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He wakes to the sound of...waves? Waves. Yep, those are definitely waves.
Ryland lifts his head and squints between sleep-smudged eyelids, letting the blurriness of his surroundings click into their proper places in his mind. Right, he thinks vaguely, dappled in grogginess, right. I'm on Erid now. Not the Hail Mary. The words feel like they're tangled between being comforting and nauseating; not that Ryland is ungrateful—god, of course he isn't ungrateful—but rather...he feels sort of like a mismatched puzzle piece. The kind a frustrated child would smash into an empty slot just hoping to be done with the picture. An odd one out.
As he lifts the top half of his torso from the surprisingly Earth-like mattress handmade special, just for him, Ryland thinks vaguely of elementary school. Not a starkly different experience, at least as far as emotions go.
The routine of the morning stirs familiarity deep in the hollows of his bones, the twists of his muscles; by the time he's scrubbed his teeth and tongue raw with a toothpaste substitute and washed it down his sink (a sink, and holy smokes, proper plumbing! He can't think enough just how intelligent the Eridians are, and how kind they've have been to him—god only knows it must've been an annoying project. All for an alien like himself, too) Ryland expects his door to be bashed in, or even just the cacophonous trilling of Rocky's frustration. He pauses, waits, lingers—and nothing.
He weaves through the rooms, all cluttered with things from the spaceship and piles of gifts that Eridians have dropped off for him (though, in truth, most were brought to him by Rocky himself), and arrives at the front door. It clicks open easily, brushing the scent of the ocean across Ryland's front. It's not a perfect replica—it couldn't be; Ryland doesn't know enough about the ocean to know what makes it smell certain ways, and the Eridians did a damn good job regardless, but his heart tightens in spite of the logic.
He shakes himself from the clutches of melancholic nostalgia for the moment, gaze peering across the shoreline curiously. There, in what Ryland might call a skin-tight xenonite suit, sits none other than Rocky, craggy limbs digging into the sand. There's an urge to call out to him, but it passes when Ryland's feet step forward before he can consciously make a decision about it himself; they carry him closer and closer, and Rocky chirps knowingly—fondly—as he approaches.
"Friend Grace," he says.
Ryland hums. He plops himself down a bit behind Rocky, where the tide barely reaches the soles of his shoes. "Talk to me, bud."
Rocky's carapace twists toward Ryland, and if he had a face, Ryland would guess it'd be softening in his direction. He wets his lips, almost nervous at the presence of such a thought.
"Friend Grace happy, question?" Rocky asks. The song of his voice drags, hesitant.
Again, Ryland hums. Tau Ceti's light leaks into his skin, spreading warmth across the planes of his flesh. It drips from his cheeks down to the tips of his fingers. "I'm happy," he replies. Rocky must have expected it to sound different—perhaps a stronger statement, or a firmer tone—because he twists again, and shuffles himself up toward Ryland's side. It draws a soft, amused snort from his lungs and Ryland slings his arm around the top of Rocky's body. "Really, Rock, I mean it."
"Grace swear not telling Rocky lie, question?"
"I swear it."
Rocky takes a moment to himself, seemingly to mull it over, but ultimately he believes it; whether it's because of Ryland himself or the way he can sense the contentness flowing through his veins right now, he's not sure. It probably doesn't matter either way.
"Worry," he clarifies after a passing beat of silence.
"Hm?"
"Worry about friend Grace's life on Erid," Rocky says. Ryland glances down to him, watching Rocky's body jitter and tremble in the suit beneath his grasp. "Want Grace to be comfortable, statement. Happy. Not replacement for Earth, but hope friend Grace consider Erid a second home."
A huff of air escapes him before Ryland can stop it, and he has to fasten his arm around Rocky to stop him from throwing himself back and forth in a frenzy at the reaction. "No, no," Ryland splutters quickly, "I'm not laughing! I swear! I just—there's no reason to worry, Rocky, really. I like it here." He pauses, gnaws loosely at his bottom lip. A wave crashes harshly against the sand, then retreats again as if afraid. "You're right, it's not Earth and it won't ever be. But that doesn't mean I don't like it. You're all...doing your best to welcome me. Take care of me. Hell, you even got them to install a freaking toilet—talk about accomodating!" This time, he does mean to laugh. "I'm not unhappy. I miss Earth, but I like Erid. Really."
Rocky kindly stays silent between his half-rambling, but the words seem to reassure him. He makes something of a whistling, grumbling noise, and settles against Ryland's side again. He pushes closer, closer, and Ryland wonders if he's trying to get them to fuse into one singular being. He wonders if he'd let Rocky if the Eridians had that sort of science figured out.
A shiver crawls along the bony outline of his spine and carries away the scent of daisies. Ryland fills his lungs with the oxygen supplied by the biodome and chases the fleeting flora, though it's gone in the same second that he recognizes it. Rocky sways at his side.
How could this not make me happy? is a thought that flutters gently, like the wings of a butterfly. It smoothes over the core of his mind and settles atop, nestling into the front, in the space just behind his eyes, the center of his forehead. Ryland lets it curl up there, grounding himself with the pressure of its existence, and leans himself over onto Rocky's carapace.
(And he laughs again, silently, when Rocky sings in such a way that mimics a cat's purring.)