Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Grace was sick. Rocky could tell.

It was a slowly growing certainty. Rocky was, as always, very much enjoying not being alone. He was aware that humans needed their 'alone-time' (weird for a social species), and was okay with giving it, but being able to sometimes hear them anyway was good. It helped. He liked to check on them every so often, to make sure they were… well, to make sure they were still there, which of course they were, but he still liked to check.

It was really a fascinating thing. Grace and Simon spent equal time apart as they did together. When they weren't together, Simon preferred to be alone than to talk with Rocky (rude), and had taken a strong liking to the don't-go-crazy room! Rocky let him be, for the most part—'space', as Grace put it. He needed space, and besides, Rocky could talk to him when all three of them were together.

Normally, that meant while the two humans ate. It disgusted Rocky, but it was a daily occurrence—Rocky couldn't tell if Grace and Simon had agreed to eat together, or if it was a biological incentive. Aliens were confusing. Rocky still preferred to sit with them than to not, even though the activity was so gross, because it was a community thing. Rocky liked that.

He was going to be so weird when he got back to Erid.

Simon had been acting much more normal, Rocky thought—he'd been teaching Rocky new words. Words that Rocky had been dying to use and be understood, but he'd figured over time spent with Grace that humans didn't have an equivalent for cursing—Grace had explained his little exclamations, but they didn't seem like cursing. But no—that was just a Grace thing, which definitely tracked. Simon taught Rocky the words, 'fuck', 'shit', 'dumbass', and many of their variations. Rocky talked him through the process of inputting the words into the translator, and it was the most that Rocky had ever liked Simon. He even showed his teeth in the good way a few times—smiles were odd for Rocky, but he was trying to be culturally sensitive. It was bullshit… which was now a word he knew.

Grace, on the other hand, spent most of his time without Simon or Rocky in the lab. He seemed to like Rocky in there with him, he always had, but he was working more often now than he had been before—making sure that Simon was going to be okay. Rocky hadn't had the nerve yet to ask if he was, but he trusted Grace; if anyone could figure it out, Grace could.

"What Grace trying to fix, question?" Rocky asked one evening when he found Grace in the lab. He'd spent most of the day there—Rocky was getting tired of being alone. He hopped into his enclosure, intending on staying there for a long time—or at least until the humans needed to sleep.

Instead of answering immediately, Grace had made a wordless noise, like a sigh and a groan at the same time.

"Not understand noise," Rocky pointed out. He wished that Grace would communicate clearer.

Grace reached up and rubbed at his face with his hands, groaning again, this time sounding aggravated. "I'm not fixing anything," he said. It was a little bit difficult to understand him through his fingers, but Rocky managed it. "I'm monitoring his CBC closely so that I can know the exact rate at which his white blood cells are depleting, and checking to see if there's anything else wrong. Technically I don't have to be looking at his blood right now, because he's in the latent stage, but I'd rather be safe than sorry if I'm going to miss anything. Armando also got me his blood type, and we have the same type, so that mean's transfusions might work… I've been working on that too. I should have become an actual medical doctor, this is insane."

Rocky didn't have reason to ask Grace to explain most of what he said—Grace had explained some of them to him when Simon first got there, and so he knew what a CBC was, and why it was important. He didn't know what a transfusion was, though. "No understand word. What Armando get blood type for, question? What is blood type, question?"

"Transfusion. When you take something from one thing, and put it into another thing that needs it. In this case, blood from one human, and give it to another human who needs it. But you have to make sure that our blood type is the same, or it will hurt the person you're giving it to."

Rocky sat thoughtfully for a moment. It sounded like a simplification—most things with Grace were, he explained things like the teacher he was—but he thought he understood. "Eridians do this also. Not with blood, but with other internal functions." Ones that he didn't really know how to explain, because that wasn't his area.

"Makes sense," Grace said, smiling as he lowered his hands, but it was gone quickly, and then he was immediately grouchy again. "I'm just making sure I'm not missing anything. I want to do the best I can, since there's no medical professional on the ship."

Of course he did; he was a good person. That was what Rocky liked about him. Otherwise, they wouldn't be friends. He'd been working for hours, though, and if Rocky knew anything, it was that Grace needed to be told when to stop… even if Rocky liked to pretend that Grace was lazy.

"Grace friend in dormitory," Rocky told him. "Time to eat. Go."

Grace waved a hand dismissively. "I'll be down in a minute, I wanna go—uh—I wanna check some more stuff. I'll catch up."

Rocky paused. "But Grace will miss human meal time."

"Yeah, and it won't kill me. I'll eat when I come down, before bed."

Rocky grumbled in annoyance, Grace smiled, and Rocky went down to the dormitory to find Simon, who was being presented with some human food—it looked like the stringy stuff that Grace called 'noodles'.

"… Hey," Simon greeted.

