Work Text:
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Something is-
Rocky is thrown forwards against the wall of his tunnel, slamming with such force that it dislodges something low in his carapace, sends vibrations through his entire body that let him hear the ship in full clarity. Grace, being launched across the room in his pilot’s chair; Rocky’s ball, dislodging from his tunnels before he could think to get inside; even the smallest screws, straining against their panelling on the hull of the ship.
“Why ship moving, question?!”
“There’s a hole in it!” Grace clings to the railings above his head, muscles straining beneath his skin. Rocky can hear the fraught chitter of his heart, the blood flooding into his face. A hole… that’s manageable. Rocky has repaired a thousand holes, and this one is nothing some xenonite couldn’t fix.
Right on cue, Mary’s systems boot up and the small space is filled with a cacophony of alarms.
“Hull breach. Port side fuel compartments 11 and 12”
Rocky stamps a claw into the ground beneath him, a panicked trill escaping his vents at the echoing shape of the tear in the ship’s exterior. A hole in the fuel tank was trickier, but that didn’t necessarily explain why the ship was being thrown around so much…
“Grace! What happening, question?”
“The fuel is migrating to Adrian”
Ah. Bad. Bad bad bad.
“Eject bad fuel bay, question?”
“Yeah”
Rocky watches, helpless, as Grace forces himself against the gravitational pull to reach the control panels, arms straining against his restraints.
“Jettison port fuel tank compartment 12. Confirm.”
Grace’s fingers just brush the edges of the confirmation switch. A mixture of pain, fear and pure adrenaline bleed into Grace’s scream, which Rocky can barely hear over his own panicked trilling.
Click. Hiss. Bang.
The first fuel tank releases with an almighty snap, and Rocky is thrown across the room, limbs falling every which way, hearts clenching painfully when Grace instinctually screams Rocky’s name. The force of the fuel migration has Rocky pinned in place against the xenonite, limbs scrambling for purchase.
“Jettison port fuel tank compartment 11. Confirm”
“Eject other fuel bay,” Rocky grits out, fighting the forces threatening to split his carapace into pieces, desperate for Grace to flip a switch and make everything okay again.
Because Rocky, helpless in his tunnels, could only watch. Could not fix.
Bad, bad, bad.
No. It will be okay, Rocky reasons. Grace will eject the damaged fuel tank, the Hail Mary will stabilise in Adrian’s orbit and Rocky will reinforce the ship with xenonite to prevent any further tearing. It will be okay, so long as-
With an almighty yell, Grace releases the remaining fuel bay. Rocky barely has time to feel relief before being thrown backwards with such renewed force that he feels his carapace crack, liquid mercury bubbling to the surface just below his vents. It hardly registers, dull and quiet amid the almighty bang, the scrape of metal against metal, the sickening crack of Grace’s delicate head against the control panels.
“Grace?”
Rocky hears it when Grace’s heart rate skyrockets, remembering adrenaline from the portable Earth thinking machine.
“Grace!”
Rocky hears it when Grace’s heart rate slows, too. Without conscious thought, Rocky’s forelimbs bang desperately against his xenonite enclosure. It puts Grace in sharp focus, the mussed hair, slack jaw, trickle of something creeping down his forehead.
Blood.
Grace has to open his eyes. “Grace! Grace! Please, Grace!”
If he opens his eyes, everything will be okay. He’ll make that stupid face, all of his teeth on show, and he’ll flick a switch and make it right and everything will be okay.
“Grace, Grace, Rocky need! Wake up, Grace!”
Distantly, Rocky recognises that Grace’s translator machine isn’t repeating Rocky’s desperate words. Even if it had been, Rocky realises it would have been futile - the Hail Mary was sounding so many alarms that Grace’s poorly designed human hearing system wouldn’t have picked him up.
“Rocky use ball,” Rocky says, largely to himself. “Rocky fix.”
There’s no use for his hybrid, human-eridian language now, but he needs Grace to hear him. Maybe he can, maybe he’s picked up some Eridian, maybe the translator will come back, maybe-
A sick, desperate buzzing fills his carapace as he remembers the ball being tossed across the room. Rocky stamps a leg into the ground, whines in ice cold horror as he hears the way the ball is lodged behind Grace’s pilot chair.
