Chapter Text
Ryland Grace had made first contact with an alien. An Eridian, as he so ardently repeated during their conversations. Oddly enough, the little rocky crab/spider-shaped alien had wormed its way into Grace's heart—though not just from the crushing loneliness of being the only one still alive on the Hail Mary.
Rocky was adorable. If adorable also included a genius-level intelligence, and snark to boot.
"Why Grace go in ship when do puppet show, question?" Rocky had stamped his foot twice, once Grace had returned with the laptop and actual lighting, though Grace had to guess that wouldn't make much of a difference for him.
"Oh! Do you mean when you made me and the Hail Mary, Rock?" He asked, as Rocky made some gesture resembling a shake of the head. Yes.
"Yes. Was Grace brain dumb and slow? Did Grace sleep, question? Grace get strange when not enough sleep, statement." Rocky said, as Grace blinked.
He got sassed by a rock. An alien rock that somehow knew his sleep schedule. Or lack thereof.
"How do you know that, Rocky?" Grace asked instead, as Rocky straightened up.
"Eridian hearing good, really good. Can hear leaky space blob's heart and brain, statement. Sounds like fog. Not a nice sound, statement." Rocky said, and that was how Ryland Grace learned to not spend the entire night up and awake trying to work on the Astrophage problem.
Of course, Grace protested—no, Rocky, it was not okay to spy on someone's heart, how often did he do that, would Rocky at least let Grace know before he did things like that.
It's like having an older brother and a younger brother in one. Huh.
And yet, Rocky and Grace had never quite crossed over into each other's worlds, so to speak. Sure, Rocky would ask him questions about what Grace could remember, but it wasn't like Rocky could come into the—
Foreign Lifeform detected.
Hail Mary.
…What? "There can't be suddenly more out there besides me and Rocky, unless it's something I didn't account for…" Grace mutters, but decides to open the hatch to the Xenonite tunnel between the Hail Mary and Rocky's ship.
"Hi, Grace!" Rocky chirps, and Grace is greeted by Rocky in a Xenonite ball, right in front of the hatch. Rocky was actually mobile.
Normally, Rocky would scuttle down his side of the tunnel behind the glass to greet Grace from the darkness, but now—
Rocky was doing his best impression of a hamster. "You're in a ball." Grace manages, as Rocky puffs up slightly. "So Rocky no die in Grace's atmosphere."
Huh. That was true, it didn't take long for Grace to realize that Rocky's environment rendered him used to hot, scorching temperatures—with how cool Grace's was, it'd be a recipe for disaster.
And if Grace were to go into Rocky's atmosphere, Grace would be cooked like an egg with how hot the ammonia-rich environment was.
"I come up?" Rocky asks, but the Eridian rolls on up the little ladder any way with Grace protesting, "Oh, you're coming up—" rolling into the Hail Mary with a thud.
Foreign Entity Detected.
I have Rocky literally hamster-balling over my walls.
"Rocky, you just can't come into someone's ship like this—" Grace tries, chasing after Rocky, who seemed determined to see everything.
"Grace and Rocky big science. Fix problems with Astrophage, figure out how to kill Astrophage together!" Rocky seems excited, though he thuds into the projector "Don't Go Crazy" Room with a musical note of annoyance.
"This room boring." Rocky drawls, as the scenes behind him are still depicting the beach that Grace kept finding himself going back to. The little pause gives Grace some hope that he can stop Rocky's rolling, but it's a far-fetched hope, as his fingers slip away from catching the Xenonite ball.
And Rocky's picking up speed, zipping through the projector room and onto the other side. "Rocky!" At least Grace was somewhat fit before waking up on the Hail Mary, as he can remember chasing after middle school students with some level of ease.
So here Grace was, in hot pursuit of a rolling Eridian as he tumbled along through different parts of the ship.
"I go this way!" Rocky calls cheerfully, as the ball disappears down a corridor. "Amaze Amaze Amaze!"
Is this why I liked being a teacher? Grace couldn't name why he was feeling a bubble of excitement while chasing after Rocky—something about being alive, maybe.
