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Grace stumbles yet again, he grabs a hold of the nearby table and Rocky hears themselves whistle in alarm.
“Heh I’m- I’m alright Rock” he tries to reassure but Rocky desperately tells him to lay down. There were only one year left to Erid, but grace was dying Rocky knew that, despite Grace reassuring them over and over, they know the truth.
The human was growing weaker, deteriorating, Rocky could hear how his breathing was shallower, how his body was frailer, injuries would take much longer to heal, he also got hurt more easily. Grace’s body was eating itself.
*huff* “Okay, here I am” Grace finally sat down, he had retrieved some of the Tamoeba slurry, he had bred a line of them that could be used as a food source. But it wasn’t enough. They were still low on nutrients and Grace could barely keep them down, they apparently had a horrible after taste that would leave Grace gaging.
Rocky unknowingly extends their “sight” to supervise Grace as he ate, see so he wouldn’t swallow it wrong. The whole thing was so disgustingly intimate, to watch when someone eats, let alone study them so closely, checking so the food travels down the right pipe and so they don’t wretch everything out of their system. The way the teeth bite at nothing the action only made to distract from the taste and make his system accept the slurry, the way it slides down his throat to eventually land in his stomach, Grace gags and breaths heavier the sound dry, but wet for eridian standards. Blood pumping faster through his body at the heaving, he coughs, it sounds painful but Rocky can’t do anything to help.
Mercifully it stays down this time, and Grace lays down. He had moved two matrasses from the beds down onto the floor right next to Rockys tunnels so they could be as close as possible.
Sometimes Rocky wishes that Grace never turned around to save him, that he lived happily, and healthily on earth. But if he never came Rocky would have died on blip-A, Grace makes sure to remind Rocky that he doesn’t regret it at all. But the guilt is heavy.
Grace had saved them; he had come back! The tamoeba had escaped somehow, it had moved between the walls and eaten the fuel.
Rocky had just woken up when they heard it. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. It had reverberated throughout the whole ship, Rocky had been hesitant to believe it.
Had Grace come back to save them?
They had hoped that whatever happened to the tamoeba in Rocky’s ship hadn’t happened in Grace’s. But when they saw Grace, there out in space, blurry but his body pressed close to the xenonite, they knew their fears had been true. But Grace had figured it out, the dumb, leaky but incredibly smart Grace had figured it out and come to save Rocky.
The tamoeba had evolved to squeeze through the xenonite. Grace’s hypostasis was that when they had been bred to withstand Venus’s atmosphere, they had been in xenonite tanks, and that had allowed them to evolve to resist it too. He found that wrapping them in plastic had worked to contain the tamoeba. Oh, you brilliant alien.
Grace had abandoned his chance to go home to his planet to instead save them, a lone alien in space that he held such affection for that he was willing to die to save them.
He had programmed Mary to understand eridian and made Rocky a captain so they could fully control the ship, he had also given Rocky a crash corse on what all the buttons do. All this to ensure that if he were to die, they could still reach erid.
Rocky wouldn’t let him die, they were too selfish to let him do such a thing, he would survive and Rocky will build Grace the best home on erid to ensure that he would thrive. Grace had told them what earth had done to him, they had murdered him, sent him on a mission that he explicitly said he would not go on.
He had threatened to sabotage the mission, but they instead gave him a drug that would take away his memories. Such a thing was what all children fear but are told that doesn’t exist, but here Rocky has proof of a monster that takes memories existing, his friend can’t remember how old he is, let alone what his parents sounded like.
It’s cruel, Stratt is cruel, earth is cruel. Doesn’t matter that Grace can’t bring himself to truly hate her, Rocky will hate enough for the both of them.
Eridian’s are a peaceful society, having already resolved the conflicts and helped everyone be on equal standing. But that wouldn’t stop Rocky if he met Stratt, he would tear her to shreds and then launch her into the hottest sun they could find. Rocky keeps these thoughts to themselves knowing it would upset Grace, he doesn’t want them to hate earth.
