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Grace is loud at the best and worst of times.
His biology– the lack of any thick, solid carapace– means that all of his internal processes are horribly noisy.
The first time that Rocky heard him wobbling around in the xenonite tunnel connecting their ships, he took a startled step backward. Listening to the squeezing of what could only be organs, delicate and intricate in a way that should obviously be protected by a hard shell yet were plainly audible, he'd thought, how is this creature in space, it must be so easily damaged.
He was right, it turned out, and the first time Rocky heard the seeping of blood from a sliced-open finger, he’d cried and cried until Grace had demonstrated the human body’s capability to heal exceptionally efficiently. Rocky had been, reluctantly, quite impressed.
Everything about Grace makes sound, if Rocky’s listening for it. The gas exchange of his breath, pressurised and hissing through the grinding, clacking teeth. The rush of blood through his veins, pumping with his single heart in a steady rhythm that is both comforting and concerning because it sounds far too close to the surface of his outer membrane. Even Grace’s internal bone structure is loud, clicking and grinding as he moves and bends.
Unsurprisingly, the noisiest part of Grace is his mouth.
Grace talks all day long, even when Rocky isn’t talking back. He talks to inanimate objects, like his thinking machine and the medical robot, and he even talks to himself. Rocky had talked to himself, sometimes, on his ship, mostly to fill the heavy, oppressive silence as he worked on repetitive maintenance tasks and tried not to think about anything. There’s no need, now, because Grace fills enough silence for the both of them.
Even when he’s not talking, his mouth is loud. It grinds and purses and fills with fluid, a constant movement of folding cartilage and squeezing muscles that aid the long digestive process.
It’s gross. It’s really gross.
It took many days for Rocky to get used to the sound, and even longer for him to accept that it’s a part of Grace, and that he likes Grace anyway. It’s no fault of Grace’s that the human body has obnoxious, translucent functions, and he really is very likeable despite it all.
The insistence on sharing consumption, though, he can blame on Grace, and his species’ awful social habits. Grace consumes water all day long, a loud, gurgling process, necessary purely because of his inefficient biology and propensity for leaking. The eating is even worse. Both are done publicly, in company, because humans like to share that sort of thing. Freaks.
“Mary, water, please!” Grace asks, and Rocky remembers that Grace is going to save their planets, and that he can’t get back onboard the Blip A and fly back to Erid just because his companion is a little gross.
He can complain, though, and does so frequently.
“Humans are so inefficient,” He grouses, “If you didn’t leak so much, you wouldn’t need to consume water loudly in public. It’s disgusting.”
Grace reaches for the water container handed to him by the ship, a long stretch of bone and muscle, and the click of tens of finger bones curling in a grasp. None of this is as loud as his dramatic sigh.
“Yeah, yeah, leaky humans, I get it already.” He grumbles, and lifts the water to his mouth.
Rocky continues in the hope that by speaking he will dampen the sound of liquid rushing through tubes. “If I were a human, I wouldn’t leak,” He brags, wiggling back and forth. “I’d suck it back in.”
Grace does something that he’s never done before. He inhales through his mouth whilst drinking water.
Rocky hears liquid propel violently toward Grace’s lungs. It doesn’t get far. Before Rocky even thinks to worry about it, Grace lurches, curling forward, and his lungs compress, and the muscles in his mid-section tense, contracting sharply, and then it all releases with a burst of air and an awful, loud, wet sound. The water shoots out of his airway in under a second. Rocky thinks that he even hears some come out of Grace’s nose. It keeps happening. Fuck, thinks Rocky, I’ve killed him.
“Grace!” He shouts, bouncing around in his habitat, “Stop it! Why are you barking?!”
The awful sound lessens in frequency after a few seconds, and Rocky realises that in-between it, Grace is laughing.
“Grace!” He steams, stomping a foot, “What’s wrong with you!”
Grace gasps, sucking air into his lungs loudly until he has the strength to answer. Rocky clicks his fingers together anxiously.
“Sorry, bud,” Grace wheezes. “You made me laugh– suck it back in, ha!”
Grace clearly finds the whole thing hilarious. Rocky presses himself against the barrier between them and taps, furious.
“What was that sound!” He hisses, “I thought your chest was about to implode!”
