Chapter Text
It’s been a year to the day since Rocky moved back into the Hail Mary and they set off on the four-years-and-change journey to Erid, and Grace is surprised to note that his general sanity level is––well, existent. Better than existent. If he’s honest with himself, he’s not just sane, but almost absurdly mentally well-adjusted, all things considered. He would even go as far as to say…happy.
Happy, despite months spent confined to a space with a total square footage he would estimate is not terribly far off from that of his old classroom. Happy despite subsisting off of mostly tasteless coma slurry, crushed caffeine pills, and the last of the Maruchan Instant Ramen (which he’s been rationing carefully for the sake of having any flavor whatsoever in his diet). Happy with very little meaningful work to consume his time, happy without students to teach, even happy with the complete and total lack of privacy onboard the Mary.
Happy, because for the first time that he can remember––and he’s remembering a lot more these days––he feels like there’s someone that understands him completely.
And boy, is that a weird thing to acknowledge. He admits to himself, in the quiet moments when Rocky is catatonic in sleep, that he must be a truly one-of-a-kind freak to feel most at home while living in a box hurtling through space with an alien as a roommate. Slash best friend. Slash constant companion, confidant, occasional nursemaid, fix-it guy, the glue holding his entire life––and the future that he wasn’t ever supposed to have––together. When he really thinks about it, which he tries not to, he supposes it would be considered deeply unhealthy by Earth standards. Or, well, probably by any standards. He and Rocky have become undefinable, he and Rocky are quite possibly inventing new and never before seen levels of codependency. But they also kind of saved the world––worlds––together. And, again, they are stuck on what amounts to a tin can with each other for another three years at the minimum, and more likely for a little longer. He figures, well, at least they’ve got a good excuse.
Which is why when Rocky makes a point to ask him to observe his private eating ritual for a second time, Grace doesn’t initially think much of it. Sure, he’d already had his “for science” viewing, which he had assumed would be his one and only viewing, but his name wouldn't be Ryland Grace if he would turn down a second opportunity to study the habits of an alien species. And Rocky had been so cagey the first time, anyways––Grace had really had to wheedle it out of him, coerce him even, which he hasn’t been feeling great about in hindsight. If Rocky's offering it up freely this time, of his own volition, well––who was he to question it?
[Grace almost ready, question?] Rocky asks, tap-tapping two of his legs against the floor of his sectioned-off part of the room. As far as Grace knows, Rocky always eats in this specific spot, and he's used to being expected to clear out when he does. It almost feels…intimate, somehow, to stay and watch Rocky pull out his little food packet and tray. He's trying not to overthink it.
“Yeah! Yes,” Grace assures him. He tries to strike a balance between sounding not-interested-enough and so-interested-it’s-creepy that he hopes comes out somewhere near appropriate-professional-scientific-intrigue. “I’m, uh, I’m ready whenever you’re ready, pal.”
Rocky continues to softly tap the floor, shifting his weight back and forth a little in a way Grace has come to recognize as the Eridian equivalent of a nervous tic. Is he nervous about this? Grace doesn’t remember him seeming nervous the first time they did this, but it was awhile ago, back before the fishing incident, when they were still on their way to Tau Ceti and trying to learn as much as they could about each other. Maybe he’s misremembering. Maybe he should say something, anything, to break the ice.
“Hey, listen, I don’t have to–what I mean is–if you would prefer,” he starts, realizing quickly that he has absolutely no idea where he’s going. Is he nervous? He sucks in a breath. “Rocky, do you, uh…want me to be here? Are you sure you’re, uh, comfortable? Because honestly, last time––”
[Am sure.] Rocky says emphatically, and slowly he lowers himself to the floor of the tunnel. Grace waits for him to elaborate. He does not.
“Would it help––should I bring my dinner in too?” Grace jokes, smiling in preparation for the absolute symphony of disgusted whistles he knows Rocky will produce at the thought of them doing something as depraved as sharing a meal. “I’ve been saving this week’s half packet of ramen for just such an occasion––”
A torrent of sound not unlike four harmonizing freight train whistles bursts from Rocky, the shifting plates of carapace at the top of what Grace thinks of as his “head-torso” rattling rapidly. Twin puffs of superheated air escape his vents, and there’s a ringing in Grace’s ears as he watches a glass beaker vibrate itself off the edge of the lab table near them and onto the floor with a loud clang. He squeezes his eyes shut, bracing for a shatter that never arrives, then stares in disbelief at the scene before him.
