Chapter Text
-------- Marks a POV change
Rocky’s speech is italicized in Grace’s POV and vice versa in Rocky’s POV
Mary is italicized and in bold
Words Rocky does not know are striked out
Words Grace does not know are in music notes 🎶♫
More discordant chords are in the G̶̫̈́l̵̳͒ḯ̵̺t̴̛̼c̴̰͝ḩ̴̌ ̷̥̈́T̸̗̎e̶̖̊x̵̭̒ṫ̷̺ ̷͑ͅ
Memories will be italicized
✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦
He wished the last sleep on Erid would last forever. His house was warm, and the feeling of being wrapped up in Adrian’s arms was something more than bliss.
“Why, my dear, did you have to agree to this?” Adrian hummed, shifting their back legs into their favored resting position.
Rocky leaned back into their arms, “We have talked about this, Adrian, I don’t want to argue when I have to go soon.”
Adrian chuckled, and Rocky could feel it radiate through his body, “Not trying to argue, dear. I just don’t want to hear you go.”
“The Thrum believes I am best for the job…somehow.” Rocky took a claw and ran it over Adrian’s arm.
Adrian’s voices lowered and hummed softly with a lilt, "Because you are the best, my sweet. You know you are Emmett’s best apprentice, and your work exposed a flaw in the space elevator.”
Rocky did not answer. The two of them were quiet for a moment as they listened to the soft sounds of the city around them through their xenonite walls. Their neighbors down the way were having a small gathering. Their child had been accepted as an apprentice to a wonderful program.
“Hmmmm…I wish we could be over there celebrating.” Rocky mused absentmindedly.
“You know you need your sleep and that I need to watch. The mission overseers had very specific instructions.”
“Yes, yes.” Rocky went back to running a claw over Adrian’s arm, taking the time to circle the piece of his own carapace that was grafted in. He remembered Adrian chipping that off and how nervous he was to take a chisel to their carapace. It was far too beautiful to damage.
“I will miss you.” Adrian sighed.
“I would be worried if you didn’t.” Rocky’s voices lifted with amusement.
That got another chuckle out of Adrian, “What I won’t miss are your jokes.”
Rocky let himself sleepily laugh, “Perhaps you will, and do not worry. I will be back soon. It will only take a few years to get there. Our scientists are capable, and they will figure it out swiftly. Then I will be back in your arms.” He made a dramatic gesture.
“Swiftly.” Adrian repeated with a giggle, “Don’t think I’ve ever heard you use that word.”
“I do.” Rocky stretched a little, “I did just now.”
“Now go to sleep, dear.” Adrian started humming a tune, “I love you.”
Rocky let sleep overtake his body, “I love you too.” He listened to Adrian’s song as his limbs relaxed and his mind slipped off into sleep………………………………………………………..
Rocky twitched a claw before stretching all five of his arms and slowly getting up. The familiar warmth was gone. He almost called out for Adrian before realizing it was now the soft hum of the ship that surrounded him.
Quiet.
Not too quiet.
Not really.
There was a clacking, and the soft intake and expulsion of air that came from the other side of xenonite.
“Good morning, Rock.”
It was Grace who was sitting with his two legs folded over one another. His portable human thinking machine balanced on top of them. The two of them were two weeks into their long four human years (34 Eridian years) trip to Erid.
“Good Watching.” Rocky shuffled to his feet as the mechanical translator buzzed and repeated.
“Good morning.”
He had no concept of what Grace called “morning”. Grace had categorized it as the time of day when the sun comes up. On Erid, there was no sun; Eridani’s rays never reached the surface. What they had were very sophisticated waking and sleeping schedules based on the temperature of Erid. Grace explained pretty early on that humans slept when it got dark. Usually a whole household, neighborhood, or even city all going to sleep around the same time.
Rocky had to keep himself from shuddering at the thought.
“You good, Rocky?”
Rocky shifted his carapace, getting the last bit of sleeping lethargy out of his system. “Yes, good. tauamoeba good, question?” He tapped a back arm.
Grace stood. It was strange to hear him unfurl himself and even stranger to hear him stand on two legs.
“Last I checked, yes.”
“Good. What is planned for rest of day, question?”
Grace groaned in a way that Rocky vaguely understood was not out of anger, “Well…it’s movie night, your pick.”
