Chapter Text
It started out small; a tickle in the back of his throat, a cough accompanied by the occasional bile rising in his throat. He tried to ignore it, but that mission was virtually impossible with a roommate as curious as Rocky.
“What is sound Grace making, question?” the Eridian chirped as he tinkered away on another model.
(To pass the ever-lasting time that Grace and Rocky had before they’d arrive on Erid, the human had suggested telling Rocky some of the most famous stories from Earth. The Hail Mary’s library was extensive, so the world was, quite literally, at their finger tips. (Grace also knew a few favorites from memory, but he’d never admit to Rocky that he’d gotten a minor in literature with his bachelor’s in biochemistry.) But Rocky, the lover of puppets that he was, only agreed to listen if Grace told the story by describing it through the figurines.
The first story Grace had wanted to tell was The Little Prince. That was his childhood favorite, and many of his students back on Earth were reading it for their French class around the time that Grace was sent to space. He’d told Rocky what to sculpt: a small human boy, a human similar to Grace, a flower, a fox, a snake, a baobab tree, and other figurines. Rocky was diligently at work, wishing to be given the puppet show as soon as possible.)
“Just a cough, bud,” Grace responded, clearing his throat with a grunt. Rocky was accustomed to that sound. Rocky garbled out some more chords, and so Grace fetched the computer and typed in a new word for Rocky: <cough>.
“Why cough, question?” Rocky asked.
“I… I actually don’t know,” Grace answered smartly. “I didn’t mean to.” The question tugged at his chest a bit. He usually wouldn’t suspect much from a simple cough, but accompanied with some of the other things he’d been experiencing lately— the dry throat, the bile, the fatigue— the question brought him pause. He knew that in two months, when he would run out of proper meals, he’d feel fatigued, but that was a whole two months away. He ate two subpar meals a day on the Hail Mary, and that had been enough to keep him going for the past two years, so what gives? Why was there an odd scratch in the back of his throat?
“Cough dangerous, question?” Rocky questioned. For Eridians not being very emotional creatures, Rocky sure knew how to tell when Grace was upset or nervous.
“Sometimes,” Grace murmured, feeling a pit starting to open up in his stomach. He didn’t want to explain illness to Rocky— avoidance had always been his best friend when it came to tough conversations— but if he were to become incapacitated because of any potential illness, Rocky would need to know what to do to help him survive it.
He’d cross that bridge later. It was probably just a little cold.
Rocky stomped one of his claws down onto the floor of his xenonite ball, as if to demand a faster explanation from Grace. The human sighed. “Coughing can mean someone’s sick.”
“New word.” Rocky pronounced it in his language, and Grace typed it into the translation software. “What mean, question?”
“Sick is when you don’t feel good. Your body gives up, kind of. It can be different depending on what illness- what kind of sick it is,” Grace explained gently, more for himself than for Rocky.
“What kind you have, question?” Rocky demanded (if it was even possible for the robotic translation voice to sound demanding).
“None,” Grace stated, squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head ever so gently. “I’m not sick.”
“But Grace cough,” the Eridian observed. “Cough indicates sickness. Grace sick.”
“I hope I’m not sick, alright?” Grace responded dryly, forcing a humorless chuckle. “I probably just had a frog in my throat. I’m fine.”
“What mean—”
“Human expression, don’t worry about it,” the scientist sighed. He really needed to remember to stop saying things like that without preparing to explain it to his alien friend. “I’m okay, Rocky, I promise. If I get worse, I’ll tell you.”
“Good good good,” Rocky hummed, returning his focus to his figurines. “Tree almost finished. Rocky make fox next.”
“Sounds great, buddy,” Grace replied softly. On his laptop, he opened a new Microsoft Word and began a list:
Grace’s Symptoms:
-cough with occasional bile rising
-dry throat
-new/unprompted fatigue
He really hoped it would end there.
Grace had never been a lucky person back on Earth. He’d entered the lottery many times and never won— although that was the case for pretty much everybody. But he was also picked last every time for literally anything, and he also was clumsier than most of his sixth graders, and he was the stupidest smart scientist available for the Hail Mary mission. The only lucky part about him was the coma gene, he supposed, although that 1-in-7,000 chance did more harm to him than good.
He’s not surprised when, to his utmost fear, he begins to fall worse.
His cough is never dry anymore— it’s accompanied by thick, yellow bile and a chest so tight it feels like he could explode at any moment. His fatigue only gets worse; Rocky practically has to wrestle Grace to get him awake in their “mornings”. He finds himself in a constant state of feeling too warm or too cold, no in-between in sight.
One night, Grace is shivering so badly that he slinks out of his bed, blankets and all, and lays directly next to Rocky against the xenonite wall. The barrier provides some protection from the burning heat of Rocky’s atmosphere, but when one or both of them stand too close to the wall, it can still be extremely warm. Desperately, Grace clawed at the mesh side of the ball, trying to feel his way into Rocky’s warm atmosphere.
As soon as he noticed Grace, Rocky let out a horrible shrieking sound. “What is Grace doing, question?! Heat will kill Grace!” Rocky cried out. “Bad bad bad! Grace will die!”
Grace, to Rocky’s dismay, instead only sighs with relief. “This feels better,” the human mumbled, allowing his tired eyes to droop closed.