“Grace…”
Rocky hears it when Grace’s heart slows further, when the untethered spinning of the ship crushes his fragile body until something pops. Grace will die.
“No, no, no, no, no”
Rocky doesn’t even realise he’s making a sound, claws pressed desperately against the xenonite separating him from Grace, his Grace.
46 years.
That’s how long Rocky spent alone, hiding in his workshop, making useless gadgets to add to his ship, repeating the same calculations over and over until they made him sick. Never once stepping a claw outside, refusing to face the reality of his dead crew and a failed mission. Doing nothing, wasting away, betraying everyone who had faith in his mission, betraying Adrian.
A coward.
Grace’s fragile heart flutters in a desperate attempt to force blood around his broken body.
Rocky will not die a coward.
“Grace, Grace, Grace,” Rocky chants his name like a mantra, slamming his entire weight into the airlock door. Each xenonite panel has a virtually limitless tensile strength, able to withstand the highest pressures. Rocky would know - he engineered it. The airlock was not supposed to release without the xenonite ball sealed against it, and there was nothing Rocky could do but hope he had enough raw strength to force it.
Slam, slam, slam.
Something cracks, and with a sickening lurch Rocky realises it’s his own upper limb. He screams with enough resonance to shatter the flimsy ‘glass’ of Grace’s science equipment, but he barely registers it, feels like he’s watching himself in third person, a wild beast with no regard for his own safety.
“Grace, Grace, Gr- AUGH”
With one last shove, the airlock gives way and Rocky scrambles into the open air of the Hail Mary.
When Rocky was a young Eridian, in his mid-fifties, he had gotten into an altercation with a peer. Rocky had been courting Adrian for less than a year and the two of them were taking a walk along the cliff tops of Adrian’s home community, discussing Adrian’s recent thrum on Evolutionary Psychology.
Rocky remembers hearing the passionate resonance in Adrian’s voice and feeling all five hearts soar. He struggled to believe Adrian was so quick to give Rocky their time, even after many, many months and the reciprocation of almost all courting rituals. Rocky knew, with the certainty of the sun in the sky, that he wanted to take Adrian as his mate. It was a matter of working up the courage, and, well…
Rocky had rehearsed his speech that morning in the eclectic rock formation he called home; he had chosen a rough, rounded piece of sedimentary rock that matched his carapace, even brought along a delicately woven figurine of Adrian that he wasn’t wholly certain he wouldn’t chicken out of handing over.
So he was ready, that particular afternoon, Adrian by his side, looking over the whole of the community from their clifftop… and then Mark had arrived.
It didn’t take a genius to know that Mark was interested in Adrian, and Rocky was well on his way to being one.
Now, Eridians were not strictly monogamous, by nature - Rocky and Adrian would grow to be unique in their lack of other mates - but there were still common courtesies.
One of those being that you shouldn’t try to court an Eridian who was currently in the middle of an active courting ritual.
Rocky had never been particularly quick to anger, but something about Mark got under his carapace in a way he was loathe to explain. The unpleasantly low tones of his vocalisations, the thin sharp stretch of his limbs, the way he’d step just too close to Adrian
Rocky hated Mark.
Even more so when he strolled over and tried to engage Adrian in a courtship dance right as Rocky was gearing up to propose matehood. Memory means Rocky remembers every detail, but to cut a long story short - there had been some less than polite intonations, enraged chitterlings, exasperated pleas from Adrian. Rocky had risen up on all five limbs, and a physical fight ensued. Rocky, short and stocky in build, was not only defeated but tossed off the side of the cliff.
He broke four of his five limbs and cracked his carapace, and the pain was searing, paralysing, endless.
It was nothing compared to this.
The air of Grace’s atmosphere was incomprehensibly cold, searingly so, lighting up every single cell in Rocky’s body. Rocky was screaming so loudly it felt like his vents might burst, and it took every ounce of strength to put one limb in front of the other.
Grace. He had to get to Grace.
Each step felt like Rocky’s innards were being shredded and he was emitting such high-frequency sounds that he heard a screen crack clean in half.
