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Ryland Grace awakens with the feeling that something is deeply, horribly, wrong. He feels what can only be described as a tight and crushing sensation in his chest, and a level of anxiety that pierces through his lungs. He is 8 months into his and Rocky’s journey to Erid, and he has long since remembered a detail about himself that had been forgotten in the wake of the amnesia, and ignored in the chaos of saving stars. It’s disheartening, really, Ryland thinks, to realize that even if you forget what your mother’s voice sounded like, you’ll never forget the irrational worry embedded in the very fibres of your being.
A few weeks after Ryland had rescued Rocky, and they had set course for Erid, a familiar voice in his head had come crawling out of whatever depths it had been hidden in. One night, while he was watching Rocky sleep, he’d thought to himself: the Taumeoba are in the fuel lines. He’d responded that no, they couldn’t be in the fuel lines, because he specifically made sure that they wouldn’t be able to get into them when the leak happened. This had calmed him, for a moment, before another thought popped into his head.
You need to check the lines. You might have missed something. Maybe you won’t notice it until it’s too late.
No, Ryland thought, no, the ship would tell me. Some kind of alarm would be going off right now.
Technology fails, the voice responded.
He’d glanced at Rocky, who was more than two hours into his sleep cycle, and therefore essentially guaranteed not to wake up for a while, and sighed as he got up to go check on the fuel bays. One check couldn’t hurt, could it?, he’d thought.
Ryland realized, as he made his way over to the control room, that he couldn’t exactly check the fuel bays without turning off the spin drives. If he did that, the artificial gravity on the ship would cease, and they would be in zero-g. He’d wondered if the sudden change in gravity would be enough to wake Rocky up, or if he’d just keep sleeping. Ultimately, he decided that it wasn’t worth the risk, and went back to watching Rocky sleep. He told himself that there was now a Taumeoba alarm on the ship, that he’d figured out the leak, and that Rocky had made sure that there were no Taumeoba anywhere other than where they were supposed to be. He told himself that he could trust these things, and that he, they, were safe. He was a logical, rational person, and it was both logical and rational to trust the safeguards that he knew existed. There was no reason to check.
This is what he continued to tell himself, as he walked back to the control room, and stared at the button to turn off the spin drives. His finger hovered above the button, and he told himself that there was no reason to believe that there was Taumeoba in the fuel lines. He hit the button, and as he began to float in zero-g, he told himself that surely some kind of alarm would have gone off. As he heard nothing from Rocky, he confirmed that not even a complete shift in the gravity could wake the Eridian up, and then got to work on collecting Astrophage samples from each fuel line. He then checked the samples under a microscope for Taumeoba contamination, and having found no signs of any, turned the spin drives back on and went back to watching Rocky sleep. The thought left him alone for the rest of that night, and Ryland was relieved that he had made sure that they were safe.
During Rocky’s next sleep cycle, the thought was back.
Maybe when you checked the lines last time, you accidentally let some Taumeoba in. It’s probably eating through all of the fuel right now.
For awhile, he ignored it. That was insane. There was no way he would have managed something like that.
Maybe you did it and forgot that you did it.
That was even more insane. He wouldn’t just forget something like that, would he?
What, like you forgot who you were? Like you forgot that Stratt betrayed you, and sent you up here to die? You let Taumeoba into the lines and forgot that you did it.
And then there he was again, switching off the spin drives and sampling the lines. Examining the samples under a microscope, and again, finding nothing out of the ordinary. Okay, he thought, everything is okay now.
And when the thought came back a few hours later, he reminded himself that he had already checked the lines, and that they were fine. He reminded himself that it wasn’t possible that he had messed any of it up, and that if he had, the alarm would tell him. He ignored it until he felt like his heart was going to beat out of his chest if he didn’t go check the lines again, and until he almost found himself summoning the toilet to dry heave from the anxiety. He repeated the samples, the tests, the re-tests, and he once again felt relief.
