Lazily with any ship of your choice!
In that case, I'll finish this off with the ship that brought us together.
16. ...lazily
There was not a lot of downtime in the Apex. Most of the time Grace found herself wrangling the kids, or reeling in Simon. Of course, that was all fun, she wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t, but it was also, on some level, work. And that was why Grace was always more than happy to take advantage of any downtime that she did get, using it to lie around, to look at herself, or to generally do anything that amused her. What was the point of being in charge if you were always on the clock, after all.
Simon was very different. The guy didn’t have a relaxed bone in his body. If he wasn’t actively leading a raid he was preparing a plan for one, or monologuing to whoever would listen about his book, or, on rare occasion, writing his book. The only even semi-relaxing thing he did was work on his figurines, but Grace didn’t count that either because that, too, was work. She remembered vaguely that Simon had always been antsy, had always needed to be doing something, but he did at least used to try and relax.
Now, and maybe it was because the Apex had expanded its control over so many people, Grace hardly saw him at all outside of their duties as leaders, and whenever she did, it wasn’t for relaxing purposes. But, what was the point of the two of them being in charge if they couldn’t hang out together, like they had back in the old days. Grace wasn’t sure, and so she decided to change that. Considering they’d already had a successful raid and the kids were busying themselves, it seemed like a good time.
“Hello, Simon,” Grace said in a sing-song voice as she casually walked into his room and flopped down on his bed. Simon was sitting at his desk in there, seemingly writing something when she’d come in. He fixed his posture upon hearing her words, and Grace quietly tutted to herself that he couldn’t even bring himself to sit in a relaxed way.
“What’s up? Is something wrong?” Simon asked, and it honestly made Grace a little sad that he’d assume that was the reason she came to visit. Grace simply shook her head and gestured him over to the bed, where she was lounging. He, of course, followed without hesitation.
“You, need to relax.” she said and Simon bristled at the comment, probably about to launch into a speech about the importance of alertness and being prepared, which she shut down. “I’m serious. Lay down and relax. Just let yourself laze around, for a bit, the world isn’t going to end.” she assessed, and he muttered under his breath.
“It might.” he said before adding something. “And anyway, I hate being lazy, it just puts me on edge,” he explained as he followed her instructions and forced himself to lay down. Grace sat next to him on the bed and just watched as he tried to breathe casually, as he tried to let himself sink in to comfort. “How can you live like this?” he asked incredulously, and Grace let out a laugh, trilling her lips as she searched for an answer.
“Um, I don’t know, it feels nice?” she offered and Simon seemed to scoff at her assertion, disagreeing heavily.
“What about this feels nice? Just laying here doing nothing?” he questioned, and Grace stretched before slotting herself next to him, laying beside him to try and demonstrate the bountiful fun to be had by doing absolutely nothing. Simon turned beet red, a fact that she was deeply amused by, and Grace figured that if she was going to teach him to be less of a stick in the mud, she might as well have fun with it.
“Well,” Grace offered as she rolled over on her side to look at him. “I think being lazy is easy. It's comfortable, and warm, and soft,” she offered, speaking in that same sweet voice she knew always flustered him. She scooted closer to him, an impressive feat considering how little space there was on the bed, and gave him a casual a peck on the check. His stubble brushed against her face as she did so, and she couldn’t help but feel good at how much it seemed to floor him. “Kind of like that kiss. Do you get it now?” she questioned and Simon nodded robotically.
“Y-yeah. I get it.” he said, clearly embarrassed as Grace let out a little laugh and the two went back to laying next to each other in comfortable silence, letting their worries melt away into easy, lazy bliss.
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