Chapter Text
I often find myself contemplating which is stranger: the fact that I have met an alien, and that I spend my every waking moment around him, or the fact that his biology is, at surface level, scarily similar to a human’s.
It's nigh mind boggling. The odds that both of our species, so many light years apart, evolved in such similar but such dissimilar fashions, are so slim that it makes my head hurt. The odds that we found each other, conversely, must've been nigh on impossible. I try not to think about that part too much. I've had Rocky around me so much, borderline my rock at this point - haha, get it? - that the thought of if we hadn't stumbled into each other is harrowing. So I try to not go down that train of thought.
I spend my free time, instead, staring at him. Which he seemingly has given up pointing out that he knows I'm staring. But I really can't help it. I dissect him and turn him around in my head, over and over, constantly. He's fascinating to me. If I could spend the rest of my life - realistically, not that long of a period, but I'll take what I can get - studying him, I would. But I've unfortunately got other matters to attend to, and I'm only knowledgeable in so many fields.
Rocky is so human-like that it just about pushes past what most would consider biology, and starts verging into just anatomy. For starters, about the first thing I had noticed about him - it'd be impossible not to - was his entirely extra set of arms. He guessed, once, that maybe it was just the terrain and wildlife on Erid that necessitated the extra limbs. He wasn't sure. I don't blame him, I couldn't try to speculate why or why not my knee bends the way it does, or why I have calves. It's just the fact of our existences.
I assume that Rocky is what most of my peers would've referred to as “conventionally attractive.” Not like I was well versed in the topic - people just look like people. But he’s good looking to me, so I assume he would be a hit back home. He's tanned, with a form of marks and tattoos running up his forearms. These marks have a lot of meanings - one for his and Adrian’s relationship, the Petrova line, his mission, his family crest, so on and so forth. A few of them might just be decorative. He has wavy salt and pepper hair that seems to all but defy gravity every time I turn around, and what seems to be a working set of human-like eyes. One eye is brown, and the other is a dark, olive green. He pretty much seems like a normal human - until you loop back around to the extra set of arms.
He wears an olive green jumpsuit most of the time, so I've never seen his back clearly enough to know exactly how his shoulder blades work and move. But it seems he just has an entire second set - ever so slightly smaller than a human's. When he's working, or even just talking, never more than one arm is idle at once. Each arm is always doing something, always moving, even if that movement is just pointing and waving as he chastises me or tells me to give him room to work. I imagine that being an engineer must be one of the best jobs to have the extra arms for. Conversely, though, I can't imagine many jobs that wouldn't benefit.
It's not just the extra arms, though - he's also got six fingers on each hand, totaling to twenty-four. He has what essentially equates to a second thumb on each hand, across from where his actual thumb is. It's a small difference, but I've seen how changes the way he interacts with things - the way he grips things is almost entirely different than how I would. Not to mention - he's incredibly strong.
I'm not the most ripped guy in the world or anything, but it's not like I didn't have meat on my bones, either. I biked to and from my work every day, and on top of that, while I was in a coma, the Hail Mary was working me out so my muscles didn't atrophy. So I’m probably somewhere around ‘surfer dude bod.’ But Rocky - from what I've seen, he's just slightly bigger than me. He's taller, too, by a few inches, but claims he's considered short back home.
I'm snapped out of my train of thought by Rocky letting out a quick, frustrated groan, and dropping what he's doing. He swivels around in a chair to face me. “Grace is staring again,” he says.
“Sorry, Rock,” I apologize, sitting up in my chair which I'd been sitting on backwards - something that tended to confuse Rocky. “It's hard not to.”
“Rocky doesn't stare at Grace,” he says.
“Oh, yes you do,” I reply, “you have eyes and you echolocate! It'd be impossible for you to not be seeing me at all times.”