During the day, when he and Rocky were working on things together, or just otherwise trying to pass the time, Ryland tried not to think about the fuel lines. He couldn’t check them without Rocky asking him why he was doing it, and he couldn’t think of a way to explain to Rocky why he was doing it, even though they’d worked on making an improved version of the Taumeoba alarm, and even though Rocky had made sure that there were no leaks in the Hail Mary. But when Rocky slept, and the thoughts got worse, and more frequent, Ryland checked the lines over and over again, sometimes up to eight times per Rocky’s sleep cycle.
As he checked the lines for the sixth time one night, he wondered through tears what the hell was wrong with him, and was rewarded with a string of memories from his life on Earth. A psychiatrist’s office. Too bright, and too sterile. The psychiatrist's voice, flat and unsympathetic as she said “Dr. Grace, I am diagnosing you with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder”, and pushed a pamphlet into his hands with treatment options. Prescription medications for his OCD that he could never bring himself to take because his OCD wouldn’t let him. Hiding his compulsions as they got worse and worse under the stress of working for Stratt and living on a boat in the middle of the ocean. Ignoring Carl’s sideways glances when he got caught checking seals on Astrophage storage in the middle of the night.
Right, he thought. There’s actually something deeply, horribly, wrong with me.
He couldn’t tell Rocky, of course. He couldn’t tell anyone when he was on Earth, and he certainly couldn’t tell an alien who almost certainly didn’t have any concept of what was wrong with him. He would continue, as he always had, to hide it as best as he could, and to play it off as a little quirk when someone caught him. He had always brushed it off as a quirk on Earth, and he would just call it a “human thing” if Rocky were to ask any questions.
As the months went by, the spiral tightened, and he began to check the Taumeoba farms themselves. This, he could get away with when Rocky was watching him. He could come up with a reason for checking them, and Rocky wouldn’t ask too many questions. Sometimes, he couldn’t sleep unless he could check on the Taumeoba farms first, and sometimes he couldn’t sleep unless he checked them a few more times after that, but Rocky mostly went with it, assuming that it was some sort of human need for absolute certainty. For the most part, he figured that he hid his compulsions well enough to avoid setting off any alarm bells for Rocky, and he hoped that he would be able to keep it that way until they got to Erid.
Now, eight months into their three year voyage, Ryland lies in bed and tries to pretend like he isn’t awake. He knows that Rocky can hear his heartbeat, his breathing, his, well, everything. He tells himself to pull himself together, and to push away the terrifying wrongness that he feels.
Somewhere outside the deafening panic in his head, Ryland hears Rocky call out to him from across the room.
“Grace awake, question?”
What if you pushed him out of the airlock?
Ryland physically recoils at his own brain. I would never do that, he thinks. That’s ridiculous, why would I ever do something like that?, he thinks again.
What if you want to push him out of the airlock, though?
Ryland Grace does not want to push Rocky out of the air lock. Ryland Grace turned the Hail Mary around, abandoned his chance of going back to Earth, and chose to die to make sure that Rocky could save his own planet. Rocky is Ryland’s best friend. The only best friend he’s ever had. No, I don’t want to do that, Ryland reasons.
Conveniently, Ryland’s brain provides him with an image of him opening the airlock, and letting Rocky get sucked out into the vacuum of space. He watches as Rocky’s lifeless body floats through the darkness. He hears Rocky cry out that he trusted Ryland, that he doesn’t understand why he would do this, and then he pushes him.
Ryland’s breath hitches in his throat. He feels a wave of nausea and tries his best to will it away. He would never do that. He could never live without Rocky, and he would never want to live without Rocky. Stop it, he tells himself.
He sees Rocky in space again. You’re disgusting, the voice provides. You’re going to kill him, it adds. He feels tears start to well up in his eyes.
“Grace?” Comes Rocky’s voice, now much closer to him. Ryland wonders how long it's been since Rocky called out for him the first time. He wonders if Rocky has called his name out more than once during the time that he’s spent imaging his corpse.
If you get out of bed, you’re going to kill him.
“Grace is awake, statement.” Rocky says from beside him, “We do science now, question?”
You’re going to push him out of the airlock if you get up.
“Grace in bed much longer than usual. Grace sick, question?” Rocky asks nervously.
“No, buddy, I’m not sick.” Ryland responds, weakly, “Just give me a second, okay?”
“Grace has had many seconds. Why you need another, question?”
You’re going to kill him.
