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Artificial sunlight was shining through the huge xenonite window next to their bed. Simon was still half asleep, with his eyes closed shut, not really wanting to get up yet. He moved around trying to find the familiar warmth that was usually right next to him. Sadly, without much success.
He slowly opened his eyes and sat up. It wasn’t particularly early, but still too early for Grace to already be gone. A quick look over to the alarm on their nightstand and yeah, Grace should just be waking up. His partner usually preferred staying in bed for as long as possible when he could, even if it meant that Grace would work long into the night, so this was strange.
This is when he spotted the little note right next to the alarm. He must have missed it at first in his still pretty drowsy state. Simon grabbed the small piece of paper and read it.
‘Good morning starlight,
I had to leave early today, since Rocky needed my help on the project we are working on as soon as possible and I didn’t want to wake you up. Hope you slept well.
Made you breakfast, its on the kitchen counter.
Love you. See you in the evening. If something happens, I’m at the lab :)
Ryland’
Simon pressed a kiss onto his fingers and then onto the note. He was a little surprised he didn’t wake up from Grace standing up, let alone Rocky probably banging against their front door. He was usually a light sleeper. Either way, that explained why Grace wasn’t in bed. Rocky can be very stubborn and Grace usually just ends up listening to him when it’s early, not awake enough to argue with his best friend.
Slowly he moves to sit on the edge of the bed so he could stretch and start getting dressed. His prosthetic was laying on a dresser. He attached the shoulder strap and slowly started to try and move the hand around. While Simon was still incredibly grateful that he did have the opportunity to basically get his left arm back, it really wasn’t the same, even though Rocky tried his absolute best to make it as perfect as possible. The arm still took a little time whenever he put it on to react until it configurated properly again. Rocky said Simon should just wear it while sleeping, but that was incredibly uncomfortable. Then there were some days where he simply worked for too long and the arm would start to feel incredibly heavy and he ended up being better off without wearing it for a few hours.
Nonetheless it has become part of his morning routine and he knows a lot of things would be much more difficult without it. He puts on a pair of cargo pants and picks out one of Grace’s shirts. The red ‘Element of surprise’ one. It was probably his favourite next to the ‘I had potential’ shirt. He was just about to go downstairs when he spotted Grace’s fox cardigan still laying on a chair. Grace must really have been in a hurry because of Rocky if he didn’t put it on. Finders keepers.
Finally in the kitchen, he spotted the breakfast Grace made. A pb&j sandwich, with a small fruit salad and a cup of tea that just needed to be brewed. After putting up some water to boil, Simon quickly starts to eat, checking the time in between. He did have a class with the pebbles today. It was nice seeing them jump around excitedly and hearing their happy little chirps while taking care of the plants they each picked out. The greenhouse classroom really was a great addition to the biodome.
With his cup of tea in hand, Simon walked down the shore line. Wind blowing through his hair and the morning air being incredibly pleasant. The greenhouse for the pebbles was right next to Grace’s classroom, so the little ones could get much easier to and from the classroom to the greenhouse. That wasn’t the only reason for the extra greenhouse tho. It was a little more spacious than his own, having 11 plant beds in it, for one pebbles each. His class was a lot smaller than Grace, but the students changed every earth year, so it evened out.
And while yes, they could have just expanded his greenhouse, Simon just thinks back to that one time Grace showed the pebbles around there. Simon was explaining them each and every single plant he has cultivated. Every single tree and vegetable and fruit and even the different weeds that somehow managed to pop up. Simon didn’t mind them though. The weeds were very useful for composting and he appreciated every plant that manages to grow against all odds. It was however a struggle keep all the pebbles in line so they wound’t destroy the plants by accident. Goodness, was Simon glad about Grace’s middle school teacher experience otherwise it probably would have ended with half his greenhouse being trampled.
