Chapter Text
It had been two weeks into their nearly four year trip to Erid when Ryland suddenly remembered something very important. The entire reason for the comas he and his crew were under, as he explained to an increasingly horrified Rocky, had been to prevent stress and isolation from driving the crew into violent conflict. And now, with them both needed to be on hand to manage the taumoeba samples and pilot the ship, along with the risk of going into a coma again with Rocky unable to intervene in case of problems, the two were going to be stuck together. For years.
“Why you only telling me this now, question??”
Years, with reduced space for both due to Rocky’s life support system, and Ryland trapped with someone who literally couldn’t avoid hearing everything he did. Plans needed to be drawn up to prevent them from both losing it. Rocky’s white noise machine helped, firing it up when Ryland needed to do anything biological or when Rocky just needed some quiet. It wasn’t perfect, but in a space like this, privacy was more of a state of mind.
They did their best to stick to a strict routine. Ryland would eat breakfast, then the two would clean their portions of the ship of any dust that could impact the electronics, an hour of exercise for Grace on the small assortment of collapsible gym equipment to counteract the side effects of space travel, then maintenance until done. And even then, unless a lot of things needed fixing, they were often left with half the day or more to fill somehow.
An hour a day of learning proper Eridian killed a little more time, and would hopefully make it easier for Grace when they arrived. Stuck with just two individuals, their communication was becoming rather insular. But after that was done, then what?
Games were the easy answer. Eridian’s also enjoyed play. Card games were tried. Poker didn’t work when both players only had a rudimentary understanding of the other's body language. Uno was very briefly tried and ended with the both of them sulking on opposite ends of the ship after it was discovered Rocky was a gleeful, unashamed cheater. Rummikub killed a couple of days and it turned out, in a remarkable coincidence, Eridian’s had a game identical to mancala.
Scientific discussions were fun, often mutating into rambling conversations about something deeply unscientific but funny to their cooped up, cabin fever-riddled minds.
The discussion on “Rating every element in the periodic table by fuckability” lasted nearly four days.
Their biggest salvation was the laptops on the Hail Mary. Each one stuffed with information, huge archived chunks of the internet, folders upon folders of scientific papers. And on one precious laptop, a handwritten label.
“Entertainment.”
It was packed to the gills exclusively with movies, tv shows, games and documentaries, something to keep the crew entertained. And now it was their lifeline. Setting up ways for Rocky to use it safely through the barrier took about a week, but now he could scroll, type and even use a crude but effective controller to play video games with.
Minecraft was enjoyable for a while, though lacking a server they had to play by swapping the controller every hour. Peaceful mode, naturally. The frame rate on Rocky’s screen reader wasn’t terribly fast. Still, it worked well enough to build with. Unfortunately, when it came to buckets of lava in the vicinity of Rylands house, Rocky had all the self control of a thirteen year old with divorcing parents.
“Yes, Grace, I do have siblings. Why?”
Blue Prince provided an excellent distraction, before nearly spiralling out of control as they both drove themselves batty over their own bizarre theories, until they both unanimously agreed it might be a good idea to leave it be...
And Rocky was frankly terrifying at Dwarf Fortress, playing it nearly non stop for a solid week as he practically invented coding from first principles, before getting bored and dropping it. Ryland was weirdly grateful for that, an irrational concern in the back of his mind that his advanced builds were at risk of becoming sentient.
But mostly it was movies. Rocky was fascinated by human culture. And it led to one of their favourite and most enduring games.
…
Grace had no idea which absolute psychopath on the Hail Mary team had included Alien on the entertainment laptop. Though at least saner minds had prevailed somewhere, he couldn’t see John Carpenter's The Thing on it.
Having said all that, there was quite a bit of entertainment in watching a movie about a terrifying alien while you and an actual real-life alien pulled a Statler and Waldorf routine at it.
Rocky sat comfortably behind his side of the barrier, four limbs arranged under him like a cat, the other panning the light gun over the screen. Grace lounged against the xenonite on a pile of pillows. Rocky had insulated that portion, the heat soaking through just pleasantly warm. On the screen, the xenomorph was menacing Sugourney Weaver. Rocky tilted his carapace.
