Work Text:
“Please come with me, Dr. Grace.”
Grace whips around from the whiteboard with such velocity that his dry erase marker almost slips its place between his teeth. Stratt’s eyebrows are slightly raised as though she had expected it to fall, or perhaps in judgement of its position in the first place.
“Stratt!” he says around the obstruction. “You actually might be able to help me with this, here, hang on—”
Grace grabs Stratt by the shoulders to position her next to a swivel chair. She moves willingly, though her eyebrows raise impossibly further. He pulls a second marker from behind his ear and places it behind her left ear, which she also allows. It’s when he starts tying a string around her right ear that Stratt stops him with a light grip on his wrist.
“Dr. Grace, I am not going to entertain this right now. Please, follow me outside.” She gestures to his coat and moves toward the lab door. “It’s drizzling at the moment.”
Grace blinks, drops the string, grabs his jacket, and begins to follow her. He makes it three steps before he spits out the marker and throws it behind him. They set a brisk pace to navigate around small hoards of scientists and soldiers to one of the exits with an awning that affords acceptable protection from the misting rain. Stratt slips a hand into her jacket pocket and pulls out a lighter, black and petite. She passes it to him, so he starts flicking the flame on and off until she reveals what her other pocket contains.
“Oh—I, uh, I don’t smoke.”
She blinks.
“Anymore,” he amends. “Or, well, I haven’t since I started teaching.”
“You are not in school right now,” she points out. She opens the box and flips a cigarette upside down and pulls out the cigarette next to the flipped one. “You seemed like you needed one.”
“Stratt, what if I wanted to smoke that one first, and, actually, what do you mean by that? And sweet Kentucky, is that a dead or dying man on an autopsy table?”
She hands the box over, taking the lighter back from him in the same breath as she explains, “Dead, not dying, yes. Surely you’ve seen these packs while traveling for your conferences in Europe. As for why I pulled you out here, it’s either a cigarette break or a mandatory six hour intermission for sleep for every 36 hours you spend in that lab. Your choice.”
She slips her cigarette between her lips and flicks the light with her other hand protecting her flame. Grace feels his weak resolve crumbling as the tobacco smoke suffuses the ocean air. He’s already feeling his lurking headache subside as he takes the lighter back from her and taps a cigarette between his fingertips.
“Nothing really feels like a choice with you,” he huffs and mirrors her pose, lighting, shielding, breathing, breathing, smoking. Oh, he knows why he used to smoke. “And, for the record, those anti-smoking warnings used to be a lot less graphic.”
“You should be thankful I didn’t bring one of the more grotesque packs.” She’s got that subtle quirk in her lips that shouts about how he’d walked right into this choice. It also carries the promise of graphics that could send him back to his days at the university's dissection lab—
Grace cradles the black box with a close-up photo of someone’s cancerous tongue plastered on the front. He knows that there are even more terrifying warnings on other packs of cigarettes out there, but this one freaks him out plenty, thank you. From a previously-unexplored compartment in the same box that gave him refills of toothpaste, he pulls out another pack. These cigarettes are Camels. Grace blinks. Remembers telling Carl about his habits in college. Opens the more favorable pack to find a cigarette pre-flipped.
He wants to throw up.
Why did they think he would smoke on the Hail Mary? Were these for the inevitable days when air would run thin but the will to conserve it ran thinner? Was the tongue cancer supposed to scare him into returning to his work? Did they think Yáo and Ilyukhina would share them with him?
Grace swallows bile. He cannot waste today’s rations over grief that hits disproportionately hard for how long it has been sitting next to him.
“Grace find extra toothbrush, question?” Rocky’s voice calls, and Grace hears his ball tumbling towards the storage room. “Rocky ready for Grace stinky breath to go away.”
“Rock, not only did I find toothbrushes and toothpaste to last 10 more years, I found something that would make my breath even more stinky. Not that you could tell, anyway.”
“What is, question? Why Grace torture Hail Mary, question?” Rocky bumps into Grace’s leg. “Rocky can hear bacteria in Grace breath.”
“Leave me and my bacteria alone. Look,” he says, waving a pack in front of Rocky. “Cigarettes!”
Rocky sounds off a harsh clash of metal. “Cigarettes! Bad bad bad. Cigarettes more than bad breath. Cigarettes kill Grace before Hail Mary reach Erid.”
“No, they wouldn’t! That’s not how it works, man,” Grace laughs, then coughs, then heaves. Rocky is tapping gently yet urgently, fretting as Grace swallows more bile. “Okay, maybe they’d kill me a little faster than normal in my current state.”
This is routine for them, now. This laugh, cough, heave, sit down, suffer through gags and wounds that threaten to pop open with Rocky’s quiet thrumming guiding Grace through it. With Grace’s immune system on the fritz and rations running low and Rocky growing more concerned by the day, he absolutely does not see himself finishing a cigarette without keeling over. Well, maybe he could survive one. In any case, Rocky would never let him hear the end of it if the smoke impacted his ability to preserve energy through the longer-than-normal days of their journey to Erid. Staying awake is so difficult at this point that Grace is surprised he managed to search the storage boxes as thoroughly as he did. He supposes Rocky came to check on him after he spent so long in there, which Grace begrudgingly admits was not a bad idea after he was left unattended in his quest to reorganize the food stores and ended up with a concussion that took more than two months to heal. Since then, Rocky has been quietly attached to his hip in one literal way or metaphorical another. Grace does not mind as much as he once would, especially with how prone he is to drifting off and waking up from dreamless sleep confused and sweating.
All of that to say—
“Fine. No cigarettes until we reach Erid.”
“No cigarettes ever ever!”
Grace is eventually allowed cigarettes. Asterisk, he is only allowed cigarettes after he is safely brought back from the throes of starvation and atrophy and real, honest to God sepsis if he is to believe the Eridian medical staff and his own scarring. Double asterisk, he is only allowed cigarettes after the very same medical staff concocts a medicinal antithesis to the cancerous substances he is ever so wanting to experience again. Triple asterisk, he is only allowed cigarettes after he pulls the Savior-of-Erid-and-poor-human-that-misses-Earth card.
He blames his craving, as well as many other things, on Stratt. After all, she was the one to re-introduce one of the only things that would ever soothe his unspooling strings of thoughts.
It is more than missing Earth, though. The homesickness gets to him less these days as he is now fully settled into his biodome and reprising his role as a science teacher (though his curriculum is split between science classes and human culture to settle the pebbles’ curiosity.)
No, Grace’s mind is rarely ever stuck on the joys of human life on Earth. These days, his body haunts him with memories of being slammed against the grass, against his control console, and down deep within himself as he practically decomposed during his final days on the Hail Mary. Grace cannot sleep through the night. He shivers when he is not cold. He hears harmonies of Rocky’s thrums overlapping with his own sobs as he cowered before Stratt, selfish, selfish, selfish.
