Chapter Text
Grace is having his monthly “cheat day.” Another don't-go-crazy measure, he says, like his daily change of clothes or the simulated solar light cycle. When he first explained these, I'd been disturbed that his brain was fragile enough to need such careful management. Now, I'm just wishing Erid had thought to pack something equivalent.
He makes an obscene slurping sound as he shifts his tongue to create suction, pulling a dripping clump of noodles from his cup. He's doing it more loudly than necessary to get a rise out of me, I suspect. The only sounds he makes with the taumoeba blend are small half-regurgitations we both try not to acknowledge.
“Disgusting,” I say half-heartedly.
He laughs. The sound bounces off the partially masticated noodles in his open mouth. I despair.
The ache I feel for Adrian has been a part of me for so many years that it is a familiar dragging weight, like a mangled sixth limb. The ache for Grace is stranger, worse. Not because he is an alien, but the opposite; he is so much of myself that I have entirely lost the sound of where he begins and I end, and somehow I still want him closer, closer, closer.
Grace goes to bed early, on cheat days. He calls it a “food coma,” though I understand it’s more similar to Eridian digestion than to the induced state that killed his entire crew. It still makes me nervous. I watch extra closely.
He's currently entering the deepest part of his cycle. His heart beats a steady one-two staccato, out of sync with the deep, rumbling purr each time he inhales. I asked once if he makes the noise as a form of self-soothing. He was embarrassed, for whatever reason, and didn't answer properly, though I note he hasn't stopped making the sound in my presence.
Humans are impractically private creatures for a social species, as if they spend all their time coming up with new things to feel shame about. I am delighted by how easily I can convince Grace to share those things with me anyway.
Example: sleep companionship between human adults is usually exclusive to mate pairs. He explained this several months after we met, and I’d spent the next five and a half hours silently fretting over whether he expected to alter our routine now that I know exactly how intimate it is for his species. But he’d curled up to sleep next to my perch when the lights dimmed, just like always. Now I get to try very hard not to think about the human implications of what I'm doing for each of the approximately 10,800 seconds I spend sitting above him every night.
That time estimate is less accurate now, admittedly, as his food supplies dwindle and his sleeps grow longer and longer. I try not to think about that either.
I hum a resonating bass note through my largest air bladder while I occupy three limbs with my weavers, absently sketching out a model of the system of tubes and nodes that make up Grace's oxygen exchange system. It is difficult to pick out the details between the liquid rush of his organs and arteries, the echoing cavern of his ribcage, but my auricles strain towards him whether I mean to or not. I have mapped every piece of him by now.
I think if someone opened me up and listened, they would find the shape of Grace twined over and over throughout the crystal lattice of my mind.
He asks me sometimes what I do while I watch him sleep; I tell him dismissively that I am planning engineering projects for when I return to Erid, giving vague details about work I haven't made real progress on in months.
Maybe I judge humans too easily for their shame.
ıı||ıı||ı|ıı||||ııı||ı
“She should be mates with both of them, obvious statement. Shorter movie.”
Grace laughs. “We don't do that, remember?”
I remember. I need him to remind me sometimes, anyway.
He makes his considering hum for a moment, a low sliding glissando. I harmonize without entirely meaning to.
“Not usually in American culture, anyway,” he says, after a pause long enough that I’d thought he was finished. “Some humans do, I guess.”
I knew this from the laptop he gave me, but he hasn't brought it up before. I try, try, try not to read into it.
“He will have to leave Harry, then,” I say instead. “Sad. They seemed like good mates.”
He laughs less brightly at that. I remember this bit too.
“Ah. That's the weird-about-gender thing again, unfortunately. They're both men, so. Just friends.”
“More cultural taboos, yes. Still stupid.”
“It really is. But this was 2002, it was harder then. There aren’t many gay people in older movies, definitely not the main characters.”
It is funny to hear him call this old, when it is younger than him. If it were an Eridian, its carapace wouldn't even be fully siliconized.
When Grace first explained mating gender preferences, I'd asked if he had one. That's a pretty personal question, Rock, he'd said. I haven't really thought about it. Not the whole truth, I could tell, but he was clearly determined to be secretive.
I didn't push at the time. He was using my “nickname” again, and it was immensely distracting. Frustrating. A single-note shortening of the already scandalously casual two-note chordless name he gave me when we met. It sounds like nest-talk between old mates, or the rudest sort of insult. I'm glad he doesn't have access to records of Eridian culture like I have with his; I worry I'm taking advantage of him by keeping things like this to myself, but I’m even more worried about what it would do to me if he stopped.