"Hello," Rocky greeted happily as he rolled in. He was glad that Simon wasn't being as much of a dick to him anymore. He was trying to return the favor. "Grace say he will join when done researching."

"Okay," Simon said. He didn't seem happy about it. He'd have to get used to one-on-one Rocky Time. Rocky considered it a gift.

But Grace did not join immediately after he was done researching. Instead, he stayed in the lab for a while—walking around, checking the taumoeba, doing his normal science human things—and then suddenly, he left in the opposite direction, toward the don't-go-crazy room, or even the cockpit. Rocky couldn't hear him as well up there. It bothered him, but who knew why Grace did the things that he did? He was weird, and forgetful, and Rocky had given up a long time ago on trying to figure out his reasoning for every little thing.

He returned a little while later, while Rocky was forcing Simon to listen to him talking about mundane things on Erid, the other human mostly quiet (sulking). Grace had an arm protectively around his abdomen, and instead of coming to eat with them, crawled into his bunk.

"…Grace, food," Rocky reminded him. Humans had bad memories already, but he knew Grace's was worse when it came to the little things. He had to be told things multiple times sometimes, and Rocky tried to be understanding about it when he didn't fully understand.

"Not hungry," Grace insisted as he used his feet to try and slip his shoes off. "Just tired."

"… But Grace must eat."

"I'm okay. I'm not hungry."

Rocky tapped frustratedly, feeling increasingly confused. "Grace must eat, or get stupid. Starve."

"Hey," Simon interrupted, chewing on the last of his food. He was sitting on the floor, hunched over slightly. He poked at Rocky with the sticks he'd been using to eat (not very well, he didn't seem to know how to actually use them) and said, "Leave him alone. If he wants to starve, let him."

That was a stupid sentiment. Apparently it was some type of joke, though, because Grace laughed in his bunk.

"I'll be fine, I'll eat tomorrow morning. Goodnight."

Rocky said goodnight to him, bewildered, and unsettled.

That was how it had started. After how angry Grace had been over the last few Earth-weeks, and the explanation that Grace had given him, Rocky had thought it would be okay, or at the very least, didn't think that it would get worse. It was, though—whatever was happening was getting worse.

Rocky had listened to Grace's lesson on human biology closely, as he always did; it was one of his favorite things to learn about, even though he wasn't a biologist himself. Adrian especially would have loved it. Correction: they will love it. When Rocky got back to Erid. Their enthusiasm about animals had probably washed off on Rocky, and now here he was, fascinated. He thought he understood, too.

At first, the explanation had held up; Rocky learned about the workings of the human internal system, and had understood why Grace was being grumpy. Stress—that was what Grace said. It was stress, and there wasn't anything to be done about it except be less stressed. Which wasn't something he could just do of his own volition, apparently. Stupid.

But then the cracks began to show. Small things that made Rocky feel cold with anxiety, starting with how much Grace was eating. In short: not enough. Never enough. He 'wasn't hungry', which was the most moronic thing Rocky had ever heard. Of course Grace was hungry; he had to be, that was how it worked. Something had to be wrong to make him not feel hungry when he was—making him not eat like he should. The amount of nerves Rocky was feeling over this alien's eating habits was going to give him some type of psychiatric attack.

He ate less. He grumbled and was short with both Rocky and Simon—a change that wasn't as much hurtful as it was weird, and unnerving. Grace wasn't scary when he was angry, the opposite actually, but he wasn't normally so irritable. He put his head down on the table like he was tired, even when he had just slept. He picked at his food instead of eating it.

Rocky was coming up with theories, slowly. He figured that he knew enough to begin that. None of the theories instilled him with confidence.

Facts known: Grace was sick. It was because of something related to eating and digestion—Grace said so himself. And, lastly, Grace had stated that it was due to stress. Altogether, this didn't sound good.

Mostly because it was getting worse. What started as him being a little bit irritable from apparent discomfort had spiraled into something much more concerning, with more indication of physical symptoms. Rocky did not like it when Grace experienced symptoms. Of anything. It was up in the air every time if it was something completely normal that humans just did, or something wrong, wrong, wrong. Most of the time it was a little more difficult to tell, but when Grace curled in on himself sometimes like he was in pain, especially when it was time for sleeping and they had eaten a little while before, Rocky was starting to think that this was more serious.

So. Stress could cause the human stomach to stop functioning, or impair its functioning, and Grace was under stress. The digestive system shutting down could make humans very, very sick. Sometimes, it could kill them. The human thinking machine said so.

Simon didn't seem to worry. He noticed, though—when Grace was snappy with him (as snappy as Grace could be) and then quiet—and had started grumbling back. They weren't getting along as well as they had been before. One day, Rocky watched Grace snippily tell Simon that he was busy, and Simon had left the lab immediately without a word.

Grace had watched him. "… I feel bad," he confessed.

"Yes," Rocky agreed where he was sitting making models. He was bored, and models were fun. "Grace is bad."