Grace is conserving his cigarettes to avoid an addiction, and, well. He doesn’t really enjoy the idea of trying to get Rocky on board with synthesizing smoking tobacco on Erid.
The problem was—
“Cheese on a cracker!”
Grace jumps to run his hand under cold water, hissing as the hot tea leaves its imprint behind. If only his mind could just stay here, with his tea, in his kitchen, on Erid, out of the clouds, he’d be doing a lot better about conserving cigarettes. What he needs is a project to keep him busy, something aside from his teaching curriculum, the living conditions of his biodome, archiving human history into consumable Eridian data logs, studying the accelerated evolution of Taumeoba, studying the effect of Erid’s gravity on his own bone structure and muscle elasticity, and journaling. He needs something fresh that he can devote this unoccupied part of his brain to, something unbelievably interesting, something he can be passionate about!
Rocky opens Grace’s door. No knock, no nothing, just shoves it open with a strength that makes Grace finally turn off his faucet.
“Gee, so much for safe neighborhoods.”
A series of chirrups and cymbals admonishes Grace, quickly and incomprehensibly. Rocky continues to hum low and high, and now Grace is truly admonished.
“The ship is filled with blood?”
The cool air returns to the beach as the artificial sun begins to set. Today was one of the allotted sunny days that Grace permitted into the weather schedule. The teacher is loud about his preference for overcast weather, but the second Simon showed an interest towards being able to see the sun now and again, Grace was hard at work with Erid’s biodome team to split the difference. Simon is reminded by the flourishing tomato plants that the change was not only for his own benefit but for the health of the greenhouse as well.
The sun is also programmed to mimic what is apparently common on the cusp of certain Earth seasons, so it sets rather early in the evening—the short day’s end is signaled by Grace’s whistle passing the greenhouse as he returns from the school. Simon decides that this moment is just as good of a stopping place as any, and he reshelves the tools before hoisting the woven xenonite bag full of carrots. They were the first vegetable that Simon planted by himself in the greenhouse. He hopes Grace can think of something to do with them.
The door to the home is cracked open, and Simon doesn’t shoo away the blossoming warmth at Grace’s never ending consideration for the varied frustration that Simon faces when he’s carrying things one-handed. He shoulders the door fully open and slips his shoes off at the door; he typically goes barefoot in the greenhouse, but the sprinkler has been overcompensating for the day’s sun and the ground was borderline muddy.
“Hello,” he says as he sets the carrots on the counter next to Grace. He backs out of the man’s personal space to allow him to swivel and marvel at the fruits of Simon’s labor. “The carrots are done, I think.”
Simon only has his laptop research of Earth’s agricultural trends to go off, so he could be wrong, but Grace beams at him like Simon invented carrots.
“These are lovely, Si! You did so well with them, they’re hardly even smaller than the kind I’d buy at the store. Oh, heck, had I known they’d be ready today, I would’ve come home sooner so we’d have time to make a stew. Or at least a soup. Maybe there’s time for a soup, which is my second favorite way to eat carrots since they don’t get as soft or flavorful as they would in a stew, but the abridged cooking time might be worth it. The color on them is beautiful, we can’t not eat them tonight.”
“Oh,” Simon says dumbly, brain still processing Grace’s praise of his work in the greenhouse. He blinks up at the man like Grace invented soups. “I, uh, I’m glad you like them? We can try stew another night if you can teach me your soup recipe tonight.”
Grace is already pulling out a pot and the broth they had made from onions and the bay leaves Grace had insisted on, though Simon hardly believes it made a difference.
“This soup recipe is the same as when we made it with me-meat and celery, but this time we’ll add the carrots before the celery. Here, I’ll get started on chopping these, your tea is on the table.”
When faced with the two mugs of tea waiting for him and his host, Simon realizes he may need to shake up his routine a little. He’s becoming too predictable.
He drinks his mint tea—there’s only one other option in their garden, and it’s reserved for sleepless nights—and listens as Grace rambles about his class today; a lesson for the pebbles is a lesson for Simon. Tonight, Simon learns about the frequency of recessive genes and how they manifest in Eridians compared to humans. According to Grace, he only ended up with blue eyes because his mom’s dad and his dad’s dad had blue eyes. The pebbles' gait and vertical jump depend on those genes in their parents, though they may not be present.
“And,” Grace adds, pointing over his shoulder in Simon’s general direction. “Your hairline has something called a widow’s peak, which is that little point of hair growth along the middle of your forehead. I actually learned in elementary school that that’s a recessive gene, but hairlines are much more complicated than that. It’s definitely genetic, but it can’t be broken down into dominant and recessive. Punnett squares are a very simplistic way of looking at gene proclivity.”
Simon hums at that. “My mom didn’t have a…what, a fuckin’ widow’s peak? I think it looks a little weird.”
“I like it! Suits you. Gives you a sharpness.”
Simon feels heat in his cheeks. Grace sets a bowl of carrot and Grace-meat soup in front of him, which is only mildly hotter than his face.
The predictability of Simon’s routine might need a little work, but he likes theirs. It took Simon healing from near-resuscitation yet absolutely no word from him for Grace to offer him control of the greenhouse. In turn, Grace promised to relearn how to cook. (Apparently, his years living on his own faded his proficiency in his family’s cooking.) Simon thought Grace was putting him to work, allowing him to earn his keep, so he was diligent. Privately, though, he enjoyed it like nothing ever before. His pleasure in gardening was something he kept secret, worried that his enjoyment would reveal something that could then be taken away. Then, Grace in his never ending consideration, fretted about Simon not enjoying the work. He offered to relinquish Simon of his duties, and. That was the first time Simon cried in front of Grace.
A turning point.
The two never not got along, but the budding relationship was strained by their battling defenses and anxieties. Simon, of course, hardly believed that reality had shifted in his favor, that he was on a healthy planet with a healthy star and someone who spoke his language and gave him a home and refused to flinch at his wounds. His odds were too in his favor, and he ran the risk of ruining everything his shining star had given him. His deformed face and body pointed towards the absurdity of something as jarring as him belonging in a space as bright as Ryland Grace. Simon treaded carefully.
Grace later revealed on a late night that saw the sun rise that he, too, understood the other’s presence as a precious jewel. He, too, feared ruining a gift sent from who knows where. He, too, had forgotten that human touch could bring him back to reality; what sharing a dinner table could bring to the table; how laughter rebounding against the walls of his home could signal that he was not alone, not anymore.
That sunrise was the second time Simon cried in front of Grace.
Now, they work on their separate projects in their own time. Sometimes Grace watches Simon garden, sometimes Simon watches Grace swim. They watch a movie at least once a day, be it after they’ve had dinner and welcome the coziness with full stomachs, or in the wee hours of the morning before they’ve had the chance to talk about the nerves razing through their veins.
