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"I believe if there's any kind of God it wouldn't be in any of us, not you or me but just this little space in between. If there's any kind of magic in this world, it must be in the attempt of understanding someone sharing something. The answer must be in the attempt."
-- Before Sunrise (1995)
For as long as Rocky could remember, his idle task was crafting xenonite sculptures. Grace once observed the habit as being similar to human "whittling". They both found the comparison to be charming. With all of the vast differences between Eridian and human life, there existed the consistent desire to turn off one's mind and create aimlessly. Grace suggested it was attributed to their advanced cognitive function, a type of healthy exercise to maintain focus when their minds would rather travel elsewhere.
Little figures and ships are his default. Most of them live short lives before being smashed or molded into something else. Some may be used briefly for a puppet show before they reach their demise. A particularly lucky one may have been sent to Earth on board a Beetle instead of being kept with Grace, but Rocky tried to take it in stride. He can make more.
There is one that Rocky has kept, though. It is placed with care near his favorite space for sleeping. From the dip in the xenonite wall, specifically crafted with the dimensions to allow a human to rest within comfortably, it is presumably within Grace's line of sight.
He should not have been caught off guard when Grace mentioned it. After all, he did it somewhat on purpose. He wanted Grace to ask him about it. And yet.
"Is nothing," is what Rocky says instead.
"It looks like a little ████," Grace continues, undeterred.
"Need word."
"It's an object of religious importance. Many humans use them for worship, or to provide a sense of comfort or protection."
Rocky ponders that for a moment. It is not a religious icon, for sure. But-
"Do Eridians have religion?"
"Yes. Many many religions," Rocky replies. "Very similar. But different interpretation."
"It's similar on Earth. Do you follow any of them?"
"No. I am atheist."
That earns a little laugh out of Grace. "That makes two of us, then."
"Figure not icon or religious but provide…" He clicks his claws slowly, combing through his memory of what words had already been integrated into their shared vocabulary. "Solace."
Grace raises his eyebrows. "Can I take a closer look at it?"
That's what you wanted, deep down, right? Rocky feels a pang of fear but pushes through. With a slight tremble in his hand, he drops the figure into the xenonite share-box.
Grace doesn't touch it. It's too hot and will continue to be so for the next forty-five minutes. But from the box, he is able to see it. He doesn't say anything for awhile.
"Is that me?"
*****
It was in the second year of their voyage to Erid that Rocky finalized his upgrade from the xenonite ball. The design wasn't particularly novel. He was inspired by the desire to perform a specific function and built everything around it.
He wanted to be able to use his hands in Grace's environment.
When Grace asked him about his project, Rocky gave the pragmatic response. It was a form of insurance in case Grace was unable to pilot the ship and Rocky needed to take over. He refused to entertain the thought for longer than necessary, but Grace had a bad habit of bringing it up when he felt especially weak or sick or sad.
Rocky almost felt spiteful when he would work on the project. Maybe if he did this, Grace would stop mentioning his mortality as if it would be an inconvenience to Rocky rather than world-shattering.
There were additional reasons for his project, but they were far more indulgent. Although Eridians are unfamiliar with the human practice of "hugging", it does not mean they do not crave basking in the heat of another. From what Rocky has gathered from Grace and his delves into human culture, he understands that Eridians are generally less affectionate. However, this human-perceived "coldness" does not apply to mates or members of close family units.
His initial apprehensive discomfort to Grace wrapping his arms around his xenonite ball now feels like a distant memory. He finds himself pressing his carapace against the surface, his fingers tapping fervently in an effort to map out every detail of Grace, far more often than he cares to admit.
His fingers twitch. He wants to touch Grace. He wants to feel the dip of his soft, fragile body until it hits bone. It terrifies Rocky that the strongest material in Grace's body would crumble under his mere weight. Despite every thought in his mind urging him otherwise, he would practice a gentleness reserved for the youngest pebble.
Grace's body is alive despite every detail telling Rocky otherwise. His human is a cold and wet thing, yet there are biological pumps within his body that shuttle around heated blood no differently than in an Eridian. Rocky knows the blood within him is hot because he can hear its vibration, a static hum that accompanies all that produces heat. But what Rocky wants nothing more is to press his palms against Grace until he can feel it, that scant heat, that proof that he is in fact alive.