Grace had sighed, sinking in his chair. The remorse was practically peeling off of him in waves. "I'll go apologize."

They never fought; Rocky was thankful for it. He didn't want to know what a fight between humans looked like, even petty ones where there would supposedly be no violence—he wasn't sure he believed the idea that Simon was capable of being nonviolent in a fight anyway. Most disputes were settled with a simple apology. Happy, happy, happy.

It didn't make Rocky less on edge.

"Grace act strange," he brought up to Simon when he'd located him in the don't-go-crazy room. He tumbled in without any grace, the grating rattling under his weight.

Simon was looking at him out from under his long, frond-like hair. His shoulders were hunched, and his legs were pulled in, knees to his chest. "Okay," he grunted.

"Stupid human," Rocky accused. He understood this human language—he was tired of getting one-word answers. "Talk normal."

"Fuck you," Simon sighed, turning his face away. Rocky didn't have his screen-reader, so he had no idea what it was he was watching, but from the sound of it, it involved Earth birds of some kind. Whatever—now that Rocky understood Simon's insults, he knew when to be offended.

"Fuck you," Rocky retorted. "Rocky is trying to talk to Simon. Simon is not being helpful"

The name 'Simon' had been added to the database yesterday after Rocky had realized, with some frustration, that he could ask the human thinking machine what the name meant. It had a strange meaning, 'he who hears', but Rocky took it and ran with it. There was no name or single word with a direct translation, so he settled on 'prophet'—just a single word that didn't sound like a name at all, like grace. After all, Grace's name was just one word; the humans didn't need real eridian names with proper prefixes and suffixes, etcetera, they just needed something nice for Rocky to call them. Grace and Prophet together sounded nice in eridian. But in the translator it was just 'Simon.'

Simon let out a puff of air through his nose—a sigh? No, not exactly. Rocky wasn't sure, but he was upset. "Do I have to be helpful?" he asked. "Is it a requirement?"

Rocky raised two of his arms the way he'd seen Grace do when he was upset and started to get animated. "Why would Simon not want to be helpful, question? Helpful is good. Not helpful is bad. Statement."

"… I guess so," Simon mumbled. "You're really fucking annoying, though." His hand was flexing where it was sitting on his leg.

"Rocky proud to be annoying. At least useful."

"Shut the fuck up."

"Is about Grace," Rocky pressed. "Simon like Grace. Rocky can tell. So Simon Rocky will talk about Grace."

Simon didn't talk. He breathed, and his heart beat, and he picked at the fabric of the pants he'd borrowed from Grace. He was… thinking. "What about?" he inquired finally, audibly begrudging.

Yes. Good. But now came the hard part: explaining. 'I have a feeling' wasn't exactly good scientific evidence, but Simon was not a scientist—maybe he wouldn't mind.

"Grace behavior. Slightly strange. Something is wrong, I can tell this." Okay, off to a good start. "But a human can tell more. Rocky know big parts, but many small things Rocky not know, so cannot come up with a way to fix. Simon can help."

Simon turned his head to look at him again, finally. He was making the human expression known as a 'frown'. "You're talking about him being pissed off more?"

"Essentially. There are other things."

"He's in a bad mood," Simon said. He turned his face back to the screen walls. "It happens sometimes."

"… Not wrong," Rocky allowed slowly. "Sometimes Grace in bad mood. Is true. But this is from being sick. Grace is sick."

For some reason, Simon seemed perplexed by that, despite it being completely self-explanatory. It took him a moment to respond. "Like, sick in the head?"

"What, question?"

"What do you mean by sick?"

Rocky waved his arms, and wiggled his carapace side to side, annoyed. "He feels not good!" he exclaimed eventually, struggling. He knew a lot of words in their language, but he didn't know how to put them together in a way that Simon would understand, and get across how seriously he was taking this.

Watching Simon was interesting—or would be interesting if Rocky didn't have other things to talk about that were more important. His body language was different than Grace's, similar enough that Rocky could identify most of the cues, but still just off, sideways. He rolled his shoulders. Discomfort, maybe? Thought?

"You think that he's upset because he's sick."

"Yes," Rocky confirmed simply. It made sense, didn't it? Simon shouldn't have been asking; the theory was logical. "Must fix."

Simon grimaced. Not a good showing of teeth. Again, he paused before saying anything; Rocky was starting to think that maybe that was just how Simon took in information. It took him longer to process than Grace. He wasn't going to call Simon stupid right now, though, when he needed his help. Eventually, he sighed. Annoyance, or exhaustion, Rocky knew that one. "How do you plan to do that?"

Rocky didn't answer immediately. Simon was looking at him; defensiveness prickled along the inside of his carapace. "Not know," he confessed. "Need Simon help."

"I don't like the sound of that," Simon told him immediately.

"Why not, question? Grace Simon friends!"

"Are we?"

"Yes!"

