Chapter Text
There’s a weird pressure on his head.
A really weird pressure. It’s not a headache. In fact, it’s not any sort of real pain at all. It almost feels comfortable and a bit warm.
“Rocky…?” Grace mumbles, attempting to bring a hand up to wipe the tiredness from his eyes. He finds very quickly that there’s something blocking the way.
“Grace sleep well, question?"
“Why are you…on my head?”
“Grace chest too small. Rocky limbs extend to forehead. Very comfortable.”
Grace gives Rocky a small “mrph” and bats his legs away from his head. “How’d you end up like that anyway-” he tries before being interrupted by a yawn, “we fell asleep with you purely on my chest?”
It was really cute, now that Grace is thinking back. It looked like he was loafing like a cat.
“Rocky no sleep. I watch.”
“No, you definitely fell asleep,” Grace argues, now pushing himself up by the elbows. Rocky slides down to his lap. “In fact, you fell asleep before me.”
Rocky hums but doesn’t respond. There’s a very brief second where Grace swears he sees his best friend shrink in on himself. Ah. So that’s what it is.
“You don’t have to feel guilty about it, Rock,” Grace calms, bringing a hand up to softly stroke the top of his carapace. “I can wake up in the middle of my sleep. You can too now, right? So there’s no danger, okay? Don’t beat yourself up about it.”
Rocky mumbles something, but even with Grace’s new-and-improved hearing, he can’t seem to make the words out. Impressive. He didn’t know Eridians were capable of being so quiet.
“What’d you say?”
“Rocky still should have watched. Sorry sorry sorry.”
“Don’t apologize, bud,” Grace soothes, and despite the situation not calling for it, a pang of guilt shoots through his heart. “You did nothing wrong.”
“Thank thank thank.”
Grace smiles at him, now rubbing circles into his head. “I’m surprised you moved in your sleep. Did you dream?”
Rocky pauses for a moment, tilting his carapace upwards to get a better look at Grace. “Rocky experience time on ship. Rocky walk around Mary in ball like before. See Grace working in lab. Stretch limbs to reach out to Grace. Then nothingness. Then I wake up.”
Grace hums. “Sounds like a dream to me, pal.”
Rocky shifts uncomfortably in his lap. “...Rocky no like.”
“Why not?” Grace asks, tilting his head in confusion. Why wouldn’t Rocky like dreaming for the first time?
“Rocky in ball,” he responds, voice soft, "separated from you again. Did not like.”
“Oh,” Grace huffs out in what he hopes isn’t audibly a laugh. He doesn’t want to make Rocky feel smaller than he already does. “Well, good thing it was just a dream, then, right? I’ll always be here,” he comforts, moving his hand across Rocky in a way that mimics ruffling, before patting him and moving his legs off the bed.
Rocky squeals slightly, scattering off his lap before he can get thrown off the bed. “Rocky no like Grace’s new strength,” he complains.
That gets a real laugh out of Grace. “Sorry bud, looks like the times of being pushed around are over for me and start for you,” he gloats, a cheeky smile evident on his face.
Then, without warning, Rocky suddenly shoves at Grace’s back and sends him scrambling to the floor. He falls flat on his face, butt in the air and knees on the floor, legs slowly sliding down until half of him is under the bed.
Rocky chitters in triumph. Smug little— “Rocky always superior. Never forget.”
Grace sighs in defeat and reaches up with his right arm and gives Rocky a very undeserved thumbs down.
Despite all the new changes, things are relatively the same on-board the Hail Mary. Grace continues his research while Rocky is able to help him in much more versatile ways than before—being able to work in the same air and all.
Their routine stays mostly the same to the time before all of the changes, but one very evident change is the clear shift in sleep schedules. Since Rocky can dream and wake up, there’s no need to watch each other fall asleep, meaning that each night, Rocky will sit himself upon Grace’s chest and they’ll go to bed at the same time. Rocky sometimes moves in the night, jittering or flinching at an unseen force. It’s woken Grace up a few times, but he’s been able to fall right back to unconsciousness shortly after each time.
He wonders what Rocky’s been dreaming about.
When they’re not asleep or working in the lab, they’re discussing the intricacies of their soulmate bond.
“So, we have: Seeing light versus echolocation; being sturdier versus experiencing heightened emotions; can make noises similar to each others’ species; can be in each others’ atmosphere; anything else I’m missing?” Grace recaps, smacking the whiteboard with the side of the Expo and accidentally getting unnecessary ink on the board. He quickly smudges it away with his thumb and caps the marker.
“Can sleep comfortably no matter where as long as Rocky watches.”
“Right!” Grace exclaims, quickly squeaking off the marker’s cap despite having just put it on and scribbles the information under the ‘Grace’ column. There’s two columns labeled with their names on the board, though they only reach halfway down and another line cuts the board in half horizontally. On the second half of the board is where ‘shared’ traits go, like being able to survive in their different atmospheres.
“And shared soulmate language.”
“Theoretically,” Grace points at Rocky with the butt of the marker before writing ‘Theory: secret shared language’ at the very bottom of the board.
He steps back, neither of them able to think of anything else that’s affected them thus far.