And, of course, middle schoolers and Rocky alike do put up a chase!
"Dirty. Dirty. Dirty. Dirty. Why this room so messy, question?" Rocky rolls across the different piles of laundry, and the stray bag of vodka that Grace had gotten from Ilyukhina's belongings.
"Well, I didn't exactly have time to prepare for a guest, now did I?" Grace snarks, as he picks the clothes up from off of the floor, trying to ignore the laugh that threatened to bubble up.
Is this what it's like to hear your parents look at your room when guests are coming over?
"Is this room for garbage? Ohhh." Rocky muses, as he rolls past Grace's outstretched hands yet again.
"Well, it is the lab, it's where I do science." Grace explains, though Rocky lets out a noise that sounds a lot like his laugh from when they first met.
"If lab, why messy? Grace not have time to clean, question? No matter, Rocky help fix." The Eridian tuts, as Grace freezes, nearly stumbling over a nearby hoodie.
Help Fix. Fix what? The lab? Ryland Grace was… wait, how old was he again?
Never mind that. He was an adult who knew how to clean, thank you very much!
"On Rocky ship, we clean up lab. Make it so no trip. Rocky teach Grace Eridian cleaning method so Grace no trip. Bad bad bad if Grace end up hurt and Rocky can't fix, statement." Rocky taps his claws together, as Grace groans at how eager he was to "fix this."
Part of him knew it was because Rocky was alone for a lot longer than he was—40 years or so, from when Grace remembered Rocky last told him.
And Rocky was an engineer. It's his job to fix.
When an engineer lost everything, and lost something to fix, how would they feel when a leaky space blob came along with oodles of problems to help with?
Pretty damn eager.
But part of Grace didn't want to do that to Rocky. It wasn't right to inflict his… issues onto the only sentient being he knew at the moment, and just met.
"Rocky take Grace silence as a yes. Rocky go this way, and show!" Rocky's movements are surprisingly clumsy now, as he blunders through the lab.
And before, he was zipping through the Hail Mary like he knew what he was doing—is he new to this?
Rocky was showing off.
As it turns out, Eridian's cleaning method was something that Grace suspected that Rocky invented on his own. Rocky had rolled right across the piles of clothes that were scattered across the floor of the Hail Mary, until there was a ball of clothes rolling across the floor, and Rocky inside said clothes ball.
The clothes neatly piled up from where Rocky and Grace dropped them off—though Rocky had been distracted by even more human technology.
"What this do? What this do—" Rocky bumps off of different pieces of technology like a pinball, before slamming into a wall.
"Apology, apology, apology. Rocky new to ball." He gets out, as Grace holds his hand up, not before leaning down to wipe half of his equations off of Rocky's Xenonite ball that had come off of the whiteboard when he crashed into it.
"Rocky, my hand is up." Grace says, attempting to inject his "Teacher Voice" into his intonations—and apparently it works, as Rocky immediately stills in his ball.
Huh. Is Rocky a young Eridian? What's young on Rocky's planet? Wait, how was I as a teacher that he's listening to me?
Even though Grace's mind is swimming with thought after thought, Rocky couldn't be rampaging around the Hail Mary.
"We can't go rolling into someone's ship without asking. We're two individuals." Grace adds, as Rocky copies his hand movements.
"Individuals. Rocky understands, friend Grace." Rocky nods, although his squeaky little laugh did nothing to assuage Grace's growing sense of amused frustration.
"Distinct individuals, working on our distinct, separate parts of the mission. And there needs to be boundaries." Grace tries instead, as Rocky copies him again, even down to changing his pitch to match Grace's.
"Boundaries." A split second of silence falls over the Hail Mary, before Rocky takes off again in a squeal of laughter. "Where's my bedroom?"
"Bedroom?!" Grace half-shrieks, but there's no malice. Rocky had just crashed into the Hail Mary, and now he was asking for a bedroom?
Even more crashes sound from down the corridors of the Hail Mary, and Grace's sprinting down the corridors of the ship after Rocky, hoping he wouldn't get into anything that he'd have to explain—especially not the leftover alcohol that Grace had abandoned once getting drunk wasn't a solution to waking up with no memories in space.