Rocky clacked his claws and followed Grace throughout the ship as he went to check on the tauamoeba farms.
Movies.
A strange form of human media entertainment. The two of them had taken up “watching” one every couple of human days.
“Hhummm… list movies with many music and dance.”
“Pitch Perfect, Grease, Singin’ in the Rain, The Greatest Showman, Sound of Music…” Grace rattled off a few as he poked around the farm, pausing to declare that everything seemed in order.
“Sound of Music.” Rocky chose. The name was simple.
Grace’s face scrunched up, and Rocky could hear his eyes move upward. It was the face he made when thinking, “Hmmm… I don’t know, Rock, that movie has a lot of bad human history I’d have to explain.”
“Rocky can understand.”
Grace sucked in a large gulp of air, “Alright then…Sound of Music it is!”
Rocky paused and listened as Grace’s internal organs made this strange growling noise. Rocky understood that this sound was simply the organs in his body absorbing his food.
Ew.
“Oooo…I should probably eat soon. Do you want to sit with me or not?”
“Need to finish prototype. You eat.” Rocky went to scuttle off to his workshop in the lab.
“Wait-prototype?” Grace smiled when Rocky stilled, “What? You said that you’ve been working on a project, not a prototype.”
Rocky waved a claw at Grace, “Something for Adrian.” He chirped quickly, “No worry.”
“Not worried, just want to know what you’re working on, bud.”
“Go. Eat.”
Grace obliged with a wave of his claw and lumbered off to the dormitory. Rocky then, using his handholds, swung over to the lab and settled behind his workbench. Was this project really for Adrian? Not quite, but they would find it useful when he got home. He could hear Grace puttering about below him, unwrapping a container of his food.
Rocky was upgrading his screen visualizer to work on Grace’s portable thinking device. With the visualizer, he could get the shape of images, but words were a whole other beast. He was able to translate numbers quite easily, but he and Grace had vastly different written languages. Grace had explained that Hail Mary’s mission specialists had given the crew a quite frankly insane amount of information. If Rocky were to access that, things would be way easier when they got to Erid.
He started tinkering, having to continuously check a tactile alphabet that Grace had confusedly made him two human days ago. Despite how much he tried to focus on the project, he could still hear Grace. He had a cup of what he called “noodles”, which was some sort of processed plant material.
Humans were fascinating; they could eat almost anything. Eridians were carnivores but humans were herbivores and regularly straight up consumed plants. They somehow figured out how to process certain ones to make them more edible.
Humans were disgusting; their mouths were basically always open, and they had a muscular organ that helped them swallow and speak. Their mouths were also full of boney materials that broke down their food.
He could vaguely hear him “chewing” as he tapped on his portable device.
Rocky shuttered.
Disgusting.
Thankfully, it didn’t take long for Grace to eat and for him to clank up the ladder and into the lab.
“Do you want to start the movie in two hours?” Grace poked his head in.
“Yes,” Rocky responded, not pausing for a moment. Even though movies were not that long by human standards, they found out quickly that they needed to start one several hours before Grace slept because Grace had to explain a lot.
Grace walked over and quietly watched Rocky work. After a moment, he sat down on the other side of the xenonite, laying his head on it to watch him.
Grace stayed silent for a grand total of 5,400 seconds or one human hour and thirty minutes. (Sometimes he thought in their shared units when he didn’t need to and he grumbled about it.) While Rocky didn’t mind the comfortable quietness, it was strange for Grace. It seemed every stream of consciousness Grace had was vocalized. Rocky most of the time could hold a conversation with Grace, continue working, think about another conversation to have as well as his next project. Yet he never vocalized all of that.
Grace seemed content, though it was hard to read his expressions and body language. Most of it was done with his face, and well…Rocky didn’t have anything to compare his expressions to. What confused Rocky was the fact that Grace had been quiet like this several times over the past week. There could be many reasons for this, but it was something to keep a watch on.
Rocky’s workflow was interrupted by Grace moving and wincing in pain.
“Grace, good, question?” He tapped.
“Yep, yeah…” Grace winced, “I should change the bandages.”
He was referencing the cloth wrappings around his burns, and Rocky neatly set his project down. While he didn’t need to, he still followed Grace back into the dormitory.
Grace plopped down on his bed and let out a stream of air. A sigh as Rocky had come to know it. Grace pulled out a roll of bandages and tube of “ointment”. The closest thing Rocky equated it to was something they had on Erid to clean and polish their carapaces.
