Archive of Our Own

Ryland Grace was a tiny, little bit terrified.

He didn’t mean to be but alas, that was the crux of his very own existence. Shaking in his boots while he tried to stammer his way out of situations. The worst part was that this particular one could be blamed entirely on him. No outside influence or beings that forced him into seeking it out, but his own stupidity.

The occasion didn’t even warrant this level of apprehension, he thought. Not after being hunted down on Earth to unwillingly carry out a mission that wasn’t his own. And certainly not after experiencing the horror of an impending, dying body on the journey back to a home that wasn’t his own.

The dread that he felt in that moment shouldn’t have even come close to the terror he had felt the moment the Hail Mary had docked on Erid, but Rocky’s mate was terrifying.

And Grace, no matter how much Rocky would get mad at him every time he pointed it out, was still a coward. A fragile, soft human who very much felt his knees tremble when confronted by imposing figures (such as Adrian! Or the whole committee that sent him to his death, really).

He had had the honor of speaking with them a few times since his arrival on Erid. For most of those times he had been (predictably) half-delirious, though. At first from starvation, then from a fever from an internal infection that had almost swept him out of existence, and then from the powerful drugs the medic had poured into him just to keep his heart beating. Grace had rarely been particularly lucid during those days, and when he had been, Rocky had been by his side to create a nice buffer between him and Adrian.

Now, though, there was no Rocky to chirp in for him and no immediate danger to his life to excuse the way his heart was trying to claw its way out of his throat as he walked to the edge of his biome. The encompassing darkness that awaited behind the barrier that separated him from the rest of Erid always reminded him of Rocky’s ship, of knocking and knocking against the wall between them, unable to peer into the ship’s voice to ascertain if his best friend was still alive or if Grace had arrived too late.

A shiver went straight through him at the memory, the pit of his stomach opening up as if to consume him whole. He curved the sensation, ignoring the way the hair on his forearms stood on end at the mere reminder. He knocked on the glass a couple of times, a barely there motion covered in uncertainty that reverberated softly back to him, to the heart cleanly lodged in his throat.

Grace felt them before he even saw them, steps vibrating through the space separating them, making his toes curl inside his shoes from the ticklish sensation. Adrian moved forward with precision, their carapace shining as they came to stand close enough for the artificial light of the biome to reflect on them.

They were a wonder, Grace had no problem admitting. Much bigger in size than Rocky (which apparently wasn’t that hard to be for eridians), they could reach Grace’s height easily and didn’t care at all for the way they occupied space, reacting animatedly to anything they were told. Their carapace was made from a jade like material that changed hues depending on their movements, on how the light reflected on them. The usual sediments that covered Rocky’s body, clinging to its frame in speckles, couldn’t be found on Adrian’s body. Instead, they had crystal formations that clung to their ‘articulations’, making them shine with a cluster of brightened colours close to a rainbow.

And even then, the thing that always caught Grace’s attention was the inlaid symbol at the top of one of their limbs, big enough to be noticeable to him and textured enough to be noticeable to any eridian. Even if Rocky hadn’t explained what mate’s marks where to him, it would have become clear to him just by how clear and proudly Adrian wore the colour and texture of Rocky’s body on their own.

“Hey, Adrian,” he said when they were close enough, even though they had probably been able to listen to his heartbeat since the moment he stepped out of his house.

He had taken the computer with him because, although Rocky understood him after years of living in close quarters together, he would be damned if he tried to impose that every single eridian that communicated with him knew his language. Even more so when he was unable to speak their language due to his own biological limitations.

Which sucked, if he was being honest. Being able to understand a language but having no way of speaking it back to his friend was frustration he never thought he would end up feeling.

Hence his little translator friend, who sang his greeting to Adrian just as they tapped the barrier, chirping; a sound so deep it echoed throughout Grace’s entire body.

Woah.

He was so used to Rocky’s higher frequency that he still felt a little unmoored every time other eridians tried to communicate with him, as if trying to understand someone with a thick, foreign accent. Still, he squinted his eyes and committed to understanding every single sound.

“Hello, Grace,” they said, in the usual no-nonsense tone Grace had gotten used to. “Are you well?”

“I am, thank you,” he said, settling the computer down on the nearby rocks, hand coming up to scratch at his ear as he tried to a normal, functional alien. “Everyone has been taking great care of me. I— I appreciate it. Are, are you well, too?”

“I am,” their carapace shuddered, tilting its way and that, and Grace recognized it for the little, happy dance that it was. “Adrian happy that Rocky is back home. That Erid is safe. All thanks to Grace.”

He stuttered, his breath coming out as a brief and awkward laugh as he glanced away. He never knew what to do with the gratitude that the eridians so genuinely professed to him. He had never liked being the centre of attention, even less now that an entire alien species had put him on a pedestal he doubted he should be on, with what little societal cues he had now unequivocally obsolete.

Adrian seemed to see through all of this, because they turned their body once, twice, before settling again and asking: “Grace need something, question?”

Let it be known that Grade had nothing but awe and respect for Adrian. They had taken to building his biome with a swiftness and a earnestness Grace had never witnessed before. They had listened to every single one of his requests, no matter how big, no matter how small, no matter how delirious or out of it he was when he made them. He was eternally grateful to them, for how they chose to utilize their skills and intelligence for his protection and well-being.

That’s why asking them for anything left him feeling like a child grabbing onto his mother’s sleeve, tugging at it to get her attention.

“Uhm. Yeah. Yes. It’s… gosh,” he sighed, hands coming up to press his fingers to his eyes from behind the glasses. “It’s Rocky’s birth day soon.”

“I know it’s different for eridians, but birthdays are very important to humans. We usually get together to celebrate; eat the favourite food of the one being celebrated, give gifts to them…” he said, tongue tingling with the faint taste of chocolate cake. He swallowed to get rid of the feeling, to get rid of the memories that would have pierced him like a ballon. “I want to do that for Rocky.”

