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While Grace sleeps, Rocky changes.
There’s an order to it, as with everything. Rocky lays the suit flat on the floor, ribbonlike sleeves fanning away from the midsection’s far side like god rays, like Grace’s art of his rising sun, then steps underneath carapace-first and spins ‘til it’s aligned. Xenonite panels clink together as Rocky zips up the sleeves — sixty degrees where panel corners meet flush, each ticking turn of a clock face; malleable geometry and controlled percussion — and, in defiance of entropy, seals off inside from out.
Grace inhales. Rocky listens.
And now, to test it out. Rocky steps towards the large exchange panel — recent addition to the xenonite tunnel — and pokes one leg through.
The seal holds.
Rocky cheers — quiet, so Grace doesn’t wake — then steps wholly through the panel.
And… it works.
The suit is tighter than the ball and tunnels Rocky’s used to. There’s room for air to flow between Rocky’s shell and the xenonite; not a lot, but enough. It’s not suffocation but freedom, new and disrupting and full of possibility: akin to discovery of computers, to routine bent around a breakthrough, to the Hail Mary entering Tau Ceti’s orbit. It’ll keep Grace safe, keep Rocky safe. And they can —
Grace exhales. Rocky listens.
It’s a shorter breath. Rocky scampers to Grace’s bedside, lifts as tall as possible. Anticipation bubbles in Rocky’s gut, fluttering and staccato. It’s been a while since Rocky’s surprised Grace with a new tool.
Grace says Rocky sounds like music. That Rocky’s motion is a drumbeat, that Rocky’s voice is a song. If that’s true — if Grace hears the harmonics in Rocky’s anxious overtones, the rhythm in Rocky’s frenetic fidgeting — then Grace himself is the lines on a staff. Endless in his support, in pulling order from chaos, in holding Rocky afloat.
Without Grace, Rocky would collapse.
Rocky hopes he likes the suit.
Grace blinks himself awake, and Rocky can’t wait any longer. “Grace,” Rocky says.
“Mmmm.” Grace shuts his eyes again. “Mornin’, Rock.”
Rocky shifts. “Grace.”
“Yeah?”
“Grace.”
“Yup.” Grace yawns, stretches his arms over his head, then opens his eyes as he rolls towards Rocky. “That’s my name, don’t wear it ou — ”
Grace freezes.
Rocky lifts a hand, claws splayed in greeting.
“Holy — ! Rocky, you’re — ” Grace darts up and whacks his head against the lip of the sleeping pod. “Ow! Rocky, your ball, you’re — what’s wrong?! You’re gonna — ”
Rocky laughs.
It’s impossible not to. And the friction against expectation catches Grace, slows him down, gives him time to see Rocky.
“You’re… is that a new ball?” Grace asks, rubbing his forehead.
Rocky huffs. “Obvious is not new ball. Is suit! Like Grace spacesuit, but for Rocky.”
“Oh.” Grace swings his legs over the side of his bed, hand still on his head. “For… you wanna go outside?”
Grace’s brain is still waking up, Rocky thinks, with the borrowed patience of every Eridian back home.
“Rocky no go outside. But suit help Rocky move around in Mary. Now Rocky can monitor screens, fix broken parts of ship. Check on taumoeba farms. Check on fuel tanks. Hug Grace.”
Grace’s hand stills.
“What Grace think, question?”
Grace is silent.
Rocky taps all five feet on the ground, rapid-fire, to hear every shift of Grace’s face. “Grace like, question?”
And Grace melts.
He ages in reverse as he slips out of bed, impulsive as an Eridian child, boneless and fluid as their shared amoeban ancestors — and falls to his knees; lands on top of Rocky. Rocky dips under the weight —
— and squeals when Grace embraces Rocky’s carapace tighter than Rocky’s ever known.
It feels like a sun, like magnetism and warmth and life. Each panel of the xenonite suit is crushed against Rocky’s shell where Grace gathers it in his arms — stretched seams the far sides of the galaxy, pointed corners a constellation of bright points, a new night sky. The stars they’ve saved; their bond etched in the heavens where it belongs. The closest Rocky will ever get to joining Grace inside his skin.
Rocky lifts two legs to hug Grace in return. Lifts a third, stays balanced; Grace’s support doesn’t waver.
“Grace like, question?” Rocky asks, despite knowing the answer. Despite feeling it — warm blood, warm hearts, purging all within Rocky that’s soiled. Made better, in the hands of Grace.
“Grace like. Statement.”
-
Four days later, their sleep patterns align.
