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Not long after meeting Grace for the first time, Rocky runs into an issue.
The alien is– weird. Rocky had never given much thought to the subject of extraterrestrial life before leaving Erid, and then, alone on his ship, he had.. other things to think about. It meant that he didn't have many expectations for what an alien could be.
And then he meets one.
Grace is tall, uncomfortably soft, and full of holes.
He also communicates through one vocal mechanism and a strangely flexible muscle, which mostly produce nonsense sounds and very rarely make any harmonic chords at all.
Still, Rocky perseveres. Eridians have very good memories, and a natural affinity for sounds of all kinds.
He learns Grace’s language, and Grace learns (a very simplified version of) his.
The human language that Grace uses follows most of the grammatical rules of Eridian: objects, subjects and verbs, with the odd conjugation to mix things up. Word order seems to be important, but that’s easy enough to remember.
Rocky can mostly understand Grace in a matter of weeks.
There are words that keep coming up, though, which are getting lost in translation, and the longer that their partnership goes on, the more they seem to appear.
“Alright, bud, let’s see if this works,” Says Grace, one day, and Rocky decides that he needs to know.
“I need a new word.”
Grace is surprised. His internal structure jolts, straightening, and the skin on his upper face sort of.. rises, which is human for ‘I did not expect this’. Their body language is very complex.
Rocky knows that the surprise is because it’s been around one Earth week since he last had to clarify a word. Rocky is almost fluent now. Grace must think that Rocky is very smart– good.
“Oh! Sure, which one? You remember ‘see’, right?”
“Yes, human light sense.” Rocky replies. “What is the second word?” He chirps a short sound that matches the length and pitch of the word in question, and then offers one of his theories, “Is it a word that signifies acknowledgement?”
These confusing words always come up when Grace is addressing him. Bud, buddy, pal. There are so many of them, but Rocky assumes that they have the same meaning because they always replace his name (or, the name Grace gave him) in a sentence.
Current theory: the human memory is so bad that they must actively remind themselves who they are talking to by using language.
“Bud?” Grace clarifies, and then his muscles relax loudly. “Wow, have we not covered that yet?”
Rocky clicks his fingers impatiently. “No. What does it mean?”
Grace makes a thinking sound. It’s deep, almost an exhale, and Rocky is reminded of the rumbling of one of his friends back on Erid. It makes him happy, and sad.
“It’s a term of endearment, I guess.” Grace explains. “I’m calling you my friend.”
Rocky pauses. Oh. That is.. he didn't expect that. They have not known each other for more than three sleep cycles. Are all humans this forward?
Rocky has been alone for a long time.
He shuffles in place and taps a finger against the ground. It means that he hears Grace’s frame grow tense very clearly.
“Sorry.” Grace murmurs, low, embarrassed. “Is that weird? It’s very common on Earth. I could stop-”
“No!”
Rocky didn't mean to blurt that out. His radiator heats. He hears the fibers on Grace’s face flutter; blinking.
“You can call me friend. I will call you friend, also.”
On Erid, such a fast, loud expression of friendship would be more than unusual. Eridian names are very important. To call someone something other than their name is a practice only found among intimate friends– especially if the chosen moniker is affectionate.
“My friend Grace,” He sings, and waits for a feeling of discomfort that doesn't come. They haven't known each other for long, but Rocky feels close to Grace.
Grace bares his teeth; a scary, violent way to express joy. “Thanks, Rock.” He says.
Hm.
“You named me Rocky, yes?” He clarifies, even though he knows that it's true. Perhaps Grace has forgotten, already. “I am not actually a consolidated mass of Earth minerals.”
Air leaves Grace’s body in a rush, and he makes the loud, hacking sound that Rocky has come to understand as human amusement.
“I’m not calling you a rock!” He laughs, “It’s another human thing. Shortening names to show affection, or closeness. We call it a nickname.”
Wow, Rocky thinks. Human affection is so improper.
Grace has changed his name (alright, the name given to him by Grace in the first place) in a frivolous display of care. Nevermind rare– on Erid, this is unheard of.
Rocky’s side of the xenonite tunnel steams.
“Thank you.” He says, bravely. “I’ll still call you Grace.”