Besides, then I'd also have to explain how impolite the name I assigned him was, and I don't want to hurt his feelings. It was supposed to be a private joke for myself, how was I supposed to know I’d have to introduce him to the rest of my species in a few years?
Someone will have to tell him when we get to Erid, probably. There are a lot of things he's going to learn when we get to Erid. Yet another note of the long, long symphony of things I'm not thinking about.
His focus is back on the movie. Mine isn't, but I don't need to angle my body at the primary subject of my attention like he does, so he won't know the difference.
I love “movie night.” Grace declares it last-minute as if it's an established, scheduled event, though I've discerned no pattern so far. It could be some additional facet of his timekeeping system that he's failed to mention, but more likely it runs on Grace-time, which is to say completely random.
Movie night is different from every other night because instead of half-listening through tinny speakers while we work on our separate tasks, I follow Grace back and forth as he shuttles all his bedding to the Don't Go Crazy room and participate in building a “blanket fort” by rolling underfoot, offering helpful structural input which he ignores. When he's finished, he uses me as a support pillar for one side of his quilt, tucking himself under the other.
The quilt is my favorite soft item on the Mary. Many of his shirts have text and shapes on them, mostly stupid English jokes which he's described in detail, at my insistence, even though he says a joke isn't funny anymore once you explain it. I think they're pretty funny anyway, mostly because Grace is so pleased with them even though they're clearly terrible. Regardless, the textural difference of the ink isn't crisp enough for me to hear the edges unassisted.
The quilt isn't easy to hear, exactly, but it has thick clumsy stitches and layered shapes I can pick out well if I focus. I trace them in my mind, clicking softly at the blanket and my texture screen and Grace. The amount of fabric around us muffles the sound, alien and intimate.
I wait a long time before I speak again. Hopefully long enough that he won't draw any conclusions about why I'm asking.
“Grace. You know that I'm not male, confirming assumption?”
“Yeah, bud. Sorry. I know I put a lot of weird human stuff on you without asking.”
I rock slightly, feeling bad. “I don't mind. It is good sharing things with you.” I don't love what it might imply for how he could feel about me, but I don't say that, obviously.
He seems pleased by the reassurance, at least. I decide to drop it. I don't know what I hoped to accomplish by bringing this up – or rather, I know what I hoped, just not what I realistically expected. Foolish.
I try to keep my focus on the movie this time.
The narrator describes the main couple pressing their lips together, upside-down in the rain. It sounds awkward. I wonder if Grace has ever done that; if he’s ever wanted to.
By the time the credits roll, he's fallen asleep, slumped against the xenonite of my ball. His jaw is loose and he's drooling slightly; he's not awake so I don't bother pretending to dislike it. He isn't doing the sleep-purr yet, so I do it for him, just in case.
ıı||ıı||ı|ıı||||ııı||ı
I’m relieved to hear Grace back in the lab, even if the equipment rattles concerningly loud in his shaking hands. He spent more than six full days in bed, after we decided to abandon attempts to genetically modify the “flavor” of the taumoeba he uses to supplement his meals.
I don't know how to fix it when he gets sullen and quiet, but doing science, at least, is something I can try to encourage. Not that he's letting me.
“What are you doing?” I ask, for the millionth time.
“You can see when I finish.” Grace loves surprises, and the more I want to know the more determined he is to keep things from me. It's very irritating.
“Rocky will not ‘see.’ No eyes.”
“You know what I mean.”
I chirp my disapproval, which he ignores, as usual. Fine. I can do secret projects, too.
I've nearly finished the prototype for the shell-tight suit I'm building to let me navigate his atmosphere more effectively. That's not a secret; I've had to get Grace's input multiple times, triple checking his temperature tolerance and ensuring that the fine-edged joints won't tear his skin or textiles.
But this has brought my attention to something else. During the materials testing, I get a very, very close listen at the hardened scar tissue on his left side, where the heat of my atmosphere and the texture of my carapace has permanently altered his outer layer. Part of me hates to hear him so damaged, but that part is not nearly as loud as it should be, now that he's healed. The rest of me thinks: if he already carries such a deep and audible mark, maybe he'd accept another? Minor in comparison, no injury required.
He's not Eridian, so it wouldn't have to mean anything.
I use that excuse too often. It's hard with no one but me to know just how many social lines I'm crossing.
I wander over to my workshop corner and begin a prototype.
12 days later, by the Mary’s clock, he announces his project is complete. I finished my own a few days ago, but he hasn't seen it yet – I wasn't about to reward him while he was still refusing to tell me what he was up to. I've been vibrating out of my shell with nerves over the idea of showing him, but I don't think he's noticed.