And adding the pebbles own plants to the mix would have probably made it a lot worse, considering they can barely stop themselfs from not also messing with each others plant beds, even if nothing catastrophical has happened yet.
When Simon finally arrives at the greenhouse 4 pebbles were already there.
Prince who was carefully looking at the roses they were cultivating. The siblings Mabel and Dipper who were already messing with each other and playing close to the compost and Ivy who already started filling up the watering cans.
“Good morning everyone.” Simon said loudly while entering. Obviously they would hear him just fine even if he whispered, but it felt more like announcing that the class was about to start and that the pebbles could always go up to him and ask whatever kind of question pops up in their little brains. Still, Dipper jumped up a little startled as if someone caught him doing something illegal before he quickly went over to his blueberries. “Good morning teacher Simon” he chirped at an impressive speed. His sister looked over at him confused, before also making her way to the plant bed right next to her brother’s. Mabel had strawberries. “Good morning teacher Simon” Mabel repeated after Dipper, just a little slower but with just as much if not more enthusiasm as Dipper. Ivy and Prince greeted him as well, while Ivy took place next to their plant bed, with ironically ivy plants.
Simon sat down at his desk waiting for the rest of the pebbles. 15 minutes later, the other 8 pebbles have arrived, so Simon officially began with the class.
“Alright, you guys know the drill. Start by watering your plants and then we will see what else there is to do. I am pretty sure a lot of you should fertilize your plants today and luckily the compost should be ready. Also there is a chance that Ruby’s tomatoes, some of Claire’s herbs and maybe some of Miku’s leeks can be harvested, so we are going to check on that as well” and excited little choir of chirps irrupted from his students and Simon couldn’t help but smile. The pebbles got straight to work.
Not all of them had “useful” plants, aka food resources. Simon wanted the pebbles to have as much fun learning and taking care of plants as possible, so each one was allowed to chose what kind of plant they wanted to take care of. very little limitations. And yet only 3 of the pebbles chose something different. Ivy, Prince and Peter who was taking care of dandelions. He thought it looked nice how the seeds would dance through the air once they reached that point.
Simon walked over to Wirt to check on his pumpkins. “Teacher Simon, are pumpkins still taking long until harvest, question?” Wirt asked, while Simon was looking over them. “Probably a few more weeks, but they have already grown pretty big. You can be proud of yourself.” “Good, good, good. Wirt going to add compost.” they answered happily before walking over. Looking after Wirt, Simon spotted Willy and Peter asking each other various questions about the others plant.
Simon moved over to see if there are any questions he could answer for one of the two. And low and behold “Teacher Simon! Teacher Simon!” Willy chirped. “If dandelion not useful for human and considered weed, why let Peter plant dandelion, question?” Willy asked, the question sounding genuine, especially considering the plants he was taking care of was wheat. Simon really has gotten better at reading the eridians tones. “Well, they may be considered weeds, but that doesn’t make them useless. They do serve as important food source for other animals on earth, like hares, deer, sheep and so on. And for us they are useful because we can compost them, especially when we don’t have anything else to use for that.” Willy “looked” at him laser focused while he answered his question and both Willy and Peter imitated a nod to show their understanding.
Simon heard a small crash and looked over to see that Bob knocked over Ruby’s and Mabel’s watering cans. He quickly went over to help.
Something in his mind wondered if teaching on earth would be something like this. If it was just as chaotic. If the kids really would ask as many questions, as Grace insisted they would. What it would be like to show them how to plant different things. Or maybe even the possibility of him teaching like Grace does. Each of them having their own classroom, decorated to the ceiling. Grading papers together. But that was a thought for another day.
The time quickly flew by and the class was coming to an end. Miku’s leeks sadly weren’t ready yet, but Ruby’s tomatoes and Claires herbs. “Do plants take the same time on earth to grow, question?” Miku asked, a little disappointed her leeks weren’t actually ready yet. “Based on my knowledge they should take the same time to grow, however it would be during different seasons. But, since the greenhouse is build to make it possible to have every plant all year around, we don’t have to take seasons into account” Simon explained.
