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My head snaps up from where my chin had unwillingly been resting. Shoot, I fell asleep, didn't I? I curse myself - can't exactly watch Rocky sleep if I'm sleeping too.
Rocky's ball is still comfortably wedged between my shoulderblades, the tablet I had been reading aloud from loose within my hands. Must have dozed off somewhere between the Industrial Revolution and World War 1. Rocky's been enjoying learning about Earth history lately, and I managed to dig up an overly simplified digital encyclopedia that I've taken to reading to him as he drifts off. Kind of a weird bedtime story, but he seems to love it.
"Sorry, Rock," I mumble, turning around to look at him. "Must have been more tired than I -"
Something's wrong. His body is in the wrong shape. He almost always curls up like a little pillbug when he sleeps - cute, somewhat silly-looking, but comfortable.
Now, his various limbs are twisted up and tightly wound, like he's frozen in the middle of an excessively strenous climb.
No, not a climb. A fight. He looks like he's defending himself.
"Rocky?" I ask quietly, and then I hear it. It's so quiet and high-pitched that I barely register it, but the silence of the ship around us helps. Rocky is letting loose an endless supply of notes - distressing and cacophonous, discordant and messy. I give a quick glance to the translator, but whatever words it manages to pick up come out garbled and murky, because he keeps talking, non-stop.
Fight or flight body pose plus scared crying. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know what's happening.
My best friend is having a nightmare.
"Rocky?" I ask again, this time a little louder. Nothing. To be expected - I imagine it'd be next to impossible to wake up an Eridian mid-sleep cycle. But the state of him - I can't stand it. I have no idea what he's saying, but I know it can't be anything good. Is he dreaming about being alone? Losing me? Losing Erid?
Whatever it is, it's hurting him.
"Shhh, shh buddy, it's okay." The tablet fell to the ground a couple seconds ago in my slight panic, but now I switch it on. There's a "sleep sounds" app on it - outside of the projection room, the lack of Earth sounds can get to be a bit much, and I'll fully admit I've missed the sound of waves. I set it to full volume and rest it against Rocky's ball. His nightmare song wavers slightly but doesn't stop. Gods, it's like listening to a faulty scratched up record, or a horror movie soundtrack. It's wrong on so many levels - the tone, the fact that the translator can't understand him, the way the discordant mess of notes are just continually flowing out of him like a sad audible puddle of tears.
I embrace his ball tightly and press my cheek up to the xenonite. I close my eyes and concentrate. I'm still learning the bare bones basics of Eridian, but give two species years in space with nothing else to do and you'll be surprised how quickly you can pick up on some things.
I can't whistle very well, so instead I hum. "Everything safe," I manage. A standard confirmation whenever we did EVA trips, but this time I mean every other definition of the word. "Rocky not alone."
He had been so, so alone. Hazard a guess he's dreaming about that right now, nighmares being fueled by trauma and all that. The Eridian notes echo around my hums again and again. I do the weird human comforting thing and rub circles into the sides of his ball, despite the fact that I know he can't feel it.
"Everything's safe. Everything's safe. I'm here, Rock. It's okay."
Eventually, ever so slowly, Rocky's incoherent wails begin to subside, until blessedly they cease altogether. He's still all wound up like a particularly messed up knot, but at least he's back to quiet sleep. I keep up my humming, my soothing rubs, until a good hour later, when I hear movement from beneath me.
"...Grace?" Rocky asks groggily.
"I'm here, bud. You okay?"
He shakes his whole body like an angry dog.
"Rocky was asleep. Bad things happen during sleep." There's a very long pause. "...is Rocky awake now?"
Gods, reality fudgery. If Rocky's nightmares were anything as vivid as mine can be, it's no wonder he's questioning it.
"Yes, Rock, you're awake. You're on the Hail Mary." I'm halfway to my go-to grounding technique, counting colors, before I realize Rocky doesn't see any. "A thing that can help is grounding," I offer weakly.
"But Rocky already on ground."
"Just...think of a pattern you can always look for. How many sides of your ball are there?"
He counts, but it's a slow process. He's still in distress.
"Forty...thirty-two," he manages. He miscounted. He never does that. He's out of the nightmare but his world's still scary.
"Alright. What about me? How many limbs do I have?"
"Stupid question. Grace have four."
Yeah, alright, counting to four isn't exactly meditative, but at this point I'm just trying to come up with anything that can keep him calm.
"Can you tell me about Adrian?"
"What about Adrian, question?"
"Anything! What's their favorite food, what do they sound like, what do they like to do?"
Rocky's notes shift into something significantly more happier. Good, this is good.
"Adrian is -"
What follows is an absolutely delightful series of notes that the translator barely picks up, beyond the occasional phrase of 'beautiful', 'happy', and, oddly, 'silly'. I sit and listen in awe and smile.
By the time he's done, the general feeling around both of us is much more positive.
"You good now, Rock?" I ask. I receive Eridian jazz hands in response.
"Hey. If that ever happens again, I'll be right by your side, okay?"
"Rocky like ground. Ground is good."
I laugh.
"Glad to hear I could help."
"Rocky will ground Grace next time."
I stop laughing.
"What do you mean, buddy?"
"Grace cry in sleep too, sometimes. Grace never said you needed ground, but ground seems good. Ground is helpful."
I quickly wipe away a few tears that gather in my eyes.
"Thanks, Rock."
"Grace protect Rocky while sleeping. Rocky do same."
I hug his ball again. He leans himself against me. Despite the xenonite, I feel every part of his embrace.