Work Text:
Grace screams when he wakes up.
I jolt to attention, startled, but immediately after my heart squeezes with grief.
He sits up quickly in his bed, and probably instantly regrets it. He winces as a couple of his joints make sounds of protest. “Who— What are you?!” his crackly voice yelps, terrified, as he presses himself into the pillows against the left side of his headboard— as far away from me as possible. I don’t move from my position on the floor beside his ground-level bed, but I discreetly push a button on the device on my wrist to make sure no one comes in.
“My name’s Rocky,” I say in my best soothing tones; not too high they alarm, but not so low they threaten. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you,” I continue before he can speak, reciting the script I’ve said a thousand times now, it seems. Though, there’s no malice in the thought— I’ll say it a million times more if that’s what Grace needs. A voice in my head whispers traitorously that I don’t have nearly that many left, but I quickly dismiss it. I can’t afford to break down right now. “I’m an Eridian,” I say. “I’m an alien, and you’re on my planet, Erid.”
Grace stares with an open mouth and saucer eyes. “You’re—… I’m—… What?”
“An alien; on my planet,” I supply gently. “You’re in your room. You’ve lived on Erid for 57 human years.” I can see his heart still pounding disrhythmically in his chest, too fast and too loud. It nearly chokes the words I try to form, but I push them out anyhow. “Look!” I croak, pointing across the room at two walls covered to overflowing with smallish, elementary drawings. Most are overlapping, and some even spill onto the next wall. “Everything here belongs to you. Those are drawings from your students,” I say. “They absolutely love you. And for some reason you insist on keeping everything they give you.” He stares at them, mouth slightly agape. Pure wonder textures his posture. It makes my breath hitch and the pit in my stomach widen.
“My mate, Adrian, made that for you when you first got here,” I ramble desperately on, raising a leg to a carving framed and hung carefully on the wall. “As a thank-you present.” Grace and I's ships decorate the top corners, and in the center we float against the swirls of Medium Rough Planet. Honoring jewelry decorates us in every place it can, and they stick out from the canvas— real, mini replicas of the pieces that were given to us. Grace stares in awe.
“A… A thank you? For what?” He asks, eyes locked reverently onto the piece.
“Your and my planets were going to die, but you helped save them,” I hum. “And you saved me.”
Grace blinks.
Then blinks again.
My heart soars.
“…Rocky?”
“Grace remember!” I cry, reverting back to the broken speech that had been our beginning as I throw myself onto him as much as I can without crushing him.
Grace lets out a joyous laugh, wrapping his arms around my carapace to hug me back. Shivers rack my body as I let out a continuous, shaking, bittersweet note— what we figured out a while back is my equivalent of crying.
Grace lets out a sad sigh. “Oh, I’m so sorry, buddy.” He hugs me tighter. “I… I forgot again, didn’t I?”
I let out a small affirmative warble. It would be embarrassing around anyone else, but it’s all I can do in the moment.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, resting his head melancholously on my carapace, “I’m so sorry, Rock.”
I let out a trill of forgiveness, comfort, contentment. It’s okay. It’ll be okay now. Grace is back, and we’re together, and everything’s okay.
Everything’s going to be okay. Always.
I don’t know how much longer I can lie to myself.