There’s an order to it, as with everything. Last time it happened, Grace stayed up to watch; the time before that, Rocky. It’s Rocky’s turn again, now — which goes unsaid until it doesn’t.
“Rock,” Grace calls from the bedroom, while Rocky’s in the cockpit triple-checking their course. “You don’t need to stay up to watch, tonight. You can sleep too.”
“Wrong!” Rocky speaks loud, so Grace can hear. “Rocky’s turn to stay awake and watch Grace! Grace sleep! Grace watch Rocky sleep after waking up!”
“But that’s such a long time for you,” Grace whines. It is — they’ve had this debate before — but it’s a long time for Grace, too.
Rocky moves from the cockpit through the lab and inspects the taumoeba farms. None of the containers have been disturbed; none of the screens show a warning. But Rocky goes over everything a few more times anyways. Spins the lock on the door, just to be sure.
“Are you ignoring me?” Grace asks.
Like Rocky even could. Rocky can’t ignore anything upon the Hail Mary; sound propagates through her hull as clear as it did the Blip-A’s communication wires. Electricity growls, a predator circling its prey — squealing actuators, hissing hydraulics, whining copper coils — but only Rocky’s awareness can sate its starvation.
Which — is good. Rocky’s attentive and disciplined and has forty-six years of experience in spaceship repair. That awareness will keep Grace safe, keep Rocky safe.
“Rocky waiting for Grace to fall asleep!” Rocky teases. “Then come into bedroom to watch!”
Grace groans louder than necessary. “Roooockyyy. If something goes wrong, Mary will wake me up. It’ll be okay; we can both sleep at the same time!”
Like Rocky could do that, either.
It’s not unheard of, on Erid. Most buildings there are strong, most locks secure, most people kind. The odds of anything happening while asleep are low.
But on the Blip-A…
After Rocky’s first friend had passed in their sleep, Rocky had built a routine of it. Visit every crewmate towards the end of their sleep cycle, keep them company for a moment, make sure they were alright. For a while, it worked: soothed Rocky’s fears, kept Rocky’s friends safe.
Then the second had passed.
Rocky visited each crewmate twice per cycle.
After ten, visits hadn’t been enough. Rocky would bring tools to each crewmate’s bedroom and work while they slept, would invite others to sleep in the workshop. It was impossible to focus while worrying anyways; impossible to work while painfully aware that something — some silent, unfixable, malevolent thing — ate away at Rocky’s friends one by one. Devoured them in their sleep; attacked between the seconds Rocky’s attention was elsewhere.
Sleeping at the same time as another isn’t unheard of, on Erid. But Rocky hasn’t slept on Erid in many, many years.
“Besides,” Grace grumbles, so quiet he probably thinks Rocky can’t hear. “I’m gonna be bored in the morning if you fall asleep then.”
Fondness swells in Rocky’s carapace. Dumb human.
“Is normal for humans to get bored while other humans sleep, question?!” Rocky asks. “Is normal for humans to sleep together, question?!”
Grace makes a sound Rocky hasn’t heard before, like a laugh got lost in his throat. “Yeah, uh, ‘sleeping together’ is pretty normal for humans, actually.”
That stops Rocky; disrupts the rote tapping of Rocky’s fingers against the locked doors. “Really, question?”
“Huh? I didn’t catch that.”
Oh, right. “Grace do this too, question?!”
Grace hesitates. He wrings his bedsheet in his hands. “… once. And… ifwup.”
“No understand last word!”
Grace repeats the jumbled syllable.
“Grace!”
“… I threw up.”
With a surprised jump, Rocky yelps. “Grace want to throw up on Rocky, question?! Gross! Eugh! Dirty dirty dirty!”
Grace laughs at that.
Rocky’s not sure why — Grace has thrown up before, and never laughed while doing so — but Rocky doesn’t need to know. Grace is laughing; the whole universe resonates in tune. And Rocky can relax, because of that: the whines and growls and squeals fall quiet, washed away in the melodic current of Grace’s joy.
“I won’t throw up on you, Rock,” Grace says. “Promise. That one time I, uh, slept with someone… I… it won’t be like that.”
Rocky, unconvinced, moves to the center of the lab. Checks the instruments, the samples, the plants. All nominal — so Rocky checks again. “Grace doing bad bad job at convincing Rocky to join!”
Grace makes that choked, stuck sound again. “You… are not the first person to say that, Rock.”
His voice is low and muted; he rolls onto his side to face the far wall. Buries his face in his pillow, curls smaller than Rocky’s used to.
Grace… was just laughing. What had Rocky done wrong?