Another part of their routine: waking up from their nightmares to find the other already awake.
(Simon sometimes wakes and is able to fall back asleep. When this happens, when he doesn’t leave his bed but instead uses the breathing techniques that Grace taught him, he hears the man pad away from his cracked door near-silently.)
(Simon selfishly wonders when they’ll be allowed to wake up together and soothe each other back to sleep without having to leave their bed.)
Simon feels his face heat up again. Grace is slurping on a spoonful of soup, steam flooding his eyeglasses. Simon banishes selfish thoughts and instead asks Grace if he and Rocky had made any progress on their experimental Taumoeba development in one of Erid’s cave systems. He already knows the answer is a slow but sure yes thanks to Adrian’s reconnaissance, but he figured he’d get the real deal from the researcher himself.
No, Simon thinks as Grace begins gesticulating with his spoon in his hands, this routine is just predictable enough.
This is not your home
This is not freedom
This is prison
This is your prison
of my making
of your own doing
This was part of the plan
The room is dark. Simon tried sleeping without his nightlight, but loathed as he is to admit it, he’s apparently not ready for that shift. He awoke with a choked swallow and his shoulders raised to his ears. Before he has a single thought, he’s out of bed and turning on the lights.
He sees his bed. His bed. His lamp, his slippers, the window, the shimmering edges of the biodome. His shirt, the floor, the air conditioning, his hair against his neck. The air conditioning, the creak of his door as he opens it, his feet shuffling across the floor. Chamomile tea, blood. Blood.
By the time he reaches Grace, who sits outside on the doorstep, Simon thinks he is fairly grounded with his surroundings. Grace has made himself a cup of tea, and Simon grabbed his own share that was waiting for him on the table.
Maybe this part was too predictable, too.
“Hi,” Grace mumbles, head in his hands. Simon squats to sit next to him and sips at his barely-cooled tea. “Is it too hot?”
“No, it’s fine.” Simon knocks his shoulder with Grace’s. “You should try it.”
Grace laughs and lifts his head from his hands. Simon catches his eye with some effort and finds him looking…ashamed? Embarrassed?
“You okay?” Grace asks, picking up his tea. He starts bouncing his leg and Simon narrows his eyes.
“I’m okay. Did the whole 5-4-3-whatever thing, seemed to work this time.”
“Good! Good, I know it doesn’t always work. Good.”
What the fuck is this man on about?
“Grace…” Simon hedges. “You’re being weird. What’s got you up tonight?”
Grace flashes his gaze towards Simon, even more embarrassed, caught. He laughs, though, and it seems like a genuine thing. Now Simon feels on edge, and he came out here to calm down with his. With his. His?
“I…Sorry, Simon, I don’t think—I don’t know if I can explain this one.” Grace’s tea looks to be untouched in any real sense, and he sets it back down. “Oh, crud, I need a cigarette. I’ll be right back.”
The man sitting beside him is gone in a flash, and Simon blinks. A cigarette. What can’t Grace tell him? Simon tries not to feel sorry for himself. Grace reserves the right to keep his hauntings private, but what about their routine? If something is bothering Grace badly, Simon can usually be of aid just by listening and providing some highly unbiased feedback.
Fuck. Simon hopes he hasn’t ruined anything.
Was he too eager? Surely not, he’s kept himself in check, well-behaved whenever Grace gives him the opportunity to want. He tries not to tag along to school too often, and he averts his eyes when Grace changes into his swim shirt. He works hard, earns the dinner that Grace puts on the table. They only brush shoulders when watching movies, ankles sometimes knocking together, and Simon has only fallen asleep on the man’s arm one or twice or maybe three times. Hell, Simon’s not the one who hovers outside the other’s door in the dark of night.
This…can’t be his fault, right?
Grace is back, lighter and pack of cigarettes in hand. It’s the grotesque one with bold words in a language that Simon does not know—Grace tells him it’s Dutch. The freaky tongue box is opened to reveal the final cigarette, tobacco-side up.
“Lucky cig,” Grace comments off-handedly, pulling it out. Simon watches the doctor light it quickly and take two drags before he hazards his question.
“Why’s it lucky?”
“Good question.” Grace breathes out slowly, the puff of smoke distinct from the billowing trails that follow after the lit end. “Just, tradition, I guess. Some people flip one cigarette in a new pack and save that one for last. I don’t know the exact origins, but a lot of military people will do it and say it brings good fortune. I did it in college and never kept track of whether or not the luck stuck.”
“Think tonight’s your lucky night, Grace?”
Grace pauses and Simon breathes with him as though he has his own cigarette. He doesn’t know why he said that.
“What’s smoking like?” he asks instead of letting the man answer. He receives a side-eye and a smirk as Grace passes him the cigarette.
“Wanna try?”
Simon has never felt the urge to share one of Grace’s cigarettes before. They felt precious, especially with how gently they hang from Grace’s fingertips. Now, though, Simon glances between Grace’s still-bouncing leg and his face. Now? Simon wants.
The cigarette passes from hand to hand. Simon doesn’t know how to hold it as lightly as Grace does between his fingers, so he grips it between his pointer and his thumb. Grace’s gaze weighs heavy on him as he brings it to his lips.
Second-hand kiss, he thinks, a flash of heat zinging through his core. Fuck.
The cigarette is between his lips before he overthinks it. He breathes in. Deep. Like it’s plain-old air. He feels his lungs tighten slightly, but the smoke doesn’t choke him like he thought it would. Smooth is the only way Simon can describe it. He exhales quickly, ready for his heart to stop racing, and thrusts the offending object back to Grace.
Grace is still watching him intently, and Simon tilts his head to face him.
“I don’t get it.”
Grace barks out a laugh, too loud but melodious nonetheless. He takes the cigarette back from Simon and sneaks it between his smile. Simon’s eyes are glued to Grace’s as the man wraps his lips around the goddamn cigarette once again. He unsticks his eyes to watch the movement of Grace's lungs breathing even deeper than Simon had.
Fuck.
“There’s, uh. Maybe you’d like it more if you tried it a different way.”
Simon raises a brow.
“If…you really want to share it. There’s something called shotgunning? I’d take a drag, then, you could. Use me to inhale the smoke. Like, without the cigarette.”
Simon pauses. Grace fidgets, flicking the cigarette even though there's nothing left to ash. Simon follows the movement, watching the doctor's thumb curl and rub and tap. Tremble, shake. Waits, taps again. Suggests something in morse code.
“Ryland, what…was your dream about tonight?”
They’re close now, pulled together as the smoke entrails wrap around them. He sees Grace swallow. The warm porchlight illuminates the man’s throat in such a way that a shadow jumps at his pulsepoint. The cadence is quick, almost as quick as Simon’s—his hand is almost shaking with the phantom cigarette in his grip.