*****
Eridian religion is a fascinating thing. If Rocky and Grace's Eridian-English creole was slightly more sophisticated, Rocky would feel compelled to explain the nuance, the variations, the beauty in it all. They'll get there, he is sure. If not he will simply show Grace once they arrive on Erid.
Adrian came from a particularly devout commune, despite also growing to become an atheist themself. He remembers their family's living spaces being always occupied, always loud. If it was not the chimes, it was the pipes. If it was not the pipes, then it was the near-constant trills and hums. If it was none of those, then it was simply the noise of the surrounding world: the wind, the crashing water of the nearby river, the violent and short lives of the prey animals. They were raised in an area where it made perfect sense to attribute life with something supernatural; if your existence was part of a symphony, then it was reasonable to assume a maestro wrote it.
Rocky often found himself jealous of the believers. He felt jealous that someone could feel so compelled by an otherworldly force that they would dedicate their lives to it. The easy fall into a space where you know exactly what to live and die for.
He recalls the raised scar in his hand's shape on Grace's arm, recalls the sensation of the air within his own lungs oxidizing and igniting into flame, recalls the body sleeping curled against the xenonite between them.
*****
Rocky's favorite figure is in his hand now. He tilts his wrist back and forth, allowing it to make a walking motion. In the air, suspended. An impossible feat. It needs a surface to walk upon, perhaps something soft and strange and cold.
He makes the figure saunter until it lands on a sliver of exposed skin near Grace's hip. Grace's breath trips in response.
"Hey, I know that guy," Grace says with a grin, an expression that once frightened Rocky but he now approaches with an undeniable fondness.
He makes the figure walk along Grace's stomach. The fabric of Grace's t-shirt snags the xenonite that shields Rocky's hand and pulls, exposing him further. Grace doesn't make an effort to cover himself and Rocky praises those gods he doesn't believe in. In an effort to make sure Grace doesn't feel the weight of Rocky's arm, he keeps his touch light, barely grazing the skin.
Rocky doesn't know why barely touching Grace causes him to squirm and laugh. He uses a free hand to gently tap the floor besides Grace, enough to capture every detail of his expression. What a peculiar, delightful reaction. He does it until Grace is breathless and swatting at him.
The figure meanders up through the valley of his rib-cage. He pauses the figure on Grace's sternum, as if it's assessing the bony, jutting landscape surrounding it.
So much of Grace has become like this recently, all sharp angles covered in a loose sheet.
He doesn't realize how dearly he is gripping at his first perception of Grace, the first time he heard him. How much he took for granted the way his body sounded when it was healthy.
Grace reaches out and grabs one of Rocky's free hands, engulfs it in his own. Cold cold cold, even with the xenonite acting as a buffer between them. His thumb pushes into Rocky's palm until his three fingers are splayed.
"Hey, Rock. I'm right here, buddy."
"Grace right here," he replies, notes drawn out, languid. Smart smart Grace. Where he lacks in numbers, he makes up in perceiving body language. Even if that body language is spoken in a tongue that his body does not possess.
"You wanna watch a movie?"
The movie Grace put on would have bored Rocky several years ago. It is not action-packed or excitable or loud. It is dialogue-heavy, something that Rocky can now appreciate with his near-English fluency.
What is evading Rocky this time, though, is in between the words.
"Hm," Rocky sings, which is Grace's cue to pause the film. "What is happening question?"
"Okay." Grace is laying on his stomach on the floor of the viewing platform, his legs bent such that his feet point ahead of him. It is a pose that Rocky would describe as "girlish" from his gathered understanding Earth culture. He additionally denotes it as "cute". "The two characters like each other, but they are both too scared to say something."
"Bust a move."
"You got it. So, Ethan Hawke—that's the guy—he can't stop looking at the girl. Every opportunity he gets, he is looking at her. But he doesn't want her to notice. Meanwhile, she is doing the same thing."
"Why they keep looking at each other question?"
"They want to absorb every piece of information they can get from the other person. Humans are visual, remember? We achieve this with our eyes."
Rocky allows himself to sing an entertained note. "Earth and Erid very similar."
