Archive of Our Own

I wasn't really expecting it to come up at all, if I'm being honest, but you know what they say about assuming. After all the initial discussions and work to figure out what I could eat, what I needed to get via food, and how best to ensure adequate nutrition, I figured food wouldn't come up again. Like, ever. Eridians are super private about it, and it's a nutritional obligation to them, not a social norm like it is for humans. That was fine - they soundproofed my kitchen and dining room for an added layer of protection, once they realised how noisily humans eat. No harm, no foul.

I hadn't accounted for the anthropologists. Or… I don't actually know if anthropology is linguistically a universal term for the study of one's own kind, or if it's an exclusive thing for humans studying humans, or if it's applicable for any species studying humans. I've been meaning to check that for a while now, but I've been busy. Anyway, Eridians have their own version of that kind of scientist, and now they have xeno-anthropologists. I still haven't decided if their English name should be that or just xenothropologists. I'm leaning towards the latter, but researching the technicalities is on the back-burner for now. Linguistics is so not my field of expertise.

Point is, everything was going fine, and then I was told I'd be having a Very Important Meeting in my half Eridian-safe, half human-safe office-bubble with Erid's foremost scholars on humans, to discuss a highly sensitive matter of human culture. We'd already gone over sex and all the variations of it humans did (and did not) participate in, the concept of war and the fact that our base instincts to predate to survive still reigned supreme in the most insidious ways, discrimination in all its ugly forms, and even things like infant mortality and cultural practices around it. I really wasn't sure what kind of ultra-sensitive thing they were gonna whip out for me to give my best uninformed opinion of, but again, more fool me since I assumed it was something that would be sensitive to humans, not Eridians.

So I showed up to the meeting to find a much smaller group than usual, all looking as worried as variously sized and shaped rocks-with-legs could. But I could hear them thrumming quietly even as I approached - something low, barely tipping into human hearing range. The notes I could catch were blurry, a sure sign they weren't really communicating words so much as emotions and ideas in the loose, intangible ways my simple human brain and inferior human hearing couldn't really grasp.

But what I could grasp was that thrumming like that = anxiety. And anxious Eridians = anxious Grace, as was now so well known that they made a sound to cue that I am anxious. I tried getting mad at Rocky for that one, but apparently Adrian was the one who started it. So as I approached, I caught their anxious humming, and then when my heartbeat picked up, they picked up on that, and then the clear and inarguable call of shut the fudge up, Grace is here and he's anxious resounded and the thrumming stopped. Great. Superb. Truly an excellent way to start any meeting and exactly what I needed to calm down.

I walked in and settled into my chair, leaning my cane against the prop for it beside the organ. I rarely needed the organ these days, since the xenothropologists had mastered understanding English pretty quickly, but with the lid down it also made a great desk, and it saved me from having to walk back and forth from the actual desk if I did end up needing it. So I got myself set up, and greeted the assembled team - a third of the number that was usually there - and prepared myself to be asked about, like. Human euthanasia, or caste systems, or the psychology behind sociopathy, or something equally intense.

"We would like to talk to Grace about… food," the chief xenothropologist, who I dubbed Goodall a while back, asked. I kind of just… stared at them. Not my proudest moment, I won't lie, but with the all the drama, I expected the usual Eridian bluntness to bring something a lot more intense than food.

"Uh… The human biology division have me pretty set as far as food goes."

"Not food for Grace. Food practices of humans. Rocky says you are ♫♪♪♬ as a species."

"Uhh… run that by me again - define word ascribed to our species."

"♫♪♪♬. Variant of… social criminal - human equivalent unknown. Not legal offence, but abhorrent behaviour to be shamed. Describes person who commits this for personal pleasure. Social criminal covers many things. This term used for one who does not care about discussing eating and eating publicly."

Well. That's a fun way to have your entire species described, but fortunately both me and all the Eridians who I worked with had all gotten really good about not being easily offended. None of us are really in a position to take things like that seriously, when we're the first to achieve inter-species communication on an interstellar level. Social faux pas are enough of a given that when unintentional shade is thrown I mostly just find it funny these days. And at the very least, this particular cultural clash was familiar.

"English translation for ♫♪♪♬, question?" Sapir asked - dubbed for their interest in the interconnections between language, thought, and culture that they so obsessed over when it came to humans. Fortunately the archive of the entirety of the internet I was given did, indeed, have a wonderful top ten anthropologists page for me to use when coming up with human-names for the team. Suffice to say it's unsurprising that Sapir was the one itching for a term for this.

"Ah, heck, I think Rocky and I talked about this all the way back on the Hail Mary. I can't remember what specific translations we decided on, if we even did. Uhh… Social behaviours that aren't appropriate or have restrictions on how or when they're appropriate are called taboos. I know we talked about how tattoos are taboo in some cultures, but important traditions in others, but there's so many more beyond that. But a term for a specific person who participates in a taboo publicly for their pleasure… fetishist, maybe? If the taboo is a fetish. But that typically relates to sex in some capacity - fetishes, I mean."

"Which you are not an expert in, statement."

I am long used to being unintentionally roasted about my sexuality, so I replied without the grumbling and protestations I used to. One of the perks of being adopted by a culture that has such a different approach to it all than what humans have is that they don't get why I might be 'weird'. There's no shame attached to a comment like that here, it's nice.

"Yeah, exactly. I'm sure there's a word, just not one I can think of off the top of my head."

"Ascribe interim word," Sapir insisted.

"Interim word: fetishist."

"Interim word, confirmed. All humans are fetishists with regard to food."

"…No," I say, for lack of anything better to reply with, gobsmacked once again. I mean… Yes? No? But also… Yeah. I should have had a second cup of coffee-flavoured beverage. No actual caffeine in the stuff, but the comfort of the synthesised flavour would have definitely helped bolster me for this conversation.

"No, question?"

"No, statement. By Eridian standards, yes. But by human standards, no. There's some taboos around food, I think? In some cultures? And definitely food related fetishes. But human-generalised, food isn't a taboo, statement."

"Why is food not a taboo?"

"Uhh…"

I am, once again, grossly ill-equipped to explain human cultural norms to an alien species, but for the most part, these conversations are only a starting point to allow the Eridians to research on their own time and to give me prompts of things I can find for them to specifically look at, if I have a strong opinion one way or another. They know I'm not an anthropologist or even someone particularly well informed about human behaviour within my own culture, let alone those across Earth. But I am wonderfully equipped to start that train of thought, by virtue of needing to know a little bit about a lot of things for the sake of teaching. Namely, evolution is on my side, right now.

"So… humans are pack-animals, right? We've maintained that behavioural pattern from our primate ancestors because our society evolved to be co-dependent due to the efficiency of it. Everyone in a pack or family group fulfilled certain roles that no one person could cover alone without massively increasing the time and energy required from the one person, and that included our behaviours around food," I begin, sinking into Mr Grace mentality once more. There's not often much of a reaction when I get into teacher-mode, but I can see both Goodall and two others adjusting how they're standing to what I've colloquially dubbed the 'locked-in' stance.

"Uh - this is gonna get… Probably decently into the nitty-gritty of things that are fine for me as a human, but definitely taboo for Eridians. Are you guys… comfortable with that?" I asked, just to be sure.

"Yes. All present have consented and signed waivers in case of needing therapeutic care after. Continue."

Amazing, that fills me with immense confidence that this session is going to go well. Only way to find out is to continue onwards and deal with any issues if they actually arise. At least I don't have to pay for anyone's therapy bills.

"Right. Well. In proto-societies, both for homo sapiens and amongst close hominid relatives like Denisovans and Neanderthals, we have a lot of evidence of a combination of both hunting and gathering to feed ourselves. It's theorised - since it's so long ago that there's no written record and no cultural oral traditions that remain - that people developed special skill-sets unique to sub-groups of the population to perform certain tasks, that were then passed to younger generations to continue fulfilling that skill niche. Heck, there's even a theory that this is where conditions like ADHD and autism came from - a genetic enhancement for specific tasks, where the way the brains of people with those conditions is optimised for the skill-sets and environment of pre-civilisation hominids. And the reason there's so much difficulty for them in modern society is that those skill-sets are no longer utilised and the environments no longer exist."