“Si…”
“I need you to tell me. Tell me, or else I’ll let you breathe smoke into my mouth without thinking any which way about it.”
“Oh, God, Simon. It wasn’t bad, it, you were—we…”
Simon reaches his hand up and lets it hover over Grace’s pulse. They’re too close, Simon would have stepped back ages ago under normal circumstances. Instead, his hand falls and he feels the man’s full body shudder beneath his grip.
“Please,” is what Simon says then. “Please skip the cigarette step. I—I don’t care about that part.”
Grace is close. Simon almost forgets to shut his eyes as he takes in the smell of tobacco, the warmth of Grace’s face, then his lips.
The second they touch, Grace lets out a wounded sound like Simon has never heard, and he almost pulls back—Simon stops himself when he feels Grace pushing up into his hand, seeking more pressure. He realizes that this is his chance to drink in anything Grace is willing to give him. His grip tightens on his angel’s neck more out of greed than anything as one of Grace’s hands lands in his hair and the other—cigarette still secured in its place, Simon can feel the warmth—rests gently, gently against the scarred gash that too-long teeth once ripped across his face. Now Simon feels a deep groan rise in his throat and Grace only pulls him closer. Wire glasses poke sharply against his nose, and he finds he doesn’t mind too much.
Simon can only attempt to breathe through his nose as he drowns in the feeling of Grace moving against him. Then, Grace lets his lips fall open slightly, and Simon is given more, more, more. He invades the new opening like he's stumbled out of the blood ocean and it floods him with fresh air. Grace’s body is moving like crashing waves against his own. The man kisses with everything he has and Simon thinks that maybe Grace is drowning in fresh air, too.
Simon has kissed before. He's never been kissed, not like this.
“Your dream, Ryland,” Simon breathes against the other’s lips, urgent and quiet and raw. “What were we doing in your dream?”
Grace moans like he forgot, like the thought was enough to put him on edge. Now his hands grip at Simon’s waist and scrabble against his shoulder blades. He dips his head low against Simon’s shoulder, so Simon puts his lips to use against Grace’s cheek, his neck, his ear, letting his tongue do whatever makes the sweet doctor squirm the most.
“Jesus, Si, I don't—don't usually even. Even want shit like this, but—”
“Do you want it now? With me?”
“I mean, yeah, I really, really do, but—” Grace lifts his head up now, blushing and eyes flicking across Simon’s face. “Simon, do you?”
Simon would want his angel to flay him alive if it made those eyes sparkle with mirth. Simon wants to touch Grace like he can cure him of all ailments with a brush of his hand. Simon wants to feel the tangible fingers of Grace’s spirit hold hands with his own. Simon wants to sleep in the same bed. The fact that Grace is letting him want like this will fuel his avarice to no end.
“Yes. Anything you want. Please.”
“Oh. Woah. Okay, we…I dreamt that we were in the kitchen.” Simon would love to keep assessing the shifts in Grace’s face as he talks, but even better, he could make the man bite his lips and squeeze his eyes shut with simple touches against Grace’s waist, his neck, his thigh. “I-I was cooking, and you came in from the, from working outside. And I’m at the sink, washing something, I don’t know, and suddenly you’re b-behind me. You move so quietly sometimes, but you always make yourself known. Your hand is kinda, like, pressed against the counter and you’re blocking me in and you start kissing at my neck. I laugh, you laugh, and you keep going down until you’re squatting and kneeling and your hand lands on my waist. Then, then you just spin me around and I’m pressed against the counter with you…between my legs.”
Grace’s chest is sucking in shallow breaths under Simon’s heavy petting. He has yet to make eye contact, but he’s fidgeting and squeezing at the roots of Simon’s hair. Simon cannot believe what he’s hearing; it’s like Grace just wants to watch Simon’s world burn and each word adds more kindling.
“Nice dream,” Simon whispers, close as he is to Grace’s face. He presses a kiss against one of those blazing cheeks just because he can. “Keep going.”
“You’re on the ground. And you just, make space for yourself, like you push at my leg with your shoulder until I get it raised onto the table.”
Simon snorts. “You’d need your cane, I think.”
Air pushes out of Grace, high pitched laughter. “You’re probably right, but dream-me is keeping up with my PT and dream-you is steady enough. Simon, you’re on your knees, are you listening?”
“Yes, I’m loving every bit of it. Keep going.”
“I’m wearing loose pants and you, fuck, you press your face. Um. Nose and mouth against my. Sweatpants.”
“Where?” The man shakes his head, pulling at Simon’s hair. His grip on the cigarette must be the strongest piece of resolve he’s got left with how every other muscle is twitching under Simon’s relentless touch. “Show me, angel.”
Grace’s breath hitches, but he indulges Simon’s plea and lifts his hand to pull Simon’s up his thigh towards his center. They both groan when Grace’s hand presses Simon’s to the warmth there. Grace’s hips hitch and grind against Simon. Simon feels his own dick twitch and pulse with want.
“Good, sweetheart, fuck,” he mutters. Gently, he splays his fingers over Grace and brushes across him, near-featherlight pressure. “Keep going.”
“You, you start licking me through—unh—my pants.”
“Does it feel good? Do you want more?”
“Yes, yes, but you know I want more, and you just keep going slow. And I have to take it. God, you’re so good at making me take it, just ‘cause—I always get in my head, a bit, when there’s someone with me and trying to make me feel good and I just keep thinking and thinking, but—fuck, Si, you’re, you’re good at taking away my thoughts, or at least you don’t give me any reason to worry, ‘cause you act like it’s heaven down there, and you groan a little and get more into it and you let me talk and move your head and then you start pulling at my waistband, S-Simon—”
Simon starts to feel wetness seep through Grace’s pants. His fingers move quicker with Grace’s hand still guiding him. He shifts a little lower and presses his fingertips up into where he knows Grace’s opening is weeping stickiness.
“Do I take off your pants? In your dream.”
Grace shakes his head vigorously as though he’s in pain. “N-No, I woke up.”
“I can. I can right now, and you wouldn’t have to stand through it, we could go to bed—”
Simon is cut off with his angel’s lips against his own once more, wet and clumsy. Grace releases his grip on Simon’s hand for a brief moment to grasp desperately at the back of Simon’s neck and it burns, it’s hot, Simon loves it.
“I want that.” He’s whispering with a smile that causes Simon’s eyes to cross in their effort to see clearly. “Please.”
They’re up, as quick as they can be with Simon giving Grace support as his knees creak with the effort of sitting in the same uncushioned position for so long. They giggle when he loses his balance slightly and crashes into Simon’s side, and Simon hauls him through the front door.
The unfinished cigarette finally slips from Grace’s grip in favor of holding Simon’s hand.
