Chapter Text
“Promise you won’t be angry.”
Grace crosses his arms, giving Rocky a look that he can’t see in a traditional sense, but he knows his friend gets his point by the way he vibrates with guilt.
“Promise, Grace.”
His pitiful trembling would be enough to make Grace relent on a good day, but this is not a good day. He almost died last night, he deserves to be angry!
“No.”
It’s one word Grace knows how to pronounce in Simplified Eridian, he’ll never be able to speak any of the planet’s many languages properly, his vocal cords just aren’t built for it, but he’s developing a heavily simplified dialect, uniquely suited to humans. Maybe in the future, when humans and eridians have established proper contact, it’ll become a building block of communication between the two species.
Rocky shifts under his firm gaze, claws nervously grasping at the air, before relenting.
“Fine. Will tell. But you should sit down first.”
Finally.
Grace is okay with sitting, none of his joints have been happy since the move to Erid, and no amount of knee, hip, or shoulder braces would ever be able to do anything about the gravity difference.
“You remember that Grace biodome is connected to tunnel system that leads to other biodomes, question?”
“I believe I said it ‘felt like you guys were making me a part of a zoo exhibit’, yeah.”
“Is not the same.”
“I know that now, but felt same.”
“Apology apology apology.”
Grace rolls his eyes. He’s gotten over it by now.
“Is okay. Keep going.”
“The being that was in Grace biodome last night is from another biodome. Broke out, still investigating how. Still investigating why.”
All the tunnels between Grace’s biodome and the others are pitch black and filled with boiling hot, gaseous ammonia. If something unable to survive those conditions managed to break out, and navigate over here…
“Theory for why is… sentience. There were no indicators of this before the incident. Tested many times.”
Rocky finishes Grace’s train of thought out loud. He’s really glad to be sitting down right now. More sentient, alien life… under different circumstances Grace would be thrilled.
“What have you been calling them? How long ago did you find this… person? Earth units, please, my head already hurts.”
'Person' seems like the safest word to use. Grace is a person, Rocky is a person. Maybe on Earth it’s implied that a person is a human, but Grace has had to adapt his vocabulary to abnormal circumstances.
“Stupid human brain.” It’s affectionate enough that Grace doesn’t take offense. Then Rocky explains, as best he can, what the story is behind ♩♭♫♪ ♮ ♪♩♬.
Firstly, the name the eridians have been calling them roughly translates to ‘tripodal blood fish’. Eridians have a very literal naming system; the guy has three supports, survives in a blood-ish liquid, and has gills and fins.
Rocky brings a tablet full of written data, scans, recordings, and photographs. All the information has already been translated into English, and the fact that there’s visual documentation shows that they were clearly planning on at least the possibility of showing this to Grace.
That’s good, it’s further assurance that he’s being seen as an equal, rather than say, how humans tend to see octopi. Clearly intelligent, but still an animal. Lesser than.
Scrolling past a bunch of jargon that would only make sense to a being that thinks in soundwaves and math, Grace decides to listen to the recordings. They’re sorted by theorized purpose and duration. Most of the shorter ones are just clicking noises; echolocation? But 'tripodal blood fish' hadn't used that at all last night, they'd just stumbled around blindly in the dark, mostly silent.
There isn’t much variation in the sounds, other than length of time and volume, and whether or not it’s accompanied by tapping on the walls of the enclosure.
Then Grace gets to the recordings labeled ‘distress’. He only listens to one, a hand pressed to his mouth as he fights back a wave of nausea. The sound is very aptly named; the pained wailing could be nothing other than severely understated distress.
Putting that aside, Grace moves on to the visuals, and they’re really no better. Knowing they found this person on an asteroid, in a sea of blood-adjacent liquid, doesn’t prepare him for the stunning photos of the place. Crimson waves lapping at the submerged trunk of a massive silver maple tree.
“Wait. This is where you got my tree cuttings from? That was weeks ago!”
Rocky trills in irritation. “Only found tripodal blood fish two months ago. One month of travel, has only been on Erid for three weeks and five days. Short time.”
Grace huffs, setting down the tablet on his lap. “Rocky, I know that’s a short time for you, but to me that is a long time to not tell me there was a person in the same area you found a tree that was previously thought to grow solely on Earth!”
“Didn’t know they were sentient. Still don’t know.” Rocky is grasping at straws and he knows it.
“The fact that they’re even vaguely human-shaped means I’m going to want to know about their existence, Rock.”
“I know. Apology.”
Breathing deeply, Grace looks back to the tablet. “It’s fine. I just…”
There’s a log accompanying the next set of photos. Grace knew ‘tripodal blood fish’- and yeah he at least needs something shorter to call them- was missing an arm, but seeing the long list of scans and the attempts that have been made to care for it and their many other injuries is frankly disheartening.
“…I could have been helping.”
