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Grace is deep in thought, staring unseeingly at the equations and notes on the whiteboard in front of him. Vaguely, he registers the air shift in the room and something bumps his calf. Grace looks down. Rocky peers up at him, body tense with irritation.
“Grace, is annoy.” Rocky says sharply. Grace stares at the pen in his hand that he’s been clicking for the past few moments and stops.
“Sorry.”
“Why humans do this, question?”
“Do what?”
Rocky shuffles irritably, considering.
“Tapping, making noise, always moving. Why, question?”
“I guess it’s more of a ‘me’ thing than a human thing.” Grace admits, pocketing the pen and resorting instead to rocking up and down on his heels as he ponders. Rocky seems dissatisfied with the answer but instead rolls away to some other part of the ship, away from Grace and his many sounds.
Rocky has been asking more and more questions lately about Grace’s habits. He supposes his friend is getting bored on the long return trip to Erid, itching to expand his knowledge of humans and their behaviour. As far as Rocky knows, Grace is the most normal human out there. Selfishly, he’d like to keep it that way a little longer.
He clutches the traffic cone to his chest and suppresses the rising bile in his throat as his stomach pitches sideways. Stratt strides ahead of him on the aircraft carrier, undeterred by Grace and his weak stomach as he trots after her.
Another of the many perks of his particular brain is that he gets sick very easily. Seasick, airsick, carsick, any opportunity for his stomach to protest against an undulating movement. This version of him doesn’t know it yet, but he also gets spacesick, and is unsurprised but horrified by his quick decision to vomit down his open flight suit instead of risking contaminating the equipment when he starts to orbit Tauceti for the first time.
He needs a wash, and a nap, and possibly a few moments in a dark room to decompress and calm his nervous system and - that is a massive room full of people and they’re all staring at him. Panic seizes him and Grace freezes, turning on his heel and trying to escape.
“I can’t, I can’t.” He pleads with Stratt. She spins him and guides him in front of the projector. The light is too bright and he can feel every eye in the room fixed on him. His palms are sweating. His chest is sweating, he feels like he’s going to be sick. Again.
Grace’s fingers itch for the familiar weight of the crochet globe he carries in class. Anything to ground himself as he stumbles through an unprepared explanation of how he and Carl bred Astrophage. Stratt looks disappointed. Grace is used to it.
When he closes the door behind him in his small but private room on the carrier, Grace drops into a low squat, head in his hands, dragging his nails against his scalp soothingly. Gradually, his breathing slows, his heartbeat stops pounding in his ears. Grace opens his eyes and stares at the floor. He looks up, searching for a switch, and thumbs off the too-bright fluorescent light, plunging himself into blissful darkness. He stays like that for some time, until Stratt raps on his door and he fumbles to look normal, taking a seat on the small bed and clicking on the light, appearing for all the world like a functional, sane middle school teacher.
The hacky sack makes a satisfying squish as Grace closes his fist around it, rolling it in his palm. He tosses the tiny globe from one hand to the other, weighing it thoughtfully as the opening credits roll on a new episode of Friends in the projection room. Rocky shakes himself beside Grace, settling into a position Grace has affectionately started calling a ‘loaf’, all five legs tucked neatly beneath him. They sit in companionable silence for a while, but Grace can feel tension climbing in his peripheral where Rocky is huddled. He’s about to ask what’s wrong when his friend snaps.
“Grace.” Rocky chirps. Grace doesn’t need the translator as much these days, he certainly knows what his own name sounds like in Eridian now, and Rocky sounds pissed.
“What?”
“Is annoy. Statement.”
Grace flinches, looking around. Rocky jerks his carapace at Grace’s leg, which he’s been jiggling for the past few minutes.
“Sorry.”
Grace stills his leg but feels the urge to move crawl up his spine like ants. He resorts to chewing the inside of his cheek instead. Rocky seems satisfied, at least.
Grace tastes the copper tang of blood a few moments later as he snags a piece of his skin between his incisors and is alarmed when Rocky rolls his ball into Grace’s shoulder to get him to stop.
“Grace hurt,” Rocky says uncertainly as Grace dabs at the spot of blood at the corner of his mouth.
“It’s fine.”
“Why Grace move so much, why not sit still, question?”
Grace feels his face heating. “It’s just…hard sometimes. I feel like I need to move when I think, or when stuff is going on. It’s not a big deal.”