Of course Stratt thought of that, a distant part of him thinks as he watches the laptop screen flash UNKNOWN WORD UNKNOWN WORD UNKNOWN WORD UNKNOWN WORD at him in all caps, over and over. He’s heard Rocky upset before; he picked The Iron Giant once for movie night. But he has never, ever heard him quite like this. Clearly Grace has put his foot all the way in his mouth––another idiom, he reminds himself, that he absolutely must eradicate from his vocabulary before he gets to Erid––and crossed a cultural line in a way that is no joking matter. He opens his mouth to apologize.
[YES YES YES!] Rocky’s translator app suddenly blares from the laptop on the floor between them. [YES ACCEPT ACCEPT ACCEPT! GRACE RAMEN ♪♫♪♫ WITH ROCKY AFFIRMATIVE! GRACE ROCKY EAT ♪♫♪♫ MEAL TOGETHER AFFIRMATIVE YES YES AFFIRMATIVE NOW.] He pops up on all five legs and starts doing jazz-hands, clattering around his section of the room in a frenzy. Grace imagines this would be very funny, and possibly even a little bit cute, if he knew what the heck had just happened.
“Woah, woah, woah! Hey! Rocky!” Grace pushes up from his stool, which he had carefully placed a polite two-ish feet from the xenonite barrier so that Rocky wouldn’t feel crowded while he ate. His brain helpfully supplies a memory of the chaotic day Rocky first came barreling into the Mary in his ball, and he raises an arm.
“Rocky, my hand is up,” he warns, though his grin is probably counteracting his tone. He watches as Rocky gives a final little wiggle before skittering back to the barrier and pushing a claw up to the transparent xenonite, tapping away with what seems like barely-constrained fervor. He’s trying to get a better look. Instinctively, Grace moves his raised hand to the barrier, mirroring him, and the tapping grows more insistent. “Sheesh, are you good? You wanna explain what all that was about?”
[Grace go get RAMEN,] Rocky replies unhelpfully. [Grace go get special occasion meal and bring back here immediately immediately now. Hurry hurry. Order!] He chirps an un-translatable symphony of whistles. The tapping has not lessened for even a second.
“Jeeeez, jeez! Alright! I’m going!” Grace replies, tromping over to his beloved Maruchan stash. He speaks under his breath, knows Rocky will hear him anyway. “Would not have thought you’d be into this.” In response, he hears a repetitive, frustrated banging against the xenonite behind him. The laptop is still picking up Rocky’s words––well, most of them––but the volume output on the speech program has lowered in response to his pitch, the Eridian equivalent of a mumble.
[Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Grace already forget evvvverything Rocky teach about Eridian ♪♫♪♫♫♪♪.] Grace walks back in, the ramen packet crinkling in the pocket of his flight suit. [Think Rocky not want to have ♪♫♪♫ meal together. After all trouble, all danger, Grace almost die, Rocky almost die, Rocky save Grace, Grace save Rocky, Grace Rocky save all Earth all Erid PLURAL.] There’s a huffing from his vents and he resumes his frustrated, rapid banging against the barrier. He is no longer mumbling. When he speaks again, he sounds almost––sheepish. [Rocky feel like he make it pretty obvious for Grace, but Rocky stupid too. Should have known Grace too forgetful, too dense to realize ALL Rocky want––]
And then all Grace can hear are the layered, melodious notes of Rocky’s unaccompanied speech as the laptop suddenly gives up the ghost between them.
“Uh,” says Grace. He registers, in some corner of his brain, that his face feels really weird. It’s way too warm in here. It must be radiating off of Rocky, off his section of the room. Or something. “Wow. Huh. I mean, crazy timing, right?”
He looks pleadingly at Rocky, who now seems to be having a serious altercation with the wall between them. He places two palms against it, hoping it’ll calm him down before they have to table this in order to deal with a more pressing atmosphere-exploding issue. “So. I’m getting the impression we have some stuff we need to unpack. I didn’t, uh––I don’t think I got all that. I don’t think I got most of that, really.” Rocky flinches back from the barrier, staring at Grace with his zero eyes for what feels like an eternity but is probably more like five seconds. And then, slowly, he sinks back to the floor with an unfamiliar minor key whistle that tugs on something inside Grace's chest.
