Chapter Text
Truthfully, 🎼has not ever stopped waiting for 🎵 to return. Maybe that is borne out of stubbornness, or maybe just trust in 🎵, in the mission. Regardless, over the long and lonely years, it has never once faltered in its conviction or devotion, even when it has been difficult and made others uncomfortable. 🎵 is capable and 🎼 still has a job to do in the meantime, a community that depends on it for leadership through a tumultuous time; a home to tend to while its partner is away fighting for its future in the most literal possible way. Belief in 🎵 is simple for 🎼. It has been that simple for 🎼 ever since they first met.
Perhaps that is why 🎼 is so calm when it hears the breaking news: there is an unidentified ship in Erid’s orbit.
Maybe it's foolish to jump to such conclusions, but 🎼 cannot pretend that it does not know immediately what this means.
🎵 is home.
🎼 is there in the communications room when their radios make contact. Even if 🎼 were not the marital partner of 🎵, its position on the Council would still necessitate its presence at such a critical hour. There is a great air of suspense in the communications room, the ambient thrum pulsing with anticipation and even some fear, not quite able to be restrained for professionality’s sake in these tense moments before radio-wave nonsense becomes clear. 🎼 seems to be the only one who does not feel nervous, disconnected from the room’s thrum.
🎼 just knows that 🎵 is home.
It is undeniably 🎵’s voice that 🎼 hears on the radio. Currently, they are only receiving and 🎼 motions for the team to continue working— in the shock of the moment, busy hands had stopped moving.
“Erid, do you copy? It is 🎵 of the Tau Expedition Team. Erid, do you receive this transmission?”
A chime from the console dashboard— a tech’s hands go up to confirm, and 🎼 surges to the live receiver, its circulatory fluid racing and superheated.
“Erid copies, my love,” 🎼 sings. “I hear you, 🎵!”
“🎼… Mission success.”
The communications room erupts. The thrum is vibrant and jubilant, awash with a relief that has been many, many difficult years in the making.
“Welcome home, 🎵,” it replies, hoping 🎵 can still clearly hear its voice among the giddy relief of the throng.
🎵 is home.
🎼 remains in the communications room for quite some time. It makes a quick note to itself for later; a reminder to do something kind for the aide who so quickly rushed to clear the room of nonessential personnel when it became clear that 🎵’s was the only voice on the radio. It delivered a professional and brief report that laid out only the very basics: the mission was successful, in that 🎵 has in its possession a solution to the sun’s death. Also, 🎵 is the sole survivor of the trip.
With alarming speed, 🎵 dissolved into nearly frightening incoherence, sobbing to a degree that 🎼 has simply never heard from it before. 🎼 braces itself, quivering with alarm and dread. Something has gone horribly wrong for 🎵 to sound like this, to wail out a grief utterly wordless yet so, so saturated with a despair that transcends language. Sole survivor, 🎼 sticks on, the thought echoing strangely. 🎵 is the only survivor.
For a time, all 🎼 can make out over the radio is 🎵 mournful reverb, I’m sorry.
So 🎼 is on the orbital elevator within hours. It would move the orbit of the planet itself to be able to hold 🎵 in its arms. So fast it is dizzying, 🎼 finds itself headed up to Erid’s orbit and into the belly of the strange ship that has carried 🎵 home. By the time 🎵’s cries had subsided, 🎵 was coherent once again, able to answer questions and direct the ground operations team to its thorough data packets. 🎼 will simply not be calmed until 🎵 is safe in its arms, shielded with 🎼’s own body.
“All were lost,” 🎵 confessed to it in a ragged voice over the radio. “But then I was found.”
🎵, 🎼’s 🎵, is not only the sole survivor of this dreadful mission— it has also made first contact with sapient alien life. By all the sacred sounds… 🎼 has never been particularly religious; that kind of language is not nearly strong enough for whatever this feeling is.
Fuck.
🎼, on its way to 🎵, is shortly going to become the second Eridian ever to meet an alien.
What the FUCK.
It isn’t nervous about it. 🎵 said it was safe, so it is. 🎼 has no doubt about that. It’s more concerned about 🎵’s wellbeing than any damn alien. (As a Council official, it should probably feel more guilty about that.)
But 🎼 has just one priority now. It isn't here as a leader or an expert, but as a marital partner long overdue a reunion.
As soon as the airlock cycles, 🎼 steps into the unknown, calling as sweetly and kindly as it knows how, “My dearest 🎵?”
“🎼?” chirps that unmistakable voice. It is felt deeply everywhere.