"Digressing from food, question?" Goodall interrupts.

"Grace on tangent," Sapir seconds.

"Grace cannot help but tangent," Mead added, a trill of laughter after, and I grinned.

"Yeah, it's a tangent, sure. But it comes back to food, because hunting and gathering were our core methods of getting food. To do so we needed specialised skill-sets in at least a small amount of our packs, in pre-civilisation days. Specialists sourced the food, and then brought it home to the people, who then had a different specialist prepare it in ways to preserve useful parts like stalks and skins for making tools and clothing, and then likely another specialist to actually prepare the food. So by default, food is communal, because what each person eats has taken multiple people to provide."

"Complex chain of distribution. Ideal, question?"

"Multiple people each doing jobs is ideal. But the hunter-gatherer style of food production was not, so we developed farming. I'll get to that, though. The other major reason for communal eating that's theorised is that it helped to protect from predators."

"…Predators, question?" Goodall asked, getting very still and serious-seeming.

"Yeah. We fought each other for food - still do, sometimes - so we would predate on each other. But there was also animal predators who would love to steal the carcass of prey we hunted from us. And preparing food so that we could eat it requires setting up a camp and being stationary for a time. So if we ate together in groups, it means that more people are present to be watching for a predator. If we all went off alone to eat, we'd be much more likely to be attacked, because we both have food and are food, to predator animals."

"Predators major threat while eating, question?" Goodall asked, and it seemed kind of redundant by Eridian standards. They also sounded off, a little… nasal-y, maybe.

"Not anymore. All of what I'm talking about was thousands of years ago. Somewhere around ten thousand years ago human societies around the world began to concurrently develop early forms of agriculture - farming animals and plants in an intentional manner in a specified area. It changed the skill-sets involved in food generation, but still required specialists. That made accessing food much more consistent, but also increased vulnerability of food resources. Not so much of eating though, because once we developed static farms, we began to build permanent structures, and stop roaming as nomads. That made eating safer, even if food generation was still vulnerable to predators."

"Clarify: modern threat levels during eating," Goodall demanded. They aren't normally that snappy, but I figure that the subject matter is a little uncomfortable, so it makes sense for them to be so short-toned.

"Minimal. Individual acts of violence might target someone eating, but there's not really a… human-wide threat while eating anymore."

There was a buzz of Eridian song that bounced around the room, too quick for me to catch much beyond my name, food, and, strangely enough, Rocky's name, before being cutoff by a distinct order to be quiet from Goodall.

"…Please continue from before clarity request. Grace was describing agriculture."

"Alright? Uh… Farming, right. Nowadays we generate food through farmers who produce the raw food items, then sell them to factories and supermarkets. The factories convert them into speciality partially or fully prepared foods, and then sell them to supermarkets. We then buy the food from supermarkets, both raw and partially prepared, to prepare ourselves the meals we like to eat."

"If commercial food industry and minimal predators, why eat publicly?" Morgan asked. I hadn't even realised the self-proclaimed human societal development specialist was present, but I probably should have guessed he would be. He was tucked at the back in his normal spot rather than up the front with the rest of the reduced number of the regular xenothropologists. Easy to miss, especially since my eyes have started getting worse again. New glasses lenses were an ongoing challenge to create, given the team involved consists of someone who knows nothing about eyes and a team of engineers who don't even have eyes.

"Well, we don't eat publicly for all our meals. And most meals you share with people are people you see regularly - your family, partner, close friends. Also, coworkers and the like. Humans need to eat really often, compared to Eridians. In my culture it's standard to eat three meals a day every single day. Lots of snacks and non-water drinks that we have for enjoyment and extra nutrition, too. It's hard to avoid being around others for every meal given how much we need to eat, though some people prefer to be alone when eating. So I'd say we're social eaters because of the frequency we need to eat, our society being built around food since it began, and also, because eating is a great socialisation opportunity."

The audible sounds of disgust had me fighting a smile.

"Humans don't just eat publicly, they socialise while eating, question?" Goodall exclaimed, and there was a quiet echo of gross gross gross from somewhere amongst the crowd.

"Yup. We put so much work into acquiring food - and really, that's all human society is, a long and complex chain of exchanging things to access food - and we have it hardwired in our genes to share, since providing for oneself for every single meal is expensive, time consuming, and laborious. So why wouldn't we talk while we're eating? Well, not while actively chewing. That's considered rude in most cultures. But between bites and mouthfuls, it's normal to talk."

"Clarify: word after actively, considered rude in most cultures to speak during."

"Chewing?"

"Confirm."

"Chewing is the colloquial term for the technical biological process called mastication. It's what we do with our teeth, to help us break down foods so that we can swallow them safely and process them more easily to get the nutrients out."

"Teeth are mouth rocks covered in viscous liquid, question?"

"Yeah. Saliva - the gross leaky mouth goop as Rocky calls it - is the liquid in our mouths and on our teeth. It's used to help make swallowing easier, and to minimise food getting stuck to our teeth and the lining of our mouth."

"New word: ♪〜♬♪♪♫. Gross human food processing system in mouth. Return to socialising while eating."

"Hmm. Oh! While we don't mind eating visibly to others, we do tend to have unspoken, unique from person to person rules about who we will eat with, and what kind of eating we'll do with them. This affects how we socialise while we eat."

"Clarify: what kind of eating."

"Well, we eat at a variety of locations. In designated eating spaces, and some general spaces where eating is okay, too. We don't eat in bathrooms, or in places containing special items that food may damage like libraries and museums. And a lot of foods can have quite strong smells, so in places like where you work and even in your own home, there are typically spaces designated for eating and food preparation, like staff rooms, kitchens, dining rooms, so on, so forth."

"Humans are not complete fetishists," Morgan mumbled, and I laughed.

"There are also places you go specifically to pay to have someone prepare food for you, instead of you preparing it yourself at home. Restaurants, cafes, bars, takeaway joints - there's so many different kinds. And some of them you sit down and eat your food there."

"Weird weird weird," Mead interjected, only to be shushed by Goodall.

"Continue. Relate food venues to food socialising."

"Well, it's quite common to go out for food with someone else. If you're going to go somewhere to pay a higher price for food prepared for you, typically you would invite someone you like to come with you and enjoy the food as well. Different venues are more common depending on the kind of relationship you have with the person or people you're going with, or if you're doing it to celebrate a particular event, like a birthday or graduation or holiday or something."

Goodall took a big inhale, vents flaring, before speaking in the steadiest yet most repulsed tone I'd ever heard from them, evidently horrified at their own need to understand. I tried not to let my amusement be obvious, but I think, from the annoyed little taps from Goodall, I failed.

"Provide examples to clarify the distinction between who you eat with and where."

"Well… Before work, I'd come in early to prepare materials for my students for that day. I'd do that in the staff office, next to the staff room, and in the staff room each morning I'd have a coffee and snack on whatever biscuits or cake someone had provided for us with my coworkers. They're people I see every day and work with everyday - well, did - and the most I would do with them is have coffee and biscuits at work. I wouldn't invite any of them for coffee outside of work, because they weren't close to me outside of work."

"Staff room designated eating space, confirm."

"Yeah. Staff office was for work, staff room for breaks to socialise and eat. Sometimes we'd eat at our desks when we had a lot of work, but the food storage and preparation equipment was all in the staff room, as well as seating and a table to eat at."

"Understood. Provide further examples of who you would consume food with."

"Um. Oh - we use food to court, sometimes."

The Eridian equivalent of a gagging noise emanated from two of the xenothropology team, and I opted to completely ignore it. They could leave if they needed to.

"We start with going out to get food or drinks together. My ex girlfriend, when we first started seeing each other, invited me to her favourite brunch spot to get a meal on our third date. That was a special meal, because she had romantic interest in me, and shared with me the food place she liked the most."