Laughing again, Grace says, “That’s alright. ‘Grace’ is sort of a nickname anyway, since my full name is Ryland Grace.”
Fuck, Rocky thinks.
It should be embarrassing, or awkward, this sudden expression of closeness between them. Mostly, it just feels right.
“Okay, Grace,” He says, and hears Grace’s smile widen, and the sharp clap of his hands when he celebrates.
Rocky chitters. Though it is presumptuous and strange, maybe human affection has some merits.
—
It becomes apparent very soon after moving onto the Hail Mary that humans are tactile creatures.
Before now, a thick shard of xenonite has separated Rocky from Grace. He can hear through xenonite just fine, so it didn’t matter all that much apart from when he would watch Grace sleep, perched just above him, and wish he were that much closer so he could properly hear his breath, and the beat of his heart.
Apart from that, the physical barrier between them does not bother Rocky.
And then he makes his ball.
There was logic to it, of course. The Hail Mary has Grace’s science equipment, and Grace is the one of them experienced in molecular biology– there’d be no point in trying to teach him to use Eridian technology. Besides, the ball wasn’t so hard to make.
Rocky was also very eager to see Grace’s ship. Alien engineering! The concept itself was almost more exciting than the reality, which is a paper-thin hull that Rocky could puncture with one claw.
Being closer to Grace was a bonus, too, of course, but Rocky hadn’t considered how close they might get.
It starts small.
Grace, as he’s walking by, calculating their trajectory to the planet aloud and writing it on a board (which he won’t let Rocky help with, because he “needs to see the workings”), rests the palm of his hand on Rocky’s ball.
Grace’s hands are very loud. Twenty-seven pieces of his organic bone structure packed into each one, they're manoeuvred by creaking joints and tendons, with pulsing muscles and the noisy pump of blood through tiny veins. They’re, as far as Grace’s anatomy goes, one of the hardest things to miss.
Rocky has been close to them before, of course; One of the first things that Grace did upon encountering the xenonite wall Rocky built in their tunnel was rest his hand gently upon it. Rocky had even thought they were his primary sensory organs for a short time because of how he seems to lead with them.
When Grace pats his ball on his way past, Rocky shivers at the noise of that alien hand, but he doesn’t think much else of it.
The thing is, it keeps happening.
Grace will drag his fingertips along the side of the ball as he passes by, a soft, swish of sound. He’ll splay both of his hands widely on the sides when he’s frustrated, holding Rocky in place to better complain at him. He’ll even lean against it, using Rocky as his support, and Rocky will tap the wall and hear all twenty-four of his ribs, sloping inward like one of Erid’s deep caverns.
There must be some purpose to these actions, but Rocky just can’t work out what.
In the end, it’s Grace who answers his question, as Grace tends to do.
“Alright! Hey, fist-bump!”
Grace’s closed hand is pressed against the xenonite of Rocky’s ball. Rocky twitches at the creak of his knuckles, the curl of his finger bones.
“What?” He asks.
Grace removes his hand, curls it back up, and places it against Rocky’s ball again. The motion is slow and exaggerated, like he’s fighting against more gravity than is currently present. Dramatic.
“Fist-bump,” Grace repeats. “It’s a human thing. Put your hand next to mine.”
Rocky clicks his fingers together and, hesitantly, does as he’s told.
“No, no, curl your fingers- yes, like mine. There! Fist-bump!”
By Eridian standards, this ritual is very odd. It’s not unlike the tapping against surfaces that Eridians do to listen to things better, or clicking one’s own fists together to say ‘no’. He can hear Grace so clearly from this close that even the thin fibers sprouting from his arm are obvious, and if Grace were Eridian he could probably hear Rocky’s internal processes. It occurs to him that, between two humans, this would probably be done without panel separating them, which is even worse.
“This is an important human ritual?” Rocky clarifies.
“Ritual is too strong of a word,” Grace huffs a short breath, amused, and removes his fist from Rocky’s ball so that he can use it to talk. Humans talk almost as much with their hands as they do their vocal systems, and it took Rocky a while to understand the relationship between the two. “It’s a casual gesture,” Grace continues, “It can be used to celebrate something, or just as a greeting, usually between friends.”
Ah, thinks Rocky, another human friendship thing.
“Human companions touch each-other often?”