Rocky tilts his body in an assessing manner. Grace feels like a bug under a microscope.
“Move leg. Is fine.” Rocky says after a thoughtful pause. Grace smiles privately.
“Thanks.”
Moments pass.
“Why not move leg now, question?”
“Well I don’t need to right now!” Grace replies exasperatedly. Rocky gives the Eridian equivalent of an eye roll, shuffling his body grumpily.
“Humans strange, statement.”
Rocky clatters up to Grace one afternoon with a purposeful angle to his carapace and a tablet under one arm. He pulls up short and his body tilts down at Grace’s feet.
“What is Grace doing, question?”
Grace looks down at his sock clad feet on the cold spaceship floor. He’s balancing on the sides of his feet, toes curled inwards to avoid placing his soles flat on the floor.
“Standing.” Grace replies evenly.
“Grace stand weird.”
“Thanks,” Grace grumbles, placing one foot on top of the other as a compromise. He draws another whisker on the fox illustration he’s been working on on the whiteboard. Rocky points his reader at the board curiously, studying the drawing.
“This is fox, question?”
Grace grins. “Yeah! It’s a fennec fox, actually. You know they use their ears like radar detectors, kind of like echolocation?”
“Grace draws fox often. Is interest, question?”
Grace looks at the whiteboard pen in his hand and caps it self-consciously. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Interest is…special, question?”
Grace whips round. “What?”
Rocky tenses. “Nothing.”
They regard each other for a moment. Grace makes himself put his feet flat on the floor even though his brain is screaming at him.
“I’m going to bed.”
“Good, Grace sleep. Goodnight, Grace.” Rocky responds hastily. Grace narrows his eyes at his friend suspiciously.
The inclusion of noise cancelling headphones might be one of the only kindnesses afforded to him on the Hail Mary, Grace thinks as he switches on the ANC and his brain goes silent for the first time in days. The ship rumbles at a constant low frequency that Grace can feel in his bones and he just needs it to stop for a while. Rocky’s constant commentary and movement are grating on him and he wants so badly to be a good friend and just communicate to him that he needs some personal space, a moment to himself, but his mouth won’t form the words and everything feels too hard to manage.
Grace retreats to one of the observation rooms on board. It’s bright white and the harsh lighting hurts his eyes, but it’s quiet. Grace wraps his arms around his torso tightly, squeezing until breathing becomes difficult. It’s not enough. He wants to sob, overstimulated and tired, but instead he just drags over the quilt from the nearby chair. He folds it into fours until it’s slightly weighted, and curls up under it on the floor.
He thinks about his kids.
More specifically, he thinks about how at home he felt teaching, and how children understood him in a way most adults couldn’t. Grace misses the moments when he’d have a breakthrough with the quiet kid in class, bringing them out of their shell; or when he’d see the dawning of excitement on his students’ faces when their experiments started to work. Most of all, Grace wishes he had the opportunity to spend time with more kids that were like him; neurodivergent, confused, lonely, hopelessly waiting on the sidelines of life for someone to reach out a hand. He’ll never get to teach again, or meet anyone else like him. He’s the only human that Rocky’s species will ever meet, which makes him equally the most normal and most peculiar of his kind.
Three distinct taps sound beside his head.
Grace pokes his head out from under the quilt, removing the headphones. Rocky is standing over him, concerned.
“Grace.” Rocky says. It’s not a question.
“Yeah, I know.” Grace murmurs. He sits up, rubbing his eyes.
“It’s a…neurodevelopmental difference. It’s not an illness, but it is a disability. It’s also just…” Grace shrugs. “Who I am.”
“Understand. Autistic.” Rocky repeats, trying out the new word that, up to now, he’s only read on a screen. Grace nods, strangely relieved to hear his friend say it aloud.
“Yeah.”
He’s still mildly irritated that Rocky has been trying to diagnose him via medical websites in his down time, as his friend admitted sheepishly when Grace started to explain how he was different from other humans.
“How many humans are like this, question? Is half, question?” Rocky continues, tapping his claws together curiously.
“No, more like… one percent.”
Rocky seems to think for a moment.
“Grace is rare human, statement.”
Something warm blooms in Grace’s chest. “Thanks, Rock.”
Rocky shuffles. “How can Rocky help, question?”
Grace considers. “I like…deep pressure. Heavy things on me. It calms me down. On Earth I had a weighted blanket, that helped.”
