Archive of Our Own

The second Rocky had suggested eating the Taumoeba in order for you and Grace to not starve, you realized far too many things. 

1. You and Grace are going to live. There’s no use for Ilyukhina’s heroin, or Yáo’s gun, or DuBois’s nitrogen, nor your own preferred method (for matters of suicide, that is. The nitrogen was quite useful during the Taumoeba outbreak in order to sterilize the ship). 
2. You’ll have to prioritize keeping the few plants on the Hail Mary alive. There was an array of plants in small soil pots that the ship took care of, stashed into the wall. You’ll have to make sure the ship doesn’t skip its watering and keep its growlights on until you’re able to plant it on Erid’s grounds. 
3. The supplements Armando gave every morning would only last a few months longer, maybe double or triple the time since you can take the pills from Ilyukhina and Yáo’s stash. 
4. Having to live off coma slurry for the maybe-four year long trip to Erid sounded like the worst thing ever. It had the exact vitamins and nutrients needed for the human body, sure, but it was the most bitter thing you’ve ever tasted. You were running out of real food, and that was all you had left to eat. 
5. You can finally take a good fucking shower… in four years. (It’s actually 3.7 years, to be exact. Grace kept reminding you of the specifics since they were so important to know, as if you weren’t the mission specialist trained in a jack-of-all-trades way and knew that the travel time was exactly 3.7 years to get to Erid. Saying “four” was far quicker than “three point seven”.)
6. And during those roughly four three years and eight months of travel, you’ll be in the Hail Mary with one Dr. Cpt. Ryland Grace and the alien spider-rock Rocky.

It’s not that you had something against Grace or Rocky, no, not at all. Your crewmates were simply two peas in a pod, their hand-in-hand (claw?) swinging as Grace yapped and Rocky thrummed. You didn’t feel excluded in their relationship, but rather you’d like to be excluded from it. Sometimes the chemistry between the scientist and alien engineer felt like you were intruding on a private moment.

Sure, you woke up from your coma after Rocky had moved into the Hail Mary, meaning Grace had far more time to bond with your alien companion, but there was still something more between the two compared to you and Rocky or you and Grace. You didn’t need to be an expert in knowing relationship dynamics to tell.

Perhaps Adrian will feel like a third wheel, too. 

Third wheel! That’s the word you were looking for!

You were going to be a third wheel for the next three years and eight months. (Three years and eight months. God, maybe you should use that damn gun of Yáo’s on yourself. Bad joke. You shouldn’t joke about killing yourself so gruesomely when you would scar the only other human and alien in a bajillion mile radius.)

At least soon you’ll be able to talk to other people. Early in Rocky and Grace’s meeting, Grace had duct taped two computers together with one screen showing Microsoft Excel with English translated words of Eridianese (Grace came up with that word. He’s… not the best at it) and the other screen having a soundwaves-to-text “Tympanum Labs Waveform Analyzer” program. Though as the months had passed, you and Grace became pretty fluent in the language. You couldn’t speak it—human vocal cords couldn’t make the layered notes Eridians evolved to have—but the keyboard worked just as fine. Luckily for you, Eridians can learn a whole new language pretty easily. Something about their memory banks. You don’t recall the specifics Grace had gone on and on about.

The first few months of travel were spent learning about each other’s worlds and people. Grace jotted down every bit of information he could into a laptop, titled and organized with a multitude of subsections. Rocky offered his insights on Eridian culture, language, world properties (like the thick atmosphere, 2g of surface gravity, 5.1 hour long days, etc.), and many other details he thought to share and answer questions on.

All you could think was how the hell were you going to survive on Erid? The 2g of the planet sounded like hell on your bones. Rocky assured his people would “take good care of you” and “do everything to save you,” but how exactly were Erid’s scientists going to provide the correct vitamins a human needed? Were they going to poke and prod at you and Grace? Dissect you? Experiment on you? 

Dear God, they’re not like humans.

You had to keep reminding yourself of that fact. 

If anything, the Eridians might observe you and Grace like zoo animals. You were aliens from a whole other planet in a whole other system. And since Rocky could understand English (if Grace were an Eridian learning about humans, would he call it humanese?), Eridian scientists would be scrambling to ask questions on how humans operate. Probably. At least that’s what Rocky tells you.

The months tick down, and soon you’re back to eating coma slurry and facing a three year and three month long (you really need to stop saying the specific length of time. You’ll go insane just thinking about it like a ticking clock) journey to 40 Eridani A b.

(Maybe you can scrunch the time down to just months. Thirty nine months to go!

Nope. That doesn’t sound any better. Now you just sound like a mother back on Earth sharing her three year old baby’s age in months.)

A sigh huffs from your nose. As you sit on one of the lab stools with a laptop before you, you scroll aimlessly through the calendar app. You had marked the day in which you’d make it to Erid, and having to scroll for so, so long makes you want to throw the laptop across the room.

“Wow, what a huff,” Grace says as he reenters the lab. “You gonna blow my house down?” He gives a small laugh, sets down the crate in his hands, and takes a glance at you. You stare at him through your lashes with no sign of amusement on your features. 

Grace grimaces. “Sore subject?”

“Something like that,” you murmur, looking back down at the computer screen. Your elbow rests on the edge of the table, and your temple connects with your fist. Your dominant hand scrolls and scrolls through the months listed before you.

…What if you counted in weeks? Staring at the screen and pausing your scrolling, you blink. Some quick math tells you that would be well past a hundred, and you’d much rather keep thinking in small numbers to keep your sanity at bay. Double digits below forty sounds like a dream compared to one hundred sixty-eight.