“Well that makes it…” Grace trails off, rubbing sheepishly at his neck– he forgot to cap the marker. Again. Oh well, he’ll just have to wash the ink off later.
Rocky finishes his thought for him, “Uneven.”
“Yeah,” Grace sighs, sticking the marker’s magnet to the board. “Every trait seems to have its equal opposite reaction, but there’s nothing for…oh.”
“What, question?”
“Your dreams. Those match my sleep.”
Rocky shifts away from the board ever-so-slightly.
Grace’s eyebrows pinch in worry. “What’s wrong?”
“Dreams not. Dreams are not positive trait. Does not belong.”
His face drops. “Are you having nightmares?” He asks, crouching down to Rocky’s level.
Rocky softly keens, eliciting a soft trill from Grace, and moves forward to press himself into his soulmate’s knees. Grace settles himself down all the way onto the floor and lets Rocky crawl onto his legs.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were having nightmares?”
“Didn’t want to worry Grace,” Rocky admits.
“Aw, bud-” he starts before scooping his soulmate into a hug, “It comes with the territory of being bonded. You’ve worried over me countless times, let me worry about you for once,” he requests softly.
“Okay,” Rocky accepts, leaning more of his weight onto Grace’s chest and wraps two limbs around his middle. “Will you watch me sleep?”
“Of course,” Grace answers without hesitation, “I’ll make sure you’re well asleep before I drift off too tonight. And any other night you need.”
“Rocky have best soulmate, statement.”
Grace chuckles. “Pretty sure that honor belongs to me.”
Rocky shakes his head and lets go of their hug, though remains stationed in Grace’s lap. He turns his attention to the whiteboard. “Board looks empty. Space for more things.”
Grace hums in agreement. “Sure looks like it. What else could we be missing? Or are we missing anything? I mean- just because the board isn’t full that could just be the way I wrote everything down, there’s a lot of variables to consider here!” He rambles, not paying attention to how Rocky suddenly moved off him and started scurrying off to who-knows-where until he was 3/4ths the way done with his thought.
“We test,” Rocky proclaims from a different room, voice echoing off the ship’s walls. How kind of him to still answer despite being out of visible sight.
“Rock…” Grace groans, dragging a hand down his face. This is what he gets for trying to consider things from every angle scientifically. The engineer just gets to do whatever he wants while the scientist flounders around without communication.
Deciding he doesn’t want to be left in the dark much longer, he closes his eyes and taps the ground a few times, soon finding Rocky digging around in the storage bay where they now keep everything that was transferred over from the Blip-A. What could he possibly be getting?
After a few moments of standing in silence, eyes now open waiting for Rocky to emerge back into the lab, Grace decides to move the whiteboard out of the middle of the floor. He detaches it from the stand, finds a piece of string in one of now many miscellaneous drawers—he’s forgone keeping things organized the second Rocky was able to touch the equipment and move it anywhere he wanted, not to mention Grace’s own ADHD and constantly forgetting to put things away in general—and attaches the string to the back of the board.
He finds a nail laying on a table—why is that lying there out in the open?—and hammers it into an empty spot on the wall with the marker. Grace honestly forgets about his new strength, right up until he does dumb things that should backfire. Like accidentally kicking Rocky when he runs in front of him, normally ending in a bruised toe but now just resorts in a Rocky lying on his side. Or like how hammering a nail into a space ship with a marker actually works. Sorry Mary.
Grace puts the whiteboard on the wall, steps back, and admires his handiwork. A second later, Rocky rushes back into the lab holding a few strange boxes of some kind.
“Whatcha got there?” He asks, crouching down to get a better look at the containers. They’re made with xenonite, obviously, but what’s strange about them is the fact that they don’t reflect any light. It reminds Grace of the tunnel.
“Rocky get food. I have theory that Grace can eat Rocky food. Grace try now.” Oh, yeah. He did mention that briefly the other day. So much has been going on that it completely slipped Grace’s mind.
Rocky opens the lid of one of the containers– oh, it’s a lunch box? –and he’s slightly taken aback by the sludge that meets his eyes. It doesn’t…look the most appealing. It certainly doesn’t look like anything edible back on Earth.
“I don’t know, man, are we sure your species’ nutrition won’t mess my body up? I can understand maybe being able to tolerate it, but that doesn’t mean my body will like it?” Grace is concerned. Very concerned. And also a little apprehensive. Not that he’s against trying new foods, but this has him- oh, how does he say this to Rocky?
“I’m worried,” he decides.
“Grace will be fine. Grace trust Rocky. If anything happens, you sleep off and I watch. You will be ok after.”
“Mmmmm…” He trails off, cautiously taking the box from Rocky. “Do I just-” He motions to the food and gestures his fingers in a circular motion going from the box towards his mouth.
“Yes yes, Grace use hands to eat. Like Eridian. No utensils.”
Grace shivers at the reminder of how Eridians eat. It doesn’t help that he can still picture that moment in full, high quality, detail. “And you…want to watch this?”
