Curiouser and Curiouser

I wouldn't be true to myself if I wasn't out here killing doves, so. Cocks shotgun.

I think Grace should psycho mindfuck noncon Simon a little bit. Like okay the thing about being the only human -- very literally, the only human, except for this one guy who is clearly traumatized and starving for any kind word or gentle touch he can get, who is so, so grateful to you for saving him and so, so apologetic and remorseful for freaking out when you first met, who's already showing a certain distrust with his own ability to accurately perceive the world around him -- the thing about that is that. You get some intrusive thoughts, you know? Idle fantasies, the way everyone in the world gets when they're completely alone, and there's something tempting in front of them, and they know there's nobody to see if they take it.

Not that Grace is going to of course, he has his morals even in the vacuum of space and something wrong is still wrong even if there's no way anyone else would ever know about it, no one who would ever hold him accountable... even if the only other living person around is a sentient space rock that adores Grace and doesn't have the context to see any ugly nuance of the situation...

But no it's just idle fantasy of course. It doesn't matter that Simon is broken and so eager to please and beautiful. It doesn't matter that Grace, as a mandatory reporter, knows exactly how to spot all the signs of mistreatment that Simon showcases and can logic them backwards to the types of trauma that likely caused them. He has basically the entire contents of the internet at his fingertips, and nobody to flag any weird searches if he chooses to look up something eyebrow-raising like, say, the intersection of trauma and sexuality, and the science behind suggestion and subliminal messaging...

Actually, this stuff is kind of fascinating, and Grace has a lot of time to kill before they get to Erid. He might as well fall down a research rabbit hole. Purely hypothetical, of course, just something to keep him busy, no intention of ever using any of it.

Just something to think about alone late at night, or when Simon stretches and his shirt pulls tight across his chest, or when Simon jumps at any opportunity to be helpful, or when Simon looks up at him with those huge dark doe eyes like a puppy that would be so, so easy to train...

But Grace isn't gonna do it, of course. Of course not. He would never. And even if he did...

OR I could just full-on stick Grace, Rocky AND Adrian in the Iron Lung universe. We only learn about two factions in Iron Lung -- Eden the Accelerationists and C.O.I the Fascists -- but we don't actually know for sure if those are the Only Two. We could say that Simon, Rocky, and Adrian are a trio of brilliant scientists from an extremely small third faction, headed by Ava Stratt, who like the C.O.I are working to find resources to help rebuild humanity but they're going about it in a very different way. They still... make some morally fucked-up choices such as forcing Grace on a suicide mission but they're overall way less crappy than either of the other two groups. They also have better resources and infrastructure in place to keep their people fed and healthy. As a result, they live in constant fear of being overtaken by any of the other factions who might want to kick down their door and take everything they have.

Ricardo "Rocky" Ortiz is this short king brick of a genius engineer who was a child prodigy and got sick of being abducted as a kid (because geniuses are in short supply at the end of the world and Everybody wanted him to work for them) so his solution was just to become too fucking big to kidnap. This man is sturdy. Dense. The sheer boulder-like buff-ness of this dude cannot be overstated.

Adrian is his very tall nonbinary s/o who is also some kind of brilliant scientist and who Rocky met back when he was living wherever he was before he met Grace. Adrian and Rocky are the soul survivors of their previous station, which was like idk caught in a fight between Eden and the C.O.I or maybe just attacked by Eden and fed to the soil either way they were found and rescued by Grace who brought them back to Stratt and they became the Three Musketeers. They've all imprinted on each other like ducklings, do NOT separate them.

So when Eva decides their need for resources has gotten bad enough to risk drawing the attention of the C.O.I by investigating some of those creepy ass moons, Rocky and Adrian volunteer. Grace does not, but they don't know that at the time.