Your brows furrow at nothingness. Why on Earth did you decide to even think about the length of time left in weeks? Great going, brain. Thanks for nothing.

“Are you overthinking the travel time again?” Grace asks.

“No,” you quickly say, and you promptly exit the calendar app. “I’m leaving the overthinking to you.”

Despite the half-assed insult, Grace snorts a laugh. An amused smile finds its way resting on his lips. “How nice of you,” he sarcastically says. 

Grace lingers by the crate he set on the table—you’re guessing he’s organizing outta pure boredom—before deciding to take a seat across from you. He sits on the stool and places his interlocked hands on the table. 

“We’ll be getting there in time, just so you know.” Grace says with his full, undivided attention on you. “I did the math. Well, we did the math. Double checked and everything. And there shouldn’t be any complications along the way, so… what’s up?”

You could tell him. You could share all of what you’ve been overthinking (though you’re certain he’s already had his own fair share of crazy thoughts), or you could save him from hearing your brain spiraling.

The latter option calls you to. 

You momentarily stare at him, then you glance at the laptop, shut it, and push it away from you. “I’m gonna take a nap,” you announce. Dodging Grace’s question sounds far better than actually admitting that you feel like these next three years are gonna lead you to your insanity. 

As stand from your seat with a stretch of your arms, you catch the faint frown on Grace’s lips. “Is Rocky still asleep?” you ask, and you lower your arms. You jot your thumb over to the hatch leading to the dormitory. “Or is he tinkering away in there?”

“He’s tinkering,” Grace affirms, “but are you sure you don’t want to talk about anything?”

You shake your head. “Not entirely,” you say. 

You round the table, gently pat Grace’s shoulder, and continue your destination towards the dorms. You hadn’t realized how exhausted you actually are—maybe your nap will turn out to be a sleep. 

Three years on the dot until you reach Erid. To have some semblance of a schedule, you propose that today is the new New Year’s and a celebration should be had. 

Grace has one of the laptops hooked up to the Mental Health Node (affectionately nicknamed the “Don’t Go Crazy” room—you like that description far better) and Rocky’s screen-to-texture-screen translating device propped beside it. Stratt oh-so graciously gifted you with an endless supply of content ranging from book PDFs to movies, so that frequently lead you and your companions to relax in the Don’t Go Crazy room with an old classic playing. 

Today, you and Grace decided to introduce Rocky to the Star Wars franchise. (You agreed on showing the original trilogy first before getting into the prequels.)

A nest of blankets, mattress padding, and pillows dragged from the dormitory to the Don’t Go Crazy room surround you and Grace in order to get comfortable. Rocky’s in his xenonite sphere to the left of you while Grace and a bag of vodka is to your right. 

“Take a shot every time they mention the Force or lightsabers are shown,” you joke to Grace. 

His eyes widen from behind his lenses. “Do you want us to throw up?” he says with a small laugh.

“What is word after force, question?” Rocky asks.

“Lightsabers?” you repeat. Rocky nods his carapace as best as he can. “Remember the AstroTorch you made us? It’s kinda like that.”

The AstroTorch (named by Grace, of course) is an astrophage and oxygen powered tool used to cut through nearly any material. Rocky had made it so you and Grace could do repairs on the Hail Mary. In simpleman’s terms, it’s a sick ass blowtorch.

“Oh, understand,” he says. “Play movie so Rocky can see Star Wars AstroTorch!”

Grace chuckles at Rocky’s enthusiasm, and he reaches over to the laptop to press play.

(You read aloud the opening sequence, even though Rocky’s already been taught written English by Grace. A few questions arise from Rocky nearly immediately from all the new Star Wars specific words. It’s very common for Rocky to ask questions throughout movies, and Grace always loves to answer and go on tangents about the fun facts he knows.)

After spotting the first mention of the Force, you take a sip from Ilyukhina’s bag of strong vodka, wincing as it burns down your throat. You hand it to Grace so he can take his own sip. 

He doesn’t do much to actually take the bag, though. His hand loosely wraps around the bag and your fingers, and he leans forward to sip from the little straw. All of Grace’s attention is onto the big screens rather than how his hand splays over yours. 

The moment he leans away and retracts his hand, you crave for the measly touch to return. The pit in your stomach begs to be filled. Your heart aches to be clenched by the hand of someone so dear, and apparently your saving grace (ha) is Grace.

Your jaw tightens, and you try to keep all your focus on the movie. Rocky asks a question; Grace answers it with ease. You’re still hung up on the feeling of human touch on bare skin. 

Wow, you’re fucked. If you’re now dwelling on skin-on-skin contact, then you certainly won’t survive the remaining time in the Hail Mary and any seconds after that on Erid’s grounds. 

You take another swig of the vodka—not because Luke Skywalker swung around his lightsaber, but because you need to shut up your mind, and apparently alcoholism is the way to go. (Ilyukhina gets all your thanks for her strong as hell vodka.)

Once again, Grace’s hand overlaps yours on the bag, and he takes a sip of the vodka. Too busy in your own thoughts, you weren’t expecting it. Your hand involuntarily twitches from the sudden contact, effectively squeezing the bag as Grace still has his mouth over the straw. 

His touch retracts, and a series of sputters and coughs follow. Vodka dribbles down his chin. Rocky shouts extremities of concern. You’re capping the straw and giving your own extremities of apologies. 

“Jesus!” Grace says after mostly clearing his throat.

“What? What?! What happen, question?” Rocky exclaims, and he pushes against the xenonite and nearly rolls the heavy ball over your lap. 

You put a palm on the xenonite as if to keep Rocky from rolling around. “I’m so sorry!” you say to Grace as he catches his breath. “Are you okay?”