Rocky explained once before that while he did have eyes, his vision wasn't actually the best. Eridians had maybe relied on their eyes once long ago, like how maybe once my tailbone served a real purpose, but not so much anymore. Their eyes were becoming more useless, and they more and more depended on echolocation. It was fascinating. Sometimes, while working, I'd see Rocky close his eyes and instead tap an arm or foot on a surface repeatedly, so he could echolocate instead. He could barely see color - and they didn't have many descriptive words for it.
“Yes. But Rocky doesn't focus on Grace. Rocky does not stare, statement.”
“But you're aware of me. It's basically staring.”
He rolls his eyes. “Rocky is that interesting to Grace, question?”
I sit up, eagerly. “Oh, absolutely. You have a whole extra set of arms! And an extra finger! You're so much like me, but different.”
“Am just Eridian,” he says. “That's all.” He pauses for a moment, before giving me a crap-eating grin - “but understand how Eridian is superior to a Human.”
It's my turn to roll my eyes. “Yeah, yeah, you've made that excruciatingly clear.” I can't say I don't envy him, sometimes. But to a certain degree, I'm not sure what I would even do with all of those extra limbs. I get by just fine with my ten fingers and two arms, thank you very much.
He stands up from his chair, and then comes to stand in front of me. I have to crane my neck to make eye contact while I'm sitting down. His chest is practically touching my nose. Rocky was a smart man, and he knew a lot of things, but ‘boundaries’ and ‘personal space’ were not among those things.
“Grace touch Rocky, then no more stare. Curiosity sated.”
I feel warmth rush to my face. “What?”
He taps his foot in annoyance. “Grace touch Rocky, statement.”
I sputter, trying to catch up to his line of thinking here. “Bud, there's nothing you can't just tell me or show me. You don't gotta have me feel you up.”
“Eridians are very tactile people. Are humans not?”
I pause, for a moment. He's kind of right. Maybe not to the degree Eridians are, but humans are very tactile. Some more than others. I suppose I'd fall into the category of someone who's more tactile. Even on the Hail Mary, I'm always running my hands over the walls and equipment. I fidget by rubbing my palm across my knuckles.
“They are, but…” I can't explain why, but what he suggests makes me nervous. It's not like I can't or haven't touched him. He's able to breathe my air and spends most of his time in the same atmosphere as me - though he tries to spend at least an hour everyday in his own atmosphere. He tells me that going too long without his own air is “probably bad bad bad.” We've put our hands on each other’s shoulders, fist bumped, brushed past each other… technically, this shouldn't be all that different.
“Why hesitate, question?”
“I don't know, bud,” I sigh, taking off my glasses and wiping them. “Touching all over someone can feel… intimate, I guess? Plus, I haven't touched somebody since, uh…” Since I was tackled to the ground. “...for a while, and I'm generally pretty sensitive to touch.”
“No worry about sensitivity to touch. Grace is not the one being touched.” Rocky handwaves the excuse away. “Not intimate. For science.”
“For science?” I parrot.
“That’s why Grace stares, yes, question?”
Yeah, sure, we’ll go with that. For science.
I think it is, mostly. I’m of two minds: one of them is a biologist who is deathly curious about every fact of Rocky’s existence, and the other one is a man who hasn’t existed in my head since I was in college. Not sure what he wants, but he’s there, and so far I haven’t enjoyed any of his input.
I sigh, smacking my hands on my knees as I stand up. Rocky’s being generous here, and I should acknowledge that. He’s got the full right to smack me upside the head and tell me to stop staring for the umpteenth time - though I wonder if I could handle how hard he would smack me - and I’d go ‘yeah, fair enough.’ But he’s offering instead to try and answer my questions. Tit for tat, I suppose, I’ve had to answer more than a million uncomfortable questions about humans.
“Alright,” I say, now barely eye-height with him - I’ve never been insecure about my height, but he is irritatingly tall - “How do you want to do this, then? I don’t want you uncomfortable.”
“Leave lab,” he says, before spinning on his heel and walking off in another direction. I follow.