Ryland pulls on his hair. Hard. Shut up, he thinks. Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up.
You want to kill him, don’t you? He trusts you and you want to kill him.
I don’t want to kill him. Please, I don’t want to kill him. I would never do that, Ryland pleads with himself.
Don’t get out of bed, or you’re going to do it.
Okay, okay, he thinks. I won’t get out of bed, I’ll keep Rocky safe from myself, and I won’t get out of bed, he resolves.
“Grace, question?” Rocky is more than just nervous now. His voice has taken on a pitch that he reserves for genuine concern. “Grace okay, question?”
“I’m fine, Rock.” Ryland says quietly, “I’ll be up soon, okay?”
Rocky says nothing for a moment, and then turns in the direction of the lab. “If Grace not up soon, I come back.”
You’re scaring him. This is exactly why you can’t get up, you’re scaring him and you’re going to do something to him.
Ryland sucks in a frantic breath and tells himself for the hundredth time that he’s not going to do anything to Rocky. That he has no desire to do anything to Rocky. He tells himself that surely he can get up now, because he would never do anything to Rocky.
How do you know?
He looks over the edge of the bed, and it feels like looking down from the top of a cliff. He goes to move towards the edge, but instead finds himself pulling at his hair again and curling in on himself, tears in his eyes, and air rapidly leaving his lungs. He feels the crushing weight in his chest, and struggles to even remember how to breathe, his breaths instead coming in erratically between silent sobs. He wants to get up. He wants to get up so bad, but he can’t do it. He can’t go near Rocky until he can trust himself not to do something terrible.
He sees the airlock in his mind again and he bites back a scream.
Ryland doesn’t even notice when Rocky rolls back into the room. He doesn’t notice Rocky frantically calling out his name. He only notices that Rocky is in the room after Rocky has slammed his ball into Ryland’s bed for the third time. He looks up from his knees and sees Rocky at the edge of the bed, trembling with fear.
“Grace sick!” Rocky all but screams, “Grace sick and not telling Rocky!”
Ryland can only shake his head in reply, failing to get any words out through his tears and his hyperventilating.
“No. Grace sick. Grace sick and needs to go to Med Bay now, statement.” Rocky urges.
“I’m okay.” Ryland gasps out through pained breaths.
“Not okay! Not okay!” Rocky slams into the bed again. “Med Bay, now!”
“It’s not a Med Bay problem.” He pulls at his hair again, trying to ground himself enough to get a real sentence out, “I can’t go anywhere, Rock.” It comes out as a whisper.
“What mean Grace can’t go anywhere, question?” Rocky’s voice is at such a high pitch that Ryland can barely make out the words. “What mean?”
“I-I don’t… I can’t,” Ryland says, uselessly. Come on, he thinks, please just get it together for two seconds. “I-I can’t get out of bed right now, bud.”
“Grace can’t walk, question?” Rocky replies. “Bad, bad, bad!”
Ryland tries to blink away another image of Rocky outside the airlock. He tries to get in a deep breath so that he can actually explain himself to Rocky. He gets half a breath before it’s replaced by a sob that shakes his entire body and makes him curl in on himself even further.
You’re manipulating him. You want him to feel bad for you so that you can throw him out of the airlock easier. You’re sick.
Stop it. Stop it, Ryland begs. I’m not doing that. I wouldn’t do that. “I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t.” He thinks.
“Grace wouldn’t, what, question?” Rocky asks loudly, growing more frantic and confused by the second.
Oh, Ryland thinks, now I’m saying things out loud without noticing. I must really be losing it. He can’t answer Rocky’s questions like this. He doesn’t want to keep scaring Rocky, but he can’t get the words out that he needs to use to explain what’s going on to Rocky. Instead, he cries until he can’t produce any more tears. Until he’s exhausted himself so badly that his body has no choice but to slow down his breathing, and lets him get his first full breath in since he woke up. He has no idea how long he stays like that, but Ryland is vaguely aware of Rocky next to the bed the entire time, periodically begging him to go to the Med Bay, and yelling out some variation of “how Rocky fix?”. He’s calmed himself down enough to speak to Rocky, but he still doesn’t think he can get out of bed yet (you’ll kill him, the voice reminds). Ryland may have made it through the panic attack, but the underlying anxiety remains, and he can’t seem to quiet the thought in any way other than agreeing with it and staying exactly where he is.