"It's not actually that part that I'm—" He stopped, grimacing again. "Fine. What is it you need, anyway? Are you going to do alien experiments on him? I'm not helping with that, to be clear."

Rocky bristled. "No! Simon stop being stupid. Listen."

"I'm not stupid," Simon said seriously, hands clenching. It read to Rocky immediately as bad, but he did not know what it actually meant.

"Then stop acting stupid." They needed to get back on track—this wasn't what Rocky was there for! "Grace not eat properly. Says not hungry, and that eating causes discomfort. Simon know fix for this?"

Weirdly, Simon made a face. "I don't actually want to know about Ryl—Grace's digestive issues, thanks."

Rocky made a frustrated noise.

"Listen. I'll ask him how he's feeling. How's that?"

"Grace will lie."

"That's his choice. Whatever it is, he can handle it. He's a doctor."

"Yes. Grace very smart." Rocky let out a low, breathy chitter that sounded a little bit like a human sigh; it was a habit that had rubbed off on him. Humans sighed often. "Smart, brave, and also stupid at the same time. Simon will learn this."

It was imperative that he did. Rocky hoped to have some help with wrangling Grace in the future, if… if Simon got better. He seemed fine now, but Grace said that was normal, and that he would get worse soon. The fear Rocky felt over the idea was full-bodied, and came from a very real place of dread and experience.

He was not looking forward to the next wave. He was terrified in spite of himself, and aside from that, the way that humans presented radiation sickness was disgusting.

But mostly, he just wanted Grace's new friend to be okay.

"He's better than us," Simon proclaimed.

Rocky was taken aback. He watched Simon closely, interested, but also… slightly disturbed. "Grace very good human," he agreed eventually. That seemed like the safest response.

“It’s quiet here,” Simon said one day while Ryland was sitting trying to pretend like he wasn’t falling asleep sitting up. Simon hadn’t spoken in at least an hour; he was sitting by the window, with a blanket that Ryland had offered to him when he saw him sitting there. He’d looked cold. The Hail Mary was perfectly temperature controlled, but Ryland still thought he could use some comfort.

The stars had been weird. Ryland had been expecting some type of… revelation? Reaction? Something, since Simon had insisted that the stars were all dead since he got to the ship. It seemed like a pretty dumb practical joke, and if it was a joke, then Simon was a great actor, because the emotion surrounding the idea had struck Ryland as deeply real.. Anger, despair, fear—it was palpable, and deeply uncomfortable. Ryland had accepted that he wasn’t lying a while ago—just wrong.

But there hadn't been much of anything other than a blank stare. Ryland had asked if he was okay. Simon had responded that yes, he was fine, and he’d seen the window before. He’d seen starlight before.

“What?” Ryland asked. “But you said that all the stars were—”

“Dead,” Simon finished tersely for him. His voice was hollow, and haunting. “Dead starlight. It will take a while for the last of it to reach us. There should be—there should be less, but—”

They hadn’t talked much after that. Ryland had wanted to push so badly, demand to know more of the specifics of the situation and how Simon had grown up. Learn all of it. Pick it apart, really make sense of it in a way he hadn’t been able to so far.

Now, Simon sat by the window, looking out at the vastness. The sight outside that window was beautiful beyond any hope to capture it in words. Sometimes, Ryland was still filled with clenching terror when he looked out of it into the stars, but nowadays, he mostly just felt awe.

“Goes with the whole space thing,” Ryland agreed, forcing his head into a more upright position where his chin had been nodding. He was back against the wall a few feet away. Crowding Simon just… it didn’t seem like the best idea. He was feeling really run-down and lethargic lately, mostly from all the held-back retching when he tried to force down his taumoeba intake, which used up way more energy than was fair. It was a miracle—if he’d believed in that kind of thing—that Rocky hadn’t caught him yet.

Probably by virtue of Grace’s good planning skills. Rocky started a conversation with Simon, and while Simon was wary around Rocky, like he thought he might attack, he didn’t normally tell Rocky to go away outwardly. It gave Ryland time to sneak off to the furthest part of the ship he could, in the hopes that between space and how distracted Rocky was, he might not notice.

So far, seemed like he hadn’t. He was noticing everything else, which wasn’t good, but Ryland was still keeping the secret. To his own detriment, but hopefully to the benefit of everyone else. Simon having more food—and more food for them to spare if the next stage of the radiation poisoning came with more puking—Rocky just generally not having to worry about it, it was worth the general grossness, even with how much it sucked. The taumoeba never sat right; it rested in his stomach like he’d been eating handfuls of gravel. Sticky gravel.

His stomach churned and cramped.

“No sound in space, because there’s no atoms or molecules to carry sound waves. Just us,” he added with a smile.

Simon glanced at him. “Just us,” he echoed. It didn’t sound like he was agreeing, just repeating distantly, but Ryland still felt a warm, comfortable swell of satisfaction at hearing his own words said back to him from Simon’s mouth.