He went over to take a picture of Ruby and Claire with their harvests. If Ruby rolled up they would 100% be able to blend in with their tomatoes. It really wasn’t a surprise that they also wanted to grow an apple tree, but since those take a bit longer than 1 earth year to grow, he sadly had to reject that idea. Claire was proudly posing with her herbs as if they were the most precious thing anyone could ever own.
Simon said his goodbye’s to the pebbles before making his way home with their little harvest to take care of his greenhouse.
. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .
It was slowly getting late. Simon hasn’t made dinner and Grace wasn’t home yet. While this was normal, Simon was not having it today. Usually it would probably take a few more hours for Grace to be able to rip himself free from his research. That is if Simon didn’t have to do so. But since Grace left early, it was just fair that he came home early by his standards.
When Simon got to the lab, he saw Grace hunched over a desk, working on his laptop. He was too focused on his work to even notice Simon entering, so Simon slowly made his way towards him.
“It is getting late Angel, you should really go home for today, don’t you think?” Simon said before pressing a kiss on top of his partner’s head.
Grace straightened up in surprise. “SI, I didn’t even hear you come in. You can’t just scare me like that.” Grace exclaimed, clearly flustered by the sudden touch. “You didn’t answer my question honey. Listen, some of the pebbles managed to harvest something today, so I thought we could cook together. Maybe watch a movie afterwards. You know, have a little date night.” Simon said, now leaning against the desk to get a better look at Grace.
Grace thought about it for a second. “Just give me 10 minutes and we can go. I am this close to figure out why the equations don’t add up and-” “Alright, but then I am just going to eat alone and watch a movie alone. Not like I haven’t seen you this entire day.” Simon teased with a lot of sarcasm in his voice. Grace rolled his eyes, stands up and puts his arms around Simons neck. “Okay, okay fine. You win. You know you can be such an butthole, starlight?” “Well, someone has to make sure you take care of yourself.” Simon said with a smirk. Grace just shock his head before pressing a soft kiss on Simons lips.
They made their way home and started cooking. Jazz music was playing while they slowly prepared their dinner, sometimes swaying to the music in between. They finally finished up their noodles with tomato sauce and moved to the table to eat.
“Okay, so what was so important that Rocky had to get you as early as possible to work on?” Simon asked. Whatever it was had to be important or else Rocky wouldn’t have gotten him. Granted it took him some time to get to this point and properly grasp Simon’s and Grace’s need for privacy sometimes, but ever since he was very respectful of those. “Oh yeah right, I haven’t told you yet. We are working on some capsules to get the taomoeba to different stars, instead of always having to go there ourselves, if check ups are needed. We are currently trying to get the taomoeba to no longer eat through the xeonite, by trying to make it poisonous for the taomoeba. Which is a lot harder than it should be, because we still have to figure out how to keep it to take care of the astrophage. Turns out, it makes the taomoeba a lot less aggressive so we have to get them back to taking destroying the astrophage. Only question is how.” Grace explained while pocking his food.
“I see and that’s why you had to be up so early?” Simon asked raising an eyebrow. “You know Rocky. He wanted to get to it as quickly as possible. Plus, it gave you the perfect argument to get me off of work.” Grace sounded very smug during that last sentence. He wasn’t wrong though. He did end up walking here next to Simon, because the offer sounded way better than his project. Otherwise Simon would have probably had to carry him to their house. “Anyways, how was your class today? Other than it getting us a very good meal out of it.”
