is. And not just by the hum of near death experiences in his pulse. His eyes keep wandering to the veins standing out on Simon’s arm. The hard flex of muscle cast in sharp relief. Simon’s been wearing clothing from Yao’s stash. Grace told him to. With supplies so scarce, it didn’t make sense not to put perfectly good clothes to use. Yao’s wardrobe featured several plain black undershirts, which seemed to suit Simon just fine. 

Grace’s brain momentarily short-circuited this morning when Simon asked to borrow one of his own shirts until laundry could be done. Grace replays the moment in his head, letting it whisk him away from Hail Mary’s frequent alarms from having an untrained pilot at her helm.

Simon reiterates his question when Grace doesn’t answer the first time. Grace nods mutely, pointing at his stacked shirts beside his bunk. A strange summersault is happening in his stomach at the thought of Simon in his clothes. That’s never happened before. Grace can’t remember a time he’s ever shared clothing with anyone. Simon reaches back to grab the neck of his shirt with one hand and whips it over his head in one fluid motion. Grace stares, dumbfounded. 

“Whoa. You’re ripped.” Grace clamps his mouth shut about three syllables too late. The observation had launched itself directly out of his mouth, bypassing his brain entirely. And his traitorous eyes won’t stop roaming the broad expanse of Simon’s chest, the defined section of abs, the swelled pectorals that spoke of much pumped iron. And scars, so many scars. Slashing across his abdomen, butterflying across his skin, mapping the geography of his hardships. 

Simon raises an eyebrow, glancing from Grace to himself. “Are you talking about the muscles?” He shrugs, rifling through Grace’s stack of neatly folded t-shirts. “There’s not much to do in Conviction Realization when they’re not using your labor. You work out to pass the time.” 

“Oh, right.” Grace’s face feels like it's been set on fire. He scrambles for a change in topic. “You said you were imprisoned for sixteen years?” He winces at his complete buffoonery. Great topic change, Grace. 

Simon’s hand pauses over a white t-shirt before pulling it out of the stack. “Yeah. I was twenty years old when I was convicted.” Another pause as he stares solemnly at the t-shirt in his hand. “Does it bother you? That I’m a criminal.” 

Simon’s timidly asked question defuses Grace’s embarrassment. “Not at all. You told me what happened, Simon. It wasn’t your fault.”

“Wasn’t it?” Simon’s gaze is imploring on him, like he really wants to know Grace’s answer. “I didn’t know about the bombs my Brothers set to destroy Filament Station. I didn’t know that what they really came for were bodies.” Simon’s chest heaves on a sigh. “But I knew Eden came to steal resources, to take over the station. And I knew what Eden was, what it would mean for the people subjected to them. But I didn’t fight not to go. I didn’t try to stop it then.” 

“But you did try to stop it, Simon. When you could. That counts for something.” The compulsion to wrap Simon up in a hug pummels Grace, the impact actually causing him to take a step in Simon’s direction. But Simon’s eyes on him, dark and loaded with self-loathing, freeze him in place. 

“Does it really count for anything? I failed. I failed when the Father sentenced my mother to excommunication by death. I failed when I let myself be sent to Filament Station in the first place. And I failed when I couldn’t convince my Brothers not to detonate the bombs. I might fail you, too. It’s what I’m good at.” 

“You didn’t fail, Simon. What choice did you even have?” An anger on Simon’s behalf wells up in Grace’s chest. Simon has plenty of anger in him and Grace hates seeing him turn it like a knife to his own throat. 

“Isn’t there always a choice?” Simon’s hand scrunches up the fabric of Grace’s shirt.

Grace thinks about the choice he’d been offered. Go die for everyone else, go be a hero. A choice he hadn’t taken. Maybe there was always a choice. But it wasn’t wrong to want to live. Surely what Grace chose is far worse a crime than the choices Simon made. Grace had been asked to save billions and he declined, he’d run away like a coward. Simon had been asked to save no one and yet he’d tried. 

“I’m pretty sure cults don’t usually give their followers a lot of real choice. And any perceived choice is a careful manipulation. I know people got hurt, died, because of what you and your Brothers did, but …it does matter that you tried to fight back. It matters that you choose to think differently from them. And you don’t deserve to die for any of it.”

Grace concludes his speech with clenched fists of his own. It’s odd, anger is not an emotion he’s used to indulging, but it feels good. It feels good to be angry at the people who hurt Simon.

Simon stares at him carefully. 

“And you’re not going to fail me,” Grace tilts his chin up defiantly. “You can’t fail me. You’re not a science experiment that the conditions can be messed up on. You’re a person. And you’re not alone anymore. Whatever you go through, I’ll go through it with you.”

