Work Text:
Rocky rolls his ball right over my foot.
It’s a product of unfortunate timing, both of us moving at the same moment, him to grab one of his tools from his side of the barrier, me to check the computer. Though, intentional or not, that doesn’t stop it from hurting an absurd amount. Far worse than any stubbed toe or errant Lego I’ve ever stepped on. It leaves me on the floor holding my foot, slumped against the nearest wall, a colorful assortment of PG, teacher-approved swears on my lips.
Rocky doesn’t understand at first—I don’t think he even realizes what happened—though he makes an alarmed sound and checks in a little frantically with an assortment of, “is Grace okay? Grace hurt, question? What wrong, question?”
“It’s fine,” I grit out, bent over, forehead pressed against my knee. I’m reasonably sure nothing’s broken beyond repair. No shattered bones. No severed ligaments. It just hurts.
Rocky starts to say something, probably to argue with me, but he pauses for a second. Hesitates. Then the realization clicks into place. “Rocky hurt Grace,” he says quietly. He shuffles back a step, claws flexing uncertainly, opening and closing like he isn’t sure what to do.
Seeing that, suddenly the pain fades to a dull, throbbing white noise. Very little grabs my attention more nowadays than seeing Rocky upset. “It’s okay, Rock. I know it was just an accident.”
“Apology. Apology. Apology,” he says, still a little quiet and distant, but there’s an urgency now, an insistence, that wasn’t there before.
“You’re good. We’re all good,” I assure him. Letting go of a breath, I ruffle a hand back through my hair, dispelling some of the nervous tension bundled up beneath my skin. “I should probably get this all checked out though, huh? Make sure it’s nothing serious.”
”Yes,” Rocky agrees in a heartbeat, and that’s that.
———
It turns out to be nothing more than some nasty bruising, thankfully. I’m pretty sure there are more broken blood vessels in my foot than intact ones, most of the skin blotched shades of scarlet, violet, and near black.
As long as I don’t touch it, the pain is mild enough. When it’s quiet, though, Rocky asleep and only the faint buzz of machinery running in the background, I curl my foot into my lap and run my thumbs along the fine bones. Press against the bruising. Dig my thumbs into the shallow grooves. Just to feel the hurt flare like the sun, hot and bright.
I can’t remember the last time someone stepped on my foot. Maybe a busy conference room or a bustling hallway, years and worlds away.
It’s a weird sense of normal, of home, to feel that kind of thing again. So even as the bruising chameleon color-shifts, easing to a sickly yellow, I keep pressing at it. I keep aggravating it. That keeps the memory a little more vibrant and alive.
Everything heals beautifully, though. Good as new.
Rocky walks just a little bit more cautiously now, checking for a split second before he moves. I almost wish he wouldn’t.
———
I don’t even really realize what I’m doing at first. It’s like instinct—action without any cognizant thought ahead of it.
Sometimes, when I’m not busy in the lab, I see Rocky start to move and I thoughtlessly step in front of him. Or shift my weight back until I’m angling into his path. Or edge a foot forwards at the last minute. I linger closer than I should, and rack up bruises for it. The harsh corners and blunt edges on the xenonite ball don’t mess around. My legs are painted with the evidence. Ankles banged up. Knees and shins blooming with blotchy marks. Galaxies pressed into my skin.
For a while, Rocky gets irritated with me. “Grace annoying,” he snips, stomping a foot when he barely avoids crashing into me for the third time that day. “Why always in way, question?”
Honestly, I don’t have an answer for him. So I shrug and say as much. “I don’t know what to tell you. It’s a small ship. There’s not a lot of space. Sometimes we’re just gonna be in each other’s way.”
“Did not happen so often before.” Rocky turns to route around me, heading off somewhere out of sight.
And I think that’s when it starts to go from an unconscious habit to a guilty one. Because something about what he said gets gears turning in my head. He’s right. After he got settled in and used to the ball, he rarely ran into anything. Hitting me was even rarer. Yet now, I’m always wearing marks, collecting them like stickers, and it’s not his fault. He hasn’t changed. But I dig my fingers into secret bruises to remember how it felt to get them. To remember that, for a moment, there was contact and connection with someone else, even if it was through a thick, sturdy barrier.