“Maybe not the eating part,” he added, shuddering as he remembered the time Rocky had showed him how his kind ate. Grace loved his best friend to death but… Well. The line had to be drawn somewhere. “But the gift giving… Do you guys have any special tradition around it? Or is there something I could get him or do for him that would mean a lot in your culture?”

He let the computer patter out its translation, swift and awkward as if it was trying really hard to remember all of Grace’s verbosity. Adrian looked on as they listened, claws squeezing shut and opening as they thought, two of their limbs tapping the floor when they understood.

“Eridians usually make model of our favourite memory together.”

“A model?”

“Rocky took Adrian to mountain to start courting,” they said, the movable pieces from the top of their carapace vibrating as they curled a little on themselves, as if shy. “Adrian made model of mountain for Rocky.”

“Oh. Oh!” Grace exclaimed, fingers pulling at one of the loosened threads from his sweater as he thought about it. “That’s beautiful.”

And complicated. He tried not to let Adrian see the sudden wave of anxiety that crashed over him, squeezing the back of his ribs back and into the softest part of his chest. Making models. The thing he was horrifyingly bad at. Great!

“Grace can do that,” Adrian sang, limbs twisting and turning, excited that they could have helped him. “Rocky will love.”

Grace somehow doubted both of those statements.

It wasn’t like Rocky would throw whatever Grace gifted him back to his face. He didn’t think it was in Rocky’s nature to be that mean but he was… particular, about the way things had to be done, about the importance of the process as well as the importance of the result. Grace had seen it a million times since they started their partnership to save their planets, and then had seen it a million times more when the Hail Mary had set course to Erid with a new addition to their crew.

His tonal speech and the way his comments sometimes landed couldn’t even be considered mean, for he didn’t have a single bone of bad faith in him. Rocky was a direct being with a very distinct way of talking, and the precise ability to get under your skin just to pull an insecurity you didn’t know you had out of it.

And trust Grace, he didn’t even know he could feel insecure about not knowing how to make models by the turn of his fingers until he met his alien friend.

That’s how Armando and Mary found him after his talk with Adrian, slumped over the kitchen table, with his forehead pressed into it and spiralling about it. His arms laid limp beside him, shoulders forced to relax after spending the entire day with them hitched up his ears without him realizing.

He could hear the rotation of Armando’s limbs as he hovered over Grace, the beep, beep, beep of his software trying to check if Grace needed medical attention.

Grace still not have pilot experience. We die, we die, we die, was what echoed in Grace’s mind nonstop as he thought about what could he possibly make for Rocky that wouldn’t out him as even more of an embarrassment to his friend. He felt Armando’s plastic claw settle on his head, giving him a little shake and Grace sighed, sitting up slowly so he wouldn’t startle the machine.

“I’m fine, Armando,” he said, glasses askew. It was a miracle that they had survived as long as they had, considering Grace had next to no consideration for their fragility. He put them back on properly, groaning as he leaned backwards on the chair, letting his head hand further than it should, neck straining.

He could make the Petrova line. The design was simple enough and it was something that held importance for the both of them. But then, like getting snatched out of his own body, he remembered the flashing red lights, that acute out of body feeling as everything spun around him, as the entire side of his face burned incomprehensibly. The feeling of being unable to distinguish if the buzzing in his ears was Mary’s alarm, Rocky’s screams or his body sizzling in the ship’s atmosphere.

He straightened up, making Armando flinch, his fingers finding the scars on his forearms, tracing the raised skin and shuddering. No Petrova line. Nope.

But what then? Adrian’s planet? It had been stunningly out of this world for Grace but it had barely held any interest for Rocky. Maybe a model of Rocky’s ship… They had only spent a little while in there together but maybe— Or maybe not. Thinking further on it, Grace doubted that Rocky would want a reminder of the place he had seen his crewmates die, of the home he had had to leave behind, leaving them forever stranded in space.

The hatch’s alarm wrenched him out of his thoughts, as if dragging him out from where he had been submerged in water. He breathed in deeply, blinking as he reoriented himself. Right. The food supplies that the medical team sent through Grace’s shuttle and into his kitchen’s hatch. He stood up to open it, thinking of how to reorganize the cupboards so some of the rations wouldn’t slip from his mind until it was too late to consume them. His hand found the line of his neck to press into the ache that had formed there, brow furrowing and the continuous alarm.

“Mary, can you—” he started, then stopped, freezing in place.

Our favourite moment together, Adrian had said, and what had contained every single memory that Grace treasured? What had been their protection, their resting place when weary, the very that they had built a thousand light years away from their own planets?"

“Mary. Mary!”

“Yes, Grace?”

“Oh, Mary. You’re great, you’re a genius. Thank you,” he said, voice tilting up as he spun around in the kitchen, arms stretching upwards in victory.

“You’re welcome, Grace,” she replied, sweet mechanical voice echoing throughout the house as she deactivated the alarm, unlocking the hatch for Grace.

“Okay,” Grace murmured, clapping his hands, Armando copying him from where he was standing behind him. “Game plan.”

His game plan was… not much of a game plan, really. It all hinged on Rocky being completely oblivious (which had a fifty, fifty chance of happening) and Grace being sneak about it (which had zero chance of happening). Which was certainly not ideal. He felt as if he was inside a derailed train, just waiting for the inevitable to happen.

“Do you want to have a puppet show? Grace asked Rocky anyway, fingers sinking in the sand, gathering heaps of it to have something to hold onto.

They were both sitting at the beach, watching the way the waves broke against the shore in striking, unnatural formations. The engineers in charge of the biome were currently working on how to optimize the flow of the water to make the waves a little bigger, upon Grace’s request, and Rocky had become mesmerized by the sight, vibrating in place as he listened to the sounds of his fellow eridians working.

To Grace, though, there was nothing but the sound of the water dragging in the pebbles resting on the shore, the memory of a much smaller and lankier him laughing in delight as he played hide and seek with the waves.

It had been a few days sin his conversation with Adrian, where he had asked them to keep it a secret; both the fact that Grace had asked them to come to the biome to talk to him and the topic of the conversation itself.