"Did you share your favourite with her in turn?"

"Yeah. She wasn't a big fan of seafood, unfortunately, but she didn't tell me that until she realised when I said a seafood place was my favourite I meant the kind of place that's all surf and no turf. Uh - surf and turf, human phrase for meals that involve meat from animals from the sea and land. She tried to find something she liked, but gave up. We went somewhere else instead."

"Offensive to reject favourite food of person during courting, question?"

"Uh… Generally no. In this context she probably should have told me sooner since she knew where I wanted to go before the date and that she might not like anything there, but she was trying to engage in something I like, so that's sweet, I guess. I would have preferred she just tell me, but that's how it shook out."

"Grace have other examples, question?"

"Marissa is - was - ugh, tense semantics - Marissa was my best friend. Every week we got dinner together at a restaurant, and we'd - actually, that's not something I think I've explained clearly, yet. We don't just eat in silence together."

"Human sustenance specialists say humans do not eat silently generally, statement."

I tried and failed to choke down a laugh.

"No, that's true. But when I say it's social for us, I don't mean in the like… Forging pack bonds by showing you can provide kind of way, though that's part of it on some level, I'm sure. I mean we talk. We socialise. Eating is a social thing for us that's kind of important as an opportunity for communicating with each other. Like… not exactly like, and not like in the process, but there's definitely similarities to be drawn to a shared meal and a thrum."

Ow. My eardrums. Note to self: don't compare an almost sacred, core part of Eridian society which is used to build connections and communicate complex networks of ideas and emotions with something that said Eridian society finds to be an offensive taboo. I scrambled for ways to backpedal and undue the oopsie I'd just committed.

"Easy, easy! I'm sorry!"

"Explain! Offensive offensive offensive! Explain!"

"Okay, okay - hold on. Let me think. Alright, so… When you share a meal with someone, you communicate with them. About the food, sure, but also like - like Marissa. We'd talk when we met up. Catch up about what we'd missed since the last time we saw each other. Talk about our work, and our interests, and families and friends and her partner and dog and stuff. Meals are… We use them as a time to connect with each other. A lot of families can all be living in the same house, but because they all have different start times for work and school, the only time they all sit down together to talk is at dinner each night."

The angry taps and chittering were starting to simmer down a little, thankfully.

"Eating… It requires being static, or at least limited in your movement, so when you share a meal with someone, the time you devote to eat is also time you are devoting to that person. Or group of people, since you can eat with lots of people at the same time. And it goes beyond that - we talked about restaurants and eating out and all, but you can also invite someone to eat something you've made. Most of the time that will be a meal that you'll cook them in your own home. That's special. It's not just saying, I worked to earn money so I could go somewhere and eat with you. That's saying I worked to earn money so I could provide you with food that I took the time to learn how to make and then prepare for you. That's - that's something that can be really special. From someone really special."

"Elaborate further, statement."

Gosh, what do I even add to that?? Man.

"Uh… I really like seafood, yeah?"

"Established."

"Right. So if someone wanted to show they appreciated me, and cared about me, yeah, sure, they could go with me to my favourite seafood place."

"Like early failed courting by former mate."

"Yeah. But if someone really cared about me - a long-term mate, a long-term friend, parents or siblings or if I had any then my offspring - they might show that by making me my favourite seafood meal at home, and then sharing the meal with me. Time devoted to each other, to talk and catch up, but also an expression of their love for me, because they care enough to remember what I like, learn how to prepare it, and make it for me."

"Who has done this?"

"Clarify?"

"Who has prepared favourite food for Grace?"

Well. Ouch. That's not really something I want to think about, given the closest I got isn't really something I want to think about. For all they've been charging ahead learning about human culture, be it from media and Wikipedia and whatnot or from first-step discussions with me, there's a lot of nuance about human shame that Eridians really don't get. So I can answer honestly, and at least the only sting will be self-inflicted and not from a bunch of rocks judging me. Hopefully.

"Uh… No one, actually."

"Confusion."

Oh, no.

"Clarify - Grace has favourite food."

"Yes."

"Grace has loved ones."

I didn't really know what to say to that. I mean, yeah, I do have loved ones, but… It wasn't that simple.

"Uh… Remember the human hierarchies of intimacy conversation?"

"Simplified model: acquaintances-associates-friends-best friends-partners-family, non-linear order and non-exhaustive. Yes," Morgan replied, and there were several notes of agreement. Silly of me to ask a species with a consistent, linear memory if they remember something, but they had figured out a long time ago that 'do you remember XYZ' was my way of ensuring they had the prerequisite knowledge for the link I was about to make.

"Right. So… people who might be close enough, and might love you enough, to do something like making you your favourite food begin around best friends."

"Clarify: relevance."

The ability to discern conclusions from available data was not something that Eridians lacked. But the ability to assume an answer based on data when getting a guaranteed confirmation from a direct source was an option was something they couldn't ignore. And so, much like do you remember serves for me, I understand a relevance enquiry is the Eridian polite way of saying 'stop beating around the bush'. Much to my eternal torment.

"I didn't have any best friends that would do that. Marissa was close, but she's not the kind of person to express care like that. She showed love by sending me research articles she thought I'd find interesting, and honestly, that's pretty good as well. Preferable for me, at the time."

"Human-variation affects willingness to provide and receive food… intimacy, confirm."

"Confirm."

"What about hierarchy of intimacy: partners, family."

"I didn't have a partner and uh…"

"Family, question?"

"I'm a foster kid."

"Clarify: foster kid means child cared for by government system in place to attend to those whose parents are unable to care for them, confirm."

"Confirm. And it's…"

"A broken system, as per Grace's description in Discussion on Human Sociocultural Practices #478. Grace did not disclose being child of foster system during discussion. Private, question?"

"Yeah. It's not - I didn't have a horror story kind of time. Just not something I like to talk about."

"Private, respected. We move on."

"I - thanks."

Seriously. For all they can be painfully blunt by human standards, they're very emotionally sensitive and capable of as much sympathy and empathy as humans are. It's just that the things that they're sensitive around and what I'm sensitive around are wildly different because of our cultural differences. It manifests differently, too, because of brain structures and the like. When something is a sore spot, no matter how curious they are, they let up and research the relevant terms later. Absorb personal experiences from forum posts and newspapers and journal articles, instead of pressing me for my personal experience. It's another thing that makes me feel like I'm better off here.

"So… I didn't really have anyone who would cook for me, or who I would cook for. And outside of Marissa and my coworkers at the start of the day, I didn't really have anyone I'd share a meal with."

"On Erid, who would you share a meal with?"

Huh? This whole conversation is starting to feel like a fever dream. I wonder how many NDAs these guys signed to protect their reputations after all the things they had to ask and listen to here. Fraternity style pact in blood to not confess anything they said, did, or saw, maybe.

"Uh… No one? You guys don't do that."

"Grace misunderstands. Theoretical question to understand hierarchy of intimacy: who would be invited to meal."

"Oh! Well. All of the xenothropology team I would have coffee with, and several I'd probably go for lunch with. Much of the human research team across all divisions I would do the same with."

"Offence," Mead muttered, only to be shushed by Goodall and overruled by Morgan's enthusiastic, "Flattery! An honour!"

"Associates to friends on food intimacy hierarchy, confirm," Goodall elaborated.

"Confirm, that's right."

"Rocky, question?"

"Rocky? I'd cook for him."

There was a pause - genuinely, all of them stilled and got real quiet. Why? I didn't know. Maybe because I didn't elaborate, or didn't hesitate to think about it? If Mead considered being a coffee buddy offensive, maybe they thought I just gravely insulted Rocky with ease? Or maybe because I didn't mention Adrian - that could definitely be it.

"Adrian too. Adrian I'd get lunch or dinner with one on one, but I'd probably only invite them over for a meal if Rocky was there, since Rocky is best friend-family intimacy hierarchy, and since Adrian is Rocky's mate and my family via him, that means they get included for some social intimacy activities. That's a thing we do, actually - meals are a great way to meet the partners of your friends. And I only properly met Adrian a year ago once I wasn't, you know. Half-dead. We develop deeper bonds the longer we know someone and the more we share, so by the time Adrian and I know each other as long as Rocky and I have currently known each other, they would probably be someone I would invite for meals one-on-one as well. In the hypothetical, that is."