He doesn’t know if that’s true, but he wants it to be, and now that the being’s life is laid bare in front of his eyes he feels more pity than fear. Had they even meant him any harm in the first place? Grace goes over the facts of last night in his mind.
They’d broken into his biodome, still not sure how or why, but the blood was from their own biodome, not Grace’s medical supplies (thank goodness). Then they’d rummaged around his home, drank some water, presumably ate the chips he’d left out on the couch… and then they’d chased him when he ran.
Grace doesn’t know what they would’ve done if he hadn’t run, or if they’d managed to catch him before he made it to the panic room. He’d been so certain that he was in danger, but there isn’t any solid evidence to back that.
“Grace?”
He scrubs his hands over his eyes, banishing images of a wounded ‘blood fish’ being dragged away from the xenonite airlock. “Rocky.”
“Do you want to visit? Have been moved to temporary containment while investigations are ongoing.”
Does he want that? The way that Rocky is asking tells him the answer, his friend knows him better than he knows himself. If Grace didn’t want to visit, Rocky would’ve picked up on it and asked if he wanted to be shown all the ways they were going to make sure he never had to have contact with ‘blood fish’ ever again.
But Rocky is asking if he wants to visit them, because he knows Grace, and Grace does want to visit.
“Yeah, I’d like that.”
They go back to Grace’s biodome first. The red that was previously streaked across the ground and the inside of his house has been cleaned up already, and he’s surprised to see a gift basket of sorts sitting on his counter, full of samples and a xenonite sheet indented with Eridian writing. It just has the word ‘Apology’ on it.
Grace can’t help but smile. He loves these kindhearted rock-people he lives amongst. They’ve been nothing but the most charitable hosts the entire time he’s lived here, much more so than any human he remembers meeting back on Earth. The effort they go to in order to keep him happy and content is beyond anything he feels he deserves.
“Crying again.”
“Oh, shut up, Rocky. I’m having a moment.”
Rocky chitters in a way that imitates a laugh, “Grace always having a moment.”
Grace wipes away a few stray tears, barely enough to count as crying, but Rocky either still can’t tell the difference or refuses to acknowledge it. Probably the latter.
Putting the gift basket in the lab, chugging a vitamin soda, taking a quick shower and changing into fresh clothing takes all of thirty minutes, and Grace feels like a new man; ready to conquer galaxies. Or re-do a first meeting with a new alien.
Rocky is waiting for him outside, having distanced himself for Grace’s privacy while he’d been in the shower. He’s a gentleman like that.
“Ready to go?” He indicates the question with two taps to the ground, Grace still mentally adds ‘question?’ with this action.
“Ready to go, statement.”
“Statement comes free with the statement, no need to add more statement to the end. Statement.”
He manages to sound so peeved that Grace laughs, playfully bonking the top of Rocky’s covered carapace with his cane. They keep the banter going the entire walk to the exit, and through the newly constructed human-friendly tunnel that leads to the containment room.
Grace’s first feeling upon the sight of it is relief. He’s not sure why, but some part of him had expected a bare, clinically white room with nothing but ‘blood fish’ and the barest things they needed to survive filling it. With what he knows of the eridians, he’s really not sure why that’s what his imagination came up with. He blames the entire sci-fi genre.
What he sees instead is a series of rocky outcroppings, creating many hiding places, and a variety of different cloth materials in various parts of the room. There’s a large pool in the very center full of the blood substance (and it really, really looks like blood.), which is also smeared over the ground and walls.
The only light source is the one that’s been set up so Grace can see the inside of the room, so it’s likely they’ve been keeping the poor sap in pitch darkness. Grace knows they can’t see in it, remembering the clumsy stumbling around his living room.
A loud series of clicks startle him out of his musings, attention drawn to one of the smaller cave openings in the dark. A familiar face pokes out, swiveling immediately to the new light source.
It’s ‘blood fish’. God, Grace feels so bad calling them that, but he literally has nothing else to use. They crawl out of the hole and rise up to a their full height, slowly but steadily approaching Grace. He takes a step back on instinct, because even though a solid xenonite wall stands between them, his heart is thundering against his ribcage.
‘Blood fish’ freezes, raises its one hand and lowers to a crouch. It’s a gesture so unbelievably human that Grace can hardly believe what he’s just seen. He steps to the wall, pressing his hand against it and watching, waiting to see if this is somehow a fluke, or-
Bloodshot eyes come into better view as they approach the light, still crouched, curled in on themself and sharp fins tucked in, as if to seem less threatening.
Grace feels like he should say something. The chances he’ll be understood are so low, right? It’s basically impossible that this person would understand English, of all the infinite languages that must exist out there- hell, of all the languages that exist on Earth alone. But the spark in those eyes reflects back in his own, and he reads it as hope, so Grace speaks.
“Hello? I um…”
Okay, no. First contact 101: Start simple. Grace points to his chest, making direct eye contact and clearly enunciates one word.
“Grace.”
Then he points at ‘blood fish’ and tilts his head.