Now that I’ve realized what I’m doing, and why, I should probably stop. Bugging Rocky and battering my legs isn’t exactly a healthy solution to whatever this is. But the isolation is messing with my head. Anything that makes my brain light up feels like a good thing. Besides, it’s not doing any real harm, or nothing irreparable anyway.
Though, eventually, it doesn’t quite feel like enough. The bright spots of familiar, human pain don’t scratch the growing itch I need them to. Slowly, my skin starts ache. The sensation flares up sometimes and eases at others, but it never really goes away. There’s a want for pressure and warmth that builds up too. The gentle weight of my quilt tugged around my shoulders isn’t nearly enough. I want my bones to creak with the force of it—a handshake, a hug, anything.
A sob catches and curls up in my chest. It feels like it stays there for days, no matter how hard I try to swallow it down. Pressing thumbs or knuckles or even an elbow into the bruising doesn’t help. Curling into a corner of my bunk, buried under all the (scant few) blankets and pillows I can find doesn’t help. Rubbing the heels of my hands into my eyes, smoothing palms down my throat, curling fingers into my arms, hugging my knees tight to my chest—none of it’s enough.
I try to keep the weird, sort-of-self-soothing habits to a minimum around Rocky. Or at least, I try to keep it to the more subtle ones. A hand resting on the back of my neck while I’m reading over notes doesn’t look that out of the ordinary. Neither does scratching nails back through my hair, or tapping a heel against my bruised shin—he can’t see the marks anyway.
I don’t want him to worry.
I’ve never been a very good liar, though. And eventually, this all starts to feel like one very big lie.
Rocky catches on sooner than I’d like. Never would have been preferable.
“Grace is acting weird bad.”
He has me cornered, wedged between him and a work table. I could climb over him if I really wanted to, but the Hail Mary’s not a massive ship and he can see through walls. He’d find me anywhere I tried to run to. Besides, I can’t ignore the itch to get everything off my chest now that I’ve been presented with the opportunity.
I pull my feet up onto my chair, a phantom hurt prickling out through my skin.
“You explain what is causing problem in behavior. I listen. I fix.”
It’s honestly touching that he cares and that he wants to help. Only trouble is, this isn’t a problem with an easy solution. There aren’t exactly any accessible people around. Rocky’s the only one here, and he’s separated from me by xenonite walls at literally all times. Which is good, because it keeps us both alive. But it’s also kind of soul-crushingly awful, because it means I can’t touch him. My best friend across multiple worlds, and he’s forever out of reach.
“It’s not that simple,” I reply. I tuck my nose in against my knees, fighting a telling warmth behind my eyes.
“Is okay. Rocky Grace good at solving complex problem. We fix together.”
Of everyone I could have ended up on this mission with, I’m so glad Rocky’s here. He’s bossy and overbearing and perfect and I love him with everything I have.
He sounds so sure that I even start to believe him. Eyes welling up a little, I reach out and set a hand on his ball. He clicks quizzically.
I take a deep breath. How do I explain this to him? As far as I’m aware, Eridians don’t have the same need for touch and physical connection that humans do. Essentially being covered in rock instead of skin will do that.
“You got lonely without your crew, right? Before you found me?” I ask.
“Grace is lonely, question?”
“No, it’s not that, it’s… no.” How could I be when I have him? There are things I miss, definitely, things I wish I could have again, but I’m never lonely like I was when I first woke up and realized there was no one left on this ship except for me. That kind of cold, desolate feeling is thankfully firmly in the past.
“Good good good,” Rocky says, sounding relieved.
“Yeah.” Despite myself, a twitch of a smile pulls at the corner of my lips. It fades, though, after a moment. I shift a little, digging my chin into an old, nearly gone bruise on my knee. “But it’s like my skin is lonely? Humans are social creatures, so we’re hardwired to seek out touch from other people. It makes us happy. Helps us feel better. Going without it for a long time… usually isn’t very good.”
On one hand, it’s nice to finally talk about something that’s been weighing at me for a while, either consciously or subconsciously. But on the other, it feels bigger now. Heavier. More real.