There was a bunch of song bouncing around, too rapid for me to catch much more beyond Rocky's name and a kind of… frenetic energy to it, like an argument. It didn't exactly sound pleasant, and was comprised of the more advanced variant of Eridian that, while not thrumming, was still beyond my current grasp of the language. It turned out Rocky had been massively simplifying his speech - ditching tone indicators that denoted questions and exclamations in exchange for tacking question and statement and confirm and the like on the end. Triple repetitions, too - more emphasis indicated by sub-tones I couldn't understand when the words were so complex. Or the sounds were out of my hearing range, that was a common problem too. And he'd been slowing down his rate of speech.

Basically, Rocky single-handedly invented a pidgin hybrid of our two languages to ensure reliable communication, as if he wasn't enough of a genius as an engineer. But it did mean I was at a distinct disadvantage communication-wise once I got here. I've been studying the full language from the moment I could sit upright on my own again, but I'm really not built for the full spectrum of Eridian sound. We use a pidgin-heavy communication style intentionally, for these meetings. So this kerfuffle… Well.

"Uh… guys?"

I gave up while I was ahead - there was way too much noise and motion for me to bother trying to keep track or get anyone's attention. I let it run it's course, my mind drifting across thoughts of food and friends and things I'd never wanted to leave behind. It still stings. Grief processing is simultaneously slow and non-linear, my therapy books assure me. Especially when you have to deal with gratitude towards your death sentencer for said therapy books being accessible because she stole the whole internet for the suicide mission she condemned you to. I'm doing fine, clearly. At least I'm not leaky-space-blobbing mid-meeting at the thought of it. Anyway.

When they finally settled down, Goodall turned back to me.

"Sharing food with loved ones is… important, confirm."

And there comes the melancholy, waltzing back into my brain. Note to self: practice mental maths next time the team are bickering. The goal is to be half as fast and just as accurate as Rocky, so I really need to practice more and dwell less.

"Well. Yeah. Really important. To feed someone is to say… You matter to me. Enough for me to work to make sure you're taken care of. Enough to share something I've gathered to keep myself alive with so that it keeps you alive as well. Enough to learn what you love and make it for you, to share in the thing you love with you. 'I love you enough to keep you alive' is the sentiment, I guess. Important important important, confirm."

"Confer," Goodall dictates, and I zoned out to the resumption of the thrum, ideas I couldn't even begin to decipher being tossed around in a language far beyond me.

Unfortunately, the mental maths was not cooperating and just a few minutes in I was once again dwelling. The longer I'm on Erid, the less I miss Earth. But missing Earth and missing the people on it are two different things. My kids are an ache that will never leave, and the uncertainty - if I managed to save them, how many of them made it into adulthood, how many of them died to the ecological disaster directly and how many died to war and suicide and domestic violence and all the societal sicknesses that were predicted to escalate - keeps me up a lot of nights still. Probably always will.

I wonder the same about my friends. There were quite a number of examples of how food and the social hierarchies of intimacy interacted that I could have used but didn't. They hurt too much. I missed the people they involved too much. I missed dinner with Marissa the way you miss a trinket you treasured as a kid. She was one of my best friends, absolutely, but I'd also been completely cut off from her when I was co-opted into the Project Hail Mary taskforce - even more so once I ended up on Stratt's Vat. The same with my coworkers at the school and my ex girlfriend. The distance between now and when they were part of my everyday life made them easy to reference. But the people there, on the Vat?

There I got coffee at all hours with dozens of people, managing to trap each other with conversations about science without fail every single encounter. That was it's own kind of love language to me. One of my foster siblings used to say I loved science more than I loved people. I didn't know how to explain that science was people, and that I loved it, and all of its infinite possibilities yet to be discovered, because science was the understanding of the mechanism behind him and me and every other bit of life in our world and that might be out in the universe. Of more than just life, too.

But words stick with you worse when they come from someone close, and I never really shook the sense of other I felt for not liking people the 'right' way, after that foster sibling. I'd had it before him, but he - and that house, and the school I went to while I was there - made me feel like it was a bad thing. Like it had to be science or people, and I didn't get people like I got science, so my choice ended up seeming pretty clear. With all the self-directed therapy I've been doing, I'm pretty sure there's a diagnosis bouncing around there, but it's not like I need strategies to fit into human society anymore, and Erid suits me a lot better in that regard, too.

With the kind of life I was living when the astrophage arrived, I hadn't had anyone in a long time who I'd want to cook for, or who I'd share my own food with. But then I ended up on the Vat, and… Well. Birds of a feather, and I was finally getting to flock with them. I was still odd, in polite terms. Weird as fudge in less polite terms. But given everyone on that boat was there because they had devoted their lives to something the same way I had science, hearing weird as fudge (the more colourful version, of course) felt less like a criticism and more like an expression of affection, since it described just about all of us.

Especially from Dimitri, who called me that the first time he dragged me to the Russian's rec room. Stratt (allegedly) didn't know about it, and given it was a bedroom volunteered by the Russians assigned to it who were instead sleeping on the floor of another bedroom, stacked in like sardines, it's possible she didn't for a short while. Dimitri dragged me there and gave me vodka, saying to be offered vodka from a Russian's personal supply was the Russian equivalent of an adoption certificate and that I was 'honourary Russian'.

It became semi-regular. Lots of us went, including Ilyukhina, but any time I showed up was because Dimitri sought me out and insisted I take a night off. He'd laugh at the face I'd pull sipping on his horrendous vodka. Make jokes. Talk about all his big ideas, his dreams for the future. Not dreams of saving the world - dreams of what he'd do after it was saved, never doubting for a second that Project Hail Mary would succeed. He was hopeful not by choice, but because he genuinely couldn't see a world in which we - in which humanity - failed.

I wonder if he's proud of Project Hail Mary succeeding. I wonder if he's proud of me.

I wonder if he's even alive to be proud. If the Beetles even made it back to save him, to save everyone -

I shut the train of thought down before the Grace is anxious call can come.

Dimitri wasn't the only one. Illya, via the Russian Rec Room, and then eventually Yáo through occasional chats, both decided I was friend-shaped too. They didn't care about me being weird.

Illya called me all sorts of ego-stroking terms like genius while also tearing me down with the most casual soul-crushing dissections of my existence. But she did it to everyone, and it kind of felt the way I imagine a big sister would feel. She certainly did a lot of the shut the [fudge] up, that's our weirdo and you can't talk [shizz] about him! whenever she thought someone was speaking ill of me in a way she didn't approve of. Her vodka was different from Dimitri's but made me pull just as many faces, and she'd promise with every new drinking session she'd gotten nicer or smoother or milder vodka this time. It never was, but the conversation and laughter and shit talking started to make the paint-stripper strength vodka comforting in its own right.

Yáo liked to cook. As a mindfulness thing, he said, but it was pretty abundantly clear that he'd grown up cooking, and that something about the process made him feel connected and settled and motivated all at once. He'd default to cooking family recipes and traditional dishes that only other Chinese crew members could pronounce whenever there was even the slightest hiccup in their plans, and the food was shared with a select few - me included. I remember Yáo being so steady, so capable, always ready to be a shoulder or an ear or whatever was needed of him by anyone. Being Captain Yáo. But I also remember him having the dirtiest sense of humour, and ribbing me over my dumpling wrapping skills (non-existent) and marvelling at my spice tolerance (not as impressive as it seemed, given the amount of Latin food I consumed during my college years) and assuring me, in no uncertain terms, that he trusted me - not just my work, but me.