“Oh, nooooo. No, no, Rock––fuh––sh––ah!“ He fumbles for the laptop, misses the charging port twice. “I get it, you’re upset, I’m not understanding things, the laptop died, and I’m doing the whole fallible-human-memory thing which I know is, uh, a continuing challenge for you.” Rocky remains stubbornly motionless on the floor. Despite his lack of a face, he's pouting, somehow.
“C’mon, Rocky, I’m sorry.” Grace can hear his voice edging into almost-whining territory, but he doesn’t care. He just needs to see Rocky pick himself up. Sad Rocky is kind of his kryptonite. He pulls the crumpled packet of ramen out of the pocket of his flight suit and waves it in front of the xenonite barrier. “We could––I mean, the laptop’s gonna be a minute, but if you want, we could still––”
He’s cut off as Rocky shoots upright and another cacophony of sound rattles every bone in his body. He still hasn’t gotten used to the way that Rocky can produce multiple layers of sound at the same time, and while the sounds right now are beautiful, and strange, they’re––loud. So loud. But Grace would bet the Taumoeba farm that they’re happy sounds, despite the fact that they aren’t immediately familiar. He makes a mental note to ask for a translation when the laptop reboots.
“Okay! I’m gonna take that as a yes! So, should I––do you want me to––,” He gestures to the stool, awkwardly. He’s trying so hard not to be awkward, and is so painfully aware of how badly he's failing. He absolutely must say something normal, immediately. “Where, uh, where do you...want me?” Maybe I'll die, actually, he thinks distantly. Death by self-inflicted mortification. It would be a very apt way for him to go out, after everything.
Rocky emits a series of low trills, pointing an arm downward with the tip of a claw just brushing up against the barrier.
“So, just to be clear, not the stool?” Grace asks. He’s pretty sure he knows the answer, but he wants to confirm before potentially stepping all over another cultural boundary. The last time Rocky allowed him to observe his eating ritual, he had been adamant that Grace stay a respectful distance away. It seems like––maybe things are different, this time?
[Grace,] Rocky sings, claw tapping again at the same spot on the wall between them. There are a few more notes after his name that Grace doesn’t know by ear, not yet, but he learned how his name sounds in Rocky's vocal sacs a long time ago. There is, at least, some Eridian he’s learned by ear after this past year together, though not nearly as much as he’d hoped. Rocky pipes up again, and he catches a little bit more this time. [Grace stop talking and ♪♫♪♫ ♪♫♪♫ Rocky now. Request.]
“Okay,” Grace sighs, moving to sit cross-legged on the floor, knees grazing the xenonite. There’s maybe two inches between them, were the barrier not there. “If you say so, bud.”
He lifts the slab of compressed noodles to his lips, shakes out a little bit of the salty seasoning packet over it, and takes a bite.
—-------------------------------------
“So that was…something.” Grace says, shucking his cardigan as he crawls into the makeshift ‘bunk’ he and Rocky constructed in the dormitory early in their journey. Having a more permanent shared sleeping area had been a non-negotiable for Rocky the second he had moved back to the Mary, and Grace can admit he’s gotten, well, maybe a little too used to it. He’d had some misgivings at first––this setup was distinct from their previous iteration in that it was one single, wide sleeping platform divided by xenonite, with a sort of ‘bay window’ section that jutted directly into Grace’s bed. He’d been ordered, with no room for argument, to carve a matching section out of the mattress so that Rocky could keep a closer watch on him while he slept. But he’d given up his reservations after the first night. There was something to be said for having your own personal alien space heater.
[Mmmmmm. Was something.] Rocky drones quietly. The laptop, thank God, is back in action, and Grace has promised Rocky he will keep a better eye on the battery. He has never let it die on them before now, but as Rocky had helpfully pointed out on a near-daily basis since they’d been living together, [Grace suuuuuuuck at remembering].
Now Rocky’s sprawled out in his bay window, just beginning to come around after 10 full Earth hours asleep––one of the longest rests Grace has ever known him to take. He's used to Rocky needing to sleep after eating, so there was nothing unusual about the lethargy that came over him as soon as he'd finished, but Grace hasn’t seen him sleep this long at in a single stretch for a long time. Specifically, not since coming into Grace's atmosphere, saving him, and almost dying as a result.