And oh, how 🎵 is smaller than 🎼 recalls. Extreme stress can shrink an Eridian, and 🎵 was small to begin with—teased for it, when they were both younger. Now, 🎵 is sickly-small, emaciated, not just slight. 🎼 rumbles, the same purring tone it has used to soothe 🎵 since the earliest days of their companionship. 🎵 is standing against a xenonite barrier of some kind, tense and guarded, trembling and too quiet, as if unsure that 🎼 is really here.
Though its body screams for it to run to 🎵, to cover it completely and press all the shivering out of it, 🎼 restrains itself. Nothing has ever been harder. It practically trembles with the will it takes to hold itself back. It can be patient with 🎵. It must. What’s a few moments more, after all these years apart? To even be close enough to hear its love once again is a gift, a fucking miracle.
So 🎼 purrs, settles into a more deferential posture, and assures it, “I’m here, my darling. Take your time.”
“You’re here?” 🎵 says, voice level in an uncharacteristic range. Its voice is very strangely soft, very monotone. 🎵’s words are almost childishly simple with no subvocalizations.🎼 lets itself feel the ache of these changes, makes itself vent deliberately through them; there will be time to process it all. Wondering does neither of them any good here and now.
“I’m right here, with you. We are at the space dock.”
“They took the package?”
🎼 assumes it means the samples of the Astrophage-predator and the data-bursts. “Yes, and your instructions were very thorough.” By 🎼’s understanding, there was a drop-box hand off of materials for the best scientific minds to unpack. “Where is your friend?”
🎵 flinches before visibly strangling the reaction. 🎼 admonishes itself internally for the misstep; it keeps still, does not pressure or rush.
“Grace?” 🎵 calls at a more normal volume.
A noise, a burst of strange syllabic grunts on the other side of the xenonite and— oh.
Oh, wow.
Wow, that’s… really alien.
As distracted as 🎼 is by whatever this wet-squishy-noise-hole-hole-hole creature has going on, it completely misses that the alien has set a piece of technology down right until the very moment the machine starts translating its obscene hole noises into motherfucking Eridian.
“Hello!” A hauntingly Eridian-but-not synthetic voice produces from between the humans creepy soft-soft-soft claw-like bits. “Rocky’s told me so much about you! It’s. Much good to meet you!”
“You surprised me! Hello! Wow!” 🎼 sings, fascinated despite its perfectly valid feelings of Hey What The Fuck. For all the strangeness and yuckyness, it still feels no fear. It really doesn’t think it's in any kind of danger here. So 🎼 moves closer to the alien, slowly.
Still 🎵 jerks suddenly, one limb snapping as if to say stop. 🎼 stops immediately and coos softly.
“This is your human?” 🎼 asks, tilting once again submissively at 🎵, as nonthreatening as someone of 🎼’s size can be.
“Yes,” 🎵 practically sobs.
The sound of 🎵’s voice breaking, warbling like that is like a physical blow. 🎼 once again strangles the urge to furiously descend upon 🎵 in its strong panic.
🎼 refocuses and asks, “What did it call you?”
“Rocky, that’s his name for me. His name is Grace. If you speak, this machine will translate for him. He is so good, very smart, but we talk too fast, and his hearing is very limited.” it’s the most 🎼 has heard its love speak in what feels like a lifetime.
🎼 turns its attention back to the alien, deliberate and exaggerated, unsure of what the alien understands of their norms. “Grace,” it carefully repeats and then, 🎼 bows deeply, hoping that its sincerity is understood. “Thank you for bringing my mate home.”
“Oh, wow… I mean! Of course. Of course. It’s… really nice to meet you, Adrian.”
“Adrian?”
🎵 has crept tentatively closer since 🎼 began speaking directly to Grace. 🎵 is soothed by 🎼’s easy acceptance of this strange—gross and wet, wet, wet—person.
🎵 is so fucking small, smaller than it was when they first met, and 🎼 just aches to hold it. When was the last it ate? When did it last sleep? Does its Grace keep the watch for it? The closer it draws to 🎼, the harder it becomes to restrain itself.
“Oh, sorry, that’s my human name for you,” Grace says.
That strikes 🎼 as incredibly sweet—they talked so much about 🎼 that the human actually gave it a name in its native language! It’s touched by this and encouraged by 🎵’s cautious, unsteady approach.
“I’m honored,” 🎼 says and it is genuine. Then it can simply stand it no longer, turning its attention once again to 🎵 and singing softly, “My darling 🎵, may I hold you?”