Between Illya's vodka and Yáo's stress-cooking, whenever the primary crew had 'decompression time' to keep them steady, the sessions rapidly devolved from mindfulness and meditating to movie nights full of socialising and eating. Human connection at it's finest. Illya dragged me along to one and told Yáo she'd punch him if he vetoed my presence. He said the threat was pointless because I was welcome either way, and I definitely wasn't fighting tears as I got squeezed onto the couch with them and Dubois. It got even better when Dubois started to semi-consistently tap out for phone sex with Shapiro - nothing against the guy, and I grieve him still, but he didn't really enjoy the decompression sessions and also was open about his sex life in a way I really wasn't comfy with.

So then it was just the three of us, eating Yáo's family recipes and drinking vodka I'm pretty sure was brewed in a bathtub. It had the same dubiously safe energy as moonshine, is what I mean. We'd watch shitty movies and talk about non-work things, trading snacks and jokes in equal measure. They didn't have to include me, but they wanted to. Liked me enough, cared about me enough, to bring me into the fold and to share decompression time. It was 'we're going to pretend the world isn't ending and we aren't the last hope time', really, and they wanted me there for it.

I thought it was pity, to begin with. Or an attempt to try to tap me for more info about the astrophage outside of work hours, in case Stratt was tactically keeping something from them, like she did all of us in varying capacities. I thought Dimitri was the same, at first. But it wasn't. It was because they considered me their friend. It took me a while - and Illya sitting me down and cussing me out in Russian, English, and a third language I still don't know the identity of - to understand that. I didn't really know what to do with it then, either, except to do my darnedest to live up to the title.

And I didn't even remember them properly, when I spaced them. I know that was Stratt's work, not a personal failing, but I still feel terrible about it. I remember them so well now. I miss them now. I think I'd have liked to have both of them and Dimitri over for dinner at some point, in some other life where we all got to live and we all got to go home.

Maybe in that other world there would be no Rocky, though, so once again I try to push down the what-ifs in favour of the do-haves. It failed immediately.

Stratt came to mind, instead of my nice happy yay-I-have-Rocky-and-Adrian-and-Erid assurances. My feelings about her still haven't resolved one way or another. Some days I miss her fiercely - miss having someone who could be the backbone I lacked, someone I could be a coward in earnest to, someone I could rely on to make things happen, someone I could rely on to understand even as she judged. Someone I could rely on full stop - or thought I could, at least. Other days I hope she died a miserable, horrible death - hating the kind of person who could call me a friend and then do to me what she did. Other days I don't really feel anything at all about her.

If she did end up tried for all the crimes she committed, I wonder if she told them. Told the world that Dubois and Shapiro both died due to a clerical error, and so she committed an atrocity against a single man to try and spare the world. I wonder if she stood up on the stand and, while listing her crimes, she put Drugging Doctor Ryland Grace and rendering him an amnesiac with an experimental drug in the hopes of forcing him to cooperate as I sent him on a suicide mission he did not consent to participating in. I wonder if she told them He swore to me that he would sabotage the mission and let Earth die, and that's why I drugged him with something I didn't even know would work, rather than sending the next best willing participant

I hope she didn't mention that part - the world didn't need the anxiety of thinking I had doomed them the whole time they were waiting for the Beetles to come home. But still, I wonder where in the list of her crimes I came up, if I came up at all. Top of the list, would be my preference, naturally, but it wouldn't surprise me if I was somewhere between stealing a bunch of stationary supplies because I was never going to pay the invoice and punching someone who obstructed my access to a building or some equally menial and comparatively minimal crimes.

Maybe I'm thinking too poorly of her. She only ever had saving Earth as her priority. Maybe it's callous of me to assume she felt no pain or guilt for the things she did. But at the same time, I don't know if she ever really saw me as a person - saw any of us as people. Not when she needed mission assets more than she needed human beings.

I'm pulled out of my existential pondering by the Eridian equivalent of a cleared throat. I turn my attention back to the gathered professionals, and try to act like I'm not three seconds from a cinematic singular tear trailing down my cheek (five seconds before copious more follow when I burst into tears, if it does make it out). I keep it in, thankfully.

"Conclusions?"

"Human food is like Eridian sleep, confirm," Goodall offered.

Uh… Kind of? Maybe? Not really, that I could see.

"Clarify?"

"Eridians watch sleep of ones we love. Keep safe by keeping watch. 'One loves you enough to keep you alive', like humans. It is about safety - about protecting. Providing. Different medium, same social significance."

Oh. Well, yeah. They had a point there.

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess that's accurate."

"Better comparison than eating like thrum, statement."

I laughed, ceding the point even if I could still see validity in the social, communal connection aspects of human meals and Eridian thrums.

"Grace has no one to share meal with, confirm."

Rude. Not really, but still. I thought we'd covered this.

"Well, yeah. Confirm. Eridians don't share meals, and it's not like your food is something I can eat, or my food something you can eat, for that matter. Well - I don't think my food would kill you, but it's probably not gonna be great. So no one I share with."

"But meal can have company even without eating. Like Grace with former mate. Grace enjoy favourite food until former mate clarify distaste."

"Neither of us ate anything at the seafood place, actually. But yes, only one person can eat sometimes, because of things like that or because someone has already eaten but they want to share the meal time with the person for social connection."

"And Grace has no one to keep Grace safe while eating."

"I mean, I don't need anyone to. The only predators around are you guys."

"And Grace will see Eridian approaching."

"So long as you're in front of me, yeah."

"And hear if behind."

"Well, not necessarily."

The group all froze again, the low burbling rolling-gravel sound of unease playing out again.

"Clarify," Goodall requested.

"A human's ears, nose, and throat are all connected. Chewing isn't just loud for whoever is around, we can hear it both from outside coming into our ears and from 'inside' our heads. The vibrations from the motions affect our hearing, and can make it harder to hear what's happening around us. Especially foods with textures that are crunchy, since chewing them produces a lot of noise. So if you came up behind me while I was eating and I couldn't hear you because I was chewing, you'd get the drop on me. Uh - phrase meaning be able to surprise someone. I won't know you're there."

The unease noise ceased, and all of them were dead still while looking at me, save for an abundance of flaring vents.

"Is… everything okay?

"Grace not safe while eat. Not archaic practice of protection - not evolutionary trait. Grace real unsafe while eat, statement," Morgan replied.

"Well, no. Again, you guys are the only predators around here that can get to me, and I'm fairly certain me eating grosses you guys out enough to wait until I'm done before trying to attack me. At which point my hearing will be a lot better again, and I won't be sitting still."

"GRACE UNSAFE WHILE EAT, STATEMENT!" Morgan repeated, this time both louder and with emphasis tones at the beginning and end to add weight to the statement. Or at least I'm fairly certain that was emphasis tones. The rest agreed in a flurry of echoes and sounds of affirmation, leaving me flummoxed as to what, exactly, I had managed to get myself into by virtue of telling the truth as best I could and having it be misinterpreted. Again.

Except it wasn't really a misinterpretation, was it? I'm still human. Eridians - in their own gravity, even if the atmosphere inside my biosphere is significantly less dense - are way stronger, way faster, and way more deadly than I could ever hope to be. If one wanted to kill me, all they would need to do is dupe the EVA suits used by the scientists and Rocky and Adrian and come into my biosphere and… Well. They wouldn't even need a weapon. They could kick me and I'd die. Wouldn't even need to kick me full-force, either.

I hadn't thought about this before. I really wish I wasn't thinking about it now.

"Kinda?" I replied, feeling my stomach churning. The Grace-is-anxious call went out not three seconds later. Rude. Rude rude rude. I've chewed Adrian out multiple times for coining that sound but I need to again, after this conversation.

The thrum picked up again, loud and with an edge of desperation to it, something about the notes sounding too breathy, reedy like when Rocky was in the heightened state of anxiety-anger and need-to-fix he got into so often during my… decline on the way to Erid. Not great, is the long and short of it. But once a thrum started there wasn't much puny human-vocal-folded me could do about it except wait it out. I'd learned that the hard way, the first time I'd said something the Eridians found confounding enough to fall into an impromptu thrum in front of me.