Grace, with what sounds like great effort, stops laughing. His lungs still expand and compress in a rhythm slightly more erratic than usual, but he seems to be considering Rocky’s question.
“Sound? Oh, you mean coughing? This?” He asks, and then his windpipe seals, and his muscles contract and push a gust of air outward violently and loudly, and he makes that scary sound again.
“Yes!” Rocky snaps, “That! So, so gross, don’t do that again. Ever!”
Grace hums. He’s still smiling, Rocky can hear the swell of his cheeks. “I don’t really get a choice in the matter, Rock. It’s involuntary.”
Rocky wiggles. “You just did it. Voluntarily.” He replies, flat. The translation software does not fully capture his irritation, so he lowers his carapace to make sure that Grace knows he’s annoyed.
“Oh, yeah, I guess I did. It can be voluntary, but before that it was a reflex. It stopped the water from reaching my lungs– which would’ve been really bad.” Grace explains.
Great, Rocky thinks, it could happen again at any moment. Somehow, knowing that the horrible sound was protecting Grace from danger doesn’t make him any more inclined to like it.
“It sounded bad. Is it painful?” Rocky clicks.
Grace tilts his head in contemplation. Rocky listens to his breathing, back to its usual rate, now, and relaxes a little. “It’s not comfortable. But it doesn’t last long. Unless it’s a cough because you’re sick– er, coughing can also be triggered by irritants from illness and bacteria. Those ones can last for a few weeks.”
It is, quite frankly, horrifying. Rocky doesn’t want Grace to be in pain because of his own bodily reflexes. How on Erid did humans evolve such loud, violent defence mechanisms?
“You would not have this problem if you had a carapace.” He says, instead of expressing any of that.
Grace comes up to the xenonite, and leans his soft external membrane on the pane. Like this, Rocky can hear him intimately. He shifts, taps the wall.
“Oh, really?” Grace says, and his voice is high and mischievous.
“Yes, really.” Rocky replies, because he is stubborn and rude.
“Alright then,” Says Grace, and opens his mouth to cough right on the xenonite.
Even above his own squealing, Rocky can hear the specks of fluid land on the glass. It’s so disgusting. Grace is horrible, and Rocky hates him.
Furious, he screams a high chord that he knows Grace can’t listen to comfortably.
Grace winces, the surface of his face crinkling. “Okay!” He shouts, “Truce! Truce!”
Rocky quietens. “No more coughing.” He says, and rests a finger on the xenonite.
“Unless I’m choking. Or sick.” Grace bargains, and places his smallest finger over Rocky’s. A special Earth promise.
Rocky chirps. “You won’t get sick.” He says, “Not while I’m here.”
—
Rocky has become accustomed to tuning out Grace’s digestive sounds.
If he were to try to explain to the Rocky of a few weeks ago that he'd not only come to tolerate the long, squishy, noisy creature that is Grace, but also grown quite fond of him, he’d have been very upset at the realisation he goes insane in a matter of weeks.
And maybe he is insane, because now the gurgle of Grace’s.. tubes, is a comfort. A reminder that Rocky isn't alone anymore. It’s still weird, of course, but Rocky has learned that there is so much good in Grace; his noisy innards aren't so much as a chip in the stone of a great mountain.
Also– the internal sounds of Grace’s body aren't actually all that loud. Rocky has to be nearby, or actively listening like he was during their first contact (yuck!), if he wants to sense them properly. Which he doesn't, so usually he can go without hearing them for a few cycles or so. Even if he could hear them all the time, though, he’d want Grace around. He’s used to him.
Rocky had discovered that Grace becomes embarrassed when reminded that Rocky can hear all of him, even under the coverings he insists upon wearing, so Rocky elected not to mention his noisy organs unless Grace is being particularly annoying.
This time is different, though.
Rocky is focused, tinkering with a more flexible xenonite compound, cataloguing the maintenance of his habitat on the Mary and having a very unproductive conversation with Grace all at the same time. Eridians are good at multitasking– a point for his species in the running tally he keeps with Grace.
“To get to the other side!” Grace answers, when Rocky, as prompted, asks why the small feathered Earth animal crossed the road.
“Not funny. It’s obvious.” Rocky says, and taps at his xenonite mould to listen for cracks. “Humans are so bad at humour.”