🎵 stills. Fuck.
“Rocky, bud, you okay?” Grace asks, the little machine translating to help 🎼 understand this as a question.
“You… still want to hold me?” 🎵 whispers, and 🎼’s heart fucking breaks.
It lowers itself to the ground, supplicant, worshipful, reaching out. “My dearest, my sweet darling love, of course. Please, please let me hold you.”
🎵 warbles a tremulous wail as they finally collide.
🎼 presses 🎵 close, lowers them to the ground right there with the human watching. 🎼 drums up a loud, bassy purr as 🎵 begins to sob. How long since 🎵 has touched another? Since 🎵 has been held and soothed?
Never again, 🎼 thrums with conviction, oozing sincerity as it sways them side to side. I’m never letting you out of my sight again.
On the other side of the barrier, the alien—Grace—coos at them, its noise-making hole open wide. 🎼 tries not to be disturbed by that.
Adrian does not return to the planet yet. It justifies this to its mate by saying it must stay here because its mate clearly needs to sleep. Rocky protests that Grace has been keeping the watch for it during its rest periods and Adrian doesn’t doubt this. But it is also abundantly clear to it that Rocky needs all the rest it can come by. As they begin to thrum, awareness begins to brush up against one another for the first time in a long time, Adrian can perceive the sharpness of their mate’s fatigue and stress. It has been terribly, terribly worried for its Grace.
Adrian bullies Rocky along into the spot Grace helpfully indicates as being Rocky’s makeshift nest, insufficiently padded for any real comfort. Adrian makes note of how closely pressed to the human’s barrier this makeshift nest is, and the mirroring human-nest directly opposite it. Adrian struggles to picture a way that the two could be closer with the wall that separates their respective atmospheres.
Grace follows them clumsily over, creeping strangely on its elongated, spindly limbs. It settles in its own nest, facing Adrian.
Despite all its noisy protesting, Rocky is out almost as soon as Adrian tucks it underneath the bulk of its larger body. Rocky has always been soothed by deep-pressure stimuli, such as being crushed under Adrian’s weight while asleep. Grace’s wet-wet-wet front-facing sensing organs widen in surprise when Adrian drops its weight down atop its marital partner. Adrian settles in for what will likely be the most interesting getting to know you conversation it will ever have.
“I’ve been trying to get him to sleep more, but it’s been hard lately,” Grace admits. Adrian is fascinated by the way its mouth moves to produce sound, the wet, slippery muscle just wriggling away inside. It is enthralled by this strange person who has evidently labored for so long caring for Adrian’s love.
“Rocky is stubborn, statement.” Adrian tells Grace, amused. It has already begun to note how its mate has simplified the nuances of their speech so that its companion can follow more easily. Even so, the human’s proficiency with this pidgin-eridian is incredibly impressive. Its intellect is obvious; it is nothing like Adrian expected.
“Thank you for your care, Grace,” Adrian threads through its words chords of sincerity and gratitude, peppers in the textured tones of deepest respect.
The alien’s circulatory fluid makes an incredibly alarming and noisy rush towards its topmost bits and it stutters, “Please, no thanks necessary! Really, that’s— I owe Rocky my life,” Grace dithers, sounding sheepish to Adrian’s ears. It strikes Adrian like a throb, its sudden intense affection for this strange, humble thing with a gossamer carapace.
It’s cute.
“How did you two come across one another, question?” Adrian makes careful emphasis of the interrogative indicators.
Does it need to move so much, or are these signs of agitation or discomfort? Adrian can only characterize the behavior as fidgeting, but spares a moment of anxiety at ascribing eridian-meanings to its behaviors out of bias (although unintentional).
“Ahh… Rocky would probably tell it better,” Grace dithers.
Adrian can’t help but laugh. It strokes a claw down Rocky’s spousal markings fondly, cooing in wordless pleasure. Finally, they are reunited. It doesn’t hurt to think about Rocky when Rocky is once again where it belongs.
“Rocky has many talents, storytelling not one of them, statement. Adrian wants to hear Grace tell its story, request.”