“What happen?!” Rocky repeats with a stressful double tap to the xenonite.

Grace shoots a thumbs down to Rocky as he wipes his chin. “I’m good,” he says. “Just, uh…” He clears his throat and glances from you to Rocky. His cheeks are flushed red, and there’s a slight watering in his eyes. “Went down the wrong pipe.” 

Rocky makes an audible chime of disgust. “Grace all leaky, gross, gross, gross. Why did friend make Grace leak, question?”

Your head whips to Rocky, eyebrows raised. His wording certainly didn’t sound PG-13. 

“My gosh, we really gotta work on your wording for things, pal,” Grace says.

With two years, eight months, eleven days, and nine hours left of your journey (Thank you, Mary, for the specifics), boredom finds you sprawled on the floor of the dormitory with Rocky asleep behind the xenonite barrier. Grace lays near you with his hands intertwined over his stomach. 

“I miss the ocean,” you murmur. You angle your head to look over at Grace. “What about you, Grace? What do you miss?”

Grace glances at you briefly before returning his gaze to the ceiling. He clenches his jaw before speaking. “I miss my kids.”

You let your gaze linger on his profile. A small frown rests on Grace’s lips, and your heart strings tug in your chest at the sight. “Did you have a favorite?” you joke, hoping to pull Grace out of his sorrows.

As if hearing the most incredulous sentence ever, Grace’s brows furrow and he shoots you a look over the rim of his glasses. You can’t help but laugh softly at how offended he seems. 

“I don’t have favorites!” he says pointedly. “I love all my kids equally.”

“Psh, yeah, right,” you say just to push his buttons. Your head tilts away from him, and you’re back to staring at the ceiling. “You definitely had favorites.”

Grace sits up in order to turn to you fully. “I did not!” he retorts with a somewhat amused tone lacing his words. “All my classes were very well behaved, thank you.”

You raise a brow as you stare up at him. “Was it a Noah?” you ask, and Grace huffs a laugh before lying back down. Your gaze follows his movements. 

“I’m not dignifying a response,” he says.

Despite that, you continue. “A Charlotte?” Charlotte sounds like a goody-two-shoes name. Sorry to all the Charlotte’s back on Earth. 

Grace rolls his eyes, though the little smile on his lips tells you he’s not actually annoyed with your pestering. “No.”

“A girl or a boy?”

“What if they’re neither?”

“Okay, girl, boy, or non-binary?”

“None of the above.”

You raise a hand to lightly push at his shoulder. “C’mon!” you say, and Grace laughs at your insistence. “Gimme something here!”

“I didn’t have favorites!” he says through his laughter. 

You give a highly exaggerated roll of your eyes. “Whatever you say, Grace.”

A comforting silence lingers between you and Grace as you both drift your attentions to the ceiling once again. Grace’s fingers drum quietly against his body where his hands lay over his stomach. You have one hand under your head and the other lying at your side. You absentmindedly tap your fingers against the floor. 

“One of my students, Olivia, always enjoyed participating,” he murmurs.

You turn your head to glance at Grace’s profile. A solemn smile rested on his lips. 

“She always asked me if I had a cloth so she could clean her glasses,” he says with a light chuckle. “I never did. She’d then ask the math teacher down the hall, and Mrs. Rodriguez always provided.”

“She was, um…” Grace trails off, lifting a hand to dip under the frames of his glasses to pinch at his closed eyes. He inhales deeply, runs his palm down his lower face, and rests his hand beside his body. He clears his throat before continuing. “She was a part of the last graduating class I taught.”

Your gaze flickers from his profile to his hand just inches away from yours. You could comfort him. Hold him. (Ask him to hold you, too.) Your hand briefly balls into a fist before flexing out. 

With slight hesitation, as your eyes lift back to the ceiling of the dormitory, your fingers brush along the back of Grace’s hand. You can hear the shift he makes of his head against the floor to look at you, but you don’t return the glance. He looks away. His hand slips against your palm (quite quickly, you realize), and his fingers intertwin with yours. 

The pad of your thumb runs against the knuckle of Grace’s. “I’m sorry for how things were left back on Earth,” you whisper. 

Grace tightens his hold on your hand. “It’s okay,” he retorts just as softly. 

You can tell he doesn’t mean it.

It’s been two days since you’ve held Grace’s hand, and you can’t get it out of your mind.

You catch yourself staring at Grace’s hands far too much, begging for the warmth you once held. Multiple times throughout the forty-eight hours have you wondered if Grace, too, wants that little touch back in his grasp. Before going to bed last night, you couldn’t help but stare at the blank cot of Grace’s to your far right through the xenonite encasing Rocky’s bed, wondering if Grace would ever pity you and initiate physical touch again. 

Unfortunately for you, Rocky has noticed your slight demeanor change. 

You didn’t think it was that obvious. Seriously! All you were doing was refraining from patting Grace’s shoulder like you usually did as you passed him, and you were maybe staring at Grace’s hands as he wrote on the whiteboard or typed something up on his laptop or snapped gloves on to mess around with the Taumoeba’s breeder tanks, and-

Jesus Christ, you were doing too much. Of course Rocky is going to notice.

And much to your dismay, Rocky brings it up in the lab with Grace just two feet away from you. 

“Friend get distracted easy, easy, easy,” he says absentmindedly like he’s talking about the weather.

Grace pauses the typing in his tablet to glance over at Rocky. He raises a brow then looks across the table at you. You’re too busy shooting Rocky a look that could read “holy shit, I’m gonna kill you” to pay attention to Grace’s eyes on you. 

“Since when do you get distracted?” Grace asks with the slightest of amusement in his tone. 