It was an honour, Rocky later explained. If you aren't in the thrum, you aren't in the vicinity, normally. I figured it was just because I wasn't an Eridian, and there was no need to worry about me mentally eavesdropping. Rocky got cranky at me and Adrian had to explain it. They did a much better job, fortunately - they tended to be a lot better at communicating cultural things than Rocky was. Eridians who weren't in the thrum but were in the vicinity couldn't properly understand it, only catch snippets, and to be present when not invited was a kind of voyeuristic state that was considered offensive. I liken it to watching a conversation in ASL where some signs are self-explanatory but most are lost to me, along with the grammar and nuance and dialects unique to those signing. So to be present for a thrum but not in it is kind of like openly staring at an ASL conversation with zero subtlety.

Adrian elaborated further, and explained why it was so significant that they thrum with me present - and why Rocky was so offended when I didn't get it, given Rocky and Adrian had thrummed with me around multiple times long before the scientists started to.

They're including me, when they thrum around me. They don't see me as an ineffectual voyeur, they're actively including me. I can't understand it, and I can't participate in it, but I am held in high enough esteem and close enough confidence that I am welcome in these thrums to the best of my capacity. That's why I'm given a run down of the conclusions or topics covered, after each one. It makes sense for many of the science ones, given the ones I'm not-really-privy to are about me, or about scientific revelations I've provided them with. But Rocky and Adrian…

Well. Suffice to say I lived up to my Leaky Space Blob moniker and bawled my eyes out while they held my hands and thrummed around me. I'm family to them - that's what Adrian explained. I get to be part of their thrum because I'm part of them.

There was another brief blip of cross-cultural communication error where I had to clarify part of them and attempted (and failed) to subtly reaffirm the whole aromantic asexual thing, before Rocky called me dumb and reminded me of human queer platonic relationships. He then resumed mocking me for the fact that, back on the Hail Mary, I attempted to teach him about the clumsy human definitions of the phenomena, when it just so happened to be a commonplace norm on Erid. I cried harder, at that. To be loved is to be seen and all that. Well. To be loved is to be detected through hyper-sensitive sonar and echolocation. But that's less poetic and misses the whole they understand me and love me the way I need part of it all.

The thrum continued, and I shuffled around in my chair, sinking into it and closing my eyes to pay attention to the sounds. The more I focus on a thrum, the more I feel it - buzzing in my skull, rattling my ribcage, a kind of beat in the tapping of claws that is unique to each thrum. It's how I imagine a rave would feel - the music blurring out of the realm of sound and into the realm of sensation. I can pick up on thrums better if I focus on the feeling more than the sounds, though the meaning will forever be beyond me.

I've never actually been to a rave, but I have been in a frat house with a speaker so loud the windows rattled in their panes. When I think of that first big party, way back in my second year of college, I can still feel the way my chest ached and my eyes throbbed and my ears stopped registering sound and started registering sensation only. Which isn't scientific, to be fair, given sound is sensation, just the sensation of vibrations, and - yeah. I went to a handful of parties like that and decided they weren't for me. Especially not the early onset hearing loss. But I still remember that feeling.

The thrum - when I focus on feeling it, processing the sensation rather than the sound - feels kinda similar. Just toned down, thankfully. Less likely to deafen me. It's nice. It's become quite comforting, to hear all my colleagues talking together like that - kind of like the hub of sound in a big conference hall, hundreds of small conversations happening and a wall of noise that you can't really pick trains of conversation from, just the occasional familiar voice as the sound crests and troughs in waves. I'm getting good at picking out individual voices in their thrums, which is kind of the opposite of the purpose of a thrum, I'm pretty sure, but it's the best I can do.

The thrum settles less than ten minutes later. Earth-minutes, since I still count as per my home-world, and my biosphere still cycles as per Earth-days. We tried an Eridian 'day' cycle once. Never again.

"Conclusions?" I ask, as has become my unofficial tradition whenever there's a science-thrum I'm sitting in on.

"There will be a guard rotation for Grace for meal times, statement."

"Uh… What?"

"Grace will have meals where guard can hear to alert Grace if threat occurs. Guard will provide socialisation rituals for Grace during meal time."

"Whoa, whoa, hold on -"

"It has been decided."

"Hard no," I say, and I've finally reached a point where the subtext of that phrase doesn't have me pulling a face. But it's useful, with Eridians, who are very logic-centred and tend to forget the importance of choice when they think the choices aren't logical.

"Justify."

"I'm fine eating alone. I'm safe - you guys take good care of me anyway. Chances of someone reaching me to cause harm during a meal is so low it's a negligible risk. For Eridians eating is gross and taboo and only done publicly or watched by fetishists. Why would you want a guard rotation?"

"Humans do not see food the way Eridians do. Humans do not function with food the way Eridians do. Humans see eating as social connection and as vulnerable task, like sleeping. Humans not safe while eating."

"Not unsafe enough to make you do something you aren't comfortable with."

"Volunteers who have been reviewed for motive and trustworthiness will be guards. Give Grace more coffee-associates. Grace will not need to provide food for or to invite into home. Will not violate human social hierarchy of intimacy."

Well. Okay. That's… Certainly something.

Having someone to eat with again… Or, well, to eat around again, technically. I won't lie, it sounds… nice. Whether its scientists like these brave few who risked their disgust - and reputations, if the degree of abhorrence for eating-voyeurs was as bad as it seemed - to enquire about human eating for the sake of science, or whether it was a selection of new faces who were equally brave…

I didn't want company and conversation every meal, that was for sure. That would just lead to me avoiding meals.

"Thinking, question?"

"Thinking, statement."

Maybe it would be good. Get me some socialisation that wasn't science. Be like - like Marissa. Like vodka nights with Dimitri. Like decompression breaks with Yáo and Illya.

Like…

Like the first time Stratt brought me food (well, a minion on her orders did). It was pre-Vat, during a lab marathon, and she asked me what I like to eat. She got me a seafood pasta dish from the fancy Italian place near where I lived. I'd thought she would get herself something too, but apparently she'd eaten. So she just sat there and watched me eat it while we talked about astrophage and the plan moving forward.

I think, in another world, she and I never would have met. But if we had, and the world hadn't been ending, she could have been my friend. A proper one - a best friend, maybe. It's the hardest part about thinking about her - how close we came, so often, to actual friendship. How well we worked together. How easily we could talk about anything that came up - even, when she deemed it necessary for me psyche, things that weren't work related. Always while pretending talking about irrelevant things wasn't also a good break for her. How easy co-existing became for us, where we could sit and work in proximity and feel at ease. How well our senses of humour aligned - even when I was the butt of her wit.

It's hard to reconcile the almost-friend I had with the person who did this to me. Too many what-ifs. But I think, in another world, she wouldn't have had to hold me at arm's length for the mission, and I wouldn't have seen her as my vaguely tyrannical boss and the person in charge of saving the world. I think, in that world, we would grab lunch together the same way Marissa and I used to grab dinner. I think, in that world where she didn't dehumanise everyone, including herself, for the sake of the mission, then when she brought me seafood pasta, I would think to offer her half. To remind her of the same thing I've just taught Eridians - food isn't only fuel. Not to humans.

She didn't do anything for pleasure, in this world. No Russian rec room trips. No decompression time movie nights. No nice pasta from the fancy Italian place. Maybe that was her getting a jump start on the punishment she kept saying she was due. I don't know how to feel about the fact that I'm glad she didn't get to have any of that, in this world.

"Long silence."

"Still thinking, statement."

"Slow," someone muttered, and I refrained from pulling a rude gesture, instead bringing my focus back to forming an answer.

"I don't want company every single meal. That's not common, and it's not something I'm used to or something I enjoy. We can look at setting up an emergency alarm or something if you're really worried about danger. But for shared meal times, maybe once per day would be nice. And I don't want it advertised or labelled as guard duty. If you're concerned about a danger to me, and you advertise it as guard duty, that's only going to make it obvious I have a vulnerability when I eat. And whoever ends up rostered for it needs to be able to leave at any time. Just because you want to respect human culture doesn't mean I want it at the expense of Eridian comfort and culture. Also, I don't want, like, one hundred people on the roster. I am not that good at socialising or at remembering names."