Glee floods Simon’s system and turns him giddy with something that he’s never quite gotten the chance to experience. He has never known if he’d like being with someone in this way since he’s only had something hurried and desperate in the wrong ways. With Grace, though, everything is an odd mix of fast and slow that keeps his heart racing all the while, sure and steady and entirely unpredictable all at once. He would do anything for this man, and this, landing on the bed with Grace’s weight on top of him, seems like a good way to fulfill them both.
“Si,” Grace gasps between kisses, “what can I do for you? How can I make you feel good?”
Simon pauses and lets their eyes meet as he assesses himself. He doesn’t want to think about his own pleasure right now, but he knows exactly where Grace is coming from, what he’s worried about.
“I feel good taking care of you, sweetheart. I don’t, uh. I think I just want to focus on you tonight, if that’s…okay?”
“That’s okay!” Grace agrees instantly, then hesitates. “If you're sure? I want to, uh, reciprocate. Take care of you, too.”
“Why does taking care of me need direct reciprocation?” Simon wonders, drawing a loss. He likes being here, with Grace, concentrated solely on the man’s pleasure. Even with warm coils tangled in his groin and definitely his own fair share of dampness, it feels non-urgent, unimportant, uninteresting. He says as much.
“Oh,” Grace says consideringly, sitting up slightly atop Simon’s hips. “No, no, I understand. You’re right. Give-and-take reciprocation is actually a pretty stupid Earth standard that never sat entirely right with me. I’ve only ever experienced sex in that box, but there’s whole communities of people who don’t want to be touched at all, or maybe don’t love giving as much as they love taking, or something in between. I don’t know, everything’s a spectrum. I've sort of never loved much of it at all, with my whole overthinking thing, but I’ve never had a partner that wanted to explore outside that standard with me, so…”
He trails off. Simon feels a twinge in his heart for the stress that Grace associates with pleasure. Not that Simon could say he doesn’t relate, since sex was even more in-the-box on Eden, so…
So…
“Let’s explore together?” he offers, his hand gently soothing across Grace’s hip. “We can talk about it more later?”
Grace snorts. “When you’re not about to eat me out?”
“Exactly,” Simon says, lips quirked and mouth watering in anticipation.
“Okay. Okay, I trust you. You can, uh, take care of me.”
Simon takes the permission for what it is and works with Grace to switch their positions. Simon tries not to rest too much of his weight on the sweet doctor, knees and elbow carefully supporting him, but Grace won’t stop fidgeting. Simon weighs his own muscle mass against Grace’s tendency to seek touch in the smallest of ways and to lean into any type of pressure; he decides to press into Grace carefully, then all at once, and it earns him a breathy moan.
As eager as Simon is to finish Grace’s dream in reality, he captures his angel’s lips once more, urged to remind him that he’s not one-track minded. Grace’s hands are never-ceasing in their quest to explore the entirety of Simon’s torso, slipping beneath his shirt and raking his fingers up his ribs, scratching lightly over scar tissue (a bold move that jolts Simon into melting further against his partner). Eventually, Simon’s shirt is so hitched up that he resolves to pull back and remove it himself. Grace gets tangled in his hurry to do the same, and his glasses fly off with the offending shirt once he is free; Simon rescues them and sets them on the bedside table.
A quick kiss and a question: “Is there anything I should know about being off limits? Scars, chest, words, penetration?”
Grace slowly shakes his head. “You know about pinning me down, but aside from that…uh, what words, specifically?”
“I might be using cunt and dick in the same sentence.” Simon begins to warm up his muscles by letting his tongue drift down to Grace’s neck, letting his teeth skim in rhythm with the vibrations of Grace’s groan. “That okay?”
“God, you’re the worst. Yes, yeah, whatever, anything, oh, fuck—”
Grace has mentioned the differences in the scars on his body after Simon admitted curiosity; the nature of his burn scars left him without much sensation along his left side, while his scars from top surgery are the complete opposite. So, naturally, Simon figures light abuse from his tongue would be appreciated.
He never realized that sex could be fun like this, a chuckle rising in his throat as Grace can’t seem to figure out whether he wants to shy away or lean into Simon’s ministrations. Though, he should have expected that everything could be fun if Grace is involved.
There’s a near never ending whine coming from Grace—broken only by sharp gasps—by the time Simon reaches the man’s waistband. Simon doesn’t know if the drawn-out response is a testament to his own aptitude or the man’s touch starvation. He can’t help but run his tongue across the beginnings of Grace’s happy trail, light and feathery enough to draw twitches from the muscles there.
“Need your help here, angel,” Simon hums. “Unless you want me to pull off your sweatpants with my teeth.”
“Oh, I'd love to see that.” A beat. “Yeah, okay, sorry.”
Grace shimmies for a moment, and Simon helps as much as he can with his arm still propping him up. He means to help a little more, but he loses track of the pants once Grace’s boxers are revealed, pale pink and tight and hitched up and—
“Oh, angel, you’re soaked,” Simon breathes, and he’s got to shift his weight some and use his abs to support himself, but he needs to feel the dampness with own fingertips. He touches once, twice, massages inwards a little, and his fingers come back shiny; blessed.
“Ggh—” Grace chokes, trembling slightly with the effort of holding still for Simon; Simon ought to tell him that he's doing well. “Have been since, since, I woke up.”
“You should've told me sooner, sweetheart,” Simon coos. He presses a kiss to Grace’s covered center and receives a weak whine for it. “I woulda helped you. Made you a little more messy before I licked you clean.”
“Fuck, Si, who taught you to talk like that?”
“Just bein’ truthful.” He looks up at his angel to see his cheeks glowing with red that spreads down to his chest, splotchy and raw. His fists are balled in anticipation. “Pass me that pillow and take off your panties for me.”
“You looked that one up!” Grace laughs and the pillow is thrown, not passed.
“I was just working on expanding my vocabulary,” Simon reasons as he folds the pillow and shoves it under his own chest to give him more range of motion with his arm. He refocuses. “Shit.”
“Didn't expand it too much, did you,” Grace taunts, apparently all too pleased to have his moment of amusement over the effect his bare body has on Simon. Blond hair curls at the edges of Grace’s cunt, sticky and dark with arousal. “C’mon, honey. Show me more of your vocab, make me proud.”
Grace is teasing, but holy shit, holy shit, Simon feels his focus shift into making his angel proud. He’s lucky that he finally got Grace to share the details of his dream because Simon has never done this before, never sighed soft breaths over the warm folds of another and breathed in just as softly and savored the smell, the trembling, the humidity—thanks to Grace’s dream, he knows to start slow.
And that Grace likes to talk.
“O-Oh, shhit. Oh my God.” Gasp. “I can’t believe you, your tongue—” choked whine “—is so warm. You… Yes, God, like that. Simon, fuck, Si,” he groans, “you’re so good. So good at this, so good for me, oh, precious. God, you’re perfect, feels—feels so…oh, fuck, where’d my vocabulary go? You’re doin’ so well for me, Si.”