He should never have asked Grace about the inscriptions on his clothing, because now he’s being subjected to Grace's terrible jokes, which he over-explains in an attempt to get Rocky to agree that they're based in humour but in reality makes them even worse.
“Yeah, that's not our best work.. I never really got it either actually. Ugh! There’s gotta be something that you'll find funny!” Grace groans, and slumps in his seat. He very rarely sits on it the way that Rocky imagines it was designed for, always curling or stretching or slumping instead.
“Keep trying, Grace,” Rocky taunts, “Nothing will be funnier than the Erid cave system joke.”
Grace hadn't understood that one. Human jokes are rarely based in reality, and usually require the recipient to picture some unusual situation, which Eridians are not so good at. Earth humour is so bad that it can’t exist without lying, basically.
“Oh!” Grace chirps, and wiggles in his chair. It’s a victory sound, the third he’s made in this conversation alone, and likely to end in failure like its predecessors. Rocky listens nevertheless. “How about this–”
Only, Grace doesn't speak. He’s interrupted by the roar of one of his own organs, so loud that it reaches a volume audible even to the human wavelength, and loud enough that Rocky shakes with it, and immediately recoils.
“What. What? What.” Rocky panics.
“Oh, lunch break,” says Grace nonsensically, because how can he take a break when he isn't doing anything?–and also he seems awfully happy to ignore his organs gaining sentience and attempting to communicate.
It’s a digestion sound, Rocky recognises, but he's never heard one so loud before. On Erid, it would be horribly taboo to ask anything about somebody else’s digestive process, but Grace is open and loud about his, anyway.
“Is your digestive system going to fall out?” Rocky asks, quavering, and wishes he had eyes to close.
Grace laughs, “I sure hope not!” and, before Rocky can eject himself into space because that is not a reassuring answer, Grace begins to explain.
“My stomach growled, that’s all. Happens when humans get hungry– I think, technically, it’s the intestines making the sound, but the meaning is the same.”
His stomach growled? Rocky has heard that word before, but never in this context. It makes Grace’s organs sound like wild things, intimidating and subjugating him into following their every whim which– actually, he understands why humans call it that, now.
“It’s just muscle contractions. Some of my kids used to think it was the body eating itself because it got too hungry, but that’s actually a myth–”
Rocky is fairly sure that Grace is preying on his squeamishness relating to all things digestion. He’s fully aware of it, the mirthful change in how Grace’s vocal chords shape his words, but it's working all the same.
“Disgusting!” He chides, and shakes. “Hurry, hurry, eat, before your growling organ consumes you and I am left on a tiny human ship with only Armando!”
Grace is laughing, which is a good sound, one of the best, and it almost makes Rocky forgive him for the other one.
“Okay, geez, no need to be dramatic!” Grace says, and then, “Hey, two scientists walk into a bar.”
Rocky shifts. “What?”
“The first one says ‘I’ll have H2O.’ The second one says ‘I’ll have H2O, too.’, and then he dies.”
Rocky clicks his fingers together. Taps a knuckle against the ground.
“Oh!” He realises, “Oh, oh, oh! I understand! Humour!”
Grace laughs, and eats his human food. Rocky stays even though it’s disgusting, because he really is very fond of Grace.
—
As Rocky spends more time cohabiting with Grace, he comes to realise that the human body makes a great deal of sounds without any input from the pilot.
Grace coughs– much to Rocky’s chagrin, and he cries, and his stomach continues to growl. These are all things that Grace cannot help, and eventually Rocky stops grumbling when they happen because it quickly becomes performative. He’s good at adapting, at least when it comes to Grace.
The noise becomes a familiar drone in the back of his senses, humming at the tips of his auricles, no longer bristling and disturbing him. Grace is loud and wet and squishy, but he's also smart and kind and sometimes even funny. His sounds are a part of him. Some of them are even enjoyable to listen to– like the smooth movement of each individual vertebrae of the spine, curling and stretching like a well-oiled machine.
When they save the stars together, and Grace comes back for Rocky, sacrificing any chance to return to his home planet, it just affirms Rocky’s feelings– that despite his noise, Grace is the saviour of him, of his people, and that Rocky is going to keep him around no matter what.
Rocky is fairly certain, after spending near an Earth year on the Mary, that he's heard all of Grace's involuntary sounds. They aren't so scary, now that he knows what to expect, and the individual purpose of each one. He doesn't think twice about them anymore.