"Poor memory is known," someone else said, and this time I flipped the assembled Eridians off. The whistles of laughter made me grin at them.

"Requirements understood. Will draft a concrete plan for revision before implementation."

"Perfect. Right, then. Anything else I can help you with now?"

"No. Meeting concluded."

"Awesome. You guys know where to find me. Have a good day!"

Well-wishes were thrown back at me as I departed, heading for my house and fully intending to flop directly into my bed and process the unintentional sore spots that were touched on during the conversation until I fell asleep. It wasn't even lunch yet, but any time could count as nap time, given I'm still adjusting to everything about how I live changing, and my nutrition levels are still a bit out of sorts, even with the me-burgers. Processing until I fall asleep has been working great for me lately - I've gotten very good at therapeutic self-regulation, these days. All it took was a single suicide attempt on the Hail Mary and waking up to Rocky doing the Eridian equivalent of being a leaky space blob (waily space rock) for me to realise I need to get my shizz together.

My bed and I enjoyed a solid five minutes of So why is Stratt on your mind again? and it's thrilling answer, Well I've avoided thinking about her thus far but the fact that everyone on the Hail Mary got a 'final meal' of their choice and when I asked for my final meal the med-bot gave me a seafood pasta dish despite Dubois having a shellfish allergy. That means she cared in some way, right? And that's been brought up by today's conversation topic, naturally followed by the awful part of So, what are you going to do to help process these feelings? before I was rather rudely interrupted by Rocky smacking my door in.

"If you damaged the paint job, I'm filing a complaint," I mumbled, flopping onto my back and away from my brief dive into Stratt-processing to look at the rock spider currently vibrating with… anger, I think, based on the rhythm he's tapping. My door wasn't painted, just pretty marbled xenonite, but still.

"WHY TELL THEM ROCKY IS BAD FRIEND?" Rocky yelled. Before I could begin to contemplate that, Adrian called a greeting from out the front. The biosphere engineers, in their bid to maximise familiarity to my home environment, built a human sized house with human sized doors and human height ceilings. Fine for Rocky. Less fine for his lovely nine foot tall mate. We'd discussed suitable adjustments and the end result was an Adrian-friendly extension which now served as a kind of rumpus room for me to hang out with them in.

"Hi, Adrian. Hi, Rocky. Nice to see you, bud. Please, come on in."

"YOU TELL THEM ROCKY LEAVE YOU UNSAFE! YOU TELL THEM ROCKY DOES NOT WATCH FOR YOU!"

"What?"

"GRACE SAY -"

"Hold up, hold up! Buddy, I haven't said anything of the sort!"

"Rocky did not listen properly," Adrian calls, confirming my prevailing theory and proving his tendency to go from 0-100 yet again.

"Rocky got told off! Yelled at! Shamed! For ♬ˎˊ˗!"

"Hold on - wait a second, what's that? Define the last word you said."

"Social criminal. One who abandons loved ones in need. One who runs away while loved one is asleep and in danger," Adrian replies, and I realise now that social criminal is probably a term I'm going to need to explore fully and find all of the definitions of sooner rather than later.

"Why say Rocky do this?" Rocky wailed, and I sighed, forcing myself up to sit on the edge of my bed and look at him directly.

"I didn't. We talked about human food and eating habits today, bud. Special meeting for it, and they only told me what it was about when I got there."

"Gross," Rocky and Adrian say simultaneously.

"Why Eridians want to know?" Rocky asks, and I'm sure if he had a face it'd be all screwed up. Pursed like a rich southern lady clutching at her pearls. I try not to laugh at the image, but I've ascribed variations of it to Rocky many, many times over the years and it's still just as funny now as it was the first time I made the comparison.

"Because it's important to their research."

"Wait - why talk about Rocky when talk about food? Grace did not tell them that Rocky…"

He stopped, and slammed the door to my bedroom, sealing us back in the little bubble of privacy where unless someone was right outside said door, they wouldn't hear. Bad luck, Adrian, I guess.

"Grace did not tell them that Rocky let Grace watch Rocky eat!" Rocky hissed at me.

"No, buddy. I know that's a big deal for you guys. I haven't told anyone."

"Then why Rocky discussed? They know Rocky did not like being able to hear Grace eat!"

"We didn't talk about you much at all. Just that in human customs, I'd invite you and Adrian over."

On cue, the door rattled. Adrian, humming low enough that I couldn't pick up on it, but at the right pitch to match the resonance of the door. Their polite way of saying open up, Rocky. He did so.

"What Grace means, invite Rocky Adrian over?"

"Well… In human culture, you share food with people you love. People you trust, who you want to keep alive and safe by making sure they eat. We keep each other safe by eating together, too, since we can't hear as well when we eat. And it's also a time for social connection, where you devote yourself to whoever you are with for as long as the meal lasts. A long time ago, eating was a lot more dangerous, due to predators, food scarcity, so on, so forth. Today sharing meals is a carry over from that. You came up because I was asked who I would make food for, which is a special expression of love and care, and I said you and Adrian. The thrum today concluded that since eating is about both social connection and safety and providing for one another, it's similar in cultural significance to humans as watching each other sleep is for Eridians. That's all."

"…What?" Rocky says, and his voice is so very small I feel my heart ache. The buzz of his anxiety-tone picks up and shuts off just a few seconds later. Adrian, outside, is completely silent.

"I don't know why they're calling you a social criminal. But that's all we talked about today. Lots and lots of gross gross gross eating stuff."

Rocky was silent. Adrian was silent. I felt like I'd just handed them both grenades and pulled the pins and was sitting there smiling at them. I wasn't smiling, I was anxious and feeling like some kind of monster because I had no idea what the heck I'd done and my best friend ever/family-being was not-staring at me and my rapidly growing in friendship whatever-the-heck-Adrian-counts-as-to-me were both dead still and quiet as the grave after I put my foot well and truly in it.

"Guys?"

"Grace is… unsafe while eating?" Rocky asked, and I sighed.

"Not real unsafe. But… unsafe like if you went to sleep here. You and Adrian are two of six people who are able to come into the biosphere. Right now, it's only the three of us. If you fell asleep in this room, I could go outside and walk around with Adrian, and they would be able to keep an eye on you, and the chance of harm coming to you is so incredibly low that it's not actually unsafe. But it's unsafe due to principle. Due to tradition. Eating is only unsafe to humans if there is actually a threat, and there isn't one, here. I'm safe no matter what I'm doing. So no, I'm not unsafe when I eat."

"Rocky safe here, yes. Rocky safe on Hail Mary, too. But Grace still watches Rocky sleep."

"…Yeah."

"Rocky does not watch Grace eat."

"Well, obviously not. Watching someone eat is taboo for Eridians. Watching someone sleep is weird for humans, but not taboo. And you were stuck watching me eat on Hail Mary and hated it, so why would I ask?"

"Grace… does not trust Rocky?"

"Whoa, what?"

Seriously, what? There wasn't anyone I trusted more than Rocky! He knew that! My biosphere has a wall shared with Rocky and Adrian's house! He and Adrian are the only two people with direct access to me, not having to get permissions and checks and leave a paper trail when they come to visit! We saved two worlds together by trusting each other! What in the fudge kind of question was that, seriously.

"Grace does not trust Rocky to watch Grace while eating. To keep Grace safe."

Oh, for - darn it.

"No, Rocky, that's not it at all. It's gross for you. It's taboo. I'm not gonna ask you to do something that's culturally abhorrent. I don't need company while I eat."

"Want company while eat?" Adrian interrupted, and I was left flummoxed once again.

"Want company while eat!" Rocky echoed, a much more distinct answer the gosh-darn question tone-note tacked onto it.

"Grace say that humans eat with loved ones for social connection. Grace say that Grace invite Rocky and Adrian to share extra-special food practices. Grace want company while eat?" Adrian elaborated.