They had seemed to respect his wishes, because Rocky hadn’t busted his door open, hadn’t crawled all over him, like a cat digging his claws in to climb the length of his legs, hadn’t demanded answers as to why Grace was talking to his mate behind his back. Instead, he had showed up at his door and knocked on it as any other day. Had bickered with Grace all the way down to the beach, pressing happily into Grace’s calves from time to time.

Rocky stilled for a second, body turning to face Grace at the same speed as someone who might had had the guts to ask him if he had fallen on his head as a child.

“Grace hate puppet show,” he said, instead, foregoing any comments about Grace’s intelligence to settle beside him with a comfortable chip.

“I don’t hate it,” Grace replied, like a liar. His hand came up to settle atop Rocky’s body, fingers curling in gently, seeking his warmth.

Even through the exoskeleton, Rocky’s temperature was high enough to make the skin smart. Grace had made himself endure it for the first few months, fighting with his own biology through spite and the pure desire to finally touch his best friend. It settled something deep and untouched, to have him so near after years and years of being separated by each other’s atmospheres.

And so Grace persevered, through the sickness of his body and its recovery, until once day it hadn’t hurt anymore. Like a grandmother who had spent so many years cooking for her family that her hands could be put to the fire without burning, Grace had been simply able to wrap himself around Rocky and relish it.

“I was just stressed about having to save two different planets. You know, no big deal.”

Rocky trilled, knocking his body lightly against Grace’s side in admonishment for his tone before nuzzling deeper into his embrace. The weather cycle had been tipping into winter for the past days, making Grace taste the bite of the cold on his cheeks, the half-forgotten habit of rubbing his palms together to stay warm.

The wind picked up then, rustling Grace’s hair and clothes. He closed his eyes, turning his face into it to feel the way it caressed the strands off his forehead, whistling in his ears. Rocky’s claw came up to grab the edge of Grace’s sweater, flapping in the wind as it was, to gently close it so Grace could stay warm.

“Rocky like puppet show,” he settled on, body relaxing against Grace. He had been letting Grace take more of his weight since he had proved to be fully functioning again, with all of his muscles back in working order.

The first time Rocky had allowed it to try it, half-bossy and half-vibrating out of his suit with anxiety, Grace had cried in big, heaving sobs, the sheer relief of feeling Rocky’s carefully placed weight on his chest practically choking him.

Now, Grace took his weight with a humorous oof, body only straining slightly as he allowed Rocky’s limbs to press into the dip of his back, the curve of his thigh. Clingy, little, alien spider. “Rocky can bring models.”

“Or maybe you can show me how to make them?”

Nailed it, he thought, feeling the vibration of Rocky’s melodic laugh in every crevice of his body.

“Grace not good at making models.”

“I know,” Grace conceded, eyes still closed and face turned to the wind. He knocked on Rocky’s exoskeleton once, twice, until one of Rocky’s claws came up to stop him, holding two of his fingers in his. “But I want to learn.”

Rocky went silent, then. His claws tightened around Grace’s soft fingers rhythmically tender, a soft hum coming from him, thinking. About their time in the Hail Mary, probably. About how Grace had toppled down the entire model for the Tau Ceti system in his clumsiness. How easily Rocky had laughed, and how Grace had understood immediately that it was laughter, without any machine in between them.

Or maybe he was thinking about how hard Grace’s heart was beating in that moment. How soft, alien Grace could be so loud and still think he had a chance at fooling Rocky. How the siren that was his heartbeat surrounded him, pressed up against him as he was, and how he wouldn’t dare move a single inch.

“Rocky teach Grace,” Rocky’s bright notes finally cut through the rippling of the wind. He jumped up and down a little bit, voice going high enough with excitement that Grace’s ears could barely make out the meaning. “Grace very good after.”

Grace not very good after.

Rocky had ended up being too excited to even wait, dipping right out of the biodome to get all the tools and materials that he needed before setting up shop in Grace’s living room.

Grace hadn’t expected his request to be met with such enthusiasm and… immediateness. But here he was, bundled in blankets and watching as Rocky set out every material for Grace to peruse.

With a movie that they had argued about for half an hour playing in the background, Rocky explained what every tool did; what material was best for creating flexible pieces and which one would withhold anything if he needed to create something unshakable. He sat near Grace, claws and limbs moving so expertly Grace had to blink hard from time to time just to make sure the movement didn’t blur in his vision.

He explained how to perfectly weld two pieces together, no matter their integrity, and how to bend xenonite easy enough that even children (and Grace) could do it. Between one explanation and the next, Grace had found his fingers itching, chest tugging as the curiosity grew and grew, a colossal shadow that swallowed up his previous anxiety.

“Can I try?” he asked Rocky, hands coming out from where they had been hiding inside the blanket.

He didn’t wait for an answer, body already moving as his brain lit up, delighted. The touch of the xenonite on his palms calmed him, quietening that urge and pressure to ponder how beautiful or how accurate his own model would turn out to be. Grace marvelled at the simple pleasure of binding and bending something that could be malleable, eyes alight as his hand closed around one of Rocky’s tools.

Rocky stood, rock still, as still as Grace had seen him only when asleep, and he had only moved again after Grace had successfully welded two pieces together, a whole body vibration going through him, as if pleased.

From then, they spent the entire afternoon and part of the evening, deep into Grace’s sleep cycle, working side by side on their own models.

Unfortunately for Grace, the relief he had felt in the beginning started souring shortly after, when he was finally confronted by the reality that the idea he had in his mind was leagues above and beyond anything his hands could have created. He was currently making (trying to make) the space in the Hail Mary that had housed them both when Rocky asked: “What is Grace making, question?”

“No idea yet, pal,” he said, and it wasn’t even lie, considering that whatever was taking form in his hands was nothing like Mary. “I’ll figure it out as I go.”

What was what his kids used to say back home? Trust the process? Well, Grace was trusting none of it.

And he was smart not to do so, because right then his hands faltered, and the whole thing came crashing to the floor, making a clunk sound against it that hammered right into his very soul.

“Ouch,” he said, more drama than anything else. He leaned down to rescue it, the palm of his hands cupping it gently to check if it had cracked anywhere.