“Very good, honestly. Most of the other vegetables and berries should be ripe soon. Also I feel like Prince is a little to overprotective of their roses. I think we might have to figure out a way how they can take them home once their lessons are over.” “I’m sure we can make them a xeonite cover for them. Should be no problem.” Simon smiled at Grace’s eagerness to help. Goodness, he was lucky. “That does sound like a plan. By the way, are Mabel and Dipper this chaotic in your classes as well or is it because of me?” Simon asked, genuinely curious. “Oh, nah they are always like this. I named them after 2 cartoon characters that reminded me of them, so this is normal.” Grace chuckled. They finished their meal continuing talking about the pebbles, whatever Rocky was up to and anything else their minds ended up on.
Grace was quickly clicking through the gigantic amount of movie options they had available. He usually picked, since he ultimately knew more movies than Simon. And even though Simon had his favourites (he was quite fond of The Sheep Detectives even if that movie made him cry and legally blond) he did enjoy watching as many new movies as possible. Grace picked out the 1991 “The Addams Family”. “Okay so this one is a little spooky, but I am pretty sure it should be Halloween on earth soon-ish. And even if it isn’t, it’s been a while since I have done anything for spooky month and I do miss it.” Grace reminisced. He loved coming into his old classroom on Halloween, seeing all his students in silly costumes, being in awe at the way he decorated the classroom. That did give him an idea though.
“Alright, quick question. What is Halloween? I know you have mentioned it a few times before, but I can’t recall you explaining it, so…” Grace looked at Simon with wide eyes. Did he really forget to explain to the love of his life, who obviously was never able to experience it before, what one of his favourite holidays is? Cheese and rice, Grace. Really good job on that one.
“Well, it is in holiday that originated from paganism, although it doesn’t have much to do with that in modern days. Nowadays Halloween is mostly a holiday to celebrate everything horror and scary. BUT IN A FUN KIND OF WAY. Kids would dress up as different monsters or their favourite movie characters or what not and go from door to door, collecting candy. That’s called trick or treat-ing by the way. Either they get candy or they play a prank on whoever didn’t give them a treat. You also carve pumpkins and decorated your house with cobwebs and plastic skeletons and fake graves or whatever Spirit Halloween has to offer. There are a bunch of movies you can watch, like this one. This one is a classic and a must watch during october in my opinion. And october is spooky month, because Halloween is on the last day of the month, so you really just get more and more excited until then.” God, he missed earth traditions. Simon was carefully listening, taking in everything Grace said.
“But enough of that. Let’s watch.” they moved to the couch and cuddles up in as many blankets as possible. Grace was leaning on Simons right side.
While the movie did freak him out a little at some points, Simon surprisingly enjoyed it. Especially the relationship between Morticia and Gomez. The actors really had a lot of chemistry.
“You know, we could just have a Halloween on Erid, if you want.” Simon whispered over to Grace. On one hand actually thinking it might be fun, on the other trying to distract himself from Wednesday spraying fake blood over the first row. “Honestly great idea. I should talk to Rocky about it” Grace whispers back to Simon, who paused for a second. “Do only kids dress up for Halloween?” he asks. “Nah, anyone can dress up. It’s supposed to be fun, so why limit it?” Grace answered while smiling at him. “Then might I suggest that we dress up as Gomez and Morticia. Cara Mia?” Simon whispered into his ear. Grace turned red immediately. “YEAH- Yeah, that sounds really, really good.” Grace stutters out, before giving Simon a kiss. Gosh, he loved him.
The movie came to an end and they were both barely awake, being way too comfortable to get up. Simon was the first one to say something. “Ry, we should really go to bed, instead of sleeping on the couch.” “Don’t wanna. Comfy…” Grace groaned into his shoulder. “Well, then you are going to have back pain tomorrow and be grumpy all day. i can carry you if you want to.” Simon offered. “I certainly wouldn’t mind that” Grace answered, clearly already drifting off to sleep.
Simon picked Grace up and carried him to their bedroom, lowering him to the sheets. Simon quickly took off his prosthetic and put it in its usual spot, before joining Grace in bed. He took off his glasses and moved them to the nightstand. The two curled up and Simon quickly drifted off to sleep.
This was a nice day.