“Since never.”

“Since Grace exists!”

“Rocky!” You turn to Rocky in his xenonite tunnel. You’re sure if he had a face he’d be giving you such a smug ass look.

Grace looks between you and Rocky as the words seep into his brain, yet the context clues are so minute that he can’t figure out what exactly Rocky means. “Care to use your words, buddy?” he asks Rocky. He sets the tablet down on the table and sheepishly scratches at his cheekbone. “I’m a little lost here…”

You wave a hand. “It’s nothing,” you say. “I’m just a little frazzled from how long we’ve been here.”

It’s not exactly a lie, but Rocky thinks differently.

“Friend stares at Grace for a long, long time when Grace is not looking,” he says. Curse that damn spider-rock alien. 

You quickly tell Grace, “That’s exaggerated.”

“Is not,” says Rocky.

Smug ass spider-rock. You’re so close to threatening to not watch him sleep.

…No, that’s too far. You can’t do that to Rocky. Maybe you’ll just threaten to eat in front of him, or something. That’ll get him shivering in his little dull-green sweater. 

“Grace has also been staring.”

You blink, turning your attention to Rocky. He’s been what?

“No, I haven’t,” Grace very quickly defends. 

“Yes.”

“No.”

“When?” you ask Rocky. 

Grace’s voice raises an octave. “Never!”

“When friend is on laptop or is piloting.”

You turn your head to Grace. “Really?”

“No!” 

“Yes.”

Grace lets his glasses dangle from one ear to rub his palms over his face. “Rocky, please,” he utters in peak exasperation. 

A small trill pushes past Rocky’s carapace as he laughs at Grace’s embarrassment. 

Silence lingers between you and Grace. Will he speak first, or will you? He doesn’t make direct eye contact with you when his hands come down from his face. He purses his lips, drums his fingers against the table, decides he should stop doing that and instead laces his fingers together, clears his throat and leans back in his chair while letting his hands fall to his lap, and then opens his mouth to speak but promptly shuts it. 

You should put him out of his misery and speak first. You’re certainly less nervous to speak, even though your stomach lurches in your throat at the mere idea of mentioning your touch-starvedness. 

Alright. Whatever. It’s time to put on your big kid pants.

“I’ve been thinking about holding your hand.”

That… sounds far more pathetic saying aloud. 

However, Grace is the only other human in fourteen light years, so you’ll let your pathetic words slide. It’d be terrifying if you had to face Grace after telling him, word-for-word, “Hey, I really like physical touch with you, but it’s 100% in a totally platonic and touch-starved manner,” and he did not agree on the need for physical touch and instead found you crazy and weird. 

Grace’s gaze flickers to your face, brows raised at the comment you made. You’ve been around the guy for years (Stratt’s Vat, NASA’s headquarters, the Hail Mary, etc.), but you can’t exactly tell what emotion his expression is supposed to convey. 

You swallow nervously and glance aside to Rocky. He’s fucking loafing in his xenonite tunnel, enjoying the show his two human companions are putting on for him right now. Seriously, Rocky? Are you and Grace putting on a soap opera for him? 

“You mean… you want to hold my hand… more?” He sounds slightly skeptical and slightly nervous. 

You still can’t tell if it’s a good thing, if he, too, begs for more physical contact (a touch on the shoulder in passing hardly counts, and even then, you’ve been doing that less as of late), and you feel like throwing up if he doesn’t. 

“Yes,” you say.

Grace lets out a breath and slouches against the stool’s backing. “Oh, thank God,” he says with his head thrown back. An airy chuckle comes from him as he sits upright again, his elbows resting on the table so he can lean forward a fraction. “I thought you were gonna say you hated it! I was gonna”—he blows a raspberry, jotting a thumb over his shoulder—“right on outta here.”

Guess you won’t feel like throwing up! He reciprocates! The universe is on your side! Lord, you could kiss the man!

What?

Why would you think that? What compelled you to have that thought of your crewmate for life? Did you really enjoy holding his hand that much? You can’t have. It was just a hand hold, nothing dramatic. People hold other people’s hands (platonically, may you add) all the time!

…Alright, so maybe you find Grace’s mannerisms kinda cute, and his laugh is like a field of flowers blooming, and the way he hardly ever wears his glasses correctly is somehow charming, and his profile distracts you more times than you can count, and his voice makes your attention spike right up, and… and…

Good lord, you’re staring at him. He’s talking, and you’re just staring at him. He’s saying something, and you can only nod with a small smile gracing your lips as you stare at him. 

Oh, fuck.

You might have a crush on the only other human this side of space has seen.

So you have a crush.

Big deal! It’ll pass! 

You’d think that, right? But you’re wrong. A week passes, more physical touch is exchanged between you and Grace, and your crush on the scientist skyrockets. 

(You’re pretty sure Rocky realizes it, too. You can only pray the Eridian doesn’t blow your cover.)

The dormitory finds you lying in your bed with your gaze to the ceiling. Rocky sits behind the xenonite wall with a series of tools and ship parts at his disposal. You can’t sleep. You should sleep, considering you’ve been up far more than twenty four hours and Rocky’s been pestering you to go to bed for approximately eight of those hours, but you simply can’t. 

Just a bed away, past where Rocky sits on the bed surrounded by xenonite, lays Grace in a similar predicament. Your sleep schedules have been marginally ruined since there’s no exact day or night while in space.

(The clocks don’t count. Bedtime can be 8AM the next day, if you really want it to. You and Grace sleep when your bodies call for it and if Rocky doesn’t pay attention to the sixteen hour wake window gradually getting longer. It doesn’t happen often, but there are times when it does, and your perfect sleep schedule goes down the drain.)