“Nothing Grace can do will freak me out anymore,” Rocky proclaims, but Grace can sense that there’s a little bit of hesitation behind his words. It’s like he wants to avoid it but can’t find it in himself to truly look away. Ah, the side effects of being around a scientist for so long—the need to see every experiment through. Since he won’t turn around or walk away, who’s Grace to deny Rocky the viewing pleasure of…watching a guy eat.
Here goes nothing, he barely mumbles to himself, sticking his pointer finger into the sludge-like substance and bringing it tentatively to his mouth.
It. Tastes fine. And his body doesn’t seem to be rejecting it.
“Huh.” Grace stares down at the box and back at his finger. It really wasn’t all that bad. In fact, it had a bit of a tangy flavor to it. Like a weird flavor of yogurt.
“Grace like, question? Grace react negatively, question?”
“It’s not bad,” he answers truthfully. “It reminds me of yogurt.”
“What is yogurt?”
It makes sense that Rocky wouldn’t know human foods off the top of his head. With all of Earth’s knowledge built into the laptops, there’s practically an infinite amount of information to learn, meaning an infinite amount of information exists that he can’t possibly know about yet.
“Do you remember our conversation about milk?”
“Yes, yes,” Rocky confirms, although it’s more so a question of ‘did we have a conversation’ and not ‘do you remember’ due to Eridian memory.
“Well, there’s this thing called fermentation,” Grace explains, slipping easily into teacher mode, “And when the lactose in milk is exposed to oxygen, the bacteria also in the milk starts to grow and the milk coagulates into a similar texture to your food here.” He tilts the open end of the box towards Rocky. “Under careful watch and a controlled environment, humans have been able to produce this fermented milk as an edible food.”
“Interesting,” Rocky comments but chooses not to say anything more on the subject. “Rocky has more food. Does Grace want to try?”
That’s how Grace ends up trying a myriad of different Eridian foods. While they all look the same, some of them have slightly different textures and vary wildly in taste. A couple times Grace has to restrain himself from taking more than one bite. Other times he has to force the bite to stay down.
All in all, not the worst outcome he was expecting.
“Grace picky,” Rocky deadpans while putting the food back into storage. He, however, leaves the first small box Grace had eaten out of in the lab. He moves to place it on the table to the side but short-circuits at Rocky’s accusation.
“I am not-” Grace sputters, scrambling to defend himself. “Why don’t you try human food and see how you fare!” He challenges, a smug look on his face.
Rocky turns around and the two of them lock gazes. They have to test this out.
While Rocky finishes storing the rest of the food away for another day, Grace goes around the ship searching for at least a somewhat diversified pallet for his friend to try. Unfortunately, he lands on ramen, a protein shake, and the leftover half of a burrito he was saving for later. Selfishly, he hopes Rocky is content with just the ramen or even the protein drink. He’s been really looking forward to having the rest of his burrito eventually.
He notices the plants during his search as well, but none of them have bloomed into anything edible. Besides just being a bunch of leafy greens, there’s nothing too nutritional about the plants on board, so he leaves them be.
“I, uh, couldn’t find much, sorry, but if you wanted-” Grace jerks his head in the direction of the coffee machine, “I can make you some noodles? They don’t have any overpowering flavor so you’ll probably be fine.”
“Yes yes yes, Rocky like. I will try these noodles that Grace eats weirdly.”
“Says you…” Grace mumbles under his breath knowing full well that Rocky can hear them. He doesn’t pay attention to whatever rebuttal follows and prepares a cup of ramen. It only takes about 2 minutes for the water to reach a boil and he lets the noodles cook for about 3. Once they’re ready, he very carefully brings it back over to his friend. He’s not too keen on finding out if he’s immune to high temperatures or only Rocky related things through spilling boiling water on him. No thanks.
Rocky approaches the cup of noodles apprehensively. He reaches for the cup before pulling back, waiting for a second, and reaching out again. While he doesn’t pull back, he doesn’t go for the noodles yet. It’s like he thinks he’s going to spook the ramen if he gets too close to it too fast. Like a wild cat.
He stops closing the distance entirely and only lowers himself closer to the ground, tilting his carapace slightly towards the food.
Grace gets it. Trying new food on its own can be scary, let alone alien food, but he’s surprised it’s taking as long as it is for Rocky to try it.
“Do you want me to look away?” Grace offers, not really knowing what he can do to encourage Rocky to eat it.
“...No, Grace is fine,” Rocky hesitantly replies. “Just…more nervous than I thought I would be.”
Grace reaches over and pats Rocky on the head in encouragement. “You’ll be fine, bud. Though, I probably will still turn away while you eat.”
Rocky hums but doesn’t say anything more. Then, without almost any warning, he rushes at the noodles and Grace has to turn away as fast as he can so he doesn’t vomit the Eridian food that’s still settling in his stomach.
After a few more seconds, signaled by the abrupt stop in noise, Grace turns around and finds the cup of noodles empty.
“So, you liked it?” Grace asks, optimistic.
“No.”
“Wait, what?-”
Before Grace can ask any more questions, Rocky dashes away, reminiscent of a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Or a student by the prize bin when they hadn’t actually earned a beanbag that week. Is he afraid to admit that he likes human food?