“Grace hurt!?” Rocky immediately screeched, limbs straightening up until they were higher than his own carapace. He made his way to Grace in two defining rotations of his body, his own project forgotten.

“No, Rock, not hurt,” he muttered, enduring the quick check up that Rocky performed on him. He made sure to somewhat hide the model in a half-closed fist, so Rocky wouldn’t be able to peer into it and draw some similarities. Which was speaking way too high of Grace’s abilities. “Maybe my pride.”

Once Rocky had relaxed after finding nothing wrong with him, he snickered, a little sound that was surprisingly close to a chiming bell. Grace leaned into it, his shoulders relaxing even when he knew he was being laughed at.

“Humans bad with hands,” sang Rocky as he made his way back to his own project.

The feeling, sudden and cutting, of being wrenched back into the past was staggering. Grace sat there, for a moment, on a planet that wasn’t Erid, with someone he had thought of as a friend. His eyes focused on the cuff-links of his suit, on his big hands and dark skin before he even realized there were words coming out of his mouth.

“You’re gonna be the best father, Carl,” and there was laughter in his voice, his own hands shaking from adrenaline, from uncertainty as he watched him untighten the screws Grace’s wrists had suddenly turned too weak for.

He was sitting on the floor, hands cupping the astrophages samples as the security of the place ran around, frantic, preparing everything for their abrupt takeoff. There were skittles left all around the place, half of the lights still turned off for their experiments. His whiteboard still full of question marks in his handwriting and a little, cheeky ‘The Carl Hypothesis’ in Carl’s.

Despite the hecticness of it all, in that moment Grace was content. Grace was warm.

“I already am a father,” Carl said, sarcasm dripping all over his tone as he turned back to look at him. Just enough for Grace to see the little smile on his face, the concentrated dimples that appeared at the corners of his mouth.

Coming back to himself in his living room was as heart wrenching as leaving it in the first place. His throat hurt, scratched up and raw, and Grace, disoriented, had the undeniable conviction that his heart was trying shatter its way out. To beat a crater in the very centre of his chest, with how violently it was slamming into it.

“Not humans,” he finally rasped out, voice breaking halfway. He coughed, swallowing desperately to wash away the memory from the back of his mind, the trembling of his hands from the very bones of his body. “Just me.”

The more he listened to the sounds of Rocky existing, the more he settled back into his body. The Hail Mary was staring back at him from when he was clutching it in his hands instead of the astrophage and he sighed, picking the tool necessary to bend the xenonite back up.

The veil of grief that had settled over his ribcage slowly lifted, herded away by Rocky’s musical tones, by the way his carapace tilted from side to side as one of his limbs kept on drumming on the floor without even seeming to notice. Grace smiled, fingers trying to make a loop out of the xenonite with steady, well-loved hands.

“Grace happy, question?” Rocky asked, leaning in towards him, as if he could actually hear the distress that had banged up inside Grace’s veins for a dreadful moment.

The light from their makeshift fireplace reflected on his exoskeleton, bathing Rocky in a soft, golden light that created specks of different colours all around them. Grace felt the last of his panic melt into familiarity, into the soft feeling of knowing himself safe and cared of. Of never having to be alone again.

He opened his arms and Rocky perked up, throwing himself at Grace as gently as he was able, settling his large limbs all around him.

“Very happy, bud,” Grace said, with his cheek settled on Rocky. He inhaled deeply, and let his eyes fall close, enjoying the vibration of Rocky’s sounds going through him, making his blood flow.

“Good, good, good.”

“I feel like I should apologize,” Grace murmured, once Rocky had gone back home. He laid warm and cozy under the covers of his bed, the Hail Mary model twirling in his fingers as Grace played with its texture. He couldn’t help but categorize every single mistake, every line and curve that didn’t match up to the actual ship. “You’re way prettier, Mary.”

After a heated argument, he had managed to convince Rocky to leave all the material and tools at his place, just so he could practice by himself. Rocky had kicked up a ruckus, comparing Grace to an eridian child who couldn’t be left alone, who needed constant supervision.

Dangerous for Grace, Rocky had said, stomping one of his limbs as he shook and shook. Grace had tried to take in stride because, one: he was not an eridian child (that makes it worse!! Rocky had exclaimed, rolling his body atop the couch) and two: he had been taught by this amazing teacher (and Rocky chirped at that) and Grace already knew he was more fragile than an eridian so he would be eeeeeextra careful.

That had seemed to do the trick because Rocky, although quite reluctantly, had carefully organized the materials inside of a box and labelled them for Grace’s use. He had kept on giving Grace instructions right until the moment he had stood on the stairs leading to Grace’s house, shouting at him to be careful and to call, call, call if something went wrong.

He could see the box from where he was settled on the bed, actually, left as it was on his living room table, illuminated by the light that filtered through the curtains. He really couldn’t sing enough praises about the eridian’s technology and intelligence, it seemed, because the rays that encased his home were as soft and silvery as moonlight, their hue the exact same as he remembered from Earth.

“Ugh,” he groaned, tightening his fingers on the model, the previous feeling of shamefulness finally washing over him as he realized how humiliating this whole thing was going to be. “I’m sorry, Mary, for what is worth.”

“It’s okay, Grace,” she said, her voice softer than it was during the day time, barely a murmur that caressed him from the crown of his head to the arch of his feet.

He closed his eyes, pressing his heated face into the pillow. The back of his eyes burned, a feeling so, so colossal rising inside of him that he had no chance of swallowing back. The overwhelming sensation of being loved and though of down to the very last, tiny detail possible. Grace could feel the buzzing underneath his skin, the pit of his stomach warming up in gratitude.

And that was how he fell asleep, tucked in by the consideration of a species that wasn’t even his own.

“He’s going to hate it,” was the first thing out of his mouth when he heard Adrian approaching the barrier.

Grace didn’t even want to think about the pathetic picture that Adrian must have been seeing in that moment: the human that was considered Erid’s savior sprawled on the sand, fingers sneaking behind his glasses to press into his eyes as he wailed.