Grace calls your name quietly. 

You turn your head to look through the thick xenonite walls encasing the bed between where you lay and where Grace lays. His figure is blurry behind the panes, but you think he’s looking over at you.

“Yes?” you respond in a similarly soft tone. 

It takes a while for Grace to speak up again. He clears his throat faintly and drums his fingers against his ribcage. “Can you lay with me?” he asks. 

Rocky can most certainly hear the hammering of your heart rate, but he doesn’t comment on it. 

You swallow your nerves. “Okay,” you say under your breath with the smallest nod you can muster. 

It takes you a while to actually get out of your bed. You sit on the edge and peer around the xenonite the best you can. 

“Like… in your bed with you, right?”

Grace cranes his neck to look at you. He glances to his bed, then to you, and he gives a halfhearted nod. “Yeah, if- …Yeah,” he says. “If that’s okay.”

“That’s okay,” you say. “More than okay.”

You still don’t move. Your fingers clutch at the edge of your mattress. 

“You, uh… getting up?”

“Yup.”

“…Okay.”

It takes you a few seconds longer than necessary, but you stand from your bed, dragging your blanket with you, and walk over to Grace’s bed. He’s got the quilt tonight (you switch who gets to sleep with it every night. It’s a beautiful reminder of Earth and its humanity), and he pulls back the corner for you to scooch in next to him.

You do, and your body presses against his as you both lie on your backs on the probably twin-sized (maybe smaller) bedding. After adjusting your blanket over your body (and a fraction of the quilt on top), you stare at the ceiling. Grace does, too. 

“Tight fit,” he says with a small chuckle, glancing at you in his peripheral vision.

“Yeah.”

He presses his lips together and shifts his attention back to the ceiling. Gently, his fingers drum over his ribs once more. 

“You comfortable?” you ask as you tilt your head towards him.

He nods softly, giving you one more lingering glance. “Yeah,” he says.

“Cool.”

You turn your head to look back up at the ceiling, and so does Grace. You’ve never felt more awkward in your life. 

“Is it okay if I…?” Your words trail off as you adjust your position to lie on your side. 

He nods once again. “No, yeah, please,” he says, and he shifts to accommodate you some more. 

You’re now facing Grace with your hands tucked to your body, hesitant to reach out despite every previous touch being communicated effortlessly. Your head rests so close to his on the single pillow. His hair is already so unruly from his constant shifting earlier throughout the night. 

“I’m just gonna”—he gestures aimlessly to himself and makes a small point over the edge of his side of the bed—“turn this way.”

“Yeah, sure,” you say as he situates himself to lay with his back to you. “Whatever makes you comfortable.”

And now you’re staring at the back of his head. Amazing. Your gaze follows the curve of his neck and the bones of his shoulder blades before landing on his midsection. 

Wait. This is prime spooning position, you realize. If you just reach an arm out and inch a little closer, you could be spooning the cutest scientist on the Hail Mary.

Big kid pants. Communication is key. You take a small breath.

“Can I hold you?” you ask quietly as your eyes flick right back up to the back of his head. 

It takes him a second, but Grace nods and murmurs, “Yes.”

Score!

Your left arm drapes over Grace’s midsection beneath the blankets and over his t-shirt, and you instinctively shuffle closer to his frame. This proximity is so intoxicating, you think you could get drunk off his warmth. Your hand is in a loose fist over his stomach so as to not make him too uncomfortable, and yet he envelops your hand in his and hikes your arm better around his torso. Guess he’s not uncomfortable with this position. 

You dip your forehead against his nape. The closeness you have with Grace in this moment is better than sex, you swear it. It’s probably everything you’d ever wanted, ever desired. It’s a comfort that you’ve been craving—needing—for far too long. 

Your hand briefly tightens around Grace’s.

“Good night, Grace,” you whisper.

A sniffle comes from Grace, and he squeezes your hand in return. “Good night,” he says with a whisper of your name.

Jesus Christ, you want to kiss him. He’s the only other human in over fourteen ight years, and you’re crushing so hard that you wanna kiss him sloppy. Great. 

Your ever growing and festering crush has made you pay attention to far too many little details on a one Ryland Grace. It might just be your downfall. 

He always dramatically stretches every time he wakes. Rising out of bed with a pep in his step, his hands fold in a clasp before lifting to the sky, then he excuses himself by gently squeezing your hand and detaching from you fully in order to start his day. 

He has a habit of keeping his fingertips to his lips when in thought. It’s usually when he’s staring at the laptop or tablet screens, or when he’s writing on the dry-erase board, or when he’s simply thinking of something. His glasses usually rest under his jaw, too, when he makes this motion. 

He can’t really sit still for the life of him. He’s always moving, always itching to do something, anything, and you don’t mind it. He needs to occupy his brain with something, and you completely understand. 

He talks with his hands most of the time. Rocky likes to copy his dramatic gestures, and it always grants a snicker from you. Your favorite instances of Rocky copying Ryland happens when Ryland doesn’t even notice it. 

The list goes on, and could continue until the day you die, but you save your brain from thinking of any more details at the moment. If you go on, you think you’ll have an aneurysm.

You’re a little surprised the constant bed sharing and cuddling hasn’t already given you one. 

It’s only been a couple weeks of your new routine. You’re so used to the second body lying in bed with you that when Ryland stays up in the lab and you’re ready to hit the hay, the barren bedding surrounding you feels odd. 

“Hey, Rocky?” you call to your alien friend perched on the bed encased by xenonite. 

He perks up from his loafing and tilts his carapace towards your lying frame. “Yes?”