Grace snickers to himself for a second before turning his attention to the whiteboard. He writes down the new information they’ve learned—‘can eat each other’s food’—and takes a moment to analyze the board for what it is. Technically, they have no idea if their list of “symptoms” is complete or not. Sure, there’s enough space in each of their individual columns for one more comparison trait, but there’s no real reason to believe that there’s actually anything left for them to discover. Not that it matters much more, anyway. There’s been something much bigger on his mind lately.
He takes a second to think back to the moment when he turned the Hail Mary around to save Rocky. He knew he was signing his death sentence right then and there, but there was no other choice in his mind that felt as correct as saving his best friend.
His soulmate, now. Or, really, always has been, but was made real back during the “Time Go Fishing” incident, and finally made known to Grace only a short couple of days ago.
Grace knows that even if given the choice a million times, he would always make the same decision, even if it meant spending his last moments alive on a ship in the vastness of space.
Now…now that might not be as true as he thought it was.
The big problem is food. Was food. Grace squeezes his eyes shut, recounting the times when he obsessively counted his food reserves in secret so he wouldn’t worry Rocky, but no matter how much he checked it, the end result was always the same. Starvation, at the latest, a few months out from Rocky’s home.
Grace remembers picking up Yao’s gun a few times too. He remembers looking at the amount of nitrogen left that could be pumped into his EVA suit. He remembers eyeing the needle filled with heroin. All options available to Grace if he didn’t want to wait that long to go.
He still hasn’t made a decision on which way out he wants.
He might not have to anymore.
He turns his attention to the leftover food.
Grace picks up the box, eyeing it carefully. Rocky has so much more food than Grace ever had and splitting it between two people wouldn’t risk either of their lives. Because of 22 Eridians who had lost their lives, Grace gets to keep his for much, much longer. Tears start to well up in his eyes.
In the past 30 minutes, he’s gone from talking about his soulmate bond with Rocky to trying alien food to…
“Grace?” Rocky enters in out of nowhere and makes Grace hop in surprise at his presence. The second his feet hit the floor again, his knees fold and he crumples to the ground. “Grace!” Rocky rushes to catch him, but the fall is so quick and simple incidents like this just don’t physically hurt him anymore.
“Rock…” He breathes, slowly bringing a hand up towards his friend. Rocky brings a limb up to meet it and Grace wraps his palm around it.
“What’s wrong? In pain? I will fix, tell Rocky how to fix.” Rocky’s concern melts his heart but there’s nothing to fix this time around. The solution’s already been found.
He starts to silently cry. Rocky tries to help him calm down by trilling at him, but it doesn’t do anything to help the root of the problem. Or, well, the fact that the root of the problem has been solved? Emotions are weird and he got a doctorate in molecular biology—trying to understand the root of problems is not what he’s good at! He just needs to- to tell Rocky.
“I need to tell you something,” Grace decides to start, scooting himself closer to be side-by-side with Rocky, “and I need you to promise not to freak out.”
“Rocky already freaking out, statement. Grace act like before when almost dying. Is Grace dying again?!” Rocky cries, pressing himself closer to Grace’s side.
“No no no-!” Grace assures, eyes widening in panic. “No, I’m fine, I’m not dying, I swear, I just-” he pauses, sniffling and wiping at his eyes. “I was keeping another secret. Not because I didn’t trust you, I was just. Scared.” Grace shrinks in on himself slightly, ashamed to admit he once again kept something important from his best friend, his soulmate. He had chided Rocky about keeping their soulmate bond a secret, too. Hypocrites, the both of them.
“Rocky understands,” he admits softly. “Rocky wishes Grace wouldn’t be scared anymore.”
Grace huffs in embarrassment. “I know, I know. That’s why I’m telling you now.”
“What’s wrong?” Rocky asks again, leaning his full weight onto Grace. He wraps his arm around Rocky’s body in a comforting side hug.
He’s not afraid anymore. There’s no hesitation in Grace’s voice when he starts to speak. “When I turned the ship around to come get you, I knew that I wouldn’t have enough fuel to get back to Earth, but I would have just enough to bring you home. I also knew that my food was limited and, after running some calculations… I realized I wasn’t going to last the full journey to Erid.”
“What Grace mean, question?” Rocky’s tone is high pitched and would have been aggravating to Grace’s ears pre-bond, but now all he can hear from the tones are utter fear and panic. “Grace die before Erid and not tell Rocky?!”
“No- yes-” Grace tries to calm, but he just has to rip the Band-Aid off. “Yes, I thought I was going to die,” he admits, “I would have run out of food during the last few months of the trip and die right before you made it home.” Rocky makes a wordless screech but Grace pushes on. “I didn’t want to burden you with that knowledge so I kept it to myself. I couldn’t have you worry about me for so long when we still have over 3 years left. I just didn’t-” his voice cracks, “I knew I was going to put you through the same thing you experienced 46 years ago, watching your crew die without knowing what was causing it or how to fix it,” he takes a shaky, shallow breath while the tears continue to slip out, “and I was so scared but I didn’t- I didn’t want you to know you were experiencing the death of your last crewmate for so much longer than you needed to-”
His voice breaks completely and he envelops Rocky in a full hug. “I’ve already- I’ve scared you so many times and I just couldn’t keep doing that to you, I wanted to spare you the pain until the last possible moment, I couldn’t do that to you again-” his breath hitches and it takes Grace a few seconds to calm himself down enough to start talking again, “Especially after- when I told you about my nightmares- I just couldn’t repeat it-”
Rocky shakes against Grace. He hates how he keeps frightening Rocky, hates how he keeps upsetting him. The guilt of everything that’s happened so far—Adrian, the Taumoeba leak, and the multitude of times he’s almost died on their way to Erid—has been gnawing away at Grace this entire time, only pieces of what he was originally made of being left for Rocky to put back together again.