There’s another pause, then, “I can do!” Rocky says excitedly.
“You’ll crush me.” Grace says patiently.
“Is not true, Eridian limb is still heavy, less so than body. I can do.” Rocky reaches out and his arm extends through the flexible xenonite barrier he’s been working on. Grace regards it cautiously. Rocky makes a ‘come hither’ gesture and Grace gives a surprised laugh.
“Ok.”
He scoots closer and lays down beside Rocky’s ball. Rocky tilts his carapace.
“Where is good for Grace, question?”
This feels strangely intimate. Grace points to the centre of his chest, traces down the vagus nerve without looking. “Here.”
Rocky presses against the edge of the ball and stretches his arm until it hovers just above Grace’s chest. Gingerly, he rests the limb on top of him, down the centre of his torso, like a weird side-hug. Grace makes a soft ‘oof’ at the weight but relaxes almost instantly, soothed by the pressure.
“Is good, question?”
“Hm,” Grace responds, eyes closing. “Good.”
He doesn’t mean to fall asleep, but the deep pressure coupled with the comforting heat of Rocky’s arm is telling Grace’s body it’s safe to rest, so he naps for almost an hour with Rocky keeping watch.
When Grace wakes up, the lights are off in the small room, and Rocky is huddled in the corner, the laptop open on the floor. He’s pecking away at the keyboard slowly, occasionally referring to his reader that’s pointed at the screen, the blue light casting him in a strange glow.
“Hey,” Grace mumbles, rubbing his eyes. Rocky perks up.
“Rocky turn off lights for Grace.” He says proudly.
“How did you know they were on?”
“Can hear. Lights make noise, humans cannot hear, question?”
“Uh, sometimes. I can hear it, others can’t, usually”
“Loud.” Rocky says thoughtfully.
“Hm.” Grace agrees.
“You are like Eridian,” Rocky observes. Grace surprises himself with the laugh that bubbles up. Rocky tilts his head curiously.
“Sorry, it’s just that, some people say being autistic feels like being an alien among humans. It’s uh, funny. Kind of.”
“Eridians are not aliens, humans are aliens.” Rocky bristles.
“Yeah, I know pal. We’re both aliens to each other.”
“Grace is more alien.” Rocky mutters. “Grace leaky leaky leaky. Stand weird, move much.” He points to the laptop, changing the subject. “I search many sites on thinking device, learn about human neurodiversity.”
“Oh,” Grace says, sitting up and pulling the quilt around his shoulders. “I’m not sure how I feel about you studying me.”
“Only to help Grace, to understand.” Rocky says hastily. “I learn; big light is bad bad bad. I turn off for Grace.”
“That’s… really thoughtful.”
Rocky makes a confused noise. “New word.”
“Thoughtful, it uh, means kind, considerate. Being a good friend.”
Rocky trills happily. “Good good good, I am pleased.”
Grace yawns, stretching his arms above his head. “I’m going to change clothes and freshen up. Be right back.”
Rocky makes a dismissive noise, already absorbed in another tab on the computer. When Grace returns in a new flight suit, Rocky notices but doesn’t say anything at first. Grace sighs.
“What?”
Rocky shuffles. “Grace does not like to be studied.”
“It’s fine, what is it?” Grace grumbles, on his way to make a pouch of dehydrated coffee. Rocky follows, transferring into his Xenonite tunnel and clattering along behind him on the way to the kitchen.
“Grace wears clothing strangely. Arms do not go in arms holes. This is for comfort or for looks, question?”
Grace looks down at himself, and the red arms of his flight suit tied around his waist over his fresh shirt.
“I guess… I don’t like the feeling of things tight against my neck. I don’t like stiff collars, which this has, so I wear it like trousers instead.” Grace says hesitantly.
“Shirt is ok, question?”
Grace tugs at the soft neckline of his t-shirt. “Yeah, it’s soft. It’s ok.”
Rocky taps something into the computer while making an interested noise. “This difference is…” He muses.
“Sensory.” Grace supplies. He feels strangely charmed by Rocky’s interest in how his brain works. It makes a nice change from being called stupid and grumpy all the time.
Grace moves around the kitchen area making coffee and humming. He bumps the table with his hip and Rocky chitters at him.
“Grace, be careful. Hit table.”
The word ‘table’ in Eridian has a pleasant lilt to it, one that Grace can almost mimic by himself with his voice box. Grace has always liked it.