Rocky sat down, folding his legs under him, and listened.
Grace gingerly pulled off his shirt and set it beside him before slowly unraveling the bandages to reveal the burns.
Most of the left side of Grace’s thorax was horribly burned. The burn wrapped around his left arm, and across his back. And then there was the burn on his right arm where Rocky had grabbed him. All of them were sustained during their disastrous fishing trip. Rocky quietly diverted one train of thought from remembering the ordeal.
The burns that ran along Grace’s back and in a few other places Grace had said were mostly healed. He explained those burns weren’t as deep as the others, hence why the large one on his left arm was taking longer to heal. Grace said something about 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degrees but it made no sense to Rocky.
The human gingerly removed a few special bandages placed in areas where the burns were particularly bad and set on applying the paste.
He sighed again, closing his eyes for a moment and Rocky clacked his claws to get a better look.
“That’s better….” Grace muttered, “Itched like hell.”
Humans had weak carapaces, that yet were surprisingly tough and resilient. It took many cycles for an Eridian with a damaged carapace to fully heal. Being an entire alien creature Rocky wasn’t sure how Grace would heal or how long it would take. So, he was surprised to see some of the burns had a textured pattern rather than the usual smoothness.
That’s one thing no one ever thought about aliens, how smooth they’d be.
“Healing good, question?”
Grace prodded his left arm, “Ummm…. it’s looking good.”
Rocky shifted his carapace, “No, Grace, pause.”
Grace sighed, “Well buddy, I’m not a medical doctor, so I just guess the best I can. It doesn’t look good, but it looks better than it did a week ago.”
Rocky swayed in unease, “Okay, good.” He paused and watched Grace put on fresh bandages, “We go watch movie now, question?”
Grace shuffled his shirt back on and stood, “Yep! I’ll queue it up.”
Rocky walked off towards his ball and air lock. He made sure everything was situated and sealed the ball before rolling off to the Don’t Go Crazy Room.
Grace was there messing with the laptop connected to the screens, “Okay, Sound of Music is about a human woman named Maria who goes to teach seven siblings who have been raised by their widowed father.”
“Hmmm…. need word, question.” He tapped.
Grace hopped up onto the bridge, “Well, a widow or widower is someone whose mate has died.”
Rocky stilled, “Ohh…. sad, sad, sad. Eridian word is 🎵♪♪♪♩🎵” He led out a low note.
Grace turned to the laptop and typed in the human equivalent, “You good, Rock?”
Rocky didn’t realize he had gone silent, “Good, good. Want to watch movie.” Rocky settled in his ball, “Grace say there is music, question?”
“Yes, lots.” He started the movie, and Rocky adjusted his visualizer and got to listening.
The movie was quite interesting to Rocky. Many of the movies they had watched had music but playing in the background. This movie worked in song.
Human music sometimes relied a lot on words. That was tricky for Rocky, whose understanding of the human language wasn’t up to parr to an actual speaker. Singers had inflections and all sounded different, so Grace had to fill it in. Rocky was surprised at the amount of emotions human singers managed to convey in their songs. Eridian was essentially music, there weren’t many tones that weren't words. So, their songs were poetic, and emotion was felt through words, not always sound.
Human movies with songs were easier for Rocky to understand since dialogue filled in those gaps. That was if he understood what they were saying at all.
The human in this, Maria taught the children how to sing and then there was the party where the Captain sang. Grace had explained that the song may sound like it’s about a flower but in reality, represents the Captain’s homeland.
Then the Captain’s eldest child sang with him.
It wasn’t the lyrics that made Rocky pause; it was what he understood about the…characters
The Captain was something Grace explained as a widower, someone who lost their partner. And there he was singing about his lost love with his children. But it wasn’t just about a lost love, it was about a lost homeland.
For a moment, he longed for Erid. The way the roof of his house was angled, the way the rocks turned finer closer to the shores.
He longed for Adrian. The way they laughed, their jewelry, the way their claws fit in his.
Deep, deep longing.
Was Adrian singing like this? Singing for their lost love? Did they think he was dead, simply gone?
Then he was reminded of Parker and Watson.
And the horrible screeching.
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The two of them had set course for Erid two weeks ago and Grace couldn’t help be nervous.
Who wouldn’t?