“‘I would like to have an argument.’”
Grace recognized the tones Eridians used when quoting something. That phrase was the opening salvo to the Argument Game.
It had started with, of all things, Monty Python. Grace had shown it to Rocky on a whim, unsure if the humour would translate. And for the most part, it didn’t. Rocky sat, scanning the laptop with his light gun in baffled silence, turning the scanner this way and that as if changing the angle would bring the humour into focus.
Except for the skit about the argument clinic. As it turned out, debates were a popular form of entertainment among Eridians. Rocky had laughed his strange, choral laugh until he nearly fell over and then watched it six times in a row. He’d quoted it for days afterwards until Grace had threatened to toss him out of the airlock.
And somehow, out of the bubbling language stew of pidgin, shorthand, loan-words, inside jokes and memes that would have given a linguist a coronary, came…the Argument Game.
There were a few rules to it they both knew by heart at this point.
Rule one: Break time only. Never while doing anything important.
Rule two: no yelling or raised voices. Hucking a pillow at the xenonite was allowable.
And most importantly, rule three: The argument had to be about complete and utter bullshit. No sore spots or serious conversations. If it wasn’t a total waste of time, it was against the rules.
Grace picked up a chip from his bowl. Skipping the odd meal and choking down coma slurry for breakfast meant the rations were lasting well, but he was going to have to get used to eating taumoeba eventually. He was damned if he was going to start just drinking the slime neat, though. Roasting it gently in the laboratory oven had made a thin, brittle material that was (mostly) tasteless and had an interesting crunch. This bowl of “tauritos” was his dinner tonight.
“Hit me”
Rocky motioned to the xenomorph.
“That’s you.”
“No it isn’t.”
“Yes it is.”
“No it isn’t.”
“Yes it is. Big drooly leaky alien. It’s you.”
“I leak a perfectly average amount for my species, thank you very much.”
“Many many orifices. Orifice all over.”
“Most living things need orifices, you told me there’s animals on Erid with different body plans than you. The orifice argument has no legs.”
“You eat like one, in public, obscene! And always hungry!”
“Everything has to eat, Rocky.”
“Perverse!” Rocky’s tone was light and cheerful, an insult without a single bit of bite.
Ryland laughed.
“Says the guy whose Hear Me Out is copper.”
Rocky sat up in mock outrage.
“Copper is a hard working element and deserves to be taken care of! Regardless, nothing to do with debate!”
“So try again.”
He tossed a chip in the air and caught it in his mouth. Rocky chittered with dismay but continued.
“You breed like one.”
Grace shook his head.
“Oh, be serious, I explained how humans make other humans, it’s nothing like that.”
“Oh is it? You inject genetic material into the birthing human, then it tears its way out. And you said sometimes the new human is removed through the stomach wall, it’s exactly the same!”
“I’ll have you know the “injection” is much more pleasant than a chest burster implantation.”
“How do you know crew member Kane wasn’t secretly into that?”
“Objection. You can’t just assume he was a secret exophiliac, I need hard evidence.”
“Fair.”
They watched for a while in comfy silence. The argument wasn’t over, not properly, but they didn’t need to rush it.
They reached the scene where xenomorph blood ate through metal and Rocky perked up.
“Hah! Another point! You are bioactive like drooling alien!”
“Are you kidding? My blood isn’t acid at all.”
“Grace, your atmosphere set me on fire.”
He paused. Huh. Couldn’t really argue with that.
“Fine. I concede the argument, you win. I’m a xenomorph, apparently.”
Rocky whistled with glee.
“Hey Mary, update the scoreboard for the argument game. Add a point for Rocky.”
“Certainly, Dr Grace. Current score is Ryland Grace: 36. Crewmember Rocky: 42. Undecided: 9.”
“Thanks, Mary.”
“Grace is losing. I am smart. Smarter than leaky human, hmm?” Rocky hummed smugly. The Eridian was a terrible winner. Warm and comfy and in too good a mood to rise to the bait, Ryland resorted to his usual standby of thumping the xenonite wall and making Rocky jump.
The two bickered their way through Alien, before turning on Sharknado and picking it apart with ruthless glee.
Outside their warm bubble, the stars sailed on.