Work Text:
We were good at planning, me and Grace. It was a common strength of ours. As he'd neared the end of his life we'd planned for many scenarios, mostly as his insistence, but occasionally mine when it came to his comfort or wellbeing.
We'd never planned for one where I couldn't be there in his final moments. Optimism was a shared trait, too.
It's in moments like this, where I am between my sleep state and wakefulness, that the injustice of it all feels strongest. Most of the time, I struggle to summon any feeling at all.
I muster the energy to move my legs, stretching them out in front of me. I could just continue to lay here, but it wouldn't do me any good, and I had made a promise to keep myself healthy even when Grace couldn't – not that any such promises matter now, not really, it sometimes feels like. Not when the person who'd bring me up on breaking them is dead.
Still. I continue to stretch, then pull myself into standing. Before me is my workbench, many projects sprawling out across the surface, all of them abandoned.
I spent many of my last years focusing my efforts on keeping Grace either happy or healthy. Now, I have nothing; nothing that I find I can keep my attention on, at least. It doesn't matter how many projects I overlap, or how complex a challenge I set myself, I always end up getting distracted before I can finish anything. In the weeks since Grace's death, nothing has sparked joy in me the way my work used to do, and I don't know if it will ever again.
I'm debating whether I can be bothered to try something new, when I hear movement at the front of the house. Adrian must be back from their work shift.
I spare them a little attention as they move around, and spare them more when they shuffle closer and closer to my room. They linger, silent, but not making an attempt to mask their presence.
I have kept the door to my workshop closed since returning to this place, and that was weeks ago. It's rude of me, I won't deny it, and I wouldn't be surprised if Adrian was finally here to call me out on it. I know that grief is supposed to be a communal thing. You are meant to share it. I'm being selfish – something in me wants me to hoard these moments for myself. I want to wallow in the memories alone instead of joining any song for the departed.
Sure enough, Adrian calls out to me. "Rocky?" they chime, frustratingly gently. "Can we talk?"
They've been so patient. They've given me space. I couldn't ask for a more understanding mate.
"I'm busy," I snap at them, sinking back into myself.
The door opens, and I can't help but startle. Adrian walks up to me, but not so close that I feel crowded. They've always been good at judging things like that.
"This is important," they say. "It's about Grace."
I want to tell them to leave, but at the end of the day, I hadn't locked the door. Every sleep-cycle, their presence in the room next to mine has been a comfort. A little bit of normality creeps into my life when they themself settle down to sleep, and as much as I want to hate it – the idea of normality in this situation – I can't.
I gesture for them to continue.
"I spoke to the doctor who was there with them, at the end," Adrian begins, pulling no punches. "I wanted to pass on what they told me. I think it might help."
Perhaps they think they might not get another shot at this conversation, which is a fair assumption to make, given how I can't help but flinch away at the reminder of my failure. I flinch, but I don't tell them to stop. Weeks ago, I couldn't face the thought of hearing what Grace might have said. He'd often been confused, near the end. What if he'd thought I had abandoned him? What if his last moments had been spent afraid, because of me?
I had been too much of a coward to ask for the truth, and had turned people down when they'd tried to confront me with it. But, I can trust Adrian to deliver it to me now.
"The doctor wanted you to know that Grace was peaceful," Adrian says, and I feel the weight across my body start to lessen. "His last words were of you. He wanted you to keep moving forwards. He was asking if you'd accepted that position on the eridian welcoming committee." Adrian pauses. "He wanted to know that you'd have something to focus on. He wanted you to know that you were loved, and he wanted to know that you'd be okay."
It's so much to process. I latch onto the idea of finding something new to do in the aftermath of Grace's death, something that Grace had wanted me to work on. The idea of having a purpose again is tempting, but–
"He makes it sound so simple. You both do. But it isn't. How can I just move on from this?"
How could he ever ask me to do that?
"Let me help you," Adrian says. "Maybe talking to someone who has been where you are might be helpful. I know that it seems impossible right now, but–"
"You don't know what it's like! You… you…!"
Even as I'm saying the words, I'm realising how foolish they are. Of all the things to say to them, when they'd spent as long as they had done waiting for me, grieving for me... I am foolish. Selfish.
I wait for Adrian to explode, to trill in very justifiable anger. Instead I am met with silence, which is almost worse. Then, they settle down next to me, and take one of my claws in their own.
This isn't an eridian gesture. We hum, and trill, and let our presence be known through our chords. No, this is a human gesture – the first I have felt for many days, now.
When they start talking, their voice is quiet but steady.
"You'll spend a long time sitting and waiting for something to change. After all, what's the alternative? You couldn't ever imagine life without them, but now you are alive, without them. Surely reality needs to shift to accommodate something so wrong? So, you'll spend a long time sitting and waiting for something to change before something actually does, and it won't be anything you would expect at all – in my case, I was hungry, and I needed food, so I went out to get food. And then I needed a new power cell for the radio, so I left the nest to get one. And then a friend asked for my help on their project, and I accepted, and took on work of my own again.
"Because," Adrian breathes, "I realised that nothing was going to change in the way you expect it to. You have no choice but carry on until you find normality again, because when a person is so intertwined with your life, there is no with or without them. Their life echoes on through yours. You carry their song, and you find normal, and you keep on living with all the habits you have picked up from them. You chime laughter at the memory of them. They drive you onwards."
They come to a stop, shuffling their feet while they try to find the chords to continue. While they do so, I try to parse meaning from what they've already said.
I am alive. Grace is not. There are humans who will be coming to Erid and would appreciate being met by eridians who truly knew them, and all their quirks.
"I think you should take the job," Adrian says quietly, after some time.
I think I agree.