Ryland had always gotten really close to people really fast when he was young. He tended to get excited at just the thought of making a connection with someone, spending time with them, sharing things. He liked having close friends. But that normally meant that they’d either get freaked out by him (being too comfortable too fast) or start hitting on him (which he didn’t always notice, because he thought they were just reciprocating the friend thing). He’d tried to start pulling away from that a long time ago, but here, in the vacuum of space with no humans for light-years and light-years, it seemed that old habits died hard.

He also used to mistake his all-consuming love for his friends as crushes. He… he didn’t think they were crushes, but he wasn’t sure. They weren’t not crushes, sometimes. But they also definitely weren’t crushes.

He was just confusing himself now. Bottom line: he knew he was different. He'd figured out what aro-ace meant years ago, back when he was still on Earth. He was fine with it. Lonely, sometimes, since not many people took friendships as seriously as he did in favor of romantic relationships, but he'd long since made peace with that. It didn't bother him. He was happy about that.

"Sorry that sounded so ominous," Ryland offered. He didn't stop smiling even though Simon wasn't smiling back.

"Honestly, it's a nice thought," Simon assured, eyes out the window. "Less people that can fuck with us. Even if it is just us drifting out into oblivion forever."

Something almost like annoyance sparked in Ryland's chest, but he ignored it. "Technically, we'd be accelerating into oblivion forever, but only until we ran out of fuel," Ryland corrected playfully, pushing back the irrational feeling. "If Erid weren't close by."

Simon shook his head, rolling his eyes. His mouth was pinched shut, and to Ryland, he looked almost amused. He'd take what he could get!

"Can't wait," he said lamely.

Ryland was about to speak again, going so far as to open his mouth to try and convince Simon yet again that they were actually headed to Rocky's home, but Simon wasn't done.

"What would be there for us if we got to this planet?"

Ryland paused. He let out a breath, blinking. "Uh—wh-what do you mean?"

"It's an alien planet," Simon retorted. "Just because he says there will be space for you, doesn't mean that there will be. I heard you talking about his atmosphere being completely different. It gave you that scar." His eyes drifted to Ryland's arm. The burn was healed by now, but it wasn't pretty to look at. The burned-on hand print from Rocky was much more preferable to Ryland—proof that they'd touched, that Rocky had saved him. It didn't hurt anymore. "That doesn't sound promising to me."

The proclamation hung in the air. Ouch. Ryland wasn't a therapist, he didn't know how to reassure every single concern that Simon had when there were so many—and frankly, Ryland had them too. Rocky had started talking about Erid more lately, and he was so excited. But Ryland couldn't help but be nervous.

"According to Rocky," Ryland began, uncertain if this was the right direction to take, "eridians are really big on the whole repayment thing. They believe in enacting karma on people who have done them wrong, and who have done something good for them, even more than humans do. And according to Rocky, they'll have to do their best to take care of us because of—because of my role in the investigation of Tau Ceti and the discovery of the taumoeba." He grimaced. "It feels weird. But he's very sure about it. I don't really have any other choice but to trust him, either. He's done too much for me. And it's that or die in space."

Just the thought made that old, familiar feeling of cold dread trickle down his limbs.

He couldn't die in space. He couldn't.

Simon watched him for a long moment; Ryland's skin started to itch. "Let's hope that he isn't lying or wrong, then. Humans have never been all that big on repaying their saviors. Guess they could be different."

Discomfort curled in Ryland's gut; he wasn't sure if it was the taumoeba making him queasy, or how easily Simon accepted that he was a savior. Two things could be true, he supposed.

"What type of things do you hope for when we get there?" Ryland asked, desperate to not think about that anymore.

Simon gave him a slightly panicked look. "I-I don't," he denied.

"But if you did."

There was a long pause. Simon was thinking. He swallowed, brow furrowed.

"M… my own clothes," he answered finally, voice toned low. "I guess."

"Clothes?" Ryland repeated, raising an eyebrow. He hadn't complained about wearing Grace's once. But the clothes he'd shown up in hadn't been salvageable… Ryland had tossed them out the airlock while Simon was still naked and trembling in the dormitory.

Oof. Yeah, that actually really sucked.

"Yeah. My own clothes. I don't have any belongings right now."

Ryland's heart clenched. He watched as Simon stared out the window, one hand coming up to fiddle with the neckline of his shirt. He was wearing the one that said 'AH. The Element of Surprise.'

He had something around his neck on a long chord. Whatever it was, it was tucked into his shirt, and Ryland hadn't noticed it until a few days ago. He hadn't asked—none of his business.

"That sounds like a good plan," Ryland smiled.

The day that everything went wrong, Rocky hadn't been trying to investigate in the first place. It was just another day—Earth day, since that cycle was easier for him to adapt to than it would be for the humans to adapt to the Erid cycle.