“How do Eridians sleep?” you ask. “You get someone you trust to watch you, of course, but do you, like… cuddle?”

Rocky’s fingers lightly tap together as he thinks over your question. “Like you and Grace, question?” 

You can’t help the warmth spreading to your face. You raise a hand to your face and bury half your head into the pillow. “Yeah,” you mumble, sliding your hand down your face. “Like me and Grace."

A cadence that you recognized as a hum elicits from him. “Yes,” he says. “Sometimes Eridians like to sleep side by side for comfort with another Eridian observing. But being the observer for sleep cycle brings much more comfort.” 

How informative. Ryland would want to write that down, if he hasn’t already. 

“Humans sleep side by side for comfort?” he asks with a double tap of a claw to the surface below him. 

“Sometimes, yeah,” you say. “When we’re alone for so long, our bodies crave physical contact. Hugging, or holding hands, or sleeping next to each other keeps our mental and emotional health intact.”

“Oh,” he says. “Is that why Grace likes to hug, question?”

You’ve never really given his constant hugs towards Rocky much thought. You can always find Ryland leaning on the xenonite sphere, or touching the side of the wall near where Rocky lays as he sleeps, or asking for fist-bumps and hugs despite the thick layer of warm xenonite separating the two. 

“Yeah,” you murmur, "I suppose so.”

According to Mary, there’s two years, five months, three weeks, and six days left of your trip. 

You stand in the bathroom of the ship with a mirror in front of you and a pair of scissors (courtesy of Armando) in your grasp. It’s been a while since you’ve cut your hair, and it’s gotten to the point where it’s simply pissing you off in zero gravity. You could always tie it back, sure, but the ends are dead and the length is simply too long for you to manage comfortably in space. 

(You decide to keep it just long enough for Ryland to comb his fingers through.) 

Hair falls to the floor in a series of clumps as you hack at the strands to get to the rough length you prefer. It looks like a mess (your head of hair, not the floor. You couldn’t care less about the floor at this moment), and some stands are shorter than others, but you’ll touch it up.

“What are you doing?” Rocky asks from the corridor with a little double tap of a claw to the xenonite ball encasing him.

You glance at his figure in the mirror then resume your objective. “Cutting my hair,” you say as another clump of strands falls to the floor. “It’s been getting too long, and I’ve been needing a haircut anyways.”

Rocky stands in the hall and watches you. The last time you cut your hair, he was asleep, and you’re unsure if Ryland’s ever cut his hair or shaved his beard in Rocky’s presence, so it makes sense for him to be curious about it. 

“Why?” he asks with another double tap of a claw. “Why need it cut?”

“Well… it’s not really needed,” you say. “It’s more of a preference for people.”

“Oh.”

“Ryland might be able to give better insights, if you’re curious,” you say.

Rocky hums; it comes out an octave lower than you’re used to. You peer over your shoulder to him in the corridor. 

“Second names odd, odd, odd,” he says quietly. 

You can’t help but laugh. “Sorry, Rock,” you say. “I’ll try to stick with calling him Grace.”

“Is okay. Rocky understand both words are for Grace.”

Well, if Rocky says so, then you suppose you can stick with Ryland. 

In the past couple months, you and Ryland have switched from calling each other your surnames to first names. Hearing your first name spoken so nicely by Ryland gave an insane sense of comfort you couldn’t believe. The more personal name soothes the affection-craving ache in your brain, you assume. 

You turn your attention back to the mirror and resume trimming your hair, fixing the rough cuts to look a little more uniform. Pulling at smaller sections in something of (approximately) 45° angles, you trim the strands the best you can for the proper look you desire. 

“Should do same for Grace. Too long. Look stupid.”

“Hey! I heard that!” comes Ryland’s voice from the lab. 

A second laugh bubbles from your throat. Rocky trills in a similar manner. 

“Are you guys laughing at me?!” Ryland calls. 

You lean out of the bathroom and look down the small corridor to see Ryland sitting on a stool in the lab. The microscope in front of him is long forgotten as he leans back to peer at you and Rocky. He’s got an exaggerated frown and furrowed brows on his features. It’s cute. 

“Maybe,” you say. “What’s it to you?”

“What’s it to me?” Ryland says. “My ego, maybe?”

If Rocky had a visible face, he’d probably be giving Ryland a snarky grin. 

“Grace look stupid.”

“Rock!”

A series of trills echo from Rocky one again.

You roll your eyes and situate yourself back into the bathroom. “Come here when you’re done,” you call. “I’ll cut your hair so Rocky can stop calling you stupid looking.”

“Jeez, thanks,” says Ryland a room away. 

It takes less than a minute for him to appear in the entryway, bickering silently with Rocky before giving his full attention to you. Your hair is much shorter. The evidence of your haircut is sprawled all over the floor and your shirt. 

“You look nice,” he says softly. 

You glance at him in the mirror and a bashful smile crosses your lips. You look at your reflection and continue trimming the few uneven strands left.  

“Thank you.”

Finishing up, you ruffle your hair to lay how you like, then you turn to Ryland. “Alright, blondie,” you say as you gesture to the toilet. “Take a seat.”

He shuffles past you in the bathroom and sits on the edge of the closed toilet. Over the rim of his glasses, he peers up at you and draws his lips into a thin line as you stand before him. His legs spread just a fraction to make more room for you. 

Ryland keeps his hands to himself as you drag your fingers through his hair. Gripping a section between your forefinger and middle finger, your dominant hand with the scissors snips away at the length. You effortlessly move around his sitting frame, tilting his head this way and that to properly trim at the strands. You can feel his head sink into your palm every time you thread your fingers through his hair. 