“Rocky fix. Rocky fix. Rocky fix”
The words come from somewhere deep, subconscious, instinctive.
It feels like hours, days, months until Rocky has clawed his way to the pilots chair where Grace hangs limply, whispering heart rate one of the only things Rocky can really focus on.
Rocky kicks at his xenonite ball, pain dancing up his limb and threatening to shatter his mind completely. It dislodges with a pop, rattling Grace’s chair and Rocky grabs him by the jumpsuit and pulls.
Grace flops to the ground, limp enough in his unconsciousness that Rocky blessedly doesn’t hear a bone break, and Mary snaps into action.
“Injury detected - Dr Ryland Grace. Please make your way to the medical platform”
Rocky unloads a series of expletives and stamps his foot, desperately looking beyond the searing pain for Armando. Rocky can see it, hanging from the ceiling in the next room over, unmoving.
“Armando! Grace need help, fix Grace!”
It doesn’t move.
Overhead, Mary repeats “Patient - Dr Ryland Grace - to the medical platform immediately.”
Rocky screams again, pain and fear and bone-deep terror forcing its way from his carapace, and the reverberations let him hear where Armando’s railing ends - right at the door to the control room.
By his legs, Grace lays limply. Rocky has no choice.
Ice-cold agony lances through Rocky’s forelimbs and a scream erupts from his vents as he begins to carry Grace. He is so light, so fragile, and Rocky needs to fix him more than he’s ever needed anything.
“Grace okay, Grace okay. Grace brave, Grace good. Grace okay”
They reach Armando, miraculously, and the robotic arm begins to produce needles and face coverings and liquids in small cylinders.
Armando can’t quite reach, and Rocky unthinkingly grabs Grace by the forearm and pulls. His claw meets bare skin and it sizzles beneath his touch, sinking into the surface of Rocky’s carapace. As Armando lowers a mask to Grace’s mouth, Rocky collapses against his chest, needing to feel his heartbeat get stronger, needing to know he had fixed it before he died.
He was going to die.
Rocky was going to die and he wouldn’t even be able to fix it with Adrian. He was going to die. He-
“🎵🎵🎶🎵🎶🎶”
He… has already died? Adrian’s desperate trills flood the small bay Rocky had landed in and he knows he must have died.
By expectation, Adrian should have linked claws with Mark and left Rocky in the dust. Instead, Adrian was rounding the corner of the bay and collapsing against Rocky’s carapace.
“Rocky, my Rocky, my Rocky. I have you. I have you”
Beneath his folded limb, Grace’s heartbeat ticks up.
“I have you” Rocky whines, low and lifeless. “I have Grace”
One of Armando’s tools bumps Rocky’s carapace and he realises he can’t stay here. Not only is he in the way, he will burn Grace irreparably.
With great effort, Rocky scrambles away from Grace’s limp body. Everything burns white hot, and Rocky is in so much pain that he can’t hear anything at all, not until Grace’s eyelids flicker, shattering the pain like glass. Rocky slumps, relief flooding his broken body, and Grace’s fingers twitch towards him.
“Hurt,” Rocky says. “Grace okay. Grace…”
Rocky drags his body toward the xenonite enclosure, claw barely scraping the airlock.
“Grace. Love Grace. Save Earth. Save Erid.”
Oh, how Rocky hoped Grace would save Erid. Reprogram the beetles, maybe put in a message so Eridians would know what happened.
So Adrian would know.
Rocky believed he could. Rocky believed Grace could do anything.
Rocky falls back into his tunnel, the fresh ammonia a soothing, warming balm to his carapace. Rocky lay, slumped, Mercury pooling at his vents and chunks of soot and carapace covering the ground.
Rocky is going to die. There is no other option, and Rocky is not naive. When your agonising pain stops completely, that is not a sign of recovery.
One of Rocky’s hearts falters, juddering to a stop.
Distantly, Grace’s heart rate strengthens. Rocky can just hear the blood returning to his stupid, malleable face.
Grace is okay. Grace is okay, has the solution. Grace save Earth. Save Erid.