Grace’s flush is back, creeping down his neck and crowning his ears. Has he said too much? Has he scared Simon with how badly he wants Simon to trust him, to rely on him?

Simon swallows, his tongue darting out to wet his bottom lip. “There is no one like you” –Grace’s heart skips a beat– “Where I came from.”

With that, he pulls Grace’s shirt over his head, tucking his right arm into the sleeve, then pulling the fabric over his left shoulder. Grace watches the words Horse Shoe Bend Auto Club stretch taut over Simon’s chest and can’t make sense of the flutter in his throat. 

Grace comes back to the present as Hail Mary blares another warning and Simon course corrects again. Rocky keeps up a continuous string of encouragement for their new pilot. Grace traces the profile of Simon’s face. His long, dark hair falls in shaggy waves over the band of fabric he ties around his forehead to hold the locks back.

Grace can practically count on one hand the number of times someone's physical appearance has aroused any kind of response in him. So he can’t decide if it feels like a disaster or destiny that the one person he meets, eleven lightyears from home, happens to stir something within him that he thinks he might be terrified to name. 

When the flight practice session ends, Grace wordlessly unbuckles himself and tries very hard to appear as if he isn’t fleeing the cockpit. He just needs space, needs to not be perceived, needs to slow his breathing and ease the pressure building behind his eyes. He collapses in a far corner of the ship before the ragged sobs break free. Rocky finds him less than two minutes later. 

“What happened to Grace, question?” 

“It’s okay, Rock. I’ve just …got a lot on my mind.” 

“How Rocky help Grace, question?”

Grace scrubs at falling tears. “Nothing you can do, buddy.” 

Rocky shuffles anxiously back and forth in his crystal ball. “Nothing Rocky can do. Understood. Rocky have idea.”

Grace watches him leave, having no clue what he means. He presses his forehead to his bent knees, letting the fabric absorb his tears. 

“Grace.”

He’s so lost in a swirl of emotions that the footsteps don’t register immediately.

“Grace.”

He can’t bring himself to pick up his head. 

“Ryland.” 

This time the voice is closer. Grace hasn’t heard his first name spoken aloud in a very long time. It wrenches a sob from his chest. A hand reaches out to pat his shoulder. Grace finally looks up into Simon’s dark, fathomless brown eyes. The other man kneels on the ground in front of him, bracketing Grace’s huddled form in warmth. 

“Rocky said you needed my help. Do you want me to stay?” Simon asks. 

Grace responds with a wet laugh. So that’s what Rocky meant. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry to be acting like this.” 

Simon tilts his head, frowning. “I think in terms of bad behavior, I still have you beat. You don’t need to apologize for being upset. Do you want to talk about what’s wrong?” 

Grace gulps around another sob. Where to even begin? With how he’s a sorry excuse for a saviour?  And Simon should look anywhere else for his moral compass. Or with how he’s started watching Simon in ways he’s not sure he’s allowed? 

“I told you I was forced on the mission to save the sun, right? You were right. We always have a choice, and I chose selfishly. I was too scared to go even when it meant saving the entire world. So if you’re a criminal for what you did, what does that make me?” 

Useless, a waste of space. A disappointment, his parents' voices overlap in his head. Too awkward and embarrassing at their fancy dinner parties. Too unwilling to follow in their lofty surgical career footsteps. Too fascinated by molecular biology to be the legacy his parents had coveted when they had a child. Then, too humiliating when Grace’s career took a catastrophic turn. Blacklisted from academia and banned from his parents’ gatherings. It hadn’t taken long before they were barely speaking at all anymore. It had been more than a year without a single text message when Grace received the news of the car crash. He’d always wondered, at the end, did they even remember they had a son? 

Gentle fingers on his jaw, tilt his face up to Simon’s. 

“You are not a disappointment, Ryland Grace. You are not a waste of space.” 

Grace realizes with mortification that he’d said all of that aloud. Simon’s thumb brushes against his cheekbone. 

“And you were right, too. Maybe you didn’t make the first choice, but you did make the second. That matters. You still chose to save people. You saved me.” 

A fresh wave of overwhelm crashes into Grace. His tears flow hot and rapid. He swipes at them viciously. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I’m fine.” 

“Oh, Grace,” Simon whispers. “You don't always have to be fine, you know?”

Simon’s hand glides from Grace’s jaw to cradle the back of his head. He pulls Grace against his chest. Grace hiccups in shock, but Simon holds him firmly. Grace experiences a moment of utter confusion about what to do next, then he warps his arms around Simon’s waist and buries his face against Simon’s shoulder.