"Oh yeah? What do you guys do when you're too chicken to bust a move?"
Chicken? Interesting. But Rocky has enough context clues to understand what Grace is asking. "Do this."
Rocky, ever so gently, taps a single finger on the ground next to Grace.
"Heavy enough to hear other person. Soft enough that they do not hear. Usually."
The blood vessels in Grace's face and neck increase their pressure. This means he is flustered or sick or upset. Rocky thinks it is the former, given their topic of conversation.
Just because another Eridian cannot hear, does not mean a human cannot see. Rocky feels the mercury flowing in his veins slow at the realization that Grace may have noticed his previous little attempts to steal a listen.
For sake of self-preservation, and perhaps to get more of that fascinating reaction from Grace, Rocky says, "You watch me often."
"Yeah?" Grace's voice is wobbly, nervous.
Rocky feels as if he is standing on a ledge, the emptiness ahead of him loud in its silence.
"I like way Grace sound," Rocky ventures, "when Grace think I am not listening."
Forty-six years is a long time to be stranded alone on the Blip A. It is also, Rocky has learned, a very long time for a human.
Long enough to encompass the entire life of Grace, in fact.
This information does not sit well with Rocky.
Eridians have perfect memory, which is generally a helpful and sought-after trait. For healing from traumatic events, though, less-so. Significantly less-so.
The overlap in time doesn't particularly bother him. The universe is a vast and strange place, as is continually proven by the mere existence of Grace and their fateful meeting. What troubles him is the rift in expectation that is exposed.
There isn't enough time.
"Why show me this question?" Rocky had asked after they finished the movie. All five of his hearts felt heavy. "Grace cry all the time. You want more cry question? You want Rocky cry question?"
Grace laughs in between the sobs. "It's a good cry! It's cathartic!"
"Not cathartic! Sad!"
"What's so sad about it?"
"Ethan Hawke and Julia Delpy meet and fall in love. Best day of their lives. And then never see each other again. Why question? Tragic. Like symbolism for fleetingness of life."
"What was that last phrase you said?"
"Short time, temporary. In grand scheme of things, does not last long at all."
"That's kinda the point. Just because what they had was temporary doesn't mean it was meaningless. Sometimes the most important things to happen to us are short compared to the rest of our lives."
Rocky can't help but emit a wobbly chord. Grace's face softens in response. He tries again, with emphasis on each note, "Grace life feels like one day compared to Rocky life. Want more than one day with Grace."
Oh, there goes Grace being a wet human again. Rocky can't blame him, though. Eridians don't secrete fluids when they are under emotional distress, but they do emit a response that Grace and Rocky have compromised as a "wail". Grace once said that it sounded like the whistling of wind. Grace, his smart smart perceptive human. If only he knew that the basis of so much Eridian mythos was tied to that very comparison.
"Rocky, come here." He didn't have to ask twice. "Give me one of your hands."
Grace holds Rocky's hand, tracing a finger over the delicate planes of xenonite, so fractured that it almost resembled a mesh.
"Would it gross you out if I kissed you?"
"Gross but want anyway. Complicated."
He smiles at that before raising Rocky's hand to his face and pressing his lips against the palm. Warm warm warm. His fingers curl against Grace's cheeks, one of them cutting through a trail of teartracks.
"I waited forty-six years for Grace. Stayed alive for Grace."
Grace exhales a shuttered breath against Rocky's palm. Rocky can't help but tremble in response.
"You know what would be funny? If we are both wrong and there is some meaning behind all of this. Maybe I was born to end up right here. Maybe it was fate."
*****
Rocky places his carapace against Grace's stomach, extends a hand and taps a finger against that concave valley in between his ribs. He trills, staggered, in awe to the symphony that he hears in response.
"Are you listening to the ocean?"
Rocky has waded through enough Earth media and lingo by this point to recognize that Grace is referencing something. He doesn't know what, nor does he entirely care in the moment.
"Not ocean. Universe."
Grace's shaky breath rattles through his lungs like rusted brass chimes, the kind that Adrian's parents used to keep outside of their home. The gods are always talking and this is how you listen, they would sing. Rocky uses his second arm to curl around Grace's midsection and pull him close enough without hurting him.