“No no no no no, very bad Grace, very bad!” Rocky continued to shriek. “Very bad Grace, Grace move, Grace stop!”
“No, Rocky, it feels good…” Grace mumbled into his heap of blankets. “I’m freezing in the bed… this is better…”
“Is too warm for Grace body!” Rocky exclaimed. “Why Grace choose this? Why, question?”
“It’s nice,” Grace restates, looking at his alien companion through half-lidded eyes. “I was too cold in my bed. You’re nice and warm.”
“Grace Rocky not touching, statement,” Rocky corrected.
Grace shrugged. “We can’t yet. This is as close as I can get,” he huffed, pushing the side of his body closer to the xenonite wall, soaking in as much warmth as he could.
“Why Grace want close, question? Grace get burned! Grace will hurt!”
“Rocky, how many times do I have to explain this, I’m too cold!” Grace whined. “This makes balance. Now I feel regular.”
“But Hail Mary regular,” the Eridian observed. “Not too cold. Why Grace cold, question?”
“’Cause Grace is sick,” Grace groaned, accepting his defeat. “And no, Rock, I don’t know why, and I don’t know how. But I am. I’m sick.”
“Grace lie!” Rocky shrieked. “Worse than close. Grace lie to Rocky! Why, question?”
“I didn’t want to scare you. Or admit to myself that I’m sick. Probably both.” The room fell quiet for a moment. “Because I’m scared,” Grace finally murmured. Suddenly, the heat radiating off of the wall started feeling a bit warm, and so Grace scooted himself away from the crevasse he’d stuffed himself into.
“Scared why, question?”
“We’re in the middle of space! My home, where doctors— those are people to fix sick people— are, is light fudging decades away! The ship has medicine, but what if it’s too serious? I could die.” The word itself made Grace’s lip quiver. He didn’t want to think about his upcoming death— especially not with Rocky beside him— but it was so early in the morning and he was so very sick and so very exhausted.
“Grace not tell Rocky Grace could die from sick,” the Eridian murmured.
“I figured it was implied.”
“What mean? Why Grace not tell Rocky Grace could die?!” Rocky cried.
That question brought Grace to silence. Why didn’t he tell Rocky? Was it for the same reason he didn’t originally share that his journey on the Hail Mary was supposed to be a one-way trip? Was it for the same reason that he took off his helmet in the tunnel to Blip-A, not knowing if he would breathe in oxygen or ammonia or nothing at all?
“I was trying not to think about it,” Grace finally murmured in response.
“Why not think about imminent death, question? Human brain stupid. Death big deal,” Rocky grumbled. He turned his carapace away from Grace, his claws twitching uncontrollably.
“First of all, my death isn’t imminent,” Grace replied snarkily, “and secondly, it’s denial. It’s a coping mechanism. Humans do it all the time.”
“What mean, question?”
“Denial? Or coping mechanism?”
“Both.”
Grace ran a hand down his face. Christ almighty, this is not the conversation he wanted to be having right now, or ever, for that matter. “Denial is when you pretend something isn’t real. A coping mechanism is something your brain does to try and make you feel better about a situation.”
Rocky paused for a moment. “Grace lie to self to make human brain… what, question?” he finally asked.
“Less scared? More hopeful? Less hopeless? I don’t know,” Grace huffed, folding his arms across his chest and then letting out a horrendous cough.
“Grace, how Rocky fix, question?”
“Y’know, Rock, the human brain is quite a wonder, even humans themselves don’t have most of it figured out—”
“Grace, no. How Rocky fix Grace sickness, question?”
“Depends on what sickness I have.”
“What sickness Grace have, question?”
Grace doesn’t have the energy to make a comment about how he and Rocky had this exact same conversation days ago. “I don’t know,” he admitted in defeat.
“How Grace find out, question?”
“Observation.”
“Science!” Rocky chirped in a high tone.
“Yes, science. Scientific method. Observe, hypothesis, test…” For a moment, Grace felt like he was back in his classroom and Grover Cleveland Middle. He could feel excitement crawling up his skin— oh, no, those are just the chills. Back again.
Grace quickly flung himself back into the crevasse of Rocky’s tunnel-tank-xenonite-thing, shivering as he pulled his layers of blankets back up to his chin.
“Grace always cold, observation,” Rocky noted quietly. He settled himself down beside Grace on the other side of the translucent xenonite barrier.
“Yep,” Grace murmured, teeth beginning to chatter. There was no way he was this cold. That couldn’t be possible.
“What other… wrong about Grace, question?”
“We call the characteristics of sickness symptoms,” Grace explained softly. “I have a list, on my computer.”
“Go get computer.”
“B-but I’m cold.”
Rocky hummed. “Look at computer after next sleep, question?”
Grace allowed his eyes to fall shut. “Y-yeah,” he murmured, scooting closer to the xenonite wall. His entire right side was flushed against the cool glassy texture. On the other side of the barrier, Rocky did the same. The warmth from the Eridian sent waves of relief through Grace’s icy veins. “Thank you, Rock.”
“If Grace starts to leak, Rocky will move, statement,” Rocky said softly. “Can’t burn friend Grace.” The blonde laughs weakly on the other side, but can’t bring himself to speak. “Time go sleep. Rocky watch,” the Eridian commands. Grace cuddles in closer to the xenonite once more, and within minutes, he’s out.