Undeniably Rocky cares deeply for Grace, if the roles had been reversed, they hadn’t hesitated ever for a second about saving Grace.
The first part of the trip had been so exiting, Gace and them had watched all types of human movies, Grace had read books out loud for them, they had researched human cultures and history. Rocky had wanted to learn everything and in return they would answer any questions Grace had.
But too soon the effects of starvation had kicked in.
First to go had been the fat on his body, Rocky hadn’t realized how much the fat had insulated the sounds of Grace’s body until it was gone. They wanted to take back all their early complaints about how loud the human body is.
Soon the muscles were next, Rocky dearly hopes Grace can hold out for another earth year. He’s also deficient in nearly all nutrients, this causes Grace to feel ill, bleed from his gums, causes painful migraines and occasional muscle spasms. And the symptoms will just get worse from there.
Rocky focuses back on the present, Grace is shivering despite being so close to Rocky’s tunnels. They walk over to where their ball is and climbs in, they roll it over to Grace, who immediately cuddles up to the ball, to Rockys warmth.
They have been working on a more close-fitting suit that would allow them to move more freely around the hail mary but the progress has been slow. Grace becomes quite distressed if Rocky works too much, they had tried to make the suit earlier but had focused too much on it and Gace had though Rocky hated him.
Irrational? Yes. But they can’t deny that if the roles were reversed, they would have thought the same.
Both, they and Grace, are smart but also so ridiculously dumb sometimes.
Exhaustion is something that makes humans dumber and unfortunately Grace can’t fix the problem, there aren’t enough re-sources to fix it.
Rocky keeps getting stuck in their head, but the alternative is watching their closes friend dying before them. They accidentally let out a string of mellow notes and Grace looks at them. He reaches out and paces his hand on one of the panels of them ball “Rocky, it’s going to be alright” his voice is quieter- correction- weaker than before… if they had eyes that could cry, they would. They would sob until there were no tears left and then continue past that.
“No, you are dying Grace, and I can’t do anything to fix it!” Rocky can’t help but tell the truth, eridians might not be able to cry but they can sing in sorrow, they let their words be said with the emotions they are feeling. When Grace returned, he had vigorously practised eridian, so he could understand them now. So he could hear the sorrow.
“Rock…” Grace trails off, sadness taints his single tone voice, Rocky can hear the tears building up in his eyes, hears how his blinking sounds wetter. “I hate how I can’t help you” Rocky continues “I hate how I have to watch you deteriorate right in front of me”
His hand is pressed to the side of the ball where he rubs small circles, the sound is soothing after so many years of living with him, but they crave to feel the touch on their carapace. They crave to be closer, they want to touch Grace without burning him and leaving frostbite on themselves. It’s selfish, but who is going to judge them? No one could understand the connection Rocky has with this goopy alien.
“I could always lighten the load and-“ Grace mumbles “-Don’t you dare finish that sentence!” Rocky cuts Grace off; they already know what he’s going to suggest. “You are not allowed to kill yourself” it comes out as a growl, Grace lets out a small sigh, he’s relived. It was a twisted way of asking if Rocky still cared for him, they hate it when he makes such suggestions, it breaks their hearts.
The care they feel for this alien they found in space is overwhelming, he is so weak, but still, they care for him as if he was family…
Grace continues drawing small circles on the panel, his breathing is even but his heart is beating faster than normal, most likely from holding back tears. “I can’t promise anything… but I hope I at least get to see erid, I want to see what your planet looks like. Make sure that you get home” Rocky places a hand against the panel were Grace’s is “No, you are strong. You will survive. I- I won’t let you die” they so rarely stutter but with how emotional they currently are they can’t help it.