Simon moans, glancing up before immediately squeezing his eyes shut when Grace pulls at his hair. He moans louder. and continues to gently salve his tongue over the length of Grace’s dick, occasionally allowing the breadth of his tongue gather some of Grace’s wetness and spread it across his folds. He’s never tasted anything so salty and sweet—he’s a little tempted to ask Grace about adding to the me-meat recipe.
“You like your hair pulled?” Grace hums, and Simon nods (albeit a little pitifully, with his mouth occupied). “I should’ve asked you before, I’m sorry. Your hair is—hng, it’s so beautiful. You’re so beautiful, honey. Can I move you around?” Simon nods. Exceptionally pitiful. “Good, good boy.”
What the hell.
Simon feels a little lightheaded, choking on Grace and the praise that is flooding his system. He comes up for air, Grace’s grip immediately loosening. His head rests on Grace’s still-shaking thigh, sighing and leaning back into Grace’s hand. And Grace’s thigh is right there. He bites.
“Ah!” Before Simon can get concerned, apologize, Grace follows up, “Good sound, good sound. Again, please.”
Oh, he loves requests like that. He bites right next to the first mark, teeth pointed a little sharper this time. He looks down to watch the redness bloom and laps over the mark to soothe it, and Grace is moaning now; Simon is a quick learner. He turns his licks into small nibbles, then sucks as he gathers the meat of Grace’s thigh in his mouth. He’s still gentle—this thigh is still recovering from severe atrophy, after all, and he is not about to ruin that progress. He will decorate it, though, like little trophies lining Grace’s hard work. He bites and soothes his way back to Grace’s cunt and, encouraged by Grace’s whines and the hand pushing him back in, he resumes his ministrations.
“Good, honey, a little slow—unh! Yea, perfect. You can, y’know, use a finger, if you want.”
Simon wants. It takes a moment of strategizing and some light readjusting of his support pillow for him to get his arm under them in the way he wants it, but the position will hold for now. He slips a finger in, and it’s so easy, Grace just lets out a breath. He adds a second one to join the warm heat, and this one earns him a moan.
(Simon has some experience with this part, at least. Once, on Eden, an older soldier advised him to let off some steam, gave him advice, threw caution to the wind and outright explained masturbation. This almost-friend died not one week later, but Simon had taken his advice when he could. It did him few favors on Eden, but he could admit he saw the appeal on Erid. He knows their shared anatomy here, he knows what works.)
His two middle fingers push deep and crook upwards, massaging. Grace swears above him and shoves his head back to where it belongs: salivating over his angel’s dick. Simon is barely cognizant of his own body, but when he checks in with himself, woah. He squeezes his legs just to test the waters and groans into Grace’s warmth, fucking his fingers in with a slight flick on each stroke. His partner’s moans send sparks flying across every nerve ending that has been exposed by their whole encounter. There is nothing Simon is enjoying more than the murmured encouragement coming from Grace, intermingled with soft whines and sharp grunts.
“Feelin’ good, honey?”
Simon blinks, realizes he’s been squirming, and moans as he nods; Grace’s hand in his hair follows his movement.
“Do you, ah, want some attention?”
Simon’s entire body screams no!, and he makes the difficult decision to break free from Grace in order to figure out why. He returns to resting on Grace’s thigh with slick fingers soothing gently right over Grace’s length. Simon makes sure he himself isn’t uncomfortable; he does not want this experience with Grace to be ruined by him dissociating, et cetera, but he decides that is not how he's feeling. What he decides is:
“I want to get you off, and I don’t want to get off. I want to lay here and be with you. And I want you to not get me off. On purpose. Keep me like this.”
Unexpectedly, this pulls a soft moan from Grace. “Good boy, Si,” he murmurs as he strokes Simon’s hair. “So perfect, telling me what you want.”
Simon buzzes, ears ablaze at the reward for speaking his mind. He lets himself bask in the sun of Grace’s attention while he catches his breath.
“It’s alright?” he eventually asks, some silly part of him still needing the validation even after all of Grace’s…assurances.
Grace doesn’t laugh, not now. “Fantastic, honey. You know exactly what you’re doing. It just, I don’t know, it always takes a while to go anywhere near orgasm pleasure for me. You could be down there for a while, uh. I don’t..promise anything? About you getting me off, I mean.”
Simon’s ears perk up at what he knows is the doctor’s anxiety shining through. He presses a kiss to Grace’s thigh and moves upward, finding Grace’s lips and sharing the taste of himself. From the sigh that is also shared, the man doesn’t mind it one bit; he feels Grace relax beneath him.
“I have no expectations, angel. You could come, or not, and we could both just enjoy ourselves anyway. I’m doing just fine down there if you’re fine up here.”
Grace’s eyes search Simon’s own. All Simon knows is that he feels at peace here, like nothing can hurt him in this bed with sunlight reimagined. Here, with Ryland, desires he didn’t even know he has are being fulfilled and his love is worried he’s not putting on a good enough show.
Oh.
Oh!
Oh.
“I love you, Ryland.” Sure and urgent, he knows this in his bones.
Grace beams at him, hand carding through his hair. “Aw, Si. I love you, too.”
Simon pauses. Grace is sure, too. Like this isn’t a revelation.
“Holy fuck, you knew,” Simon gasps, his own smile pulling at his lips. “You knew and you didn’t tell me, you bastard!”
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, you were just so sleepy, real cute, I promise. And we’d just finished watching When Harry Met Sally, and it’s hard not to say ‘I love you’ after watching that movie, especially when you’re half asleep.” Grace’s smile turns gentle and he’s holding Simon’s scarred face like it hadn’t once tried to bite off his hand. “That was a few weeks ago. I didn’t think you meant it, really, so I let it be a little secret. I’m sorry, I should’ve clued you in.”
“Really should've,” Simon agrees, thinking of all the times he could've had Grace in a puddle on his lap while watching a movie, or vice versa. He thinks of all the times he was at a loss for what to say in response to Grace’s generosity and kindness and patience. “Better late than never.”
“It’s a risky thing,” Grace says, close enough to kiss but far enough to let his eyes dart between Simon’s, “loving the only human in a million-mile radius.”
Simon scoffs— “Who knows. Maybe another straggler will crash through the atmosphere, then we’ll have options.” —who better to love than Ryland Grace? “‘Till then, I'll love you for as long as you'll have me.”
“Deal,” his angel mumbles, lips brushing Simon’s now. “I’ll love you ‘till we meet another alien, and then some. They’ll have to get their own biodome.”
Simon finishes the kiss that Grace has been teasing. It should feel different now that they’ve confessed, but it’s not, and Simon is aglow with the realization. The glide of their lips is soft and sweet at first, but Simon slowly introduces his tongue, then his teeth, then he works his arm beneath himself to press against Grace’s cunt with a short and intense pressure. The doctor moans high into his mouth, egging him on. Grace starts rolling his hips into Simon’s palm, throwing in a thoughtless please, and Simon has what may be an epiphany.