"At least slow down!" Grace calls, picking up speed after Rocky and closing the distance.
At least this takes care of my cardio!
Rocky had been alone for too, too long. Too many days of being on his ship with nothing but the bodies of his crew mates—stiff and rigid and not waking up from the sickness that took him.
He'd wondered if this was some sort of curse. Eridians didn't necessarily believe in curses, some did, there were always stories told to pebbles of ways things would happen to them if they didn't listen to their parents—but this?
Being the only survivor of an invisible illness, that Rocky, an engineer, couldn't fix? It was maddening.
Then the universe dropped an alien into his lap.
The alien was a hooman, from the planet Earth in the Sol system—a fragile little thing with so much leakage that Rocky was always half-worried the poor thing would collapse from too much effort.
How did Grace function when he's constantly leaking?
But the leaky space-blob was here. He was real. And Grace was the first good thing to come out of the stars in 🎵🎵🎵 🎵 years.
Sure, Grace had to be taught how to care for himself, did his 🎵🎵🎵🎵 not know how show him?
No, Rocky realized. At least, no one taught Grace how to survive in space, since he also revealed that Grace's other hoomans were dead.
I had to send them out of the airlock, Rocky. Commend them to the stars, and all. Grace had leaked again, wiping his tears on his sleeve.
Rocky did not know why Grace leaked when he talked about them, but if it felt like his carapace were being torn in two, as he did when the other Eridians died…
Bad, bad, bad.
So, Rocky would take this one as his own. Grace had seemed delighted by their run through Mary's tunnels, both stopping after Rocky's ball got caught between a door a wall.
How do humans design ships like this?
"Tire yourself out yet, Rocky?" Grace asks, sitting down beside Rocky with a bump. No, would have been Rocky's usual response. Eridians did not "tire out" as hoomans did, but judging by Grace's pinched expression, he was.
"Tired of getting stuck, yes." Rocky says instead, before rolling out of the gap with a soft pop, ending up nestled against the hooman's ribs.
The ribs were too bony, but Rocky… liked it. Not for the sensation of bone against Xenonite, but to hear Grace's heart, whooshing and moving with lub-dub sound. It was… disgusting.
Why hoomans weren't quieter is beyond Rocky.
But it meant Grace was alive. He was here. Rocky wasn't alone any more, didn't have to wail in the darkness that no one would come to answer his cries.
"You did end up in a lot of tricky spots, huh?" Grace muses, as Rocky chitters an agreement. There were so many places to get stuck on Mary, but a thrill of excitement races through his carapace. This was an alien ship! Rocky would be the first from his home planet to explore an alien ship, work with an alien, live with an alien—oh, it made all of Rocky's hearts sing.
"Grace, question?" Rocky asks, as Grace looks down at Rocky in his ball. "Yeah, Rock?"
It'd been sticking under Rocky's carapace, but—
"Is… Grace glad Rocky here, question?" Rocky knew he'd crashed onto Grace's ship without asking, and he'd sounded mad when Rocky asked about a bedroom, but he… didn't want to be alone anymore.
🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵 was too long. But Rocky understood if Grace wanted him to go away—
"Of course I am, Rocky." Grace interrupts, as Rocky stills in his ball. "Sure, you barged in here, but… you're here and real, and I don't have to do this thing alone." His voice tinged with humor and—relief?
Grace was happy!
"Before we found each other, I thought for sure I was going to go mad." Grace explains, as Rocky files that word, 🎵🎵🎵 away for later. "But now… we're doing the biggest thing of our lives, together."
"Grace Rocky save stars." Rocky adds, as Grace nods. "We will, bud. We will."
And wasn't that the greatest thing of all? They were going to save their stars.
A revision, however, on the 'greatest thing of all' for Rocky—was finally getting to watch Grace sleep on his chest that night. Sure, he had to nudge the hooman to bed, but falling asleep with Grace curled around him, and Rocky being able to watch?
The universe finally sent him a 🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵.
Thank you.