Rocky’s present laid beside him, encased by Grace’s side of his body and the biodome’s barrier, so the looping winds wouldn’t topple it over. A mess of patterns and crossed stitches that made absolutely no sense, but without which the model would fall apart, Grace had been tempted to toss it into the beach the moment he had finished it, too ashamed to look at it twice. In the end, he head decided to hold onto it out of sheer respect for the biodome engineers, who wouldn’t have appreciated finding stray objects in their hard-worked habitat.

And because they would have most likely notified Rocky about their discovery and that was something he didn’t even want to imagine an excuse for.

So here he was, ready for slaughter. Because there was almost no time left until Rocky’s birthday and he needed Adrian to tell him, with all the tact that eridians were able to muster (which was none), if his gift could potentially be read as an affront on their friendship. Or in their entire culture. Or something!

He pressed harder into his eyes, blocking out the carefully overcast light from his vision, and ignored the way his hands ached. The joints of his fingers throbbed from the force he had had to use to twist the materials into place, skin smiting practically everywhere from all the cuts he had endured while trying to keep the model steady as he used the tools on it. Even with the help of poor Armando, who had managed to look wide-eyed at Grace’s enterprise without even having eyes, his attempt had been more deplorable than that of an eridian child.

“Hail Mary,” Adrian sung suddenly, with the pretty notes Rocky had used the first time he had translated Mary’s name into eridian. One of their claws pointed at the model, body rotating once, twice, as they chittered happily. “Mary.”

“You can recognize it?” Grace asked, straightening up. He blinked to get rid of the multicoloured spots that swam in his vision and picked Mary up, bringing it closer for Adrian to inspect.

“Of course,” they rumbled, naming every part of his old ship with great consideration, leaving Grace breathless. “Very easy to recognize.”

“I— That’s—” he felt himself go speechless. He hadn’t thought that Adrian would be mean about his skill in knitting xenonite, but what he had certainly never thought, not once in those days where he had enslaved over the project, that there would be praise at the end of it.

“Okay. Okay. What about this?” he asked, opening one of the compartments he had created for the Hail Mary (and god knows how he had managed that). It opened easily now, not like a few days ago, when the mere brush of his fingers would make the little door clatter to the floor, giving him half-heart attacks.

The Hail Mary was hollow inside, a feat that he had managed by twisting the materials over and over again, until they could hold their own weight by themselves. Surprisingly, there were dwellers inside; two little models of both Rocky and Grace that could be unattached from where they were settled against the walls of the ship, and the little ball Rocky had used to move around the space. Adrian peered inside of it from behind the barrier and made a pleased sound when they finally saw its contents.

“Rocky! Grace!” they sang, pointing and pointing in a way that made Grace laugh.

“Yes! Yes. I—” he sighed, something that came from the very depth of his soul. He could hardly believe that the project he had spent endless hours on was good enough, let alone recognizable.

He took the little figurines out, letting them rest on the palm of his hand for Adrian to see more clearly.

“I really thought I had done a terrible job,” he said as he put Rocky inside of his little ball, moving it around his palm until he could hear Adrian’s melodic laugh, their murmured beautiful Rocky that was almost a pitch too high for Grace to understand. “From where I see it, it doesn’t look good at all.”

“We don’t see like Grace,” Adrian said, carapace tilting forward to knock gently on the barrier, as if to say silly Grace. “You don’t like how it looks but to eridians is perfect, statement.”

Grace swallowed the sudden feeling that threatened to choke him, hands tightening slightly over his own figurine. “So you think it’s good? Rocky won’t hate it?”

“Will not,” Adrian sang from the other side of the dome, pressing on the barrier. One of their limbs came down to knock hard on the floor, just as Rocky did when he was upset. Grace was still surprised at how genuinely expressive they both were. “Rocky feel happy if it’s from Grace.”

Grace huffed, half a laugh, half astonishment. He took his glasses off, sniffling as he pressed his fingertips to the corner of his eyes, trying to gather the tears that were forming there before they slid down his cheeks. The relief that washed over him pin-pricked the ballon of anxiety that had been lodged against his diaphragm for the past few days, leaving him utterly and completely exhausted.

He inhaled, the oxygen around him suddenly elusive.

“Grace leaky,” Adrian said, carapace slumping slightly, as if they were worried enough that the feeling was weighing down on them. “Grace upset.”

“No, not upset. Just… relieved,” he pressed the palm of his hand against the barrier, followed by the soft thump of his forehead. He exhaled there, feeling the tension of his body easing. “Thank you, Adrian.”

They seemed to be at a loss of what to do, just how Rocky had startled back the first time Grace had wrapped his body over his ball in a weak attempt at a hug. This time, Adrian seemed to understand in some way, and pressed forward, carapace leaning in until their hands were reflections of the other on the barrier, until he could feel the vibration of Adrian’s body through it.

“Grace make effort for Rocky. Rocky will love,” they sang prettily, claw tap, tap, tapping over Grace’s fingers until he returned the gesture.

I hope he can feel it, Grace thought, smiling as they continued their little dance through the glass. How relieved I am that I turned around that day. How impossibly grateful I am that it was him waiting for me at Tau Ceti.

Despite Adrian’s reassurance, when the day finally arrived Grace was a damn mess.

He had spent the entirety of the morning running around, finalizing some details, then touching them up again, then pacing the floor of his kitchen until he thought he was going to go insane. If he had known how to do a handstand bridge he would have done it out of the sheer desperation to distract himself.

By the time Rocky’s heavy knocks startled him out of his panic, he was exhausted down to his very marrow. His scalp ached from how many times he had grabbed at his hair, cheeks inflating as he exhaled to get rid of the feeling that he was choking. The tension from his neck had bled steadily to the rest of his body, and no matter how many times he kneaded at it (or even how many times poor Armando tried to press into the line of his neck) it wouldn’t go away.

So Grace went to open the door with a dozen warning signs blaring inside his body. Almost all of which dimmed the moment Rocky entered his home, bulldozing his way into the living room with nothing more to say other than Grace, Grace, Grace, Grace.