“Do you have your light sensor?” he asks.
“Yes.” I unclasp it from my tool belt and point it at him expectantly.
He wiggles his eyebrows in a way I think is supposed to be playfully dramatic, flipping a switch on the lighting panel. The buzzing of overhead changes slightly, some bulbs turning off while other, new ones turn on.
“Wow. Amazing,” I say flatly.
“Shush. Look!” He produces a flask of what sounds like more of his taumoeba food goo. It sloshes with the same disgusting, viscous noise as all the previous iterations, clinging to the glass.
“...You changed the taste?” I guess, though I don't know why I’d need my sensor for that.
“Nope. Look.”
I check. And then check again. I'm not sure I'm reading this right.
“The taumoeba is emitting light, question?”
Grace crows triumphantly. “Yes! I found a strain that fluoresces slightly under certain wavelengths, and I was able to selectively breed for it. It's real, actual glowing space goop!”
“This will improve the eating experience? I thought light receptors were only on the outside of your body. Confused.”
“Well, yeah. But the appearance of food is really important for triggering appetite signals. Fancy chefs on Earth spend a lot of time making the food look pretty, it's a bigger part than you'd think.”
I briefly mourn that my life has reached a point where discussing my best friend's appetite has become a normal part of my day.
Of course, then he beams at me and my discomfort dissipates instantly. There's probably something very wrong with me.
“This is never not going to taste awful,” he says. “It's never going to stop being nasty, grainy sludge. But now it's cool, glowing sludge. As a kid I was obsessed with the idea of eating the radioactive slime in cartoons, you know? Or, oh man, glow stick liquid. And now I get UV-reactive alien smoothies for space breakfast!”
He wiggles both hands cheerfully, and I copy the gesture with equal enthusiasm.
“Good, good, good! You can eat this without regurgitating?”
“I mean. Maybe not always. But I do think this is going to help my stupid brain get over some of its issues.”
I don't actually understand, but it's hard not to get caught up in his excitement. He's been so, so miserable since the rationing started in earnest, and he can't keep a feeding tube in without triggering a constant panic attack. If this helps him digest even a little bit more food, it could save his life. I bob side to side happily.
He flicks the switch back to its original position. The taumoeba is no longer emitting anything unusual, so I turn off my screen.
“Alright. Next science fair presenter, you're up.” He rubs his hands together and grins. “What's your big project?”
I shuffle my limbs, tucking my thorax slightly behind the two closest to Grace. “Not science, exactly.”
I've been carrying it in my pocket since I finished, in a little screw-top container I'm pretty sure Grace isn't able to see through. Hesitantly, I drop it in the transfer airlock.
He only turns the cap the wrong way for half a second before he remembers, which is an improvement. When he dumps the contents into his palm, he goes silent for 3 full breaths, in and out.
“It looks like you,” he says, finally.
“Yes. It’s Rocky.”
“Why– How did you make this?”
“Easy,” I say, which is true. It was a lot of detail work that took me some time, but it wasn’t hard. “No big deal.” Much less true, but that’s… fine.
“It’s gorgeous,” he says, hushed like the thing is going to crumble to dust if he breathes on it too hard. Ridiculous, since I don’t think he could break it if he tried, but it’s cute seeing him get all delicate about it, as if he’s holding a baby animal. He dangles the chain close to his face, inspecting the fine mesh weave and the small, circular piece of my carapace enclosed by the central bezel.
“You studied alien biology for many years with no aliens. Now, the only human in the universe with a permanent sample.” I really hope I’m making this sound normal. It’s a token representing first contact between our species, any other possible meaning can be passed off as a coincidence. Probably. I don’t think humans have a mate-mark equivalent.
He hasn’t said anything yet, but I think he might be on the verge of tears.
“You don’t have to wear it,” I say, hesitantly.
“Are you kidding? Of course I’m going to wear it.”
He slides the bracelet onto his wrist, the spring mechanism passing easily over the wide area at the base of his palm, and then he kneels down and leans his full weight against the barrier between us. I press against the other side, so I hear every crackling detail of the small sob he chokes on when he tries to speak.
“Thanks, bud.”
“No thanks. Grace is the best human biologist, now you have proof. Saved two planets, made a glowing smoothie, own a piece of a real alien. Suck it, UNESCO.”
“Ha. Yeah. Suck it, UNESCO,” he echoes weakly.
I listen to the stone-rough disc of my carapace against the soft curve of his forearm, a piece of myself held against his body as close as biology allows, and still that part of me that wants, wants, wants is not satisfied.
I’m afraid this has become a serious problem.