“I’m so sorry,” Grace whispers, tucking himself closer around his soulmate. “So, so, sorry.”
Rocky’s cries quiet down but they don’t stop. Grace mimics a few of the Eridian cries, and though poetic, it’s not on purpose.
They stay like that for a few seconds, his heart beating erratically but beginning to slow into an even pace.
A few moments go by when Rocky finally speaks up, calm, though worry evident in his voice. “But Grace is not dying, question?”
“No,” Grace sniffs, bringing his face to the side to wipe his nose on his shoulder. “No- that’s, that’s what I want to talk about.”
Rocky separates himself from their hug ever so slightly and Grace loosens his grip. “Grace should stop keeping secrets,” he says, and he’s right.
“No more secrets from now on,” Grace assures quietly, voice no longer broken up by his tears, “I promise.” He brings back his left hand and holds it in front of Rocky, extending his pinky and pointing it towards him.
“What is this, question?”
“A pinky promise,” he explains, “We wrap pinkies while promising something to each other. It’s the ultimate form of promises.” Grace extends his hand a little further, encouraging Rocky to do the same.
Rocky brings up a limb and opens his hand. “No more secrets, promise?”
Grace gently moves his pinky to curl around one of Rocky’s fingers and bounces their hands gently before letting go. “Promise.”
“Grace finish talking,” Rocky requests, albeit in more of a ‘voluntold’ way than simply asking. Which, fair.
His shoulders droop with a sigh. “When I tried your food and I was able to stomach it, I couldn’t stop thinking about my own limited supply of food,” Grace murmurs. “It didn’t hit me at first when you had me try your food. Heck, I didn’t even register it when you mentioned that we might be able to share food when you first told me about our soulmate bond. The whole food thing was never important enough for me to even prioritize at the moment-” he’s rambling, but Rocky doesn’t seem to care, “-but then I went to grab a few things of my own food and something kept pushing at the back of my brain until it finally clicked! We can share food!” Grace exclaims, a smile spreading across his face while he catches his breath, “Do you know what that means, Rocky?”
“What mean?” he whispers. Grace gets it—something so hopeful and logical that it seems too good to be true is hard to believe. But, somewhere, deep inside, he knows what he’s about to say is nothing but the truth. Rocky will know, too.
“I’m going to live to see Erid.”
He’s going to make it to Erid. Grace isn’t going to die months before they make it to the planet, he’s not even going to get close to starving. He’s going to live.
“Grace will survive?” Rocky asks tentatively. Maybe earlier, before they became linked, Rocky would have heard Grace’s statement and wouldn’t have questioned it—would have taken it like the fact it is. Now, though, there’s those pesky human emotions Grace has to break through to make sure his soulmate knows they’re both going to make it home.
Instead of immediately responding verbally, Grace brings up his hand and forms a fist, bends his arm to the side, and pushes his thumb out downwards. “I’m going to survive the trip,” he confirms with a nod.
Rocky squeals and presses himself back up against Grace’s chest. “Grace go home! Grace come home with Rocky! Grace will live to see home!”
Laughter bubbles up out of Grace’s chest and he scoops tightly into his arms before standing up and holding Rocky out at arms-length. His head tilts as he stares at Rocky, face aching as his smile remains prominent on his face. “I’m going home.”
Rocky doesn’t leave Grace’s side for the rest of the day. While not out of the ordinary, it is strange that he doesn’t even go on a side-quest to follow up on a random tangent he had with himself, leaving Grace clueless and in the dark.
No, instead he refuses to be anywhere besides Grace’s surroundings. To be honest, he doesn’t want to leave Rocky right now either. Something about crying to each other again over the prospect of living after thinking his life was going to end short, or something.
A fond smile ghosts over Grace’s lips. Rocky’s saved him in more ways than he can count, let alone repay. Though, he seems to think being soulmates with each other is enough for him. Who’s Grace to disagree with that?
They don’t do much anything else today. Currently, they’re just walking around the ship to look for anything cluttering the ground. A spring cleaning, of sorts. Towards the end of their walk-around, the lights onboard Mary begin to dim, signalling the start of the internal night-cycle.
Grace stretches his arms out above his head and takes a second to yawn. He feels drained from their whole conversation earlier, but spending some quiet time with Rocky has been nice. However, it is time for him to hit the hay.
“Grace is tired, statement. Rocky watch you sleep.”
Grace shakes his head in disagreement. “Nah, bud, with the stress I’ve put you under today, I can stay up a little longer to make sure you sleep comfortably.”
