Chapter Text
Rooting through piles of clothes, Grace grumbles as his back pops uncomfortably. "Hey Rock, have you seen my 'Element of Surprise' shirt?" He calls, although it's mostly on the instinct of past roommate situations. Rocky's response comes swift and even.
"Grace know Rocky have not seen anything," his computerized voice echoes through Mary's halls, and Grace huffs out a light laugh. If nothing else, Rocky is certainly consistent, even if he was being a little bit facetious. Continuing to rifle through his belongings, he shakes out his duffle bag, sighing when nothing falls out but dust and a spare sock.
As he's about to toss it to the side, something else falls free from the left-side pocket, one he hadn't even known was there. It bounces off the floor with the sharp click of plastic, landing atop a tangle of jeans. The color is a translucent blue, and, plucking it from the pile, he realises belatedly that it's a case of some kind. The latch snaps open, and Grace is left with something he instinctively knows is a pacifier. Its handle and mouth guard are the same dark blue shade, the latter of which is embellished with tiny yellow stars. Strangely, it's far too large for an infant, even an older one; in fact, it really seems like it would fit his mouth better. Grace tilts his head in thought. Why would they send this with me?
"What Grace doing?" Rocky asks, and Grace startles with a yelp, fumbling as to not drop the case in his shock. It's in moments like these that Grace is reminded that his new roommate is an ambush predator at heart. "Apology, apology! Grace heartbeat very fast, did not mean to scare."
"It's fine, just give me a warning next time or something," he sighs, pressing a hand to his still pounding heart. Rocky chitters with laughter, then tips his carapace in a curious sort of way.
"What Grace have in hand?" he queries, and a little pit of anxiety turns over in Grace's gut, even if he can't pinpoint exactly why. There's no way for Rocky to even know what a pacifier is, let alone that this one is Grace's- if it's his, he reminds himself, but the statement is beginning to feel weak, even to himself. Subconsciously, he clutches it closer to his chest, and he nibbles on the inside of his cheek.
"It's called a pacifier, or a soother. It's for little kids, babies usually. The front part is soft, it goes in their mouth and they suck on it," he explains, a hot, inexplicably embarrassed flush rising to his face as he speaks. Rocky makes a cooing sound, just a confirmation, but there's a warm, swooping sensation in Grace's chest, and his grip on the pacifier tightens. "It's for self-soothing."
"Ah, understand. Grace use for 🎶🎵🎶?" Rocky asks innocently, but Grace’s heart pounds, so hard that a wave of nausea washes over him. There’s a word in there he doesn’t recognize, a sort of squeaky warble, but he knows immediately what is being asked of him. The anxious pool twisting in his guts opens into gawping maw trying to swallow him from the inside out, and the case nearly cracks with how hard he’s holding the plastic. An instinctive shot of fear spikes through him that he’s actually broken it, but a cursory glance reveals no damage. A flash, just a thought, passes behind his eyes, of sitting on a persian rug, pacifier a soothing weight against his tongue; there’s a hand in his hair, cold but still comforting, but then he blinks, and it’s gone. All that’s left is a sharp pain behind his eyes, and Grace hisses, pressing the heel of his palm to his temple. “Grace?!”
Shhhi-oot, Rocky. “I-I’m fine, bud, just a headache,” Grace lies through his teeth, forcing a wobbly smile onto his face reflexively. Pushing his glasses up, he rubs his eyes, suppressing a wince when the pain pulses against the motion. Rocky’s legs tap against the xenonite in quiet clinks, and his primary claws wring each other nervously as he considers this.
“Did Grace have new memory?” he asks, a strange halfway point between hesitancy and excitement, and the smile slips into something more natural, albeit smaller.
“Yeah, I did,” Grace hums, the pain subsiding into a low ache in his skull. Alongside it, there’s a cold, hollow feeling just below his sternum, the kind he gets when he’s realised he lost something he never knew he had. Rubbing his hand against his chest, it expands to press against his ribcage, and any embarrassment he may’ve felt before is drowned out by a heavy melancholy strangling his heart. “I’m going to go lay down, just for a bit.”
“Rocky watch?”
“Of course, pal.”