Grace nods emphatically, a big yes. “Oh, yeah. Physical contact is a big thing for humans. I guess– wait, let me ask you something. Your carapace– can you feel sensations through it?”
Rocky bristles at this. “Of course! I feel changes in temperature, and hear sound!”
Grace nods again. “That’s what I thought. My skin– the organ that covers my body, like your carapace–” Although it’s not like a carapace at all, Rocky thinks, because it’s horribly leaky, soft, and easily broken, “–helps me feel sensations, but not only temperature changes.”
Rocky taps an arm against the ground twice, in quick succession. “What do you mean?”
Grace places his hand back against Rocky’s ball, spreading the fingers and flattening his palm against the xenonite.
“The skin is full of sensory receptors, all over, and they're very sensitive. They can detect pressure and touch as well as temperature or vibrations.” Grace drums his fingers against Rocky’s ball. “Physical touch from other people is important for our development in infancy, and it makes us feel good because it can send chemicals to the brain which reduce stress”.
Rocky wiggles. It must be so scary to be a human, relying on a biological brain that can be influenced by chemicals on a whim! A culture that values physical touch would explain some things though, for instance:
“You touch my ball often. Is that.. like the hand-touch?”
As if to prove his point, Grace brings his other hand to the ball, and uses them both to drum a soft beat against the walls of it. The percussion is not unlike some of the music back on Erid. Rocky shuffles in place.
“I guess so,” Grace ponders, “I wasn’t totally aware that I was doing it. It’s sort of unconscious for humans to seek out the touch of people they’re close to.”
Rocky tilts, and his radiator releases a plume of hot air. Grace has been expressing affection for him all this time, reaching out for some sort of connection, companionship, and Rocky had no idea. It fills him with a buzzing itch, a desire to compensate for all of those missed signals.
For now, he settles for placing two of his hands against the pane where Grace’s are resting. “Eridians do not do this,” He says, “but we can touch hands, since you are not from Erid.”
He hears Grace smile so much that his eyes crease into tiny slits, and listens to the twitch of his five fingers trying to clench against the xenonite as though they could wrap around Rocky’s own.
“Thanks, Rock,” He beams.
—
Rocky has taken to singing for Grace.
On Erid, he wasn't much of a singer. Rocky is much better with his hands, and he usually makes gifts for the people he cherishes. On the Hail Mary, though, there aren’t a whole lot of metals laying around to make gifts with, unless he intends to take a chunk out of the hull, and, anyway, he wouldn’t know what sort of gift to make for a human.
So Rocky sings for Grace.
Mostly when it’s nearing one of Grace’s short, unreliable sleep cycles, and he’s pacing around the dormitory, ranting about the Taumoeba and the breeder tanks and the atmospheres of Venus and Threeworld. For humans to sleep peacefully seems rare in the first place, and when Grace encounters a problem, finding restful sleep seems to be like listening for a specific stone in a landslide.
The first time Rocky tries it, he’s growing frustrated with Grace’s muttering and the uncoordinated stumble of his feet, and he knows that Grace has not slept in twenty-two Earth hours which is far too long by (inefficient) human standards.
He hums the first chords of the song that his mate (Grace has given them the human name Adrian, and Rocky enjoys the airy sound of it, and thinks that it suits them) sings for him when he grows restless about a project and can’t put it down.
Grace turns to him, stops pacing to listen, and Rocky pretends not to notice, acting like he’s completely absorbed in fiddling with his xenonite mill.
By the time the song ends, Grace is sprawled face-down on his bed, fast asleep. He stays that way for eleven hours.
After that very successful experiment, Rocky finds himself singing Grace to sleep all the time.
It feels good, to finally be able to express some of his own affection for Grace, even if Grace doesn’t really understand what it means to him. He feels like he’s making up for all of those times that Grace reached out to touch him and met cold, hard xenonite and not much else.
It’s nice to remember the songs that his friends used to sing for him back home, too, and repeat them back to Grace. He’s enjoying plucking through the crystals of his brain, pulling out chords that he thinks Grace might enjoy.
Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t take long for Grace to mention it.
He’s preparing to sleep, laying on his nest of soft fabrics, hands resting on his chest, when he addresses Rocky, who’s perched in his usual corner of the dormitory on his side of the xenonite. “That’s a nice song.”