Pausing as you get to his temples, you reach to pinch the middle of his glasses and slip the frames down his nose. Ryland momentarily shuts his eyes from the movement before reopening to glance up at you. 

“Sorry,” he murmurs as he takes his glasses from your hands. He looks down at his lap. 

“It’s okay,” you say, and you resume cutting his hair. “They were only a little in my way.”

It doesn’t take long to finish up Ryland’s hair. You tuck the scissors in your flight suit’s pocket and stand before him once more. Your fingers thread through the longer strands resting on his forehead, ruffling it up. Ryland’s eyes shut, and his head follows your hand. 

You don’t want to pull back, but you know you’ll have to before Rocky starts pointing out how you and Ryland are getting all buddy-buddy. 

(Lately you’ve realized your original thought of third wheeling Ryland and Rocky turned out to be totally wrong. Rocky is actually the third wheel. He very deliberately calls this out any time you and Ryland get touchy whilst in the same room as him.) 

You want to save yourself the embarrassment from hearing the Eridian ask why “Grace and friend close, close, close,” but you just can’t detach your touch from Ryland. He slips his glasses back on properly, and your fingers gently comb through the short strands at the side of his head. 

“How’s it feel?” you quietly ask, hoping Ryland’s content with your shoddy hairdressing. 

He instinctively leans into your touch as your hand shifts to the hair at the base of his neck. He damn near gives you puppy dog eyes as he looks up at you. 

Swallowing, Ryland gives a small nod. “It’s good,” he says. “Thank you.”

Yeah, you really want to kiss him. 

You and your crew have made it to two years on the dot until reaching Erid! A second New Year’s celebration is to be had, and another movie (accompanied by a bag of vodka) is enjoyed in the Don’t Go Crazy room. 

Rocky’s dressed in his typical celebratory attire, jewelry clinking with every little movement he makes. “Is to celebrate for new year!” he says. “Human culture very interesting.” 

“Yeah?” Ryland says as he adjusts the colorful paper party hat atop his head. “What do you wanna know about New Year’s, buddy? We can tell you easily.”

“No need. Learn all about human new year culture on laptop!”

The movie—Avatar (2009), as per Ryland’s request—becomes more forgotten as the conversation between Rocky and Ryland continues. You comfortably lean against Ryland’s shoulder after capping and setting down the bag of vodka. 

Casual affection gets shared on the daily between you and Ryland, and sometimes Rocky likes to butt his xenonite sphere between the two and join in. As much as Rocky loves fist-bumps, he appreciates a good hug now and then, too, and always wants one when he sees you and Ryland share one. You don’t complain—you love hugging Rocky through his xenonite sphere. 

“See lots of eating for good luck,” he says in a slightly lower octave at the topic of eating. His tone changes to a more cheerful one as he continues, however. “And clothing! Bright for love, and medium for luck, and lots of others. And run with bag for good travels.”

Oh dear God, Rocky found the superstitions. Eating twelve grapes under a table, wearing specific color underwear to grant that wish for the next year (red = love; yellow = wealth; green = luck), running with an empty suitcase for safe travels—all superstitions in different cultures on Earth. Soon enough he’ll start asking about kissing at ℓℓℓℓℓ.

Do Eridians even kiss, or have a similar equivalent? You can’t recall ever asking about that, nor do you remember Rocky telling you about it. Maybe Eridians just knock their carapaces against each other and go about their way. 

“Another culture that I do not understand,” he says. 

“Well you’ve got most down pretty good, Rock,” Ryland says with a small smile. “I’m sure this one can’t be that difficult to explain.”

“Mm. Need word.”

Ryland then raises a brow. You haven’t needed to give Rocky a new word in a while. 

“Two humans faces get close”—he raises his hands to slowly bring his three fingers on each hand closer and closer to each other before they connect—“and do this.”

You jinxed it. Great going, you. Now you have to explain kissing to an Eridian when all you could think about for the past six months is kissing the guy you’re leaning against. 

You lift your head from Ryland’s shoulder and turn to look at him. He looks at you with wide eyes from behind his lenses, the apples of his cheeks a pretty rosy shade. You’re certain your face is similarly warm.

“Um,” Ryland says as he looks everywhere else. “That’s called kissing.”

“What for?”

“Um…” Ryland glances at you. 

You stare at him. 

He stares at you. 

Is he seriously expecting you to explain what kissing is for?!

“It’s… for comfort?” you say, and it comes out more as a question than a statement. You look at Rocky and shrug your shoulders. “Statement?” 

Rocky stares at you.

You stare at him.

“Like when Grace and you hug in sleep?”

At this point, you’re thinking about Yáo’s gun again.

“Well, that’s different,” Ryland says.

“How?”

“Kissing is more intimate. Hugs aren’t.”

“Why?”

It’s like talking to a curious toddler (more accurately, a curious scientist. Eh, semantics). His constant questions are going to lead to him doing the scientific method with you and Grace as his guinea pigs. 

You can imagine it already.

• Step I - Make an observation: New Year’s celebrations include many traditions, one being kissing. 
• Step V - Ask a question: Why is kissing intimate, but hugs aren’t? 
• Step λ - Background research: Grace and Friend super close all the time and get weird when it comes to talking about physical displays of affection. 
• Step + - Form a hypothesis: If Grace and Friend kiss, then everyone is happy, happy, happy!
• Step ∀ - Conduct experiment: Make Grace and Friend kiss.
• Step Iℓ - Analyze data: Friend takes Yáo’s gun and threatens suicide, because in what universe would Grace ever kiss back? Grace and Friend react very well with heartbeats erratic and stupid giggling.
• Step II - Conclusion: Grace and Friend should be mates.