And what could Grace do but melt? Feel the tightness of his body unwind slightly at the way Rocky made everything lighter without even knowing that he was doing it?

“Why Grace not coming?” Rocky asked, freezing in place as he looked at the way Grace was still standing by the door, like an idiot. The sound of the waves crashing dripped into the house, a steady presence that made Grace blink, and blink again just to recenter himself.

For the love of everything, don’t be weird, don’t be weird, don’t be—

“Grace is being weird, statement.”

Well. That was that.

“Me?” he said, hands pointing to himself, voice cracking as he tried to play it off.

Which he didn’t. Obviously.

Rocky leaned back, carapace vibrating as if peeved about the heinous noise that had come out of Grace and his futile attempt at lying to him. Grace cleared his throat, the soft skin of his cheeks burning as he said: “I have something for you.”

Directness is how you get things done! He screamed at himself, closing the door and almost missing the way Rocky made a confused sound.

“Something for Rocky?”

“Yeah, pal. Do you remember when we talked about human birthda—? Right. Of course you remember,” he said, rolling his eyes and making a vague gesture towards his own head. His brain would never be able to compute just how did eridians remember everything that they ever learned. Rocky made a squeaky sound that Grace read as a chuckle. “Well. I know it’s different here but. I want to give you something. So.”

He made his way to the kitchen’s door frame (built with no door in just so Rocky could come terrorize him any time he wanted) and leaned against it, signalling for Rocky to come stand by him.

“Surpriseee,” he said, hands gesturing outwards to the kitchen space, letting Rocky step a foot first inside it.

The squeal of surprise wasn’t lost on Grace, a sweet sounding sound that enveloped the entire room, echoing off of all the decorations and back at them. The balloons sprinkled all over the floor (and don’t ask him how he had gotten them, because he had nearly decked himself going through the storage space the eridians had provided him with for all the things they had no idea where to put), the garlands with knitted tassels that hung from the ceiling and Grace’s dearest disco ball left Rocky entranced, looking around as if it was the first time he had entered Grace’s kitchen.

“What’s this, Grace? What’s this?” he kept on asking, his tone higher than usual from excitement. Grace smiled as he watched him run around from one corner of the room to the other, making high-pitched sounds every time the balloons collided with his body and went flying into different directions.

He crouched down to Rocky’s level when the force of his enthusiasm knocked a couple of balloons near him. He popped one, making Rocky jump in surprise, and then another, and another, until Rocky was laughing, body moving with the vibration.

“Rocky try, Rocky try,” he said, using the weight of his limbs to trap a couple under him, trilling in delight when they went pop, pop, pop!

By the time anxiety tried to rear its ugly head, Grace was showing Rocky how balloons worked, unknotting them so they would deflate, only to put them in his mouth and blow so they would fill back up. Rocky watched attentively, one of his back limbs tapping softly on the floor, mesmerized.

“Human births incredible,” Rocky said as he played with the tassel Grace had unhooked from one of the garlands for him to inspect. Similar to the jewels Rocky had worn to their ‘heroes of the world’ party, with a metal shine and long, pointy threads, Rocky had immediately taken a liking to them.

“Well,” Grace said, the palms of his hands smacking against his thighs before standing up. He made his way to the chair near the kitchen table, sitting down with a groan that shouldn’t have been common for someone his age. “That’s not really what I had for you.”

“More things for Rocky?” he said, so genuinely excited that Grace had the sudden urge to throw up.

What if he hates it? started ratting inside his skull, the reverberation of it making the nausea more pronounced in the pit of his stomach. Still, he smiled, pressing the feeling into the most secluded nooks and crannies he could find inside himself.

“C’mon, bud,” he patted the seat beside him, laughing when Rocky practically tumbled into it.

It was one that he had asked to be made specifically for his friend; wider and sturdier than the rest, so Rocky could sit on it any time he liked instead of crawling around on the floor. Now, sitting there with two of his front limbs settled on the table, without no other distractions other than the beat of Grace’s heart, Grace saw the moment Rocky noticed the gift.

Adrian had gracefully given him a container, much like the one Rocky had given him on their first contact and constituently, the ones that they had used to contain the taumoeba, only much bigger, enough so Mary’s model could fit without damaging its structure. He had panicked in the last moment and added a red ribbon, spending a ridiculously long time perfecting its bow and the fall of its ends so it looked artful.

And so there it sat, on the middle of the kitchen table, right in front of Grace’s favourite window, with a direct view of the shore below. He leaned forward to retrieve the gift, hands trembling as the ribbon slid over his knuckles.

“So this is actually your gift,” Grace said, voice wavering a bit as he handed over the container to Rocky so he could have a better look (which he already had, but, you know, human habits).

There was no way that he wasn’t noticing the trembling of his hands, but maybe he had learned a bit more from Grace than he had expected, because the only thing he did was point at the ribbon covering the container and ask: “What’s this?”

“It’s a ribbon,” Rocky made him repeat the word, caress the syllables slow and with intention, so he would remember how to use it. "We usually wrap gifts up so the person can’t see what’s inside, and then put something else to decorate it. Like stickers or glitter. Or a ribbon.”

“Pretty!” Rocky trilled, fingers taking the length of the ribbon in his claw, feeling the material. He twisted it and tugged at it until it came loose and then, between one movement and then next, he became tangled in it, like he had done with Grace’s metre at their first meeting.

Grace chuckled, putting his hand on the back of Rocky’s chair to keep him from toppling over.

At least he liked the wrapping, he thought absentmindedly, thumb caressing the container of the gift to soothe himself. He let Rocky play with it to his heart content; maybe because Rocky deserved to have an spectacular time on his birthday, maybe because Grace’s heart was still in his throat at the mere thought of actually handing him the container, or maybe a bit of both!

The chirp of his name made Grace focus again, finding Rocky completely at the mercy of the ribbon, unable to untangle himself because the end of the fabric had slipped from his claw.

“You’re a mess,” Grace said, the corner of his eyes wrinkling from how much he was smiling. “Hold on.”