He does think, sometimes, whilst Grace is fast asleep and purring strangely, about the best way to introduce his new alien friend to his home planet. There must be a way to make him appear less scary on first listen, something Rocky could do to speed the process along, make Erid sense Grace how Rocky senses him and skip the initial instinctual fear.
Cover him in loud jewellery, Rocky muses, make him sound so pretty that they won't notice the squishing.
Grace wouldn't allow it, of course. Rocky knows this because he asks him (mostly as a joke).
“First of all, it's rude to point out my squishy insides,” Grace snidely replies, and Rocky chitters. “Second, I’m not wearing jewellery for the rest of my life– how would I sleep?! Humans are supposed to be squishy, I thought you liked me this way.” He’s sort of whining, a drawn-out, pitchy sound, so Rocky knows he's only pretending to be offended.
Rocky stands tall. “Of course I like you!” He boasts, “I’m used to you. And I could crush you with one finger, so you're not scary at all.”
Grace nods, unperturbed by the threat. “Exactly,” He agrees, “You just tell the other Eridians about my weak, feeble human body, and nobody will have anything to be afraid of. Except for me, who you all could squash like a bug.”
He’s not serious, obviously– he knows that Rocky wouldn't let anything happen to him. Still, Rocky scrambles over to where Grace is sat at a lab table and says, “Nobody will squash you, Grace. I will kill anyone who tries.”
Rocky listens to the curl of Grace's smile, and taps the ground so that he can hear his eyes crease into little crescents, too.
“Aw, thanks, Rock!” Says Grace, and then immediately ruins the fond atmosphere by saying, “Mary, water, please?”
Rocky spins on the spot and clicks his fingers. “Nooo,” He cries, listening to the liquid slosh down that long, gross tube. “Nevermind. It’s a lost cause, all of Erid will be scared of you, tell you to turn around immediately, go back to space.”
Grace finishes his water, gasping. He must've been thirsty, he drank so quickly. Rocky wishes he hadn't. There's a lot of gurgling going on.
“I thought Eridians are supposed to be apex predators,” Grace teases, “But you can't even handle a little- hic!”
What the fuck?
“Oh.” Grace says. “That’s annoying. I forgot about those- hic!”
Rocky is frozen. He might never move again, because if he accidentally taps anything right now and hears that awful, clenching spasm inside Grace’s body in any further detail, he might die.
“hic,” Grace hiccups, and then, “Rock?”
Rocky twitches. “Are you dying?” He asks.
Grace laughs. His diaphragm spasms halfway through, so the sound cuts off and then continues as though nothing happened. Rocky realises it’s because Grace’s vocal cords had snapped shut. Is he choking? Grace has told him about choking, and it sort of traumatised Rocky for life, because why are humans so easy to kill? He’s breathing though, and talking–
“No, bud, I’m not dying. I just have the h–ic!–ups.”
Rocky wishes he were somewhere with a ground, so that he could press his claws into dirt and dig deep enough to escape the infernal vibrations caused by that horrible sound.
“Stop it,” He begs, “Hold it in!” He’s hiding behind his two legs facing Grace, as if that will do anything.
“It’s involuntary!” Grace shouts. Rocky is beginning to suspect that he uses that excuse for all of his worst sounds. “I irritated my diaphragm, now it’s mad at me! They’ll– hic– they should stop in a few minutes.”
Rocky growls. “Stop it faster!”
Grace raises a finger, his teaching stance. “Alright,” He says, “Humans have some tricks for stopping hiccups. I’m going to try holding my breath.”
And then he inhales deeply, lungs expanding into full, unwrinkled sacs, and his whole body tenses, still, unmoving, almost like a sleeping Eridan if not for the organ sounds. The first time Grace did this, Rocky had freaked out so hard he almost cracked his carapace. It still makes him nervous.
He shuffles. Grace's heart rate is slowing. Twenty seconds pass, and Rocky shuffles again. “Grace?” He asks, but gets no response. Another thirty seconds. Rocky taps the leg of the chair that Grace sits on. Grace's heart rate picks up, and Rocky shouts, “Grace!”
Grace gasps in a breath, and then another, and another. Rocky taps his fingers together, listening intently.
A pause.