“Ryland, sweetheart. Do you want to come?”
Grace hesitates.
“Not asking if you’re going to. Angel, do you want to?”
The man’s lips purse in thought until he eventually nods. It’s a shy thing, eyebrows furrowed together and eyes wide open with the admission. Simon smiles at him and whispers his thanks for Grace’s truthfulness. He pulls back to give Grace space to move.
“Get your other pack of cigarettes, Ryland.”
There’s a moment where Grace does not move, neither of them do, and Simon knows his lovely doctor is working through what Simon has in mind. Without a word, Grace stretches an arm over to his bedside table, fumbling with it blindly until he comes back delighted with his reward. Simon lets his nose rub across Grace’s dick in appreciation.
“Ah! Fuck, Simon, lighter’s in my, my pocket. Pants, by your side, can you get it?”
Pants, sweatpants, pockets, Simon has to find what he previously had no regard for, yes! The bright red lighter reveals itself right where Grace pocketed it. He passes it to Grace, who has already opened the fresh pack of Camels; Simon appreciates the fact that there is no horrifying imagery plastered on the front. Grace carefully pulls a right-side-up cigarette from the pack before he accepts the lighter from Simon.
Grace looks down at Simon like he’s waiting for something; Simon gives it to him.
“Pull out a cigarette.”
Simon is patient through Grace’s quickened breaths as he pulls one from the pack.
“Put it between your lips.”
“Fuck,” Grace sighs as he does as Simon says. He fumbles with the lighter, trying to get his thumb into position, then waits.
“Light it.”
There’s several misfires as Grace’s shaking hands struggle with the device, but his years of experience win out over his excitement. Simon watches him carefully, enraptured by the way his angel’s eyelids lower and focus on the cigarette. It’s lit. Grace waits.
“Take a drag, angel.”
“Uh-huh,” Grace mumbles, and he inhales deep. Simon times reinserting his two fingers with the exhale, turning Grace’s breath into a stuttered moan. Simon feels the inner walls of Grace tighten on his fingers momentarily before releasing a flood of slick. Simon doesn’t bother holding back his own moan.
“Fuck, Ryland, that feel good?”
“Yes, feels good. Please.”
“Again,” Simon tells him, making sure that Grace lifts the cigarette and inhales properly. He then pumps his fingers a few times and lowers his head to lick from the pool running across his hand. “Again.”
“Thank you, S-Si, shit, thank you.”
Simon presses his tongue hard against Grace’s dick now that he feels a hand in his hair squeezing and pulling. Every scratch against his scalp feels like the first time, and he moans with the sensation. He lands three swift blows before he softens his tongue again, suckling slightly.
“Again,” he says in response to Grace’s whine.
He keeps it slow, makes Grace wait for it. He lets the man move his head around, lower then back up then firm, but he’s gentle through it all. Grace’s wetness is dripping down his chin and his own hips twitch when he realizes.
“Again.”
The smell of smoke mixes with Grace’s musk and Simon decides this must be heaven. Simon takes a breather and looks up at his partner, swearing when he sees Grace’s pupils blown wide and unfocused with his mouth lolling open, releasing ah, ah, ah, short and sweet. Grace shows no sign of returning to his earlier rambles. The cigarette still hangs loosely between his fingertips with no intention of drawing it closer until Simon tells him to.
Simon probably shouldn't be enjoying this so much.
“You like listening to me, sweetheart?” Grace nods quickly, quiet. “You listen so well. Don't have to make decisions right now, do you, hm? Not with me. Give that brain of yours a break. Take another drag, Ryland.”
Grace’s hand floats back to his face and his lips seal around the cigarette. Simon’s careful eyes widen when he catches the long stub of ash that threatens to crumble onto Grace’s chest.
“Wait, baby, can you hand that to me?” The cigarette is released from Grace’s lips and Simon hurries to push himself up to take it from him. Now he’s on his knees between Grace’s legs, precariously holding the cigarette, a little stuck. “Angel, where’s your other ashtray?”
Grace slowly blinks at him, eyebrows a little furrowed in thought; he looks like the gears turning in his head are coated in honey. Simon is patient, but he starts to get a little worried before Grace hums.
“In my drawer.”
“Good, Ryland. Can you get it for me?” Thankfully, Grace registers this request a little faster and he reaches over to where he pulled the pack of Camels from. After a blind search, Grace comes back with an ashtray fashioned with xenonite, just like the one he’d left outside. “Put it on your chest.”
Grace is quick to follow this time, a whispered Fuck falling from his lips. He looks up at Simon with eyes that are marginally more clear.
“Still feeling good, angel?” Simon asks gently, cautious of how the sweet doctor’s brain is responding to this pleasure—what Simon hopes is pleasure, at least. “Lost you a little bit there.”
Grace nods, licking his lips. “I—yeah. Everything’s…uh. Heightened? And my brain’s not working. But it’s nice. And. I like when you. Tell me things. To do things, I mean.”
“I’m so glad to hear it,” Simon says, smiling down at his adorable doctor, “‘cause I like telling you to do things.” He finally taps the ash into the tray resting right beneath Grace’s collarbone. He doesn’t miss the way Grace’s eyes follow his movement and become a little unfocused. Simon swallows, holds up the cigarette. “Want more?”
Grace nods.
“Words, please.”
“Yes! Y-yeah Si, want more, please.”
“Good boy,” Simon hums, using Grace’s own trick against him. He doesn’t say it just to get the whine and jolt of hips from Grace—though that reaction is a bonus—but also simply for how proud he is of the man. Allowing Simon this trust is not exactly something they have been specifically working towards, but it is evidence of how far they’ve come. He lifts the cigarette to his own lips and inhales. More confident than he was last time, he welcomes the racing heart and leans down to meet lips with Grace.
Less confident with this part, Simon knows some smoke escapes their open mouths as they breath in tandem. All he cares about is that he no longer has smoke in his lungs and that one of Grace’s hands has somehow already found its way back to Simon’s hair, the other stealing the cigarette back. He wants to lick the smoke from Grace’s mouth. Instead, he pulls away to allow Grace to exhale away from him.
Grace smiles up at him in something close to awe. “Simon, you're so beautiful.”
Simon hates when Grace blindsides him. He wants to duck for cover, hide his hot face and the way his eyebrows twitch in disagreement. Grace deserves more than avoidance, though, so Simon catches his lips once more.
“You're the prettiest thing I've ever seen, angel,” he says softly, smiling when Grace whines against his lips. He shifts to the man’s ear, biting lightly before he adds, “Don't know how I was blessed with seeing you every day.”
“Shit, Si, please.”