Table table table.
“Why Grace copy, question?” Rocky probes.
“Sorry, didn’t realise I was doing it.” Grace chuckles.
“Eridian pronunciation is bad bad bad.”
“Hey, I wasn’t trying to speak it properly!” Grace says defensively. He pauses while mixing the boiling water into a coffee sachet and turns back to Rocky. Like a sleeper agent his ‘teacher mode’ has been activated and now he just wants to talk Rocky’s hypothetical ear off about neurodevelopmental conditions.
“It’s called echolalia.” Grace says slowly. Rocky tries out the word. “It means to copy sounds, I do it without thinking. The word for ‘table’ in Eridian is nice to say.” He explains. Rocky makes notes on the laptop and Grace feels something he hasn’t in a long time; pride.
“Hey, Rock,”
Rocky turns his attention back to Grace.
“I can tell you more about it, if you like. You can ask me anything.”
Rocky visibly perks up at this.
“Friend-Grace is happy to be studied, question?”
“Well,” Grace says, settling into a cross-legged position on the floor with his coffee. “Happy might be pushing it, but I miss teaching.”
They’re standing in front of the computer, both scratching their heads at a new collection of data when Rocky shifts his attention to Grace.
“Grace stimming, question?” He asks.
Grace looks down at his hands, mid way through a sequence of clicking his knuckles and flexing each joint. “Uh, yeah.”
“Rocky stim too, question?”
“Sure.”
Rocky sits and begins twirling his claws in a thoughtful spiral, knocking the knuckles against each other. Grace watches, amused. He resumes the slow manipulation of his fingers and eventually stills.
“Is fun, statement.” Rocky concludes after a moment. Grace just smiles to himself.
A few days later, after a particularly frustrating experiment goes wrong again, Rocky finds Grace lying like a starfish in the centre of the floor in the lab.
“Grace, question? Grace die, is die, question?” Rocky skitters around him, panicked.
“No.” Grace groans, eyes still shut. “Floor time.”
“Oh, is autism thing or human thing, question?” Rocky says, perking up with interest.
“Autism thing.” Grace replies flatly, struggling to inject emotion into his voice. Rocky rolls himself over to the light switch and shuts off the lab lights by knocking his ball into the wall.
“Big light bad bad bad.” Rocky repeats cheerfully. Grace huffs a laugh through his nose. “Grace want deep pressure, question?”
“Hm. Please.” Grace replies, and Rocky rolls over to him, settling down beside Grace and nudging his arm through the xenonite panel to gently rest it on Grace’s chest. Grace grunts. “Thanks, Rock.”
“Welcome, Grace.”
“What you got there bud?” Grace calls as the clattering intensifies. He’s been told to wait for a ‘surprise’ that Rocky’s been working on, and he’s feeling strangely nervous. A few moments later, his friend emerges from the next room in what can only be described as a xenonite morph suit. Grace gawks.
“Grace like, question? I make to move around ship easy. Also for this-” Rocky says, scuttling over. For the first time, Grace can appreciate the way all of his limbs move so in sync with each other, and the delicate way his claws splay out to keep balance on the smooth floor. He’s startled by Rocky bundling into him and they topple over in a mess of limbs. Rocky pins Grace under his body and flops on top of him like a dead bug.
“Rocky-” Grace gasps, feeling like his chest is going to crack. “Too…heavy…” he wheezes. Rocky straightens up and Grace rolls to one side, coughing.
“Apology apology, this is not hug, question?”
Grace rubs his chest painfully. “Close,” he says kindly, righting himself again. “Come here.”
He stretches his arms out and Rocky taps towards him hesitantly. Guided by Grace, Rocky wraps two arms around his middle and squeezes just on the edge of too tight, but Grace doesn’t mind. He wraps his arms around Rocky and rests his chin on top of his carapace.
“This is nice.” Grace says after a moment with a small sniffle. Rocky shifts a little.
“Grace leaky.” He grumbles as tears wet the top of his suit. Grace ignores him. “Autistic humans not good at emotion, but Grace is very emotional.” Rocky observes. Grace tightens his arms around him.
“Not everything you read online is true, Rock.”
Rocky hums and begrudgingly nestles into Grace’s chest a little. Grace can’t help the smile that spreads over his face.
“Apology, I try to learn about Grace.” Rocky says with a small rumble.
“It’s ok,” Grace replies, “I can teach you.”