He was facing death sentence after death sentence. Grace had obsessively done the math on how much calories he had and how many he would need to consume. After that he had to stop himself from deep diving into research on long term starvation. Let’s just say scurvy seemed pleasant compared to what could and would happen.
If he even got to Erid that posed a plethora of new questions. How was he gonna get nutrients? How was he gonna stay healthy in 0-g? How was he gonna be social? And so on and so on and so on. Grace had to stop himself and try and focus on anything else while Rocky slept. His foot was bouncing and his fingertips tapping.
He could work on papers. He could always work on more papers.
Rocky always was working on something. He had a plethora of ideas that seemed to either make his life on the Hail Mary easier or just for fun. Whatever he was working on now seemed complex.
Grace didn’t have that ability or that kind of brain. What he was decently good at was writing scientific papers. He wrote a lot of things that were eventually sent on the Beetles. Were they exactly perfect scientific papers, no. So, he was polishing them…for absolutely nobody. That’s why he really really wanted to watch a movie, but it wasn’t the only reason.
He did a bit of poking around the ship in containers and manuals he really hadn’t touched before, and he found something he had completely forgotten about.
It was a gun.
Yes, a gun!
It was in a waterproof box along with six bullets. Why he found it now and not at any other time was a mystery along with where it was. It was in a small storage container that should have been locked. Perhaps it had reset somehow when the Hail Mary lost power?
Despite the reason, the weapon was of Chinese make and it was exactly how Yáo wanted it.
Sometimes for very brief blissful moments he forgot this originally was a suicide mission. That was until Rocky undid that with two simple words.
“I give.”
And here Grace was, having undid that undoing and he would do it again in a heartbeat if it meant saving Rocky. He would waste away and die a horrible death yet, Earth, Erid and his best and only friend would be safe.
It was worth it, said something deep in the back of his mind.
So, Grace stared at the gun for a moment too long and roughly latched the box and shoved it back where it came from before his hands started to shake. He faked looked at other stuff because even though Rocky was on the floor above him, he knew he was always watching.
But he hated the fact that the weapon was there. The place where it was stored seemed to stand out with an ominous energy. As he went about part of his day he knew where it was constantly, even through walls like he suddenly had Rocky’s echolocation.
It was there, it was there and its presence was heavier than six g’s of force.
So as soon as Grace knew that Rocky was asleep, as fast as he could he grabbed the box and ejected it out of the airlock. Then he could breathe.
The Sound of Music really wasn’t Grace’s first choice but in reality, he was in charge of the list. He didn’t mind the movie at all. He thought he’d have to explain more about WWⅡ and he didn’t want to explain human atrocities. Not right now since he’d rather think about nothing at all.
Surprisingly he didn't have to explain all that much.
Grace just said, “There was a war and some bad humans took control of Austria.”
Rocky had just hummed and mumbled, “Understand”
He went extremely quiet once Edelweiss was sung. Other than a few clacks of his claws and a smattering of questions he was quiet. At first, he thought that something must be wrong, but Rocky actually seemed to be engrossed in the movie. Grace hadn’t seen him as entranced since the tape measurer.
Near the end of the movie when the von Trapps all stood on stage singing. Rocky let out a very quiet warble that Grace wasn’t quite sure he could hear. He was leaned up against Rocky’s xenionite ball and felt it more than he heard it.
He actually wasn’t sure if he should have heard it. If Grace put human emotions over that noise, he would say Rocky had gotten a little choked up.
Funny, out of all the heart wrenching movies out there the Sound of Music got to him.
As the movie came to a close Rocky shifted his carapace, “I like!”
“Good, I’m glad.” Grace stretched and yawned, “It’s considered a classic.”
“Hmmmm…. Grace sleep now, question?”
“Yep, yeah.” He yawned again as he shut down the screens. Rocky rolled off as Grace trudged behind him. Grace went about his bedtime routine as Rocky gathered something to tinker with. Grace pulled on pajamas, brushed his teeth and settled into bed.
He set down his glasses, “Mary please turn down the lights.”
“Turning down lights”
Grace fluffed his pillow as darkness enveloped the ship, “Goodnight Rocky.”
“Good night, Grace. You sleep. I watch.”
Grace mumbled something as he let himself relax. He was more tired than he thought he was and before he knew it, he drifted off to sleep to sound of Rocky tinkering.