So, it does. Their conversation detours down fascinating tangents as the story unravels. Adrian learns Grace is a brilliant scientific mind (specializing in molecular and cell biology; also its planet’s leading Astrophage expert) though prior to its embarking on this dangerous mission to Tau Ceti, it was a teacher of many juvenile humans. It learns that Grace has an entire other sense through which it perceives its environment: sight, facilitated by light and sensory organs in its head called “eyes”. Its auditory range is extremely limited, by eridian standards, and Adrian figures out that it cannot pick up any eridian subvocalizations whatsoever—a whole dimension of nuance to eridian speech and Grace is functionally deaf to it all. It learns that Grace came across Rocky long after Rocky had already been alone; Grace teaches Adrian about radiation. Slowly but surely, Adrian begins to piece together the rhythm of Rocky’s suffering all these years of its mission, as heard by these delicate human eyes.
It has tried valiantly to limit most interruptions, but there is a particular quirk of language it has not yet been able to unravel. “Unknown word, not translated,” Adrian interrupts during Grace’s retelling of their adventures above planet Adrian—this serves a twofold function of providing linguistic clarity while also giving Adrian a second to compose itself, because it has so many feelings about its mate naming a planet in its honor.
“Oh, ‘he’? So, English, the human language I speak, has different sets of pronouns that are used to refer to different individuals instead of just saying their name every time. Humans usually have strong preferences about our pronouns and it varies a lot from person to person. I use he/him/his as my pronouns and… Oh geez, this is embarassing… I kind-of gave Rocky the same pronouns as me. But there are many options! She, they, it… uh… zem, xir… I’m realizing I don’t know that many pronouns, actually, but trust me there are tons!”
Adrian hums purposefully in a register Grace can hear, hoping to convey thoughtfulness before choosing its next words. “What are Adrian pronouns, question?”
Grace’s mouth becomes small and round as breath whooshes noisily out. He slaps his hands on his legs and replies, “What pronouns do you want to have?”
Well, that’s easy enough. Adrian says simply, “If Rocky and Grace both are he-him, Adrian will be he-him in addition, statement.”
“Are you sure? You don’t have to just pick what we use,” Grace seems concerned.
However, he’s missing critical context about the kind of eridian that Adrian is.
Adrian wants to pick what Rocky uses primarily because Adrian knows it will piss Rocky off. It has always irritated Rocky when Adrian’s preferences just so happen to perfectly overlap with its own, ever since the earliest days of their friendship. When Rocky would express a preference—whether that be for a particular tool, museum, song, piece of lab equipment, musician, author—and Adrian would then express the exact same preference, Rocky would act like a sullen, spoiled child. Get your own thing! Rocky would demand of him. Oh, he will be so ruffled, especially if he already also knows that there are many human pronouns for Adrian choose from.
One of Adrian’s parents once described him as having a “bully’s personality” meaning that Adrian was always seeking out strong reactions from others and didn’t much care if those reactions were positive or negative. This was not a personality trait that stayed confined to Adrian's childhood. Needless to say, his previous courtship attempts prior to meeting Rocky during the later years of his university studies had frightened off (or downright offended) many potential partners, despite Adrian otherwise having a robust social circle and many friends.
The words intense, scary, and mean had been used on multiple occasions. Adrian’s closest friends gave many attempts at advice over the years, only for it all to really boil down to just try and tone it down! The "it" being that indescribable itch Adrian has to butt heads with someone that is going to butt heads back. Adrian has always wanted someone to mutually antagonize, someone who genuinely matches his glee while doing it. He was always looking for someone to harmonize with him in this way.
Adrian knew from their very first shouting argument that their mate was going to be Rocky. Their styles of expressing affectionate, intimate attachment could be no more perfectly matched. As far as Adrian is concerned, the first time Rocky called him a "colossal fucking moron with talc for brains and a supermassive ego", Adrian was ready to propose marriage.
Over the meandering hours that Adrian and Grace have conversed while Rocky has slept—safe and home at last; my love, my love, my love—another shape begins to emerge from their discussion and the void of Rocky's mission in the form of a realization. There is a pull here like that very same magnetism of Adrian and Rocky’s earliest flirtations. It is that same polarity, that pull and sense of match. It whispers to Adrian from every corner of this little world that Rocky has inhabited for years with this alien being, the rightness of it all. The sense of belonging and the certainty.
You and him fit each other, Adrian hears as clear as a chorus.
Undeniably, Adrian’s life will change irreversibly once again just for having sat in this ship, having chatted with an alien being from another solar system; he would be a fool if he didn’t understand that before stepping aboard.
What Adrian did not foresee: whatever strange, powerful allure this human has established over his mate is fully transmissible.
It is easy to come to terms with this new, vital person in his life; what is Rocky's is Adrian’s, and vice-versa. Of course this would extend to Rocky’s Grace.
Adrian can’t wait for his mate to wake up. He has so much teasing to do.