Rocky hesitates for a second, stopping his slow walking pace entirely and peers up at Grace. “Are you sure? Rocky does not mind. Grace went through a lot today, too.”
Grace stops moving as well and turns around to face his friend. “Positive, Rock. You’re the reason I’m going to make it to Erid. Let me be the reason you sleep well tonight.”
Rocky chirps in a gleeful cheer and Grace chitters back at him, squatting down to his level and picks him up. He doesn’t protest, instead leaning into Grace’s chest.
“You’re really tired, aren’t you?” he asks, suddenly realizing that Rocky’s been tired for way longer than he has. You have got to get better at this soulmate thing, Ryland, he chastises himself, mouth twitching downwards.
Rocky hums but doesn’t reply beyond that. It’s time for bed.
They walk in peaceful silence—or, more so, Grace walks while Rocky begins to drift off. He can sense that his soulmate is trying to cling on to awareness until they get to a proper bead, but Grace doesn’t care if he succeeds or not. It brings him comfort knowing that Rocky is able to find rest in his arms.
By the time they reach the bed, Rocky is out like a light. Grace sets him down and quickly changes into pajamas before crawling under the covers and curling around himself.
He stares at Rocky with a wistful smile on his face and reaches out his arm to pull his best friend ever so slightly closer to him. It takes him a second to notice it, too busy reminiscing about the person who saved his life in every way imaginable, when suddenly Grace realizes just which hand he’s holding onto.
Carefully, oh so delicately, he turns Rocky’s hand and gently opens it. Right inside of it, practically the human equivalent of a palm, there’s a deep groove that arcs across the entirety of it. Their Petrova line.
Up until now, Grace has never seen Rocky’s version of it. It never really came up in conversation and he was so enthralled by the mark on his own arm that he kept forgetting to ask to see the matching one sported on Rocky’s hand. He softly runs a finger across the indentation. While human marks rise like a scar, Eridian marks get carved like a tattoo. Nonetheless, their marks are identical to each other. The colors, the gradients, even the little stars that represent their ships line up exactly the same.
Slowly, he pushes his arm underneath Rocky’s hand, matching mark to mark, the exact way it was when Rocky first saved him from an untimely death in the orbit of a foreign planet. Having their soulmarks lined up for the first time since they’ve appeared makes him feel whole and a wave of comfort and peace washes over him. Not a second later, Grace falls into the siren’s song of darkness.
Grace always knows when Rocky is up to something. Typically, this is when Rocky is busying himself in some kind of personal passion project that keeps pestering his mind until he can get it done to perfection—and Rocky has very strict standards when it comes to perfection. Though, his mind is as quick as it gets, so it never takes him too long to finish a project to proper completion.
Which is why this time is so weird. Grace has been finding Rocky holing himself up in a corner for a few days now, xenonite click-clacking away, intensely focused in—which is normal! This is the normal part. What isn’t normal is the way Rocky does not speak a word of his project. Not hints, no offside comments, not even a mention that he’s working on anything at all.
Clearly, this is important for him. Maybe it's a surprise. They promised each other not to keep secrets anymore, and Grace has held up his side of the promise, so he has no reason to doubt that Rocky is doing the same. The only reason Rocky would hide something from Grace is if it was a secret surprise that he’s only willing to present when it’s fully completed.
So, Grace lets it slide. Sure, he’s curious, but he doesn’t want to ruin this for Rocky. Grace puts his scientific curiosity aside and ignores it whenever he comes across his soulmate far too buried in his project to even register Grace’s presence.
It’s fine. Whatever. It doesn’t bother him at all.
Okay, that’s a lie. Even before, when they were keeping secrets, it was never like this! Something about the way Rocky’s acting itches at the back of his brain and Grace is about two seconds away from scratching at it. Which is why, the next morning when he wakes up alone—and yeah, that too, Rocky’s been waking up before him and leaving before he even gets the chance to open his eyes—Grace knows he’s finally going to say something.
He gets out of bed and walks towards the distinct click-clacking off Rocky’s legs on metal. What awaits him is just about the last thing he expected to see. Rocky walks in front of him, seemingly unaware of who was behind him, holding a strange object so close to his chest that no matter what angle Grace cranes his neck at, he’s unable to get a good look at it.
“Whatcha got there?” He asks, breaking the silence.
Rocky jumps, turning himself around at neck break speed—well, if he had a neck, at least—but manages to somewhat elegantly switch which arms were holding the object to now hold behind him, still denying Grace the opportunity to get even a peak at it.
Rude.
He jerks his head quickly to the left, stepping to the side in hopes to catch Rocky off guard but he quickly angles himself to keep the object hidden in return. Dang it!
“Rocky I can’t- what’s behind you?” Grace asks, the two of them now locked in a weird stand-off dance that he is currently losing.
“Nothing important,”
“What could you possibly be hiding?-”
“Rocky not tell! No-!”
Grace makes a face. Why is he so dang bent on keeping this thing away from me??
He clearly isn’t going to make any progress dodging around Rocky like a basketball player trying to get the ball from the other team. Grace remembers, suddenly, that he has another way to see the world, so he decides to try out this new method of sight.