I assume he’s trying to find somewhere with more space. Such locations hardly seem to exist here on the Hail Mary. The ship was built for a skeleton crew of three people, sure, but with dang near every single one of Rocky’s belongings strewn about, parts sectioned off where he can breathe his own air, both of us being grown men sharing this space - there’s not much left over for frolicking. He walks like a man on a mission, as if he’d already decided where this shall be done.
He turns and plants his heels once we’re in the ‘don’t go crazy’ room. He stares at me, expectantly, like he’s waiting for me to take charge. Of all things I have ever done in my life, ‘taking charge’ is not something I participate in often. Except in cases of science, I suppose, and that’s what this is supposed to be. Science.
It does not feel like science, admittedly. If it is, we’re doing it out of order. I feel like in most sci-fi stories, you’d understand the alien’s anatomy first before you became best friends with them - or in my case, wildly codependent. This doesn’t exactly feel like I’m poking and prodding an alien - it just feels like I’m about to feel up my best friend. Which, for all intents and purposes, is what I am going to do.
“Grace hurry up,” Rocky says.
“Right, yeah, sorry,” I pinch the bridge of my nose. Well, we’re here now. “Can you take off the top part of your jumpsuit? The jacket?”
He listens, and I watch as he slides his arms out of the sleeves. He takes it off two arms at a time, interestingly enough; both of his left arms, then both of his right arms. He lets the top half drape over his tool belt. He’s wearing a basic black shirt underneath, which is sleeveless. Convenient, I suppose.
I find it curious that we’ve evolved to have such similar clothes - I wonder if fashion is similar on Erid. I’ve seen clothes that look almost just like this before. The same sort of slim-fit top, the same sort of engineer jumpsuit. I suppose maybe it’s only natural that we’d eventually evolve similar tastes for fashion, being shaped so similarly.
“Can you hold your arms out like this?” I ask, holding my arms out straight in a t-pose.
He listens, but only with his top set of arms.
“All of your arms, bud.”
He rolls his eyes, uncrossing his second set of arms and holding them out as well. I suppose you can’t really call this a t-pose anymore.
“Okay, so, uh… I’m gonna touch you now, I guess,” I say - more so telling myself to get on with it than anything. I’m not sure where to start.
I reach for the first place I can think of, which is where a human’s pulse point would be on the neck. I hold two fingers to the spot. He does have a pulse point there. I sit there, counting for a moment. His resting heartbeat is slower than what a normal human’s would be, and the beat is much lower - it’s practically vibrating. I reach down for the first wrist I find, and check again. Another pulse point.
“What is Grace checking, question?” Rocky asks, as I move to the next wrist.
“Your pulse points,” I reply, “We have these things called pulse points, where if you put your hand on them, you can hear and feel someone’s heart beating.”
“Grace has a pulse point, question?”
“Yup,” I say, popping the ‘p,’ and checking another wrist. He’s got a pulse point in every single wrist.
“Here?” He asks, suddenly reaching up a free hand to place two fingers to my neck, just as I had done to him. I jump.
“I could’ve sworn you said I’m the only one doing the touching,” I say, jokingly - for the most part. The touch makes me nervous.
“Made Rocky curious. Grace heartbeat very quick.”
“Your heart beats slower than an average human’s would,” I say, sighing out a breath I didn’t know I was holding when he pulls away. “Can’t you just hear a heartbeat, anyways?”
“Could. Not focusing on it, so not hearing it.”
Huh. I guess he kind of has to be able to tune out things like that, given how much information he must constantly be taking in.
“Hold up a hand, like this,” I tell him, holding up my hand so that my palm faces him, fingers splayed out.
He listens. He seems curious as to where I’m taking this. I’m glad he’s willing to humor me, at least. I place my hand up to his so that the bases of our palms line up. His hand is bigger than mine, but I think it’s just because he’s bigger than me, generally. He’s got the same amount of joints in every finger that I do.
“What checking, question?”
“Just comparing,” I say.
He shifts his hand slightly, before folding his fingers and interlacing them with mine. He’s effectively just holding my hand. My face grows warm, and I jump.