“Sad!” Projection pulls Rocky’s vocalizations one way; care for Grace, the other — but the strain in Rocky’s voice hurts less than the squeeze in Grace’s. “Sad sad sad!”
Grace inhales. Rocky listens.
“It’s fine,” Grace obviously lies. “I just — I don’t know. I never figured out… how to care enough. Heh. But I guess that doesn’t matter anymore, right?”
Grace exhales. Rocky listens.
It’s an uneven breath.
And then Rocky’s off like a shot. Skittering through corridors, slamming into walls, tearing up every room in the Hail Mary like a supercell; annihilation in its wake. The xenonite suit is sleek — before Grace inhales again, Rocky’s climbed up the newly-built shelf between their beds (the best place to watch Grace sleep) and set one hand on Grace’s back. “Is enough!” Rocky declares, desperate. “Is is is!”
It’s the only dogma Rocky’s ever believed; the only fixed point in the swirling, entropic universe. And that universe isn’t enough, to go on without Grace. Without Grace’s care, all bonds fission; without Grace’s fortitude, all stones erode. Without Grace’s warmth, Erid is cold.
Grace says Rocky, under light bent through the suit, looks like a rainbow. That Rocky’s shell is gold — the color of suns, the cathedralesque Blip-A, salvation and aspiration shaped like a friend — while the xenonite’s blue — the blustering ocean, ebb and flow of the sky; interchanging waves of sound, light, sea. Because that’s who Grace is: he projects the best things he can see onto Rocky — then claims that perspective’s all Rocky’s doing.
And maybe Rocky can’t perceive light, but Grace perceives light, and Rocky perceives Grace. So…
Rocky perceives light, in all the ways that matter.
Rocky loves him so much it hurts.
“Is,” Rocky says.
Grace squirms; Rocky gives him room, pulls away the hand on his back. He rolls so he’s facing the ceiling, then facing Rocky, and Rocky’s so focused on the cadence of his heartbeat that there’s hardly a warning when Grace —
“Gotcha!” Grace declares, throwing his arms around Rocky and yanking Rocky towards his chest.
Rocky yelps. “Grace trick Rocky, question?!”
Grace laughs, presses his face against Rocky’s carapace. “I wish! You did this to yourself, bud.”
It’s been true since Rocky tossed him that first canister: if Rocky hadn’t reached out, hadn’t gotten attached…
“Damn it,” Rocky mutters. Grace hasn’t learned that swear yet; he’ll think Rocky’s sighing.
It’s fine. Rocky can settle into Grace’s hug without sleeping; can stay awake and watch while Grace rests.
Rocky wraps as many legs around Grace as possible.
Grace smiles. “You know,” he says, “I’ve been thinking a lot about my old crewmates recently.”
Rocky freezes. “Why, question?”
Grace shrugs. The motion presses the suit tighter into Rocky’s shell; it’d be uncomfortable if it wasn’t smothering Rocky’s compulsion to fix, shielding Rocky from every sound but Grace’s. “Just… thinking about why I was the one to live. I don’t know if I’ll ever know, but I like to think… maybe it’s because of you. You know?”
“Grace make no sense,” Rocky says, fighting the threat of sleep. It’s hard, with safety clinging to Rocky so tight. “Had not met Rocky when crewmates died.”
“Sure, but.” Another shrug. “Eridians survive comas every day. If we’re both descended from taumoeba, or astrophage… maybe I lived because I was a little bit closer to you.”
… oh.
Like all of Grace, that ‘little bit’ is enough. Rocky squirms against Grace’s chest, snuggles between his arms, in the crook of his neck, bunched up in his shirt and caught in his hair. The xenonite bends around them, marks Rocky’s end where Grace begins — even the delimiter between them just allows them to be close.
“Grace Rocky very different,” Rocky says, quiet. “And also… same.”
“Mhm,” Grace affirms. His chest vibrates; the hum washes over Rocky like a warm blanket. “I hope so.”
Grace mourns his crewmates yet finds solace in closeness, sameness with Rocky. So maybe Rocky, too, can…
But — no. If they’re both asleep, disorder will consume everything. With no one to keep it in check, it’ll grow chaotic, grow hungry. A danger to Grace, a danger to Rocky —
Grace runs his thumb over a seam in the suit. “Go to sleep, Rock,” he murmurs, eyes closed and voice gentle.
… or.
Maybe Rocky can borrow closeness, sameness without guilt. Maybe, for once, Rocky can be brave and embrace the entropy — with light, and love…
… and Grace.