“Um…” Ryland starts, clearing his throat, and finally pulling his hands out of his hair, “Sorry buddy, I didn’t mean to scare you like that.” He’s grateful that Rocky can hear through walls, because the volume at which he speaks is no more than a soft whisper.
“No appologize.” Rocky replies, and Ryland looks at him properly for the first time. He is next to the bed, in his ball, and he looks smaller than Ryland has ever seen him look before. He recognizes Rocky’s nervous body language, and he hates that he’s the reason for it.
“Grace heartbeat slow down. Grace better, question?”
Ryland looks over the edge of the bed again, and tells himself that he needs to get up. He feels the same panic start to overtake him as he looks back at Rocky and is reminded that he can only protect Rocky from himself by staying where he is. The worst part, Ryland thinks, is that he knows that this is irrational. He knows that he’s not going to kill Rocky, and that he would never, ever, ever, do something like that to anyone, let alone his only friend. He knows that if he gets up, Rocky is going to be fine. He’s not going to push him out of the airlock. But he can’t shake the what if you do, though? in the back of his mind. He doesn’t know how to make it go away, and he supposes that he’s just going to have to try to explain it to Rocky.
“Not really.” Ryland answers, “I-uh, I need to explain a thing to you.”
“Human thing?”
“Grace thing.”
Rocky considers this. “Grace thing not get out of bed for long time? Fast heartbeat. No speak. Breathing weird?”
“Do people get sick in ways that aren’t physical, on Erid?” Ryland asks.
“No understand.”
“Like, someone gets really sad for no reason for a long time. Does that happen?”
“Oh!” Rocky trills, “Yes. We have word for this.” He says the word for Ryland. It’s a long, broken sound. Ryland will have to remember to input it into the computer later, when he can actually get out of bed.
“Grace sad, question?” Rocky adds.
“Not exactly. Do Eridians have other versions of that? Like where the person is scared instead of sad?” Ryland asks, unable to actually look at Rocky while he attempts to explain why he’s being insane.
“Mmm” He says, and starts saying a long line of musician notes that Ryland doesn’t understand, “Grace scared, question?”
Ryland sighs and sits up. He doesn’t have the energy to explain this. All he wants to do is go back to bed, and hope that when he wakes up, the thought will have been replaced by something equally as upsetting, but at least something that lets him get out of bed. “Yeah.”
“Grace scared of leaving bed, question?”
“Yeah, Rock.” Ryland puts his head in his hands, “I’m going to explain something to you, and if you hate me after you hear it, I get it.”
“Rocky could never hate Grace. Grace friend.” Rocky squeaks, upset by the very implication.
Ryland is unsure that Rocky’s certainty will survive what he’s about to say.
“I have something called Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. It means that sometimes a thought will come into my head, and it won’t be something that I actually think, but it makes me really scared”
“Grace has thought about leaving bed, question?” Rocky replies, trying to understand where this is going.
“Yeah. So I get a thought, I don’t actually think the thought, but it’s scary. To try to get rid of the thought, I have to do something about it so that I can feel better. You get it so far?” Ryland asks, nervously.
“Understand.” Rocky warbles. “Grace stay in bed because of thought. What is thought, question?”
Unhelpfully, Ryland’s brain provides: He’s going to hate you. You’re going to make him hate you if you tell him. He takes a deep breath. Maybe Rocky will hate him, but he can’t just leave him hanging like this.
“I-I woke up, and I thought about pushing you out of the airlock.” Ryland feels tears start forming in his eyes again, even though he’d been so sure that he had cried all of the moisture out of his body already. “Um- I don’t want to do that, and I don’t think I would ever do that, but I need to keep you safe from me, so I can’t get out of bed until I know that I’m not going to do that.”
Rocky tilts his carapace towards Ryland, an attempt at mimicking human eye contact, which he has come to understand is common during serious conversations. “Grace would never do this, statement.”