He lets the tears flow and scoots closer to hug the ball, the contact makes him infinitely louder, but it is a loud reminder that he is still alive. “Rock… I love you” it’s a thing he started saying a while ago, Rocky honestly wasn’t sure what it meant to Grace. He had explained once that humans have many types of love, familial, romantic, platonic and so on.
Rocky wasn’t sure what they felt for Grace, they know that they hold strong affection for him. But further than that? They don’t know.
He’s smart, brave, kind, dumb sometimes, clumsy, incredibly passionate, determined, forgetful, weak, strong, cute, soft- what?
Cute? Soft?
They maybe feel some sort of love towards him…
He feels some sort of love towards them…
The tears have lessened and Grace’s eyes are closed, they can hear them moving behind the eyelids, but they are closed. Grace’s breathing has stabilized, same with his heart. The breaths are deeper and slower, he is asleep.
Cute.
Yes, that is an accurate description, despite Grace being something that most eridians would find utterly repulsing, Rocky finds him cute. He was cuter when he was healthy, but he is still cute in their opinion.
He is so strong, to save earth despite how they treated him. Brave to turn around to save Rocky, to save erid. So kind, to bring them on board the ship, and to bring them home. He is passionate about his interests. And so very determined when he sets his mind on something.
When they first met him, they did think he was kind of stupid, he didn’t catch the first pod and Rocky had to send another, he had stumbled around in space to catch it, but he did catch it. Then he sent it back, Rocky had felt so silly for being exited, but he had figured it out! Back and forth the messages had been sent, they learned more and more about each other. Rocky built the bridge and soon they were properly interacting.
He was so incredibly different to all the imaginations of how other aliens would look. He was loud, had only four limbs, also walks on only two of those limbs, he sees only one direction at a time, he sees light, lives in the freezing cold, his hearing is very limited, he needs to eat constantly, he is soft all over, and oh so very wet. It was almost pornographic how wet he was.
In some aspects Grace was smart, like how he figured out a way to communicate, how he was the one on earth to discover how astrophage worked, how he figured out what happened to their crewmates.
But in other aspects he was, as humans say, “Dumb as a rock”. Math had to be tediously written down and calculated, he would “loose” things and then realize he was holding them all along. He would regularly forget Rocky needs surfaces to see and would show them a screen where they wouldn’t see anything.
Though they must admit that they too made many mistakes, like talking in tones Grace couldn’t hear and then getting mad when he was “ignoring” them. They would try to show a radio show that Grace couldn’t understand because he can’t hear what is happening or there are too many sounds overlapping, assuming Grace knows something without asking first. The list could go on and on.
Grace risked his life to get the tamoeba and when things went wrong Rocky risked their life to save him, he then watched them sleep, something humans don’t require but he does it anyway. He figured out how to breed a line of them that could withstand the atmospheres of the planets they would be living on, all on his own.
Adoration. Means respect, reverence, strong admiration, and love for a certain person, place, or thing. That’s what they feel.
They also feel an intense need to protect, biologically Grace is weak compared to eridians, so Rocky feels the need to protect him. And now they are watching him sleep, humans don’t shut down like eridians do when they sleep, they stay in some semblance “awake”. If danger comes, they can simply wake up. This is possible because they live in a much cooler environment and their immune system can work all the time, their bodies repair even when awake, but it is quicker when asleep. All of this is still such and odd concept but also comforting in a way, if they need him awake in a crisis he will wake up.
It’s also easier to tell if he is dead or not, Grace has said that when a human dies everything in them stops moving, so for Grace’s body to make so much noise is comforting.
They care for Grace, almost too much.
Grace’s chest slowly rises and falls, he is still weakly hugging the ball. His heart beats rhythmically, his other organs slowed. Rocky “loafs” as Grace calls it, their arms are beneath their carapace, they lean towards him, returning the hug.
“I love you too”
They whisper it, and Grace cuddles closer. They long for the day they’re done with the suit and can properly hug Grace.
When they can hold him like he is holding them.
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“I love you so much”
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I would die for you