He was, of course, keeping an eye on Grace, to make sure that it wasn't getting worse, and in his opinion, it didn't seem to be. It was just… the same. He still talked to Rocky and Simon, and he still worked and did research, and he was eating a little. Not enough for Rocky's liking, but some, so it might not have been all that bad. At least not yet.

Still scary. Still wrong.

The Hail Mary was a thrum of ambient sound waves; Rocky enjoyed the dim quiet of the ship. They weren't far from Erid, now—not far from seeing Adrian again. He missed them every day.

Rocky rolled through the hall, before bumping against the side of the xenonite portions that he'd constructed, which Grace called his 'enclosure.' Rocky resented the idea, but in all fairness, Grace and Simon were going to get an enclosure once they were on Erid. A nice enclosure, or maybe separate ones if they wanted, with perfect conditions and plenty of things to do, but still an enclosure for the alien animals they were. It was Grace's turn.

Rocky crawled inside, and began his way to the lab; it wasn't far, and he could see into it through the walls. Grace was checking the taumoeba farms again—he was a little bit obsessive with them, but Rocky couldn't exactly blame him there. They were their only hope of saving their planets, their species, and there had already been one problem with it… it was good that he was being careful, and Rocky appreciated it.

Grace had a sample in his hand. Rocky stopped for a moment, curious. There was a good deal that he didn't completely understand about how Grace's methods worked, but he liked learning about it.

But Grace didn't take the sample over to the microscope, or anything that made any sort of sense. Instead, he lifted the test tube to his lips, and drank the whole thing in one long, convulsive swallow.

Rocky's whole body stiffened. Disgust curled slowly in his insides at the sight, confusion welling up as he shook himself out of it, continuing to the lab. Grace made a guttural retching sound that immediately set off the warning alarms in Rocky's head—it sounded like the noises Simon had made when he'd been sick. Sick was bad.

He was speaking before he'd even turned the corner, voice pitched high with disgust. "Why Grace eating the samples, question?!"

Grace's whole body jolted, and he whirled around to face Rocky, holding the now empty test tube behind his back, as if that would stop Rocky from seeing it. "H—" He raised one arm and coughed into his elbow, halfway to a gag. "—Hi, Rock. Um."

Rocky heard him swallow, throat moving; his fingers twitched; small movements, but he didn't speak for a moment. Finally, he seemed to remember that Rocky could see behind his back, and procured the test tube, fidgeting with it. "Remember how you thought it might be a viable food source? I was testing that out."

"…Oh." That made sense. It was a good idea. They'd talked about why it wasn't needed, but it was still reasonable to test the hypothesis anyway.

Still. It didn't feel right to Rocky; it didn't seem right. Grace acted caught, like a guilty pebble, and he just seemed off. He shifted where he stood, which read as annoyance at first to Rocky, before he remembered that annoyance looked different in humans. Grace was uncomfortable. Guilty.

Rocky's mind was moving fast. Suspicion bubbled inside his carapace. "Why does Grace look like that, question?" he asked pointedly.

"Ah—well, it's not very good," Grace responded, laughing. It was an odd laugh. It wasn't right, like he was forcing it manually rather than it arising naturally. "Sorry."

Rocky stood still for a long moment. An idea was forming in his mind, and the more it sat there, the more plausible it became. After a few seconds of watching Grace stand there nervously and shift uncomfortably, all he was left with was cold certainty.

"Grace has been eating taumoeba for a while."

The beat of Grace's heart, previously quicker than normal, jumped and began to race. "I—"

"Grace hide from Rocky!" Rocky accused, the pieces falling together all at once. His voice was raising into a high, shrill screech. "Grace eat taumoeba, and that is why Grace is sick!"

Grace bristled visibly. "I'm not sick!"

"Grace sick!" Rocky stated firmly. He didn't know what to do with his arms. He was so angry. All that worry, all because Grace was doing something stupid. "No lying. Never lying. Grace is a bad liar, and Rocky can always tell! Always! Taumoeba is for emergency only! Not good to eat all the time!"

He couldn't believe it. All that, because Grace decided to keep something from him. Something useless and meaningless.

"Why, question? Grace answer."

Grace's face did something that Rocky had never heard before; his whole face changed, nose scrunching, mouth curling into an unpleasant-looking frown, the clearest display of anger that Rocky had ever seen on him. He'd seen Grace angry before, it wasn't actually that uncommon, but it was never extreme—more juvenile. Indignant.

Simon got angry. Rocky didn't appreciate it, or like it, no matter what Simon had been through, and he didn't like that Grace was that angry now. It didn't… feel right, and it didn't look right, and overall, it just hit him as wrong on several new and different levels. Grace might have been easily annoyed, but that look was—

"Why are you on me right now?" he asked. It was probably an Earth-expression, but Rocky didn't have the time or the energy for that.

"Am not on you," Rocky denied flippantly, "Grace have to answer the question. That is all. Not hard at all."