Grace closes his eyes, attention focused straight at the strange item hidden behind Rocky’s back and lifts his foot to tap the floor. Unfortunately, as he takes these few seconds to prepare himself to utilize echolocation, Rocky screams in a high enough pitch that makes Grace physically recoil, dropping to the ground in a crouch, and covers his ears. His eyes are screwed shut and the echolocation-vision becomes so distorted—all wobbly and warped—that he can’t make a single thing out.
He’s begun to notice that on top of his advanced hearing, whenever Grace switches to “echolocation mode”—as he so lovingly likes to call it—his hearing becomes much more sensitive. This normally would increase the detail he’s able to register the objects around him in, but comes with the downside of having really delicate ears.
Grace chokes down a sharp breath, ears ringing no matter how hard he pushes against them, and barely manages to force his eyes open in a squint.
“What the heck, Rock!”
“Grace no look! Grace not supposed to see-!”
“Can you at least tell me why?” Grace pleads, ears beginning to recover and his heart rate decreasing back to normal. He slowly brings his hands down away from his head and pushes himself up to stand.
“No,” Rocky insists, the annoying rascal that he is, “Is too embarrassing. It will go in airlock and never see light of day.”
“Like Erid even has a light of day,” Grace mocks, pursing his lips in frustration, crossing his arms over his chest. Surely it’s not that bad! Rocky has never been embarrassed over one of his works and now he has to know what it is before they lose it to the void of space. Wait. Throw it out of the airlock?!
“You were going to use the airlock?!” Grace squeaks, looking at Rocky in pure disbelief.
“Yes yes yes, now let Rocky through-”
Oh, absolutely not. “This is weird, even for you, Rock. Surely whatever you have doesn’t deserve to be chucked into space?”
“Grace can’t make assumption without seeing it! Therefore, Grace can have no opinion!”
Grace shakes his head from side to side. There’s one more thing he can try to do to see Rocky’s creation, something he hasn’t tested since the day he learned about their soulmate bond.
He narrows his eyes ever so slightly, focus pinpointed to a spot behind Rocky, and taps his foot. The area around Rocky turns grey-ish and suddenly Grace feels like he’s looking at an x-ray of his best friend. That, and the outline of something that’s been burned into his memory.
A headache begins to make itself known so Grace blinks away the bubble of echolocation and rubs at his eyes. By the way Rocky slinks down towards the ground, he must know that his attempts at hiding his creation from Grace have been foiled.
Grace can’t understand why Rocky would ever feel any sort of shame towards what he’s made. While he hasn’t seen it in detail yet, just knowing what it is makes his heart full and soul warm.
He closes the gap between the two of them in 3 steps, lowering himself to the floor and folds his legs in the crisscross-apple-sauce style. “Show me?” Grace requests, voice soft, holding his hand out.
Rocky shifts in place, nervous to reveal something that he was so close to throwing out into the airlock. Nevertheless, he overcomes some kind of barrier and tentatively brings the object out from behind his back, placing it into Grace’s palm.
He rubs a thumb over it, feeling every little detail crafted in precision by Rocky’s claws.
It’s a model of their soulmark. Their Petrova line.
The figure is practically perfect in every way. The carvings, the colors, the angle at which their mark arcs, everything. Grace can’t fathom a single reason to be embarrassed by it.
“Many mistakes,” Rocky blurts out, limbs twitching and unsteady. Grace shifts the model solely to his left hand so he can place a grounding hand on Rocky’s carapace. It seems to calm him down immediately. Still, he continues. “Could not get right. Sorry sorry sorry. Imperfect. Should have never made it. Sorry.”
Grace’s lips quirk down into a frown. “Rocky– Rocky it’s beautiful.”
Rocky stills, tilting himself upwards in the slightest movement. “Really?”
“Really, Rock,” He assures, “This is one of, if not the best thing you’ve ever made. Can I keep it?” Grace wants to push further, to praise and praise Rocky’s craftsmanship, but he knows that’s not what Rocky needs right now. It seems to do the trick.
“Hmm. If Grace really want, Grace can have. But not greatest ever creation. Is not good enough. Should have been better.”
“We’re gonna have to work on your self-confidence, bud. I love that you’re able to feel more human emotions, but self deprecation is not a good look on you,” Grace remarks, gently scratching Rocky’s head. “This is my favorite thing, okay? You got that? You made something really great, and it’s something I will always treasure. In fact–”
Grace stands back up, Petrova line model held securely in his hand, and begins to make his way towards the lab. Rocky quickly scurries after him.
Once inside, Grace turns his attention to the whiteboard they brainstormed their soulmate traits on. “Rocky, do you remember some of those shows we watched where kids would bring home a project they did well on at school or a test that was marked 100% and the parents put those things on their kitchen fridge?”
“Yes…?” Rocky confirms, voice hesitant.
“Perfect,” is the last thing Grace says before grabbing a magnet from a drawer he vaguely remembers having one, tapes the magnet to the figure, and attaches it to the whiteboard.
“WHAT?!” Rocky screeches, Grace once again flinching at the noise. “Why Grace- what is point- why put up there, question!?”