Rocky stands taller. “Thank you.” He says. He’s been half-waiting for Grace to call attention to the singing ever since he started.
“Is it, uh,” Grace is obviously tired, because he’s stumbling over his words. “One from back home?”
Rocky shakes two of his hands, hears Grace’s droopy eyes focus on him and the subsequent quirk of his mouth.
“Yes!” Rocky answers, “Eridian friends always sing to each-other, we have songs for all occasions. I have sung many songs for you, Grace. Now I am singing a song for comforting loved ones.”
Rocky clicks, taps the ground, listening for Grace’s reply. He’s quiet for long enough that Rocky is worried he’s somehow overstepped.
Suddenly, Grace curls into a tight ball, drawing his limbs into his chest so violently that it seems like he’s injured, and pulls tightly at the fibers on his head. “Oh my god,” He mutters under his breath, and his voice sounds high and squeaky. “Oh my god.”
Rocky skitters over to the panel, getting as close to Grace as he can, and taps against it. He hears Grace’s hard fingernails digging into his scalp.
“Grace!” He warbles, “Why are you hurting yourself!”
Grace just curls up even tighter, spine straining. He makes a sort of wheezing sound in his throat.
“Grace!” Rocky hisses.
Then, Grace sits up, an abrupt jerk of his body.
Rocky bounces back and forth in his habitat. “Grace! What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing! Nothing’s wrong with me, Rock, I’m sorry, it’s just,” He says, and then covers his face with his hands. It does nothing to stop Rocky from hearing him squeak, “That’s just… so darn cute!”
Rocky stops his bouncing.
“What?” He says.
Grace’s fingers drag across his face, pulling the skin in a way that seems painful, but mustn’t be. “You’re singing to me because we’re friends,” He whines, “Oh my god, it’s so cute. I’m gonna die.”
Rocky knows what cute means. Something endearing, like a human baby, or an Eridian pebble.
“I am fully grown.” He reminds Grace, and then, “Please don’t die.”
Grace collapses onto his back, and covers his face with the soft puff of fabric that he uses to support his head while he sleeps. He makes a wordless sound of agony into it, and then sits up again like nothing happened.
“Sorry.” He clears his throat; a loud, rough sound. “What I meant to say was, thank you for singing to me, Rocky. You’re my best friend, and I love you a lot.”
Rocky preens. That’s more like it. He taps two thoughtful fingers together.
“Why did you try to pull out your hair?”
Grace groans, “Ah, cuteness aggression. It was that or bite you, and that wouldn’t work out for either of us.”
Rocky twitches at the thought of Grace’s teeth cracking against his carapace. “Aggression?” He asks, “I made you angry?”
“No!” Grace waves a tired arm, “No, no. Stupid human thing. Sometimes we see something so cute that we want to squeeze it, or something– but not actually. It’s just an overwhelming expression of emotions that you’ve gotta get out.”
“By pulling your hair out.” Rocky asks, flatly.
“Right. Or biting something.” Grace confirms.
Rocky shifts. Humans are so weird.
“I’m going to keep singing now,” He says.
Grace releases a heavy breath, his chest deflating loudly.
“Thank god,” He says, relieved, “Yeah, do that. Thanks, Rock.”
—
They’ve really, actually done it.
Grace and Rocky have finished their mission.
Grace’s Taumoeba experiment has finally concluded, and he’s created a strain with enough nitrogen resistance to survive Threeworld. They're saving the stars, and they're going home.
To celebrate, Rocky is wearing his special occasion outfit, like a sensible intelligent lifeform.
Grace is not a sensible intelligent lifeform. Grace is ingesting a neurotoxin.
“Humans do it all the time!” He’d reassured Rocky beforehand. “I’ll drink enough to feel good, but not enough to poison my brain. I swear!”
Grace is a liar, Rocky grumbles to himself, approximately two hours later. I should never have trusted him.
“Rocky!” Grace sings. He’s slumped against Rocky’s ball, and he’s been singing for ten Earth minutes– and Rocky is being very generous to call the tuneless, warbling, pitchy sounds ‘singing’.
“Rocky, Rocky, you're the rock, you're the man!”