Not that he’s worried, of course. Rocky doesn't seem hurt or in pain, this time, and there was nothing about the meal they'd had that stood out as particularly weird––besides, of course, Grace's own presence in the room during it.
And…well. There was also the fact that Rocky had seemed to be saying something during it, the same notes over and over again, when Grace could have sworn that Eridians had a very firm prohibition against speaking while eating. And he was pretty sure that he had been hearing his name in there somewhere. But besides that, nothing else strange or noteworthy. As far as he could tell, Rocky had eaten the same dark, crushed-up, mysterious Eridian food he always ate, in roughly the same quantity he always ate it, and Grace wasn’t sure why he kept looking for reasons to be concerned. There was nothing concerning about sharing a nice meal with your extremely food-averse best friend. It was your perfectly normal, run-of-the-mill, super secret taboo alien eating ritual, and he was going to be really chill and cool about it, because Rocky was being really chill and cool about it, and––
“Sooo what were you, uh, saying when, when you––while we were eating?” Grace blurts before he can send the signal from his brain to his mouth to clamp his jaw shut. “I just mean––you know. For the translator. So I can update our word repository. Sorry, are you too out of it to talk about this right now?”
[Not out of itttt,] Rocky mumbles. The software has gotten a lot more refined, over the past year, at picking up his speech mannerisms and emitting a somewhat-analogous human tone of voice. Grace shoots him a disbelieving look. [Okay, maybe a little out of it. 300 more seconds, request.]
Grace laughs, or he tries to laugh but ends up sort of snorting. “Uh-huh. And will there be 300 more seconds after that 300 seconds? You know, I’m pretty tired over here myself after that marathon nap you just took.”
[New word?]
“Oh––marathon? It’s not important, it’s a human recreational thing. Remember when we talked about sports? People run, like, really far––”
[How far, question?]
“Uhhhh,” Grace stalls. His memory may still be a little on the Swiss cheese side, but he knows he was never particularly sporty. “I think maybe…twenty miles? Twenty-five? It's somewhere around there.”
Rocky chitters his funny little songbird-meets-leaky-faucet laugh, and Grace feels his chest warm––it’s become one of his favorite sounds on not-Earth. [And this not some kind of strange, cruel torture? This something humans do for fun?]
“Believe it or not, Rock, that is far from the weirdest thing humans do for fun,” Grace says, leaning up against the xenonite, trying not to be too obvious about how badly he wants to melt against the residual warmth radiating off Rocky. He can feel his eyelids getting heavy, but he doesn’t want to rush Rocky’s wake-up cycle, especially when he was out for so long.
[Oh?] Rocky trills. He shuffles closer to the wall, thunks one face of his carapace opposite Grace’s forehead. [What kind of other weird stuff humans do for fun?]
“Now that’s a loaded question,” Grace huffs, his breath briefly fogging the barrier. He expects to get a [ugh] or maybe even a [disgust] from Rocky for accidentally engaging in one of his classic [displays of excessive moisture], but to his surprise, Rocky doesn’t seem to notice. Or if he does, he's being uncharacteristically nice enough to not mention it.
[Not loaded. Question bears mass well within expected parameters,] Rocky rumbles next to him. He's getting a little better at jokes. And, okay, fine, maybe it is a normal and reasonable question. They’ve both been curious about each other's cultures from the jump, and that curiosity has naturally only grown the more they’ve learned about each other, the closer they've become. But Grace is not sure he’s ready to dive into all of the ways that humans kill time. Especially not when he feels this drowsy, and warm, and––and safe, he realizes. He’s hurtling through the void of space to an unknown planet with an even more unknown future, and he’s never been so relaxed.
“I’ll make you a deal,” he says, pulling himself with difficulty off of the warm xenonite to collapse into his long-suffering mattress. “I’ll tell you all about the crazy stuff humans get up to for fun in the morning, but you gotta put in your sleep-watching shift a little early, because I am waaaay too tired right now. Way too comfortable, too.”
