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A soft whimper cuts through his sleep.
Simon blinks awake, rubbing at his eyes. He glances at the window. It’s still nighttime, a dim light blanketing their dome, set in time with a human’s circadian rhythm.
Another whimper.
Simon’s heart clenches painfully at the source of the noise. Face pressed against his chest, his mate’s sandy blonde hair brushes against the tip of Simon’s nose. He’s trembling, and when Simon pulls away slightly, he can see his face shining with tears.
Grace doesn’t have nightmares often. He used to have loads on the Hail Mary, which Simon has been told scared Rocky half to death the first time it happened. But ever since Grace settled down and found his purpose and happiness in Erid, the nightmares have lessened significantly. “And having you here helps too, of course,” Grace said shyly to Simon, who promptly started questioning how he got so lucky as to have Ryland Grace, saviour of Erid and Earth, fall in love with him.
When he does have nightmares though, it breaks Simon’s heart.
“Ry, it’s just a dream. You’re okay,” he whispers, gently petting Grace’s hair and smoothing a hand over his face. He hopes it would be enough to soothe his husband to sleep, but Grace starts thrashing about instead, tossing his head and parting his mouth in distress.
“I don’t want to die. Please, don’t make me go,” he begs. “Stratt, please. I don’t want to go. I don’t want to die.”
Stratt.
Simon clenches his fists tightly. Stratt is lucky she’ll never meet him, because if she does, he will actually kill her.
He remembers the first time he heard the name. Stratt.
Simon was still relatively new to the Hail Mary at that point. Rocky and Grace had rescued him from the SM-13, which he had been told was welded shut and coated in a thick, viscous blood. Simon to this day has no idea how he ended up in space, because his last conscious memory before hearing Grace’s crackling voice over the radio was of being swallowed up in an ocean of blood and left to die.
It hadn’t gone well after Grace and Rocky brought his unconscious body to the Hail Mary. Simon woke up and promptly flipped the fuck out at the robot arm shoved into his face, asking him, “What’s 2+2?” It got worse when he saw Grace, because in his paranoid and delirious state he thought Grace was part of the C.O.I.
Simon grimaces every time he thinks of the moment, when he had Grace in a headlock while the man, ever so kind-hearted, was still trying to reason and plead with him.
Simon learned quickly that hurting Grace was a bad idea though, because a five legged rock spider then barrelled into Simon so hard he actually passed out.
Things became, well, rocky between him and Rocky after that, once Simon stopped freaking out over an alien rock spider glaring menacingly at him. Rocky didn’t even have eyes, but Simon still somehow felt the glare.
The “bad bad bad human” and the way Rocky became Grace’s second shadow when Simon was nearby also sent the message loud and clear, of course.
But as weeks went by, the three of them grew to care for each other.
And that was when he first heard Stratt’s name.
“STRATT! STRATT! PLEASE DON’T DO THIS!”
It came through Grace’s scream of terror.
Simon remembers Rocky fretting, alternating between “Wake up Grace wake up wake up” and “Grace hurt, question?!”
Simon was no stranger to nightmares. He had one almost every night his insomniac brain decided to sleep. He frankly had no clue how to calm him down, but he thought about the gentle words and touches Grace had used on him the last time Simon woke up screaming his head off and tried to replicate them.
That was the first time he helped Grace through a nightmare.
Grace spilled everything to Simon the next day, about what Stratt had done to him.
How she gave him the illusion of a choice, just for there to be no choice at all. How Grace had been terrified and had run and pled for his life, but Stratt didn’t care, sending guards out to catch him and throw him into a cell where he couldn’t even say goodbye to anyone. How she then took away his memories so he wouldn’t sabotage the mission, and loaded him up in a coma state onto a suicide mission he didn’t even know he was on the list for.
“I’m not brave,” Grace sobbed after retelling the story. “I hate Stratt for what she did to me, but I also hate that she was right. I’m a coward. I would rather save myself than save humanity.”
Simon had felt a white-hot fury rush through him during Grace’s story. He knew himself what it felt like to be forced into a suicide mission. “You are brave, Grace,” Simon said. And when Grace, sniffling, admitted he found it hard to forgive Stratt even though she was his friend, Simon told him, “You don’t have to forgive her for what she did to you.” Simon certainly didn’t.
It’s the same white-hot fury that now spreads across his chest as tears continue to roll down his mate’s face.
Through the journey to Erid and now years into living there, Simon and Grace have gotten closer and closer. It is almost impossible for Simon to not fall in love with the stunning, brilliant and kind teacher.
A year ago, they had an Eridian ceremony meant for signifying the deep bond between mates. His Ryland, beautiful and teary-eyed and smiling, had told him how on Earth that would mean they were married.
And they decided that’s what they are. Husband and husband.
Simon will do anything for his husband — steal, live, die, kill. So, Simon means it when he says he will show Stratt no mercy if he ever gets his hands on her.
It is the one thing both he and Rocky agree on.
“Shh, you’re safe now, Ry. It’s just a nightmare. I won’t let you anyone hurt you. I’ll always keep you safe,” Simon murmurs, lips ghosting over his husband’s ear, arms wrapping around his restless frame.
“Si?” he hears a quiet whisper.
Exhausted blue eyes blink up at him.
Simon cups a hand over Grace’s cheek, thumb swiping at a fallen tear. “Back with me?”
“Yeah. Sorry for waking you up and that you have to deal with this,” Grace says. “I know how hard it is for you to fall asleep.”
Simon shakes his head. “What did you say the last time I apologised to you for having a nightmare and waking you up?” he asks.
“I said you have nothing to apologise for, because nightmares are out of you control,” Grace smiles sheepishly.
Simon hums. “Exactly, so it’s the same for you, hm? You don’t have to apologise, because that’s what being your mate means.”
He doesn’t expect Grace’s eyes to well up with even more tears, causing Simon to panic. “Ry, what’s wrong?” Did he say something that triggered a bad memory? Stupid, stupid.
“No, these are happy tears. I just love you so much,” Grace chirps, burying his face into Simon’s chest.
Simon lets out a breath he doesn’t even know he was holding. He tightens his hold on Grace, revelling in the warmth and scent of his mate.
Simon had thought he would forever be a convict, a butcher, a forgotten nobody, destined only for death and destitution. He thought he would die in the submarine, choking in a sea of blood. All the suffering he went through feels almost worth it if it brought him here to Erid, with the love of his life in his arms.
“I love you too,” he breathes. Grace presses his face harder against Simon’s chest in response, body relaxing in his hold. For a while, they stay like that, just listening to each other’s steady heartbeats.
“You ready to sleep now?” Simon asks once he hears Grace’s breathing get slower and slower. A sleepy “mhmmm” is all he gets in reply, and Simon lets out a small chuckle.
“Go to sleep. I’ll watch you.”
It doesn’t take long for Grace’s soft snores to fill the room, and for Simon’s to follow after.