“So that I can always see it whenever we’re working. It’s the closest thing we have to a fridge, anyways,” Grace huffs, a small smile evident on his face.
Rocky looks like he wants to say something, but he must not find the right words because he mumbles something incoherent to himself before bumping into Grace’s legs.
He chuckles, reaching down to grab his soulmate and wrap him in a hug. “I love you buddy.”
“Rocky love Grace too.”
The rest of the trip to Erid lasts a decade and only a few months at the same time. Things happen in a blur and Grace wouldn’t be able to recount everything if he tried.
Well, maybe he can, but he’s not tempted to try that out right now. His head hurts just thinking about it.
The journey is almost over and they have about 2 weeks before the Hail Mary is able to dock at Erid’s space elevator, so Rocky tells him. Something said to Grace, long ago, rings in his ears. “Ah, perfect, there is no elevator on the ship.” And yet, here they were, soon to attach Mary to one. Take that, Yao.
Rocky established radio communications with Erid about a month ago and started debriefing his home planet as much as he could from their current distance. A lot of emotions were experienced when he was able to finally talk to his own species for the first time in almost 5 decades. He explained as much as he could, all of the crew but him dying, meeting Grace, finding Astrophage’s predator, and Grace’s sacrifice to bring Rocky home. Anytime Grace had something to add, Rocky translated his words into the radio.
Grace is not ashamed to admit that he cried a few times at how Rocky recounted their story.
After the initial connection-conversation was held, Rocky finally got a chance to speak with his mate. Grace wanted to give the two of them privacy, even all the way out in space, but Rocky insisted that he get to talk with Adrian too. They talked about everything and nothing at all. Despite only having interacted with them through a delayed radio, Grace feels incredibly lucky to have gotten the chance to finally meet his soulmate’s mate.
That little factoid, however, was the one thing that Rocky refused to share with anyone back on Erid.
“Why don’t you want to tell them about us being soulmates?” Grace asks, radio communications having long ended for the night.
“Rocky is not ready,” is all he says.
Despite the answer being so simple and straight to the point, Grace can’t help but continue to push. “Why?”
“Rocky have no idea what changed while I was gone. Things might be different. Have no clue how they really think about me or bringing an alien to planet. Will be easier to explain in person.”
Something tells him that’s not the whole truth. “And…?”
“And Rocky afraid Eridians will not like Rocky for being bonded with alien.”
Grace’s heart sinks. He wraps his left arm around Rocky and brings him into a side hug. “Rock, you’re their savior. They’ve called you ‘star savoir’ multiple times by now. If anything, I think having your soul bonded to an alien from tens of lightyears away makes you even cooler. It sure makes me the coolest human ever.”
Rocky chuckles. His voice sounds more melodic and lifted from how it was only a minute ago. That’s good. “Thank thank thank. Rocky is coolest because Grace is soulmate, not because alien is soulmate.” Grace faux-ruffles Rocky’s carapace. “Would still like to wait until we are on Erid. Is okay?”
“If that’s what you’re most comfortable with, then it’s perfect.”
Rocky sighs and leans his weight fully onto him. It has been a long day.
“Let’s get to bed. I’ll watch you sleep, pal.”
Rocky hums in affirmation but doesn’t say anything more until they’re snug into the bed’s blankets. “Cannot wait for you to see home.”
“Me too.”
Rocky falls asleep a few moments later and Grace follows quickly. He dreams of fog, sand, and water.
Grace and Rocky stand inside the elevator. They’re descending, now, but only a few hours ago they were talking with engineers, leaders, scientists, and just about every Eridian that was allowed to speak with the sentient alien. They talked about plans and meetings for when the two of them finally got onto the planet, but Rocky vehemently refused anything be done until Grace gets settled into his new home.
Despite being able to survive in Erid’s atmosphere, Rocky still requested that a bio-dome be built so that Grace doesn’t have to constantly smell ammonia. That, and he wanted to give Grace a slice of Earth. “It’s the least we can do”, someone had said. Grace didn’t leak at all.
It was a whirlwind then, but now the two of them are left in relative silence as the space elevator continues to bring them nearer and nearer to solid ground. Grace can feel the planet’s gravity start to pull on his body, first weaker than Mary’s but now inching closer to double the gravitational pull of Earth. He thought it would take longer for his body to adjust to the extra strength, but his and Rocky’s bond must be doing the heavy lifting for him—literally.
Grace wants to say something, but there’s nothing he can think of that would result in anything valuable being exchanged between the two of them. Instead, he softly bumps Rocky with his leg and Rocky bumps him back. It’s grounding.
He takes a deep breath in through his nose, holds it for 5 seconds, and slowly exhales through his mouth. He does this a few more times until his mind feels more at ease, anxiety he barely registered building up dissipating into nothingness.
A few minutes later, the elevator finally slows, and Grace knows they’ve arrived. One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind, right?
They stop.
"You ready?" Rocky asks tentatively. It’s the first words they’ve exchanged on the elevator.
This is the moment. They're finally here.
"With you by my side?” Grace starts, peering down at his soulmate. “I'll be ready for anything."
Rocky nods, chittering quietly with agreement.
The doors on the elevator finally open and they step onto Erid together.