Grace’s breath hitches, and Rocky knows he can’t die. Not yet, not until Grace’s eyes open, until Rocky knows he fixed it.
He needs to fix it.
“Need to fix…” Rocky’s voice slides between his vents as he drifts, and Adrian’s claw links with one of Rocky’s own.
“Shhh, my love, let me fix it”
Rocky pushes up on a shaky foreleg, tapping a claw to better hear Adrian. Their carapace was tilted to Rocky’s, hands working quickly to fasten something to a broken limb. It didn’t make sense.
“I need to fix…it. Embarrassed. Spoiled the courting”
Adrian’s hands still. They shift, and Rocky realises that his insistence on righting his courting wrongs will now mean he dies alone and embarrassed.
Then, they drag a claw along Rocky’s forearm, connecting with the ridges there to produce the gentle, twinkling notes of a mating proposal.
“Fixed,” says Adrian, decisively. “All fixed.”
It has been minutes, hours, days. Rocky drifts in and out of consciousness, clinging to the tether of Grace’s steady heartbeat. Grace had to be okay. Rocky could go when Grace was okay.
“Eye movement detected. Good morning, Doctor Grace”
Grace was okay.
Rocky thinks of Adrian, their smooth-rough-smooth carapace, the chitter of their laugh in the cosy confines of their cave.
Thinks of Grace, the low vibration of his voice when he first wakes.
Adrian, carrying Rocky up the cliff in their two forearms, humming a tune reserved mostly for sleeping pebbles.
Grace, standing in the tunnel between their two ships, hands poised around his helmet and trusting Rocky with his life.
Adrian, presenting Rocky with a mating gem the same texture and sound as their own carapace.
Grace. He’s standing from the medical bed. Too early, lay down.
Grace wobbles down the hall, feet stepping poignantly between the piles of Rocky’s innards, heartbeat strong and regular.
Rocky chitters, low and faraway. Rocky fix.
Grace’s footsteps reach the tunnel wall, his hand resting against the xenonite. Rocky lifts a claw, weakly, and the last thing he feels is the floor coming up to meet him.
“I’ll watch you sleep, pal. You just gotta promise….”
Minutes.
Hours.
Days.
Distantly, Rocky is aware of time passing. Grace’s heart, strong and steady, slowing as he sleeps. His feet tapping the floor from the medical bay to the lab, his hands nestled into those noisy protective gloves.
Warmth.
“I don’t know if you need this, Rock, but I figured you’re maybe cold blooded. It’s a heat lamp. Keeps you warm”
It feels like what Grace described a ‘hug’ feeling like. All-encompassing, weightless.
The world goes silent.
“I don’t know what else to do. I got him a heat lamp…”
Rocky is on Erid, with Adrian. On the Hail Mary, with Grace. Rocky is, Rocky is…
Rocky is.
Sound floods back in wisps and tendrils; the rumbling mechanics of the ship, its creaks and clicks and teeth. The whir of the machinery in the lab, Grace’s stupid gloves, Grace’s….
His lungs, filling with air; his veins filled with blood, body nestled against the xenonite wall.
Sleeping. Watching Rocky sleep.
It feels impossible, but Rocky stands on all five limbs and manages to put one in front of the other. He knows he should rest - Eridian physicians would advise nest rest for many days - but Rocky stumbles into his ball and only slightly trips out of the airlock on his way to Grace’s side.
“Grace. Grace. Grace”
Grace raises his arms above his head, muscles stretching and tensing beneath his skin.
“Mmmh, Rock, could you just… just let me sleep”
Impatient, Rocky stamps a claw. Grace’s eyes open, glancing hazily at Rocky.
Minutes.
Hours.
Days.
Grace blinks, slipping out of his sleep-fog and further into the Hail Mary.
Rocky hears the uptick in his heartbeat the moment Grace really sees him; before he can emit a single sound, Grace’s arms are locked tight around his ball, heart beating so hard and fast that it completely envelops Rocky, sinking into his carapace, making any other sound obsolete.
“Grace,” Rocky intones, vents still rough with burns. “My Grace.”
A low, choked sound comes from Grace. “I watched you sleep, Rock. I watched you sleep.”