He placed Rocky’s gift gently on the table and then took the ribbon from Rocky’s exoskeleton, untangling it from his form before taking one of his limbs in his hands. The one with Adrian’s stone, with the new carvings that signalled him as the saviour of the stars. Grace wrapped it around him, moves sure and gentle, and Rocky must have liked the way the fabric moved and sounded against his suit because he leaned forward into Grace’s space.

“There,” he said, finishing up with a little bow.

“Rocky is gift!” he exclaimed, fingers touching the curve of the bow, clenching and unclenching over it.

“Yeah, you are,” and then Grace turned his head, inhaled deeply and thought now or never. “Do you want to open your present?”

“Rocky wants, wants, wants,” he chanted, body moving side to side in his little, happy dance.

Handing the container felt, to Grace, like diving off of a cliff with no safety gear on. The swoop of his stomach reached up into his throat, pressing and pressing as Rocky opened it, curious as anything. From what Grace remembered, he had only experienced this weightless feeling when he first started piloting the Hail Mary (when there was no memories and everything he did, he seemed to do utterly wrong). He almost expected Mary’s erratic manoeuvre detected, with how hard his heart was clenching, with how dizzy it was leaving him.

The Hail Mary he had built with his hands was the same as when Grace had put in its container, but in Rocky’s hands it looked like a completely different model. Unable to explain it, Grace could only focus on the sudden, garbled sound that came out of Rocky (surprise, he guessed), as his fingers handled Mary’s hull, the vents of his carapace opening and closing.

“Grace made this?” he asked, and his voice sounded so soft, so low, that Grace had no chance but to lean it. He had never sounded like this, not even when Grace was starving and so ill he couldn’t handle the bright lights of the ships or the sounds of Rocky’s ball bumping into things. There had always been a bit of that Rockiness to his speech.

Now, that Rockiness was gone, along with the playful vibrations from their little play date, replaced by a quietness that put Grace on edge.

“Yep,” he said, completely nonchalant. See? He could do this. He could pretend like the way Rocky was acting wasn’t giving him a heart attack.

That’s when Rocky found the little hatch Grace had made. There was no way for Grace to identify the sounds that were coming from Rocky, all soft and chiming, which was fine, no nervousness to find here. But then Rocky opened it up and went completely still. So much so and for so long that Grace’s heart started to pound at the back of his throat, leaving his chest empty and cold and absolutely terrified.

Oh, god, I messed up, I messed up.

Before he could even open his mouth to attempt something, Rocky sang a single note. Something small and vulnerable and devastatingly familiar to Grace, who had made that sound a thousand times since he had been exiled from Earth. The same, simple note chimed again, along with the terror that was clawing at Grace’s chest, because Rocky was sobbing.

His claw was now clutching their figurines, fingers tracing the lines of them with a tenderness that made Grace’s eyes burn. At the last moment, Grace had decided to add an attachment that would keep them together, side by side. He saw Rocky’s fingers hover over it and flinched when Rocky let out another wounded sound.

“Rocky, buddy, I’m sorry, please, don’t—” he stuttered out, hands hovering over Rocky’s frame, not knowing how to fix it, how to make it right.

Rocky always knew how to fix it. That’s what made them so different.

“Why is Grace sorry, question? he asked in a sweet, slow tone, like a lullaby. But he still wouldn’t turn to him, as if all of his senses were focused on Mary’s contents, on the little them that pressed into the dip of his claw.

“I—” he was going to rip his own heart out of his chest just to feel like he could breathe again. “If you don’t like it you don’t have to keep it. We can just, you know, throw it away and pretend that this never happened—”

As if completely deaf to Grace’s insecurity and its misery, Rocky leaned forward, pressing his carapace to the model, so delicately, so tenderly, with the same kind of affection Grace had coated the entire project with.

“Grace,” he said, the melody of his name intertwined with the last notes of a feeling Grace had no translation for. He settled Mary on the table with a gentleness that gripped Grace by the throat, and rotated his body in place to reach him “It’s beautiful. Grace is beautiful.”

“Rock—”

“Beautiful Grace. Smart Grace. Kind Grace. Love, love, love Grace.”

The cooed words hit Grace like a train, bleeding him out as his throat tightened, trying to swallow a sob. Rocky’s limbs wrapped all around him, hovering over Grace’s body to avoid crushing him. The distance, then, proved unbearable, inescapable like their years spent in space. Grace wrapped his arms around Rocky in desperation, pressing his cheek to Rocky’s carapace as he breathed him in, trying to quell the ache inside of him.

“I love you too, bud.”

Rocky chirped, nonsensical sounds as he pressed closer, uncaring for once about the fragility of Grace’s body, as if he wanted them to merge together, to create an attachment like their figurines so they would never part.

“Happy birthday, Rocky,” he said, choked up. Rocky’s exoskeleton wasn’t his preferable place to wipe his tears but there was no way he was moving. And so he let them drip onto his suit, the anxiety from the last few weeks dissolving into nothingness the more he felt Rocky’s vibration go through him, the heat of him cradling him. “I’m glad you exist.”

“Thanks to Grace,” Rocky chittered softly, claws holding onto the back of Grace’s sweater, like a kid who refused to go to sleep but whose eyes drew closed anyway. He nuzzled into him, whole body vibrating. “All thanks to Grace.”

Grace would like to say that they didn’t stay long like that, but the truth was that the light of the biodome kept on changing and they sat, unmoved, with Grace listening to the whispered happy, happy, happy that Rocky let out without even seeming to realize it.

At some point, Rocky extended his limbs to take his gift back into his claws, never letting go of Grace. He unattached the figurines, making a puppet show out of them just to make Grace laugh, just to hear the beat of his heart settle back and his body loosen from all around him.

Sneaky Grace, he called him, when Grace told him just how he had managed to build it by himself. The mystified tilt of his body came back as Grace launched on an explanation about just how much he had fought, both with tools and his own hands, to create Mary’s thrusters, the curve of its form.