With Grace laying against him like this, Rocky can hear the vibration of his vocal chords, the click of his throat as he swallows, the rhythmic pump of his heart.
He’s surrounded by the noise of Grace, and it’s overwhelming, and wonderful, and he’s trying desperately not to think about how quiet the journey back to Erid will be in comparison.
“Thank you for the song, Grace,” He says, because it is sweet of him to sing, even though he’s terrible. Grace knows that it’s an Eridian way of showing affection, so Rocky is flattered that he’d even try. If it wasn’t so bad, it would almost be cute.
“Gotta sing for my best bud in the whole world,” Grace slurs, not bothering to clarify which world. Probably both.
The slurred speech is slightly concerning, and it's also making Rocky have to listen very hard to translate what Grace is saying. Or, singing, in this case.
“I'm so thankful,” Rocky says, with feeling. Maybe if he says it strongly enough, Grace will stop singing, and go back to telling him about his exploits in ‘college’– now that was fun. “You are very good at Eridian affection. Thank you.”
“Noooo problem,” Grace replies, and even those words come out stretched and lilting in a song.
Suddenly though, Grace perks up. Rocky clicks, focusing on the wobbly shape of him, tapping to hear the excitable movement of his arms.
“Hey, wait a minute,” Says Grace, “I haven't shown you–” and then he says a word that Rocky hasn't heard before. It starts with a click, and the middle section has a scary sort of hiss. Rocky feels a sense of foreboding creeping along his carapace.
“What?” He asks, nervous, and then, “I don’t know that word.”
Grace repeats the word, and places his hands on Rocky’s ball, attempting to hold it in place even though he must realise that Rocky is strong enough to simply roll out of his grasp. The only reason Rocky doesn't is because he knows that humans like to be close to each other, so Rocky wants to be close to Grace.
“It’s a human affection word,” Grace clarifies, and then nonsensically, “Pucker up!”
And then he smears his leaky mouth fluid all over Rocky’s ball.
Rocky stiffens, and then, when Grace sways backward having finished slobbering on him, he slaps a hand against the xenonite.
“Grace!” He chuffs, “Gross!”
Grace laughs, a low, breathy sound. “It’s called a kiss!”
Rocky grumbles, a deep, trembling vibration that he feels rattling against Grace’s bones. “I don’t like it.” He says, “Even your singing is better than that!”
Grace pitches forward and makes himself comfortable, leaning against Rocky’s ball. He (clumsily, ineffectively) tries to wipe the wet smudge of his lips off the xenonite. Rocky can hear his heart, like this, loud and beating a little faster than usual as a result of the drink.
“I thought you liked my singing.” Grace closes one of his eyes and peers down at him, the bristly fibers on his face scratching sharply against the ball.
Rocky tilts, and taps a finger where the side of Grace’s face rests on the xenonite. “The singing is so bad.” He admits, “But I like you, so I will listen to it.”
Grace laughs, breath hitching against the ball. He reaches around, then, and runs his hands over the edges of it, looking for something. When he finds the flexible mesh panel that Rocky uses to hold things outside of his habitat, he sits up, triumphant.
“Okay, how about this,” He says, “Give me your hand.”
Which one, Rocky doesn’t say, and pokes three hesitant fingers against the mesh. Grace wriggles closer, the joints in his legs clicking, and grasps Rocky’s hand. Grace’s hand is big, so he really only uses three fingers.
“Holding hands,” Grace explains with a sage nod. “Better than kissing.”
Like this, Rocky can hear how delicate Grace’s hand is. He doesn’t more than rest his fingers against it, worried it could break, and listens to the soft indents in Grace’s squishy fingertips. Blood rushes beneath the skin where he presses against it. It’s so loud.
Grace is slumped against the ball. His eyes are closed. Rocky would almost think he’s asleep, if not for the tiny movements of his fingers against Rocky’s own.
“Holding hands,” Rocky repeats, and thinks, I like this.
—
Later, when Rocky is all alone on his ship, waiting to die, he will hear those hands banging against the hull, and he’ll race down to the airlock to find a familiar shape, and he’ll feel happy, and sad, and frustrated, and amazed.
Mostly, though, he’ll feel a surge of affection so strong that it nearly topples him, and he’ll think, with no small amount of determination, I’m going to keep Grace safe.