Grace gave an aggravated huff, turning away and starting to put the test tube away, like Rocky wasn't even there. Eridians were better at multi-tasking, but Grace couldn't even see Rocky like that. He was being rude. And acting like a new pebble who didn't want to listen to their parent.

Ick. Grace was not a pebble, he was an adult. Sure, humans reminded Rocky of pebbles sometimes, what with the little noises that weren't words, and the inability to really echolocate, but he wasn't one. Which just made Rocky all the more angry.

Simon was coming up on the lab; maybe he'd heard Rocky shouting, Rocky couldn't be sure, but he was about to be involved anyway. That didn't put Rocky at ease, definitely, but he didn't care all that much either. As long as Simon stayed out of it, it was fine.

He was coming to a stop near the doorway when Rocky decided he was fed up.

"Grace!"

"It was just to be safe!" Grace groaned, waving a hand like Rocky was the one being ridiculous. No. Grace was always the ridiculous one. "Less food consumption that way! It was a smart choice. Simon needs it more anyway."

Not a good thing to say when Simon was standing right there, but—but maybe Grace hadn't seen him. Right… right, he was around the corner, Grace wouldn't see him unless he moved a little. He didn't know Simon was there.

"You stop eating good food because think Simon need good food more?"

"I—yeah."

"No. Lie. Grace know that there is enough real food, because Rocky do math. Rocky good at math. Grace not good at math, so trust Rocky math. And you say that—"

"Yeah, I know what I said, I just—" Grace stopped, both hands going up to drag down his face, steadying his breathing.

It was different. New and different, something that Rocky did not actually enjoy much. New and different had never really been his friends, except when Grace was involved, in which case he was just the exception that proved the rule.

"I didn't want to run out."

"Will not run out! Rocky tell Grace this!" Rocky couldn't sit still; he wiggled his carapace around.

“It’s—f—“ Grace tapered off with a breathless noise, hands fidgeting with one another. Concern jolted inside Rocky, an electric feeling that caught him off guard. Rocky wasn’t an expert in humans, however, he thought he knew this particular human very well—he’d had it proven only a few moments ago that when he consistently thought something was wrong with Grace, there was a high likelihood he was correct.

“Grace okay, question?” The last thing he wanted was for lack of proper nutrition to be doing real damage already—or getting into an argument so soon after downing a test tube of taumoeba causing more pain or discomfort. Breathing wrong didn’t seem connected, but as always, Rocky couldn’t be sure.

Grace took another breath, shaky. He still didn’t seem like he was going to be willing to listen to anything Rocky said, but he nodded. He swallowed hard, the sound brightening the convulsive movements of his throat, which was soft and far too feeble for Rocky. It was visceral in a sense that was unsettling. “I’m making a good choice here,” he assured, voice wobbly. Only a little, but enough for Rocky to notice and hate a little. Emotion. Some type of emotion, but still not enough information. “It’s just—“ He waved a hand, visibly frustrated, “—it’s to be safe!”

“But Grace is already safe,” Rocky tried.

It had the opposite of the intended effect.

Grace breathed in, warbling and stuttering as his lungs expanded. “We’re in space!” he squeaked, throat constricting and forcing his voice through a tiny opening, the sound reminding Rocky of experiments relating to how sound interacted with objects and constraints in classes when he was younger. "Nothing about this is safe!"

That gave Rocky pause. Grace's soft, vulnerable insides were rippling and contracting in a way that made Rocky nervous; his heart was picking up to a full-throttle pace, slamming in his chest. And no, Rocky couldn't 'see' everything that happened inside Grace clearly—Grace had seemed bothered by the idea when Rocky and him had been talking and it came up, which Rocky understood since all of that was definitely meant to be private—but he could see some of it, enough to know when something was different.

Well. 'Different' wasn't right. Grace was different by definition, on account of being an alien from space. It was a little bit subjective, but Rocky, on average, just had to pick and choose what he assumed was and was not normal for Grace. Over time, Rocky thought he'd actually gotten reasonably good at telling that sort of thing.

This, happening right now, reminded him of Grace's nightmares. They were an occasional, unhappy occurrence when Rocky watched him sleep, and Rocky had gotten… Okay at managing them. The idea was completely foreign; it took a long time for Grace's accounts of human dreams to not sound like some huge practical joke. He understood them now, and knew to expect them on occasion, and had gotten… better at handling them, reading the signs and trying to wake Grace up before it went on for too long.

Sometimes, he wasn't fast enough. Or loud enough. Sometimes, when he finally managed to get Grace awake—yet another strange action to be able to take—Grace was trembling, lungs working too fast, heart over-pumping and leaving Grace heaving and clutching at his jolting chest. It was scary. The only comfort was that hugging Rocky's ball seemed to be a manner of self-soothing, and so all Rocky had to do was be there.

But Grace didn't seem like he was in the mood to give Rocky a hug. It was a friendly gesture, Rocky knew that, and Grace was angry. Too angry for hugs.