By the time the light of the biodome had turned golden, strips of it reflecting off Rocky’s figurine and Mary’s model, settled as they were on the table, Rocky found his voice again.

“Rocky can ask for something?” he asked, Grace’s figurine cradled in his fingers.

“Hmhm, you’re the birthday boy,” Grace said, eyes closed as he enjoyed the slight cold blowing in from the open window, Rocky’s body warding him against it. He was this close to falling asleep, a mere child exhausted by an exciting day.

“Rocky wants to swim with Grace.”

That got him to open his eyes, head tilting down to see Rocky clearly. He had been willing to take small dips into the water from time to time, to feel the movement of the waves that the engineers had created for Grace, but nothing else. He had always refused to go further than the shore, and would always get pouty when Grace wandered a little too deep in the water, demanding that he come back.

“Really? You don’t really like the deep end, buddy.”

“But Grace likes it,” he said, pressing one of his fingers against Grace’s shoulder. “Rocky wants to swim with Grace.”

“Your wish is my command, then,” Grace said, straightening the fingers of his hands and pressing them above his eyebrow, saluting. Rocky chittered in laughter, sliding off Grace’s body so he could change into the appropriate clothing.

By the time Grace came back from his rock, Rocky was placing Mary at the edge of the kitchen table, right where it pressed into the window, angling her so she could view the shore down below. He then took their miniature figures, putting them side by side, touching, as he reattached them.

The immeasurable ache that slammed into his ribs made his very heart collapse. The palm of his hand pressed against the raised skin of his scar, from the one and only time Rocky had touched him. The mere thought of being comprehended in such a deep level, of craving touch so much and seeing it reflected back tenfold was something that would always astound him.

Oh, Rock, he thought, blinking through the tears to watch Rocky angle them so they were watching the waves too, never parting.

“Grace leaky,” was what Rocky told him once they were standing on Grace’s front steps. He had had the sufficient tact to not say anything as they exited the house, but it seemed like that had run out.

“You’re leaky too,” he said, sniffling, hand coming up to press into his nose.

“Rocky can’t be leaky,” Rocky tried to deadpan, but the tone of his voice wavered. Too much vibration, as if a violinist whose hand had slipped. “Grace is a big liar, statement.”

“Where did the whole Grace is beautiful thing go?”

“Grace very beautiful, statement. Grace still a liar.”

Grace’s head tilted backwards, laughing long and hard. He started walking down the stairs to the beach, smile still on his face, when he realized that Rocky wasn’t following, his clunky steps nowhere to be heard. Grace turned around, mouth opening to ask what was wrong when he saw him standing still at the highest step, watching Grace.

“Rocky will treasure it forever,” he said, unprompted.

Your gift, your company, the sacrifice that you made. You.

Is what Grace heard, what Rocky meant to say underneath his melodic tones, underneath all the barriers that had tried and still tried to keep them from each other.

“I know you will, Rock,” and that was the only certainty Ryland Grace had felt in his entire life.

Rocky stood there for a second longer, engraving the sight of Grace standing in the biodome he had created for him, safe and sound, to carry it forever. Then, as if snapping out of it, Grace got back his usual Rocky.

“Great! I race Grace to the beach,” he chirped, klunk, klunk, klunking his way down the stairs and passing rapidly past Grace.

“Wha— Hey! You little rascal!” Grace shouted behind him, his brain and legs a beat too slow.

Even with all the strength of his legs, Rocky’s advantage was clear, already closing in on the usual spot where he watched Grace’s human.

“You cheater!” he called after him, laughter clear in his voice.

“Grace bad loser!” Rocky called back, slamming his body into the water. He reappeared from under it, the water drops sliding down his exoskeleton. “Very bad loser.”

“Alright, you’ve done it now,” Grace muttered, shedding his clothes in a mess underneath him, leaving them on the sand (which always pissed Rocky off) and entering the water.

“Oh,” he gasped, body relaxing into the gentle warmth of the water. He had been expecting the chilling cold of the February sea, the contracting and ache of freezing muscles. Instead, he found himself in a homemade bath after a long day, warm enough to guard him from the chill of the atmosphere. Adrian must have managed to change it after he had brought it up in one of their conversations. “Oh, that’s perfect.”

“Adrian perfect. Rocky perfect!”

“Oh yeah? Let’s see how perfect you are when I drag you to the deep end, bud,” and then he was running towards Rocky, hands sliding underneath the arms of his exoskeleton as he picked him up.

Rocky screamed, a titillating sound that was half panic, half his name in a Graaaaaaace!! way. He was awed by how lighter Rocky was in his arms, by how easily he could drag him deeper into the water without dropping him. Grace spun them around once, twice, dipping them under the waves, holding Rocky steady as he screamed.

“See? It’s not so bad,” he said, once Rocky had calmed down, once Grace had decided to stay where the water dragged against his shoulders and just float.

“Horrible,” Rocky countered, completely deadpan.

But his fingers were splashing the water around him, his limbs moving beneath the water as if mimicking Grace’s own movements to stay afloat and there was a soft sound beneath the rumble of the waves that spoke of contentment.

“Hmhm, whatever you say, pal,” Grace said and then, without warning, he sunk both of their bodies to the very bottom. Rocky screeched in delight, limbs tightening around Grace. He could hear him even underwater, could open his eyes and see him, watching the movement of the water from underneath. Grace found himself laughing even before he made it back to the surface.

As he blinked the water out of his eyes, the sound of Rocky chittering garbled from the water in his ears, he spotted his house from the distance. There was a bright spot there, a wink of light that didn’t falter even when he squinted. A frown touched his face, wondering just what could be the cause, trying to place the source of it. His front door to the very right, then the living room, so it was coming from near his bedroom, through the kitchen’s window and—oh.

The Hail Mary that Rocky had placed there, watching over them.

He imagined their little figurines watching too, attached by design, and tucked himself into Rocky, letting his cheek squeeze against him.

“Happy, happy, happy?” Grace asked as they floated gently, following the current.

“Happy, happy, happy,” Rocky echoed, pressing their bodies together, never to part.