Work Text:
Rocky hadn’t understood what he was looking at when he’d walked into the mental health node. The scene held all its usual aspects, Grace sitting on the grated pathway with his legs dangling off the edge, staring up at the multitude of screens. Rocky hadn’t brought his viewing crystal, but based on the sound of wind flowing through the speakers, Grace was watching his favorite video of simple forest ambiance.
But Grace was holding something, something Rocky had never seen before. A sort of rod that pointed in two different directions, one of which was buried into the underside of Grace’s chin.
[What is Grace doing, question?] Rocky asked, tapping on the bottom of his ball twice as he rolled further forward.
Grace gave a jolt, turning toward Rocky and that strange rod drifting off course. “Rocky, I—”
BANG
Rocky screeched at the deafening sound, temporarily blinded by the vibrations, and that was just the start of the chaos. Grace sprang to his feet, trying to comfort Rocky even while he leaked from a newfound scrape running over his cheekbone and the edge of his temple. Armando wasted no time joining the pandemonium, trying to pull Grace away to patch him up while several of its spare arms took care of the hole in Mary’s structure.
The volume of the situation didn’t change much once Rocky finally got his bearings and Grace had something of a proper bandage taped to his head, Grace’s panic over Rocky turning inward into a bawling apology.
“I-I-I’m sorry, Rocky, I’m so s-sorry!” Grace had wailed, holding Rocky’s ball tighter than he ever had before, eyes refusing to cease their leakage. “I-I don’t want to leave you, I swear, it’s just— I’m so—”
Lonely.
Grace never would have admitted it out loud, but Rocky wasn’t an idiot. He’d researched human behavior enough, lived with Grace long enough to know three years on a cramped spaceship—not counting the time he’d been in a forced sleep—without any sort of proper human contact was taking a severe toll on his friend’s psyche. Rocky knew Grace loved him, was beyond grateful for his company, but there was only so much comfort a glass ball could give.
With the situation finally calm and the strange rod, the “gun,” discarded via the air lock, Rocky watched over Grace as he slept, the uninjured side of Grace’s face buried in his pillow as he softly snored. Despite his own exhaustion creeping up on him, Rocky kept his ball snuggled up against Grace’s side as he worked, dedicating all his claws to crafting teeny tiny shards of flexible xenonite, ensuring they would be able to encase his carapace as snugly as possible without being a nuisance to his vents.
He could fix this. He had to. He wouldn’t lose another crewmate, he couldn’t. No matter how weird they seemed or how hard he had to work to fulfill them, Rocky would bow to any human need to keep up the last flicker of his best friend’s happiness.