Ryland clears his throat. “I just-”
Rocky cuts him off. “No. Grace would never do this. Grace saved Rocky when Rocky was in Grace environment. Grace saved Rocky when Taumeoba ate fuel. Grace save Erid. Grace friend. Grace would not do this!”
See? You manipulated him. He thinks you’re a good person, but you’re not. You’re going to kill him. Stop manipulating him.
“Grace heartbeat fast again! How Rocky fix?” Rocky exclaims as Ryland tries to pull himself together for the third…fourth? time.
How did he deal with this back on Earth? Beyond the initial flash of memories, and the fact that he’s now been struggling with OCD spirals for months, his memory on “healthy coping mechanisms” remains a little foggy. He was mostly fine when he was still trying to save Earth, and when he was focused on going back to save Rocky, but now that he’s going to be on a ship for three years, rapidly approaching the end of his real food rations, and a few months away from eating nothing but Taumeoba, there’s nothing to distract him from himself. Still, he thinks, Rocky wants to help, so maybe even a little bit of distraction might help?
“Could you tell me about Erid? You don’t have to dumb any words down for me either, I just think it’ll help if I can listen to something for a while, maybe?” Ryland hopes that he’s right about distraction, and he hopes that Rocky isn’t lying to him and doesn’t secretly hate him now.
“Yes!” Rocky warbles. “Rocky tell Grace about Erid engineering!”
“Thanks, buddy.” Ryland lies back down and hears Rocky start on his engineering lesson. He recognizes some of the words, but mostly he just hears musical notes that he hasn’t learned how to translate to English yet. He enjoys listening to Rocky tell him about something he’s passionate about, even if he may not understand all (or most) of it.
As he listens to Rocky, he again becomes aware of how exhausted he is from the events of the morning. He feels his eyelids start to become heavy, and decides that he’s in no position to try to fight sleep.
When Ryland wakes up, he swears that he can hear the sound of someone typing on a laptop. He blinks the sleep out of his eyes, and sits up in bed. Ryland looks around and finds that Rocky isn’t in the dormitory with him, and must have moved to the lab to work on something. Because there’s no rest for the wicked, the voice is also awake, and it reminds him that he could push Rocky out of the airlock at any second. Unlike earlier, or, yesterday (he has no idea what time it is, or how long he slept), though, Ryland feels slightly more confident in his ability to, at the very least, get out of bed despite that thought. He’s not going to do anything to Rocky, and he’s going to try to get out of bed to prove that to himself.
Exposure therapy, he remembers. Sitting with the discomfort, ignoring the compulsion, is what he’s supposed to do about this. He moves towards the edge of the bed, and sits there for a second, feeling a wave of panic like he had yesterday. You’re going to hurt Rocky if you do that, he is reminded. He instead reminds himself that no, he isn’t going to hurt Rocky, and he needs to get out of bed. He’ll stay far away from the airlock, but he needs to get out of bed. Ryland laughs silently to himself for a moment, thinking that this is like negotiating with terrorists. Nevertheless, he swings his legs off the side of the bed, and tries his best to ignore the screams in his brain (You’re going to open it. You’re going to throw him out. You’re going to betray him. You want to do it because you’re a bad person and you’re manipulating Rocky and yourself into thinking that you’re not.). He whispers “shut up” to himself and completes his most monumental task yet: getting up.
It’s sad, he thinks, that he literally survived nearly dying on Adrian, that he’s completed the most dangerous EVAs anyone could imagine, that he had to breed an alien lifeform to become resistant to Nitrogen, but that getting out of bed is the hardest thing he’s had to do. He stands up and the voice inside his brain is not happy, but he’s resolved to ignore it for as long as he can take this time. He owes that much to Rocky for making him deal with… whatever that was… yesterday.
As Ryland makes his way into the lab, he sees that Rocky is, in fact, typing away on a laptop. He had forgotten that Rocky had modified the laptop that Ryland gave him to survive in his environment, and supposes that it isn’t all that bizarre that Rocky would be using it now.
“Hello, Grace friend!” Rocky trills excitedly. “I use human thinking machine to understand Grace!”
This statement confuses Ryland, because Rocky already understands him perfectly well, what with his perfect memory and generally superior intellect. The only thing that Rocky wouldn’t understand about Grace is… Oh.