Simon moves to Grace’s neck. “Love your hair, your hands, your nose.” He attacks Grace’s chest once more, savoring the salt of the sweat he finds there. “Your knees and your scars.”
“And?” Grace hints, and Simon meets his smile.
“And…this lovely dick of yours. Could suck you off all day, sweetheart, and your cunt is just as sweet. Take a drag, Ryland.”
Grace inhales, eyes rolling back a little, and Simon gets back to work. Somehow, Grace has found it within himself to leak even more sweetness, so Simon shoves his tongue inside to explore and take it all for himself. He makes room for himself in there, licking up and down, and he’s already lightheaded again as Grace’s hips begin to jerk against his head. He presses further in and allows his nose to weigh against Grace’s dick, itching with the blessing of coarse and messy hair. He only wishes he had another hand to stroke up and down Grace’s torso, scratch and squeeze and take. He must be satisfied with just the one to replace his tongue inside of Grace as he pulls away and straightens slightly.
“Again.” Simon watches Grace’s head nod like it’s out of his control. The end burns orange and smoke fills the air. “Ash it, sweetheart. Good, listening so well.”
“Si, Si, please, I-I need…” His breath hitches in time with his hips swiveling on Simon’s fingers. The ashtray moves up and down with the quick rise-fall of Grace’s chest and the nearly-finished cigarette trembles in his grip. Simon feels hot with something unnamable and in another world he's holding Grace’s face and pushing his jaw open so he can run his tongue across the teeth on display for him.
Cool it, Simon.
In this moment, he has mercy on his sweet angel and takes a wild guess at what he's begging for. He deepens his two fingers in Grace and presses his thumb against his dick. This guess earns him a surprised gasp, like Grace forgot he was asking for something. Simon puts his weight behind it, shifting his pillow right up next to his angel’s cunt as he does so, and starts soothing circles with his thumb and flicks with his fingers.
“Unhh, fuck! Oh, fuck, please, please, puh-please—”
“Oh, shit, sweetheart,” Simon gasps, watching a fat tear roll down Grace’s face as his voice gets wet. Words start tumbling out of Simon’s mouth to match the thoughts that run circles around his coherence. “Like this? You wanna come like this? Look at you, all overwhelmed, hm? You’re okay, love, you’re fine, you can take it.”
Grace is nodding, nodding and moaning and hiccupping here and there. His eyes squint open and he looks at Simon through bleary eyes with a plea that Simon knows well at this point.
“Cigarette in your mouth, Ryland. I want you to finish it.”
Grace makes a marked effort to calm his breathing before sucking in the last of the tobacco with a hitched inhale. Miraculously, he hardly coughs as he exhales, breath slowing only through the power of muscle memory (and nicotine, maybe). He drops the cigarette butt into the waiting ashtray and draws both of his hands to Simon’s back, scrabbling and pleading.
“Such a good boy for me, angel, fuck. Did so well, you feel good? Want me to tell you what to do?”
“Y-Yeah, hah, Simon, please, please let me, fuck—”
Simon blood surges at the thought of letting the man reach an orgasm for the first time in who knows how long. This is power that he should not have, but he has it anyway, and he will not let it go to waste. Keeping his pace, pressure, and tone of voice exactly steady, he leans as close to Grace as his balance will allow.
“Come on my fingers, angel,” he murmurs. “It’s alright, you've earned it. I'll clean you up like I promised, you can finish now.”
Every muscle in Grace’s body tenses as he sucks in a wet gasp. Simon persists and soaks in the warm tremors and quakes he feels around his fingers. Grace kicks his head back and one hand spasms away from Simon’s back to grab hold of his wrist instead. Simon continues to work him through it, marveling and whispering words of praise all the while.
“O-Oh—” Grace rolls his hips against Simon, fucking against him in tense motions. He remembers to breathe enough to moan, “Fuck, oh, th-thank you.”
Simon has already begun to slow his fingers for fear of further overwhelming his love, but that does not stop him from listening to Grace’s physical cues. He sinks his weight onto the man and gently removes his fingers so that he can gingerly move the ashtray out of the way. He isn’t quite sure what to do with his sticky hand, so he wipes it a little carelessly on the bedsheet and keeps it off to the side for now.
Simon’s own sensitivity is set to record-high levels, buzzing and hot, so he cannot imagine how Grace’s sensory receptors are responding to the post-orgasmic high. He only knows that Grace responds well to both softness and pressure, so he combines the two, pressing a kiss to the man’s collarbone.
They stay quiet for a little bit. Simon can only assume that Grace’s brain is still coming back to him, so he stays patient and keeps his breaths deep and even. His own mind drifts, thoughts for once quiet in the aftermath of a new and potentially terrifying experience. Again, Simon’s time with Grace was not built for the specific purpose of having mind-blowing sex, but the sex would not have been possible now were it not for the countless nights shared over tea or the hours spent in the greenhouse or the chance to live a life. He hums quietly, determined to live in this hard-earned peace for a while longer yet. Eventually, Grace sneaks his hands to wrap around Simon, hugging tight. Simon huffs a laugh and takes this as his signal to attempt eye contact. Grace dodges with a blush until Simon knocks his forehead to the man’s chin, forcing Grace to shoot a look down at Simon.
“Ryland,” Simon says, unable to help his smile as the sweet doctor’s blush works its way to his ears. “You're embarrassed!”
“Of course I am!” Ryland cries indignantly, and Simon’s eyesight is blocked by Grace’s hand smothering his face. “My brain is still kinda mush and my body barely knows what an orgasm is and you wouldn't shut up about how good I was being for smoking a damn cigarette while your face was buried in my cunt! You'd be embarrassed too, don't lie.”
“I like mushy-brain Dr. Grace,” Simon hums. “He swears like he’s an adult and he calls me a good boy, too.”
Grace pulls his hand away and scratches though Simon’s hair instead, laughing. Simon can’t help but feel smug that the real-life version of himself did what dream-Simon could not. He tilts his head up, silently asking for a kiss from his angel; once more, he is blessed.
“And, for the record, I'd be a little embarrassed ‘till I remembered that the man eating me out was wildly enthusiastic the whole time and also in love with me.”
Grace grins brightly, still soft around the edges, and kisses Simon’s cheek. “That is an added comfort, yeah.”
Successful, Simon quirks his lips and begins to pull back.
“Hey—” The word is cracked, an edge of panic that makes Simon freeze. “Don't go.”
Simon hurries back to smatter kisses across Grace’s face, soothing the furrow between his brows as he does so.
“I was just gonna…clean you up. Like I promised?” Simon explains, and he realizes how silly that sounds when he has the chance to lay on Grace while he's still mushy and soft and receptive to comfort.
“Later,” Grace hums, relaxing when Simon rests his head on the jagged edge of his angel’s collarbone. “Wanna lay with me a little longer, love?”
Simon wants.