Their face goes through a complicated series of emotions, and Grace fights back the animal in him that screams You’re like me! Aren’t you just like me? How did you get here?
They point to their own chest, red crusted lips parting ever so slightly, as if trying very hard to say something gently, despite being built to do the opposite.
“SSsihhmn.”
They shake their head, turning to the side and retching; strings of congealed blood splattering to the ground like the cover of an album for a Norwegian metal band in the 90s. A lot of it gets stuck in their… is that a beard? Do they-does he have a beard? It's hard to tell through the gore.
“Simon.”
That’s a human name! Not only is that a human name, but the way Simon (not ‘blood fish’!) had pronounced it was with a suspiciously American accent. Grace could be making up that last part, but he’s so elated right now that he finds it hard to care.
“Do you understand what I’m saying, Simon?”
Simon nods.
Grace lets out a decidedly un-manly noise of excitement, and turns to look for Rocky, already prepared to ask if they let him into there or something, he has so many questions and Simon can answer them! They don’t need to study anyone like some sort of bloody lab rat when they can literally just ask questions!
Rocky has already been cornered by two other Eridians, presumably part of the team that’s been trying to keep Simon alive this entire time. They’re talking much too fast for Grace to know what’s going on, multiple conversations overlapping in a miniature thrum.
“Rocky, hey-“
“Grace wait.”
Well, that was a little short. Rude. But fine, if he’s being ignored while the adults are talking, he’ll just have to make the best of it. He turns back to Simon.
“Sorry. That’s Rocky, he’s my best friend. I don’t know the other two personally, but everyone here is friendly, I promise!”
Simon blinks rapidly, straightening up a little once he? Grace can ask later. Realizes that he’s no longer being perceived as a threat.
“You can talk to them?”
Every word sounds as if it’s hurting him to speak. It probably is, judging by the way he’s clutching at his throat, but wow! It’s English. What are the odds?
“Yeah! I’ve lived here for a couple years, and I met Rocky before that… but that’s not important right now. How did you end up here?”
He’d just read the report, but Grace wants to hear the story from Simon’s point of view.
“I um…” Simon leans against the wall, sliding down to sit on the ground of his biodome, tail dragging close and curling around himself. He looks down at it with a blank sort of expression before his eyes flick back up to Grace, pleading. “Can I clean up? First? I think I’m sick or somethin’ and I don’t know how long I’ve been in here, I…”
He trails off into another coughing fit that somehow brings up more blood. Seeing as he’s probably been swimming in it for the past three weeks, or longer, Grace isn’t surprised.
“Oh gosh, I’m so sorry, yeah, I’ll see about getting you out. You’re not going to chase me again, are you?”
He says the last part playfully, in a clumsy attempt to lighten the mood, though it is something of a genuine concern.
Simon cringes, shaking his head and looking past Grace at the eridians behind him. “Sorry.”
That’s good enough, he really does sound sorry, and after talking Grace doubts they’re going to have any issues with mauling, as he’d very wrongfully assumed last night. He redirects his attention to the small thrum going on, and taps lightly on the tunnel wall with his cane before speaking.
“Rocky.”
His friend pauses, turning to show he’s giving Grace his attention. This body language is entirely unique to Rocky, since eridians technically ‘see’ in every direction at the same time, they don’t have a concept of ‘facing’. However, Rocky has spent enough time with Grace to have developed a lot of body language that only really makes sense for the two of them.
“Yes, Grace. We will move tripodal blood fish to Grace biodome. Intentionality this time.”
“His name is Simon.”
“I heard. New word, does it have meaning?”
Grace stops to think. Does it? He looks over at Simon, who’s now leaning his head on the clear barrier, listening.
“Let’s table it for now. Just get him out, I think we'll have better luck having Armando look at him than-”
“Already called for supplies. Wait.”
“Oh.”
He feels a little chastised, like an impatient child. In his defense it is quite possibly a matter of life or death. Not that Simon appears to be keeling over; he looks tired and miserable for sure, but despite being covered, head to clawed toe, in blood and open wounds, he’s surprisingly alert. He raises a brow at Grace’s silence. He only has one brow, where the other should be is a series of torn blisters.
“Sorry, forgot you can’t… Rocky sent for supplies. We’re getting you out, then we can head back to my biodome and take a look at uh. Everything.”
Simon snorts at that. “Hopefully not everything.”
There's something behind his words that Grace can't quite read, but it's probably just that he isn't comfortable with the idea of a stranger checking him over.
“Clarification: We’ll give you what you need to get cleaned up and take look at your wounds.”
What Grace really wants to get his mitts on are Simons fascinating fishy features. It is definitely insensitive to ask, but sue him! It’s his job to be curious!
“Have you always had the tail and stuff? Or is that new?”
Simon looks down, flexing the fin that runs the length of his tail (so cool!) and itching the side of his face where long, needle-like teeth jut out with the claws of his right hand.
“It’s new.”
He leaves it at that.