“Rocky look up Obsessive Compulsive Disorder!” Rocky continues. “Rocky have new words: intrusive thought, compulsion, reassurance.”
Ryland can’t help but laugh a little. “Why were you doing that?”
“Rocky need understand Obsessive Compulsive Disorder to fix Grace. Much work to do. Many Questions for Grace!” Rocky replies, moving closer to Grace. “Grace better now, question?”
“A little.” Ryland says. Truly only a little, though, he thinks, because this forced exposure therapy feels like a bit too much way too fast right now. Whatever though, better to be on the verge of another panic attack than to be trapped in bed forever, he tells himself.
“Rocky wonder if Grace have other intrusive thoughts and compulsions, or only airlock, question?” Rocky asks.
Honestly, Ryland doesn’t want to tell Rocky about checking the fuel lines, and checking the Taumeoba farms. He knows that Rocky will be upset with him, and he knows that he’ll be especially upset about the fuel lines, because Rocky can’t do anything about it if Ryland is stuck in a thought loop while he’s sleeping. Ryland really doesn’t want Rocky to worry, or to think that he needs to sacrifice sleep to babysit him. He should be able to deal with this on his own.
“Grace okay, question? Not answer Rocky. Breathing weird.”
Rocky is nervous again. Because of Ryland. Because you’re going to kill him. Ryland closes his eyes for a second. He sees the airlock again. He opens them. “I’m good, buddy. Don’t worry.”
“Rocky must worry. Rocky must fix.” Rocky replies. “Grace not want to answer question, question?”
“This isn’t something you can really fix, Rock. This is just kind of how I am.” Ryland says, sadly.
“No! Rocky read ways to make better. Not fix completely, but better for Grace.”
Ryland considers how desperate Rocky sounds to make things better. He doubts there’s really anything Rocky can do to help, but he guesses there’s no harm in letting him try. “Alright.”
“Grace tell Rocky other intrusive thoughts and compulsions now, question?”
Ryland takes a breath. “It’s mostly been about the Taumeoba since we’ve been on the way to Erid. I didn’t really have any while we were working on saving our stars, but now that we don’t have anything to do, it’s like my body remembered that it has OCD, and it’s making up for all that time it let me have some peace.” Ryland sighs. “I’ve been uh… I’ve been checking the fuel lines for Taumeoba contamination. While you’re sleeping. And um, checking the Taumeoba farms as much as I do isn’t actually a human thing. It’s just a Grace thing.”
Rocky wiggles his carapace. “Bad, bad bad! Grace do compulsions when Rocky can’t fix. Grace ask Rocky about fuel lines for many months! Asking for reassurance! Bad, bad bad!”
Ryland wishes that he hadn’t given Rocky access to the internet. It’s more than a little bit strange to get a lecture from an alien about reassurance seeking. He knows that Rocky is right, though, that it just makes it worse in the end. But still, Ryland wonders why he thought it would be a good idea to teach him how to use that thing.
“Rocky help Grace. No more compulsions. No more checking lines while Rocky sleep.” Rocky says firmly.
“I don’t think it’s gonna be that easy, bud. If I start freaking out while you’re sleeping, there’s nothing you can really do about it.” Ryland responds, not wanting to crush Rocky’s dreams of becoming an ERP specialist, but being realistic nonetheless.
“Grace Rocky work on helping Grace handle while Rocky sleep. Human thinking machine says eventually Grace might handle without help.”
Oh my god, Ryland thinks, he’s actually trying to become an ERP specialist. Ryland might just let it happen, though. It’s not like it can get any worse at this point. “Okay, sure. Thanks Rocky.”
Rocky takes this as permission to launch into his plan (it involves a lot of yelling at Ryland when he catches him about to do a compulsion), and to continue to shower Ryland with a barrage of what would be considered deeply personal questions back home. Despite the absurdity of it all, Ryland is okay with whatever it is that Rocky has planned. He feels comfort in the fact that though he may still die from the malnutrition related illnesses that he’s sure to develop on the way to Erid, at least he won’t die from being trapped in his own head like he has been for the past few months. He trusts Rocky, and he trusts that they’ll figure this out, together.