"Grace wants a minute to think, please stop speaking," I said in lieu of answering. I got twin hums of acknowledgement and then (relative) silence. I specify relative, because Rocky was crab-walking side to side, a tell tale sign of his anxiety.

Anxiety for what though? Me answering yes? Me answering no? For the allegations of him being a social criminal and wanting to clear his -

"Grace want company! Rocky bad friend! Bad bad bad bad ba-"

"Rocky, STOP!" I yell, even though Rocky's commentary was really quiet. It was really stressing me out - somehow I'd set multiple fires, yet again. Normally I had Rocky in my corner for them, but this time Rocky was the one I'd unintentionally ignited, and the idea that his social standing and reputation might be in danger because I tried to respect his culture and fudged it up somehow… Yeah. Not having a great time, and Rocky panicking and self-flagellating was not helping. Adrian and I and Rocky's therapist had all been trying to work on his tendency to blame himself and beat himself up, but it was as slow going as my own therapeutic work was, most of the time.

"Rocky stops," he all but whispered.

"Sorry for snapping."

"Grace forgiven."

"Okay. Alright. Rocky. Bud. Listen to me, okay? If I needed company when I eat - genuinely needed it, not just wanted it - I would have told you. Okay? You're not a bad friend. You're not bad full stop. Our cultures are different, and that's okay. It means there has to be some give and take. I don't need company when I eat. It's just nice, sometimes. That's all."

"Grace say he not need beach."

"Yeah."

"Grace happier with beach. Grace say not need soft fabric. Grace happier with soft things. Grace say not need cane. Grace more comfortable with cane - more comfortable, more happy. Grace say not need cuddles. Grace happier with cuddles."

"Uhh…"

"How many more things that make Grace happy does Grace say not need, question?"

"I… That's a loaded question, buddy."

"Grace avoid question. Badly."

"Because there isn't really an answer to that. Not one that I think would be good for either of us for me to attempt."

"Too complex for Grace in current brain state."

"Yeah. Intense for both of us, too, I think."

"…Rocky most intense. Not afraid of intense things. Not afraid of - of eating. Rocky brave. Rocky sit with Grace while Grace eat."

"You don't have to. It's not even going to be a big thing, I don't think. Maybe one meal a day, five days a week, maybe. A few people on rotation. More to satisfy you guys and the whole keeping each other safe thing. And for more research, too, probably."

"Grace want company, question?" Rocky asked, using the tiny voice he always resorted to when he was afraid he'd caused harm.

"Yeah, buddy. Sometimes, at least. It would be nice."

"Grace… want Rocky for company?"

"Not if it makes you uncomfortable. Not if it stresses you out. Not if it's social taboo you'll be shamed for. Those are my conditions for everyone, but especially for you."

"Grace avoid question. Answer, order."

"Yeah, Rocky. I'd like your company while I eat sometime. Adrian too, if they're willing."

"Adrian willing," Adrian called, and Rocky made an angry chittering noise at them that was echoed with Adrian's low, deep rumble that nowadays I found as soothing as Rocky did.

"Rocky willing. Rocky wants to keep Grace safe. Wants to keep Grace happy. Wants to be Grace's best best best friend."

"You are, buddy."

"Rocky has not been good at best best best friend when it comes to eating. Rocky will be better."

"Not at your expense, buddy."

"Not at Rocky's expense."

"Same with you, Adrian."

"Not at Adrian's expense."

"Rocky will clear Rocky's name, too."

"What do you mean?"

Rocky let out a stuttering warble, ending in Adrian's name.

"Rocky failed Grace," Adrian began, and when Rocky picked up on me opening my mouth to protest, he motioned me to wait. Adrian continued.

"Rocky recognised human eating was different, but did not try to learn about it. Did not learn is important to Grace. Did not learn it is unsafe, or that it is social connection. Refused to learn, refused to participate, left Grace unsafe. This is behaviour of ♬ˎˊ˗ who does not belong in Erid society. Social criminal. Not the same as fetishist who enjoys taboo like watching Eridian eating, a different kind, who forsakes different important culture practice. One who leaves one vulnerable and unsafe by choice. Rocky was asked if watched Grace eat, denied. Said avoided as much as possible on Hail Mary. Was declared ♬ˎˊ˗ publicly."

"Oh - oh, heck. Oh that's - that's really not good. I'm so sorry, buddy, I didn't even think if they might do something like that. Tell me what I've gotta say to clear your name and I'll say it."

"No clear name. Rocky earns redemption through actions."

"But you didn't do anything wrong!"

"Rocky did not ask!"

"And I did not tell you! I could have, Rocky, many many many times I could have told you. Not to mention I'm - uh, not sure about the most correct term. But I intentionally ate in front of you! I could have done more to hide but I didn't and you had to see it. That makes me… I don't know. Social criminal exhibitionist or something, right? As bad as someone who intentionally watches, because I intentionally showed even when I knew eating was gross for you."

"No," Rocky replied, grumpy-toned.

"Yes," Adrian contradicted, "Grace is fetishist, technically. But would be exempt because humans do not consider eating in front of people social crime."

"Aha! So if I'm exempt because it's different in my culture, you should be exempt from being - uh…"

"♬ˎˊ˗," Adrian offered. I really need to find a suitable translation for that, stat.

"- that, because it's different in your culture, and we both could have talked about it and asked each other more questions but we both chose not to, because, y'know, saving both our planets kind of took precedence. Ergo, we're both social criminals but we are both exempt because neither of us did anything to adequately communicate."

"Rocky still has not asked. Grace on Erid for two years and Rocky still not ask."

"Yeah, but no one else has, either."

"Grace should have said something. Even if not need, even if only want. Grace deserves happy things. Rocky come by for meals."

"Not all of them!"

"Not all, Grace has said. But some."

"Adrian attend some meals, too."

"Thank you. You guys are the best. And…"

"And, question?"

Great question, actually, my mouth was ahead of my brain. I took a second to assemble my train of thought into something vaguely cohesive.

"Maybe you and Adrian can come by here for them? Rather than wherever I set up for buddy meals with the science team? We can hang out in the rumpus room while I eat. It's… You guys are my best friends. So coming to my house for food is a thing, for best friends. For family."

"Understood. Rocky Adrian come here and sit and not be grossed out by Grace eating."

"Try to not grossed out," Adrian clarifies.

I laugh, and so does Rocky. I patted the bed beside me, and Rocky was up with me a second after my hand withdrew, leaning heavy against my side and accepting my arm wrapped around him. The latest edition of the xenonite EVA suits he's been trying to perfect is wonderful - a really good balance between soft exterior, just enough padding that he's not as hard-feeling while hugging, but still able to translate enough fine detail that I can run my fingertips over his carapace and feel a kind of topographical map of the surface. This is also the first version with no muddling at all to his hearing, he's said. I'm looking forward to Adrian's being completed once there's enough of the material - I haven't been able to have enough grip to sit on them without sliding off since two versions of their suit ago. I miss the piggyback rides.

"Fist my bump, Grace."

"Still not it."

"And then get cane. Come say hi to Adrian properly. Then food time is soon. We stay. Non-negotiable."

"Alright, alright! Bossy. Move, Rock, you're pinning part of my jumper. And where did my shoes end up? I'm not walking barefoot, my feet will end up hurting again."

"Stupid soft soft soft human. Best human."

"Yeah, yeah. Stupid hard hard hard Eridian. Best Eridian."

Rocky's trilling and Adrian's hum-laughter made me grin hard enough my cheeks hurt.

As we headed out to Adrian, I realised I hadn't even mentioned the risk of choking or asphyxiating as one of the dangers humans faced while eating to the assembled xenthropologists this morning. Probably a good thing, if they were already crucifying Rocky for unintentional 'negligence' and panicking about my safety. Ah well. That'd be for the next food-customs discussion - or for the next emergency meeting, if one of them looked into the mechanics of eating and found out the hard way how easily human eating can go wrong. Maybe I should mention it to Rocky now, though.

…On second thought, absolutely not.