“Rocky’s hand is bigger,” he says. “Covers Grace full hand.”
Some of my peers, the ones who fancied themselves more romantic than most, used to go on and on about how ‘perfectly’ the human body was made to slot in next to another. Hands perfectly able to hold another’s, the crook of a neck perfectly fitting someone’s head, the way we fold into each other during a hug, this, that and the other.
I’d argue this isn’t very romantic, just basic evolution. We’re a social species who need to bond, and to reproduce. So of course we’re engineered to fit perfectly against each other. It makes sense that a man and a woman fit next to each other, just as much as it’d make sense that their genitals work together. That’s just biology.
But the way Rocky’s hand fits around mine, almost perfectly, isn’t biology. We didn’t evolve concurrently to each other, our species have never touched before until this moment. Yet despite that, my hand all but perfectly fits in his. I’d argue that if anything was romantic, it’d be this - two species that existed separately from each other, evolving to fit perfectly next to each other. It’s almost more comforting than holding another human’s hand - his extra thumb folds around my hand, past my pinky, and my hand is all but encapsulated in his.
But I suppose most of my peers - actually, maybe only half, - would hesitate to call holding hands with an alien romantic. It’s gotta just be something wrong with my brain. Which isn’t anything new.
We’re just holding hands at this point. Jesus.
“Rocky,” I cough, “this is just holding hands.”
“Okay.”
“This is a thing that like, mates do.”
He shrugs. “Is for science.”
That excuse is running out of room to run insanely quickly. But sure. Science. I’m gonna keep telling myself ‘for science,’ before I lose my mind.
I’m not really sure what else this is for. But it feels like it’s something else, and I don’t like that. I prefer knowing and understanding. I could work through whatever my brain’s doing if I knew what it was doing. But I don’t.
I won’t pretend I’m the absolute best at interacting with others, and understanding my own emotions. I’ve had my friends, and I’ve had very few and far in between lovers - and by that I mean I could count them on one hand and still have half my fingers left over - and all that. But I spent most of my time sort of haphazardly stumbling through all of that instead of actually understanding it.
I think I understand my relationship with Rocky, for the most part, but I also think it transcends understanding. Which is annoying, because I want to understand. And whatever it is I’m feeling right now as he’s still holding my gosh darn hand, is complicating my understanding of it.
“Do you guys not hold hands on Erid?” I ask, breaking a long silence.
“Sure. Everybody hold hands. Everybody stay close.”
I nod. It’s not so much romantic, then, it’s just how social they are.
Eridians are insanely social. To a point that I think even the most outgoing of those I’ve known would be a little put off. It seems like it started as a survival thing and just evolved into how they are. They can’t really imagine being without another almost all the time. I can only imagine how maddening the past forty years had to have been for Rocky.
“Okay well, on Earth,” I say, “when two adult men who aren’t related hold hands, it’s kind of romantic.”
“Not romantic,” he insists, “For science.”
I’m unsure if I fully believe him, but whatever. He’s planted his heels and I’m not going to sit here trying to shove him over.
“Okay. Whatever. Can you turn around?”
He listens, letting go of my hand and spreading out his arms once again as he wheels around. This is possibly the most still I’ve ever seen him, aside from when he’s sleeping. His shirt is well fitting enough that I can see the outline of his shoulder blades - I was right, he’s got an entire second set that seem smaller than an average human’s.
“Can you flex your arms for me?”
“What mean by flex, question?” He asks, turning his head around.
I flex my arm for him in demonstration. His face lights up, for whatever reason, and he smiles. “Oh! Like this!” He exclaims.
He flexes his arms - all four at once, the frickin’ show off. I try to suppress the small gasp of surprise that leaves me on reflex, but the large grin on his face tells me I didn’t try hard enough.
“Rocky strong! Eridians very strong.”
“Oh yeah,” I say, “I can tell.” I hesitantly reach up a hand to touch one of his biceps. Whatever, I’m already this deep, might as well start swimming further down. My hand wraps around his bicep, and it is firm. More firm than an average human’s, I think.
