Emotional Support Blob

Simon only asks for it back once.

It's when he's in the hospital, after he's just woken up. He's groggy and disoriented and high on pain meds, and when he turns and see's Ryland he smiles and the heart monitor picks up because that's his husband. His angel. And they talk for a little bit, just nonsense things they always talk about when Simon comes home from a dive, and if Ryland's voice seems a little tight, well, Simon doesn't really pick up on it. He's not really coherent enough to notice all the little things about his husband he usually notices. He does, however, eventually notice that Ryland is still wearing Simon's ring on his necklace. And Simon asks why he's still got it, if he can have it back, and Ryland just...doesn't answer him.

It's only then that Simon realizes, that he remembers that--oh.

His left arm is gone.

He doesn't ask for his ring back after that.

Why should he?

It's not like he can wear it.

But when Simon is finally discharged from the hospital after a few weeks, when he steps back into his and Ryland's apartment on shakey legs, Ryland slips the ring off and so very gently clasps the chain its on around Simon's neck. You're home, he says at Simon's questioning look.

> disables a new AI feature that was turned on by default

> opens my email

> disables a new AI feature that was turned on by default

> launches a software

When he comes home and finds that the quilt is miraculously as good as new, he's absolutely gobsmacked. He pokes the area where the hole had been in open wonder, noting the meticulous stitches holding it back together. The thread is a different colour, and the stitches aren't machine perfect, which means someone fixed it by hand. But unless he's looking closely, it's impossible to tell. And given none of the Eridians have actually entered the biodome today, the only one who could have possibly done it is Simon.

Carrying his repaired quilt tucked up in his arms, Grace goes in search of Simon.

He finds him in the bedroom, in the midst of rolling up a ball of thread using his hand and his teeth, the remains of one of Grace's older, more worn shirts carefully separated out into each individual piece lying next to him on the bed. The new thread on the quilt matches the thread Simon is gathering from the shirt into a ball perfectly. There's no need for any more thread, now that the quilt is fixed, but Simon is still taking the time to ensure none of it is wasted. None of the fabric has been tossed aside.

It looks like it's painfully tedious work, and Grace can't even imagine how much harder it would have been to do one-handed. And yet Simon took the time to carefully pick out a shirt that wouldn't be missed, take it apart delicately enough to preserve the thread, dig through the supplies that had been brought down from the Hail Mary until he either found a sewing needle or was able to make one of his own, and then use said recovered thread and needle to painstakingly repair Grace's quilt so cleanly that he almost couldn't see the spot it had ripped.

It hadn't been necessary. They have other blankets. Grace didn't need his good luck quilt. It wasn't life or death, and Simon knew that.

But Simon had mended it anyways. For Grace.

I love you, is what Grace wants to say.

"I didn't know you could sew," is what comes out instead.

Simon looks up, spots Grace hovering in the doorway, and then gives Grace a careless shrug.

"It's a practical skill to have," he replies gruffly, as if it's no big deal.

"You fixed my quilt," Grace says quietly.

"Yeah." Simon's expression is a bit more wary now. "Didn't think you'd mind. It's your favourite, right?"

"Yes, it is," Grace confirms, heart fluttering a little in his chest. It was probably pretty obvious, given how much he curls up in it, but it's still nice to know that Simon had noticed. That he'd been paying close enough attention to Grace to have known that the quilt was important to him. "I'm...really grateful you fixed it. Thank you."

"It's nothing," Simon says.

He's wrong. It's everything.

I love you, Grace tries to say again.

But what comes out is, "Maybe you could teach me?"

Simon blinks at Grace in surprise. He clearly hadn't expected the question, given that it's usually Grace who teaches and Simon who learns. It must be a nice change of pace, because a small, bashful smile pulls up the corners of his lips. Grace feels a flush of victory run through him at the sight.

He may not have been able to say the words he wanted to, but at least he managed to make Simon smile.

"Yeah, alright," Simon drawls. He sets the thread down and pats the spot on the bed next to him. "Here. You can practice with these shirt pieces."

i love seeing them though because we have a terrible and hilarious game. in the aviary i will be leaving out fruit skewers and things for them, and then i’ll dramatically lie on my side and pretend i died. it takes about 5 minutes, and then there’s an entire flock of lorikeets climbing on me, squeaking, nibbling and investigating.

the next part of the game is popping up my head and going “boo!” which is where the real fun begins, because the little rainbow nightmares jump, and then get delighted and start happy squealing and bouncing around (and chewing because they truly never stop)

Grace is joking around with a selectively violent creature that can rip his soft squishy body apart in an instant!

But it’s also a lot of fun to hear Weir talk about all the stuff he wants to include in a possible sequel, like the fact that eridians can have several conversations at once even with the same eridian. He imagine Rocky and Adrian bickering in one conversation while having a nice conversation at the same time that slowly turns into a fight and all of a sudden they’re yelling at each other in two conversations about different things.

He also says they have terrible spacial memory because they can see everything around them all the time thanks to their echo location so to them it’s crazy that humans can only see in one direction but still remember what’s behind them and even what the last room they were in looks like. Apparently eridians mostly just remember that the room exists and that it has the computer in it but if you asked them where the computer is placed in the room they’ll struggle to give a precise answer.

And Rocky got scared when Grace hugged him because eridians don’t have a concept of expressing affection with physical touch. To them it’s only neutral or violent because thanks to their hard shell they can’t really feel much. They only use it to move each other around or to break through their prey’s shell to get to the soft insides. So in their inter-species friendship only Grace would feel any desire to touch Rocky. It makes it very cute that Rocky joins in on Grace’s hugging ritual. It’s purely for Grace’s sake.