(Ha! In your dreams.)

“Because they just are,” says Ryland.

“Why?” Rocky repeats, and his constant double taps from his continuous questions make you want to rip out your eardrums. 

“I don’t know, man!” Ryland says in a state of extreme fluster. His glasses are askew, you notice. You could laugh if the conversation wasn’t so mortifying. “Kissing is like on par with your people and eating!”

Rocky hums in thought. You think he’d narrow his eyes at you both, if he had them. “Grace and friend stay here. Rocky eat.”

His little hamster ball rolls off without another chord spoken. 

Avatar (2009) continues playing, effectively breaking the silence Rocky has left you and Grace in. Is that little bastard taking Grace’s words to heart? Human’s kissing isn’t exactly “on par” with Eridian’s eating, but does Rocky sincerely think if he leaves you two alone, you’ll kiss? What a crazy thought to have. 

“Do you think I can take back the laptop I gifted him?” says Ryland. 

You look away from the entrance of the Don’t Go Crazy room to Ryland by your side. His glasses now dangle beneath his jaw, and his fringe is ruffled in a way that tells he ran his fingers through it. He doesn’t make eye contact with you.

“I think Rocky would curse you out,” you say, and that grants an amused smile resting on Ryland’s lips. 

Your gaze instinctively flickers briefly to his mouth. A matching smile finds its way to your own lips. 

You’re no scientist, but you can make your own scientific method, if you desire. 

• Step 1 - Make an observation: Both you and Ryland always get weird and nervous when the topic of your shared touch-starvedness or constant physical touch is verbalized. 
• Step 2 - Ask a question: Would it be worth it to kiss Ryland right here, right now?
• Step 3 - Background research: Ryland certainly liked to get touchy with you, hold you, touch you, stare at you, give you his full attention, and do nearly anything that involved being in your presence. He always complimented you, watched whatever movies and shows you wanted to watch with no complaints, kept his arms around you after waking up even though you had jobs to get to, and liked to guide you through learning more about the lab equipment. You could go on, but your research is thorough enough. 
• Step 4 - Form a hypothesis: If you and Ryland kissed, then maybe your extreme touch-starvedness would melt like an ice cube. 
• Step 5 - Conduct experiment:

“Ryland?” you quietly say. 

He clears his throat, lifts his glasses to rest on his nose, and turns to look at you. “Yeah?”

He makes eye contact fairly easy now, but you break it by glancing at his lips. You can see the slight clench of his jaw from your simple gaze. 

As you part your lips to speak, you can feel your heart lurch in your throat. The words are stuck. Your body apparently can’t tell the difference from a gun to your head and asking if you can kiss him.

(“I don’t know, can you?” your brain says to fill Ryland’s response for you.)

You huff a short laugh and turn your gaze away. “Sorry,” you mutter. “Um…”

Ryland can’t stop staring at you. You’ve noticed him do that quite a lot, so much so that it’s in step three of your scientific method. 

“It’s okay,” he softly says. 

A stressful hand cards through your hair, and you look right back over to Ryland. He’s waiting patiently for you to get your words in order. His palms rest on his thighs, and his body is turned towards you in a way that tells you you have his full attention (like mentioned in step three). With a brief flicker of his gaze south, he wets his lips. 

You swallow any nerves left buzzing in your throat. All the signs are there, you just have to act, and that’s the terrifying part. Inching forward to lessen the gap between your lips and his, Ryland reciprocates by nearly meeting you halfway. 

“Can I kiss you?” you whisper before your words die completely. 

Most of your nerves are satiated when you see Ryland’s eyes light up and he gives a small nod. “Yes,” he says. “Yes. One hundred percent.” 

How dorky. (How eager.)

Your lips curl into a smile, and you glance down to his lips again. Well, if he’s accepting…

You lift a hand to his jaw, stubble tickling your palm, and you glance to his lips once more before finally making your move. It’s tentative and careful at first, testing the waters of affection. Your eyes are shut, and all your other senses turn off to only focus on touch. 

Pushing past any hesitation, Ryland returns the kiss like a man starved for years. Both his hands lift to cup your face after awkwardly hovering at your waist. You tilt your head a fraction to better the angle and deepen the kiss. It’s not firework worthy like the books describe, but there’s certainly a warmth in your chest gradually growing hotter at each passing second. 

You’re sitting side by side with your upper half twisted to face him. It’s not ideal when you want to devour Ryland like he’s your last meal on death row. So you shift your legs to face Ryland more comfortably, and that very quickly turns into you straddling his lap. 

The faintest of a whimper slips past Ryland’s lips as you kiss him again and again, over and over. One hand of his loops around your waist while the other stays firm to cupping your face. You personally like digging your fingers into his thick, sandy blond hair and tenderly cradling his jaw. 

You’ve never thought kissing Ryland like your life depends on it would release such endorphins. 

• Step 6 - Analyze data: 

In order to breathe again, you pull back from the desperate kiss. Your chest rises and falls with each inhale and exhale, and Ryland is in a similarly breathless state. You instinctively lick your lips. Your hand drifts from his hair to his jaw, and you take a moment to admire the sight before you.  

His bright red face tells you enough. The thin-wire frames are pushed up high, lenses pressing against his eyelashes, and he can only stare at you with puppy dog eyes and parted, glossy lips. 

A grin breaks out on his features, and you can’t help but give a bashful smile in response. Ryland leans right back in with a far more passionate kiss. 

You can make it the rest of the way to Erid just fine, you decide. 

• Step 7 - Conclusion: It is very worth it to kiss Ryland right here, right now.