Rocky doesn’t say anything right away. I can practically see him thinking.
Because I can’t help myself—I rarely can—I fill the space. “I think that’s why I’ve been so in your way lately. It’s like there’s this itch to just feel someone somehow, even if it hurts, and even if it’s not really you. It’s just a barrier. But I guess it makes me feel a little better somehow. Or it did? It’s, uh, kind of not working as much anymore.” I scratch at my cheek, feeling a little exposed even though I’m the one exposing myself here. I didn’t have to say anything.
But when Rocky speaks up, I’m so glad I did.
“I understand. We fix. Grace can feel better and Rocky can do work without interruption.”
I’m a little surprised he doesn’t reprimand me for being stupid, not saying something sooner, neglecting a need. Maybe he can tell I’m feeling a bit more fragile than usual.
Even so, a laugh bubbles up in my chest. It comes out wet and wavering with emotion, but it still feels good all the same. “You just want me out of your hair, don’t you?”
“I have no hair,” Rocky says, a little confused, but he rolls with my unfamiliar human expressions a lot better than he used to.
“I know,” I tell him, eyes misty but smile sunny. “I know.”
———
We talk a little more about logistics, potential solutions, and my skin buzzes the whole time. There’s an achy edge to it, but more than that, it’s anticipation, hope humming through me. Sometimes I forget that I have a brilliant engineer for a roommate. (Shipmate?) But I’m grateful for the reminder now, because he has ideas of how to help me. Multiple of them!
They’ll take time to sort out, though. Probably some trial and error too.
Until then, he suggests something I can’t believe I never thought of.
Rolling backwards a little, Rocky shifts his ball so that the single panel of thinner, more flexible xenonite mesh is facing towards me. “Can touch like this.” He presses a hand into the mesh, the crystalline structure molding around his claws. “Not perfect solution, but okay for now.”
In more of a rush than I probably should be, I drop off the chair and to my knees at his side, then sit with my legs crossed underneath me. Yet, when I lift my hand to touch him, I find myself hesitating. I don’t know what I’m waiting for. The moment just feels… big somehow.
“Grace touch now, question?” Rocky asks after a few too many moments tick by. He doesn’t sound impatient, just curious.
I swallow thickly and nod. “Yeah.” I take a breath. “Yeah.”
Then I reach out and slot my fingers between his claws. It’s a bit of an awkward fit; the xenonite doesn’t bend enough to form-fit like a glove, and even that aside, his hand isn’t comfortably shaped for holding the way a human one would be. The texture of the barrier, while thinner and more malleable than the rest of the ball, is still smooth and impersonal too, not like real contact with Rocky, and even farther from the skin to skin my body’s actually craving.
That doesn’t stop me from shuddering with some odd sense of overwhelmpainrelief. Doesn’t stop me from sniffling against incoming tears either. Because this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to touching Rocky. It’s the first time I’ve held someone’s hand in years. And despite the prickle of sensitivity from too long spent without, it feels so undeniably good.
I tighten my grip, hold onto him like my life depends on it. Maybe my sanity does. Now that I’ve had this, I don’t think I could stand for it to be taken away.
My breath hitches a little, dangerously close to a sob, but I just lean in closer for a hug and press my forehead to the ball, eyes scrunched shut. Rocky obligingly thunks his head against the surface and shifts his grip a little to make things more comfortable. The hardest edges digging into my fingers retreat, leaving just the solid presence of his claws behind.
“This feel better or worse, question?” Rocky asks and gently taps a foot twice. The vibrations that pass through the xenonite aren’t as satisfying as holding his hand, but answering goosebumps still break out along the back of my neck, because it’s evidence of Rocky, here, close. And I can feel the subtle thrum all through my chest, my arms, my head. Anywhere I’m pressed to the ball.
“Better.” The answer heaves up from somewhere deep in my lungs. “So much better. Thank you, Rocky.”
“No need to thank. Can do better than this. Will do better than this.”
That might actually be the most relieving thing I’ve ever heard. I laugh again, a little shaky, a little emotional, but giddy with the thought of more and closer and better. I know he can do it too, if he says he can. Rocky’s never let me down before.
“I can’t wait.”