Chapter Text
Grace and humans in general are odd, to say the least. They have no protective outer shell, the only thing like it is inside of them and even then Rocky could easily crush Grace’s bones. Humans are squishy and malleable, if Rocky were to press ever so delicately into Grace, his protective layer, skin it’s called, would stretch and move. They’re loud, Rocky can hear Grace’s organs as they work, hear his heart beat, his lungs contract, muscles move his food through him (gross, gross, gross). He wouldn’t be able to hear that on another Eridian unless he was very close, if they were touching or tapping against each other. Something… intimate.
Most things on Erid have protective shells, but there are things that don’t. They’re few and far between but all of them are predators who’ve found different ways to bore into protective layers. They’ve progressed in their society enough to not have to worry about them as much anymore but most of them could easily kill an Eridian if they wanted to. By Eridian standards, Grace is disgusting and terrifying.
That’s what Rocky is thinking about at least as Grace trips over a storage container that he left out in his own path. He almost falls flat onto what he calls his ‘face’ before catching himself and straightening up. It was one of the first things Rocky noticed after he learned this alien’s name was ‘grace’ of all things. He was anything but graceful, he was like a pebble 𝅘𝅥𝅮♩♫♬ when it is first born and getting its legs underneath it. He trips over nothing, slams his body into the sides of things he should clearly be able to see, and flails around in zero g.
This creature that should be terrifying and disgusting is really quite clumsy. It’s almost… cute.
“Why Grace so not grace, question?” Rocky asks in his stilted grammar. That was another thing, humans could be smart but their memory was terrible. While Rocky could just remember the words spoken to him by Grace and thus overtime figure out context and grammar, Grace had to use the thinking machine and take notes. It was just easier if Rocky accommodated him and well it’s not really like he minded, Eridians liked efficiency. (Some of his own grammar sneaked in sometimes but it wasn’t like he could match the tone of Grace’s voice that indicated a question anyway).
Grace reacted in a way that Rocky was beginning to understand meant embarrassment in humans. Blood flowed to his face and his claw came up to scratch at the back of his neck, “Um,” he said, a human filler word. “I don’t know the science behind it that well, buddy, I think it has something to do with my pɹˌə͡ʊpɹɪəsˈɛpʃən?” he said, the tilt of his words indicated he wasn’t sure.
“New word,” Rocky said instantly, Grace had only just recently found a way for them to communicate, they had new words often.
Grace thought for a moment, he often fidgeted when he did, Rocky could relate to that at least. “It’s the sense for where my body is in space and how much force I’m using, things like that,” he explained.
“Understand, the Eridian word is proprioception,” Rocky said and Grace moved his head around for a moment before finding his thinking machine and picking it up. Humans' sense of sight seemed interesting and useful at times and annoying other times. If Grace could sense like an Eridian he would have known his thinking machine was right behind him the whole time, he wouldn’t have had to turn to perceive it.
Rocky waited as Grace took a moment to add the word into his translator program, he had sort of explained how it worked to Rocky but a lot of it involved things Rocky didn’t have a concept for. All of it was rather standard for thinking machines apparently, it just made Rocky desperately want to take it apart and examine it.
“Why Grace proprioception bad, question?” Rocky asked. He couldn’t deny his own curiosity, was this just a thing with humans? Was there something different about Grace specifically? Eridians could be clumsy as well but it wasn’t very common. Was it common amongst humans? Or was Grace just special?
Grace hummed a singular note, another filler word and indication of thinking, “I’m not… sure,” he said, his tone and his stilling was something he did often too. Like he was paying attention but not, like his mind was trapped somewhere else maybe. It was another moment before he spoke again, “There’s different reasons humans can have bad proprioception, but I’m not sure why I do. I never really thought about it, I guess. Some humans are just clumsy.”
Rocky made a note in his mind to ask later about the different reasons, Grace would probably have to look it up anyway because of his terrible memory. It was lucky that the humans thought ahead to put all of their knowledge onto the ship. “Understand,” he told Grace.
Grace nodded, a similar gesture to Eridian jazz hands before walking away and proceeding to trip on the exact same storage cube. Yes, Grace was cute, Rocky decided, clumsy and cute.