“Hey,” Says Grace, “I think it– hic– worked. Nevermind.”
Rocky flinches away from the chair, and wishes desperately that he had an inefficient human brain so that he could forget the sound of Grace's diaphragm collapsing and contracting in a violent whoomph.
He is an Eridian, so he will never forget. He curses at Grace in lieu.
“Okay, there’s something else we can try.” Grace suggests, “Some people say you can scare hiccups away. You’re a big– hic– rock spider. Do something scary.”
Nothing I can do would be scarier than that, Rocky fumes internally, and probably externally too, judging by the whistle of his radiator. Still– there is something he can try.
Rocky stands still. Grace stares at him, shifts on his chair, and then stares some more. Thirty seconds pass.
“Well?” Grace asks, “Aren't you going to–”
Rocky honks as loud as he can without bursting Grace's eardrums.
Grace jolts, flounders, and falls onto the floor.
Rocky laughs, and Grace groans and scrambles for his glasses, which flew off his head when he fell. “Fudge.” Says Grace. “You got me good."
Rocky listens. Taps the floor, and listens harder. Grace seems to come to the realisation at the same time that Rocky does.
“Hey!” He exclaims, “It worked!”
Rocky straightens, and runs a celebratory circle around Grace where he lays on the ground. “Good, good, good! Please do not consume water quickly ever again! Human involuntary sounds are so disgusting!”
Grace just laughs at him, and props himself up in a clumsy seated position.
“I can't believe it took me this long to get the hiccups! I can't blame you for being surprised, bud,” Says Grace, grappling for Rocky’s ball.
Not surprised, Rocky thinks, generously allowing Grace to manhandle him closer, a much stronger word is required.
Grace drums his fingers against the ball, and Rocky listens to the delicate bones of his hand.
“Actually,” Grace starts, and Rocky tenses. “There's one more thing I should show you, so that it doesn't catch you off guard when it happens.”
Oh no, thinks Rocky.
—
Grace is shoving a stick up his nose.
The stick has a soft bud of fibers at the end, but it still doesn't seem like a very good idea. Rocky can hear it moving steadily, uncomfortably closer to the fleshy mass that is the human brain.
“I don’t like this,” Rocky complains, “Don’t show me. I don’t want to know.”
Grace sniffles wetly (ew) and wiggles the stick further into his nostril. “It’s fine, it's perfectly safe.” He reassures dubiously, and then, “For science!”
“For science..” Rocky grumbles, and reluctantly listens.
Once Grace is satisfied with the depth of the nose stick, he pinches it between three fingers and twirls it around a few times.
“What?” Rocky asks, and then immediately gets the awful, terrifying answer.
Grace sucks in a sharp, deep breath, and his lungs expand suddenly. In the same second, the diaphragm, that evil structure that causes hiccups, contracts, and a series of muscles tighten with a jerk, and Grace curls into himself, head bowed, like a tightened wire ready to snap.
And then he explodes.
It's so loud, nearly a shout, as Grace expels air from his lungs with enough force to shake his whole body, from the fibers on his head to the hard shells of his knees.
Because Rocky made the mistake of listening closely, he also hears that it's wet. And it doesn't just happen once– Grace makes the sound three times, all in under five seconds.
“Grace.” Rocky says, once it’s over and Grace is sniffling grossly into his sleeve. “I hate you.”
Grace grins, bearing his teeth with yet another wet sound. “Sneezing.” He supplies, helpfully, and then adds, “An involuntary reaction to irritants in the nasal passage.”
Rocky curls into himself. Involuntary, he despairs, I can never trust Grace again. Grace, who doesn't seem nearly horrified enough at the fact he can barely control his own body.
“We will not be allowed onto Erid,” Rocky cries, “They will send us away, because I have brought a scary, leaky, noisy alien who can't control himself and has no manners.”
“Love you, too, bud,” Grace replies cheerfully.
Rocky can't even be mad at him. He’s heard Grace cough, and hiccup, and– and sneeze, and despite it all, he does love him. He must be crazy.
The plan for introducing Grace to Erid is going to need a lot of work. Hopefully, there is some way to repress these involuntary sounds until Erid already likes Grace because of his brave, smart nature. If not, they're all just going to have to get used to him.
Rocky did it, after all, and it wasn't even that hard.