“Are all Eridians this strong?” I ask him.
“Some stronger. Generally very strong,” he says. “Rocky is average strength.”
My lord.
I suppose it makes sense - their gravity is heavier, their atmosphere is thicker, their bones are stronger than ours. So of course they’re naturally strong. It doesn’t make it any less jarring, though. The thought that he could essentially pick me up and toss me around crosses my mind, several times. And then settles there. It’s making it very hard to continue whatever I was doing, actually.
“Rocky stop flexing now, question?”
“Yeah!” I say, maybe a bit too loudly, snapping out of my train of thought. “Yeah, sorry.”
He lets his arms drop, the bottom pair of his arms coming to rest on his hips. He turns back around to face me.
“Grace curiosity sated, question?”
I pause. I’m not really sure. I can’t conjure any more questions, but I know that his body - as weird as it sounds to say that - is still of interest to me. But I feel all too distracted to actually get anything else ‘productive’ (I guess you could hardly call this productive. My star system’s main star is dying and I’m feeling up an alien.) done. I shrug. I’ll take some time to think on it, maybe find a notebook somewhere to write down what I’ve learned and ruminate on it. In a biological, scientific, and completely normal way to ruminate on somebody’s body.
“Yeah, sure,” I say, “I’m good for now.”
He pouts. “For now?”
I throw my hands up. “Sue me, I’m a scientist! I get curious.”
“Rocky will sue when Rocky finds out what ‘sue’ is.”
“It’s like - “ Actually, no, I’m not a lawyer, I’m not explaining the legal system to him right now. “Nevermind. I promise I will stop staring so much.”
He squints at me, staring hard, before giving up. Admittedly, Rocky is more outwardly stubborn between the two of us - but he is occasionally reminded I can be far, far more stubborn. I’ll die on any biology related hill I wish. I suppose I am actively in the midst of dying on a hill of some sort. A limited amount of hills left for me to die on.
“Fine. Rocky Grace get back to work,” he says, reaching down and grabbing my hand.
“Hey-!”
He starts to all but drag me back to our lab. I stumble against his grip before I end up trailing behind him through the ship.
“Rocky!” I exclaim, “You’re holding my hand again, you don’t need to drag me!”
“Efficient,” he says. “Keep Grace close. Keep Grace focused.”
This is doing anything but help me focus! I don’t even remember what we were doing twenty minutes ago anymore.
“Humans only hold hands for romantic reasons? Never any other reason, question?”
I sigh. “Sure, sometimes…” I think of my children. They were far past the age of holding the hands of parents or teachers - at least, that they’d let their peers see. “Sometimes we lead younger people around by the hand. If someone has difficulty seeing, we might lead them around by the arm or hand.”
“Grace not see as well as Rocky.”
“I can see perfectly fine in here!”
He stops and turns, and I almost ram straight into his chest from the sudden stop of momentum. He’s still gripping my hand. “Rocky guide Grace by the hand. Rocky said so. Eridian thing to do.”
I sigh. He’s discovered that he can easily grab my hand, and now he’s never going to let it go. It wouldn’t surprise me if he spends the next hour working on something with three hands, and the fourth one tethering me next to him.
“Fine, fine. You can grab my hand when you need,” I say. It’s not all that bad, and it’s not like I really mind or anything - it’s just… well, I’ve never cared for them much before, but, the implications. This isn’t something I’m used to, and it’s hard to not see it in an Earth-like mindset. “Just, I only have two hands, so if you want us to get back to work, you gotta give me my hand back.”
He smiles. “Excellent!” He says, turning and continuing to drag me back to the lab - which was hardly more than five more steps. He drops my hand as he sits back down at his workbench, and I make my way back to my own station. He seems incredibly pleased with himself, humming a delighted tune as he begins to work.
I sigh, turning away from him back to my station. I told him I’d stop staring for now, at least, so I may as well try and focus. I doubt I’ll actually be able to, though.
He is so strange. In a good way, I suppose.