[Look who enjoys upgraded sleeping bunk now,] Rocky says sweetly, the computer not quite able to catch the nuance of self-satisfaction Grace recognizes in his actual tone. He’s had to hear some variation on “I told you so” about this weekly for a year, and he anticipates he will continue hearing about it until the day they get to Erid. Or the day he dies, whichever comes first. [Comfortable, question? Grace always complaining before, always too cold, too sore, too lone––]
“Alright, alright! Grace warm and comfortable thanks to Rocky’s genius and thoughtful bunk design,” Grace mutters. He tries to sound annoyed but it comes out nauseatingly earnest and he feels himself flush. “Can the brilliant, benevolent Rocky please let me sleep now?”
[Yes yes yes,] Rocky trills happily, returning to what Grace can only think of as a ‘loaf’ position. He seems like he’s most of the way awake now, his front two claws tapping lightly at the floor. [Rocky know what Grace need better than Grace. Glad Grace big enough to admit it.]
“Hey, I didn’t––hey,” Grace objects, weakly, and he feels the flush deepen down his neck before he can get a handle on himself. He has no idea what’s gotten into him since that weird dinner they had. He cannot fathom why he’s reacting to Rocky’s smug declaration (normal) with this blushing schoolgirl energy (not normal), but his body is acting up and he can only pray that a nice long sleep will give it a much-needed hardware reset. He considers turning over in bed to face away from the barrier, knowing full well it will do nothing to stop Rocky from seeing his face. He does it anyway. “You know what, I’m actually not gonna dignify that with a response. I’m asleep. I’m sleeping now.”
[Wait wait wait,] Rocky replies, rising onto all five legs and stretching, his vents shifting with a soft whoosh. [Have something for Grace to do before sleep. No complaining! Will only take few seconds.] He pointedly does not wait for a response before skittering to the other side of the room where his workbench is, and something about the speed at which he took off tugs at Grace's drowsy brain––Rocky never moves like that within the first half hour or so of waking––but he lets the thought slip away as Rocky returns with a small flat rectangle grasped in one hand. He drops it in the airlock, where it's cooled for a minute before Grace reaches a hand in to get a better look.
It's still warm to the touch when he fishes it out of the drawer. The narrow sides and flat back are unyielding in his grip, but he can see that the slightly rounded top of the rectangle is some kind of organic material. From this distance, it looks like some kind of smooth, hardened mud in a shallow metal tray. He's about to ask Rocky what he's supposed to do with this––and if touching it will give him heavy metal poisoning––but Rocky pipes back up before he has a chance.
[Need Grace to press pad of second-smallest digit into ♫♪♫ base,] he says, shifting his weight a little side to side. [Have tested material, is safe to touch. Yes, some heavy metals, but only a problem if ingested. No danger to weak permeable human skin.] He titters a perfunctory laugh at his reference to Grace's clearly inferior anatomy.
"You want me to––sorry, wait, there was a new word in there. After [into], before [base]?"
[Oh, ♫♪♫––impressionable material in tray, used for many things on Erid. Used most for writing, art, sculpture. You have similar?]
"Yeah," Grace answers, stifling another yawn. "We've got something like this on Earth. Clay." He cannot figure out where this is going, and it's a shame he's so exhausted, because at any other time he'd love nothing more than to get to the bottom of why Rocky's giving him Eridian clay and asking for his fingerprint. It kind of feels like he's under arrest, but he figures he can find out what kind of intergalactic crime Rocky's going to frame him for in whatever passes for morning around here. Grace presses his ring finger to the surface of the tray, then presses it harder when it doesn't give the way he expected it to. Eridian clay is less malleable, probably due to their atmospheric pressure, thinks the irritating scientist part of his brain that never fully shuts down. When he pulls his hand back and squints at the clay through Mary's dimmed evening lights, he can just make out the individual curving lines of his fingerprint on the surface. Good enough. He pops the tray back in the airlock, and then returns gratefully to the inviting softness of the bunk.
"Listen, Rock, I'm gonna let you off the hook about this for now," he murmurs into the pillow. "But tomorrow, you gotta explain what that was all about, okay?"
Rocky titters at his back, but allows him the last word, for possibly the first time in their shared existence. Grace fusses with his quilt for a minute, working to quiet the part of his mind that finds Rocky's uncharacteristic silence about this whole thing very suspicious, before sinking heavily into sleep.