And so scared. Scared like he was being attacked, which he wasn't. He was with Rocky; he was safe with Rocky, safe on the ship, and safe in space.

"Grace," he began.

"I know," Grace interrupted, hands moving to run through his hair, the nervous energy not abating. He inhaled deeply, moved towards the table and hooked his foot around the chair to pull it out, and collapsed into it, hands still obsessively messing with his head or face like he couldn't sit still. "I know, I just—" He leaned back in the chair, head tipping backwards at an odd angle that made Rocky uneasy, and placed a hand on his own forehead. He was taking purposeful breaths, slower, but his heart rate was not slowing at all.

"Fudge, I hate this," Grace burst out.

Simon's presence was an annoyance at the periphery of Rocky's awareness. He hadn't intervened yet, or inserted himself in any way, but he wasn't leaving either. He stood just around the corner, out of Grace's sight, waiting. His heart wasn't beating nearly as fast as Grace's, but there was a speedy jump to it all the same.

Rocky couldn't divide his attention right now. He had to pick, so Grace was the obvious choice right now.

"Grace."

A stuttering breath. Rocky wished he was more patient; after spending so long on his own, he should have learned patience with things, but in reality, he was pretty sure it had killed that skill in him. He wanted results, and he wanted them now. He wanted Grace to get over whatever this was now, so they could address the real problem and get him feeling better. Grace always did things on his own time, though, especially the emotional things.

It seemed like he had Grace's attention. Grace wasn't looking at him, head still tipped back with a hand on it, and Rocky thought his eyes were probably closed, but he could still hear him. Now, Rocky just had to figure out what to say.

Rocky paused for a moment, feeling fidgety himself. He didn't know what to do with his appendages. He had so many questions, and he wanted to choose one that wouldn't make things worse.

Finally, he said softly, "Why Grace scared, question?"

Grace let out a shaking sound a little bit like a laugh, but not quite. He leaned forward and put his face in both his hands. He didn't respond right away, but Rocky was set on asking until he got a real answer. "Because… because everything," he mumbled eventually. His voice was muffled and marred through his hands. "Because of everything."

That wasn't at all the answer that Rocky wanted; unfortunately, the answer also made sense in a way that sent jolts of sympathy through him. Yes, everything was scary—at least a little bit. Enough for some nervousness to be warranted.

But being so afraid of something that he already knew wasn't going to happen that he was willing to literally start starving himself on purpose—

The anger returned with a swift, heart-clenching sweep. It burned.

He managed to control himself, just barely. "Scary, scary, scary," he agreed, making a soft attempt at rushing through the sympathy and into tangible results, "yes. But… hmmm but Rocky help. Do math on resources and timeline, to make sure Grace Simon can eat."

The room was a low whir of breathing, and swirling sound. Waves licked at Grace's silhouette.

"I want to be ready when something goes wrong," Grace admitted into the whirling air.

"Nothing will go wrong," Rocky promised. After a moment of hesitation, he crept closer; Grace seemed less agitated now. Rocky wasn't worried about Grace hurting him somehow—he couldn't— but he wanted to give him space.

Humans and their space. It was crazy.

"If does, Rocky will fix."

Grace huffed. "That's—thanks. Thank you." His voice was rough; Rocky wondered if he was leaking again, or if he'd managed to stop himself. Who was he kidding—it was Grace, he was a leaky thing. "… I don't know if that will fix it all."

"No." There was no way, and that was the most frustrating part about all of it. Rocky always wanted to make things instantly better, and he'd been told his whole life that it was unrealistic. He thought it was possible though, with enough focus and on-the-spot planning; he just didn't always choose the exact right option, chose the wrong path, which made things stretch out longer. "Grace will stop eating taumoeba."

Grace wiped at his face sloppily. Probably leaking, getting rid of the water before Rocky could hear it run down his face. "That's—yeah, okay."

"Also eat normal again. Eat with Simon Rocky every day. Sustainable, consistent amount."

"Okay."

"Rocky do many things for Grace. This is worst."

Grace laughed. Good, good, good, good… "Sorry, bud. You don't have to babysit me."

"No understand."

"Uh—watching me like I'm too young to take care of myself."

Oh. Oh!

"Yes! Yes. Grace is tiny human, cannot do anything. Rocky watch." Rocky watched him closely through the sound of his watery chuckling. "Grace will feel better soon."

"That's insulting. And you seem pretty sure of yourself."

"Yes."

Grace began to stand; Rocky heard Simon inching away, apparently not intending for Grace to see him—something must have tipped him off that the conversation was almost over. Sneaky humans…

"First meal soon!" Rocky began, feeling much more confident in himself. Despite the emotional outburst from Grace… which was never fun for him. Anger was uncharted territory; Rocky didn't enjoy exploring. "Real food. You eat. Rocky watch."

Grace grimaced, but nodded. "We'll see."