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They have a year and a half before they reach Erid.
To Rocky, this is no time at all, to Grace, it feels like it stretches on forever.
Being bored on Earth was easier than being bored in space. Granted, there was plenty to do on both of their ships, after months upon months of exploring, teaching, learning, there was only so much left that Grace could give his brain as ‘new’ material.
Rocky doesn’t quite grasp the concept of boredom, when Grace explains it to him. Eridians have so much to concentrate on or think about that boredom is a completely foreign concept. He tries multiple different ways before he likens it to Rocky being in zero gravity, nothing to see, nothing to hear, just an endless void.
“Scary,” is the only reply he gets.
Yes. Boredom can be quite scary.
What Grace’s brain can conjure up to not be bored anymore is even scarier.
Humans are quite creative! Rocky’s voice interjects in his mind, in that amused tone of his.
Years of listening to him, and through their shared teaching of language, Grace has begun to understand Rocky without the need for the translator. At least for their more basic conversations. Anything too deep or philosophical or educational tends to leave him with too many new words he can’t make inferences about to puzzle together what they could mean.
Rocky, as he does with most things human or Earthly, picks up on English very fast. English isn’t so tonal as Eridian. It’s like mashing Cantonese or Mandarin and double layering the tonality of the language. Grace still makes little mistakes when understanding Rocky, third tones and fourth tones and sixteenth tones that make Grace’s brain hurt if he really thinks too hard on picking the difference out by ear.
Once he has most of his basic words down, following Rocky’s conversations is context based. Easier.
But right now, learning the nuances of perfect pitch in picking out Eridian’s tonality is not going to cure his boredom.
Grace is stretched out on his back, Rocky curled up next to him in their shared space of a sleeping area. The laptop he’s left open to play music on is forgotten, as Grace rolls over onto his side to face Rocky fully. The flatter, beige surface of Rocky’s front side angles towards him in a mockery of ‘looking’.
“What was your first impression of me?”
“Impression? Small. Small organism. Small ship.” Rocky’s claws move in a way that come together with little space between them before he makes little pinching motions.
“I’m bigger than you are,” he points out, matter of factly, but continues before Rocky can reply, “I meant. What did you think, when you first saw me?”
Rocky makes a thoughtful trilling noise. Grace has learned what sounds are language and what sounds are simply that. Like humming or purring. Rocky has started making more meaningless noises the more time he spent with Grace, picking up on humming to take up silence in the space of conversation, or sounds of anger, surprise, frustration.
“Loud.”
“Me?”
Rocky raises a hand to the thin screen between them, and starts banging on it with a fist. Concerningly strong, rattling, a thundering boom like the entire ship was going to break apart.
“Like this! Bang! Bang! My entire ship loud! Bang! Bang!”
“Okay! Okay! I get it. I didn’t know you were so reliant on sound waves to begin with, yknow. I’m sorry, I learned, didn’t I? Pretty quick.”
Rocky stops banging on the xenonite glass. He rumbles in a way that makes the smaller vents and carapace pieces on the top half of him ripple. He’s speaking in a way that is meant to be mocking.
“Not quick enough. Grace stupid. Take long time to learn.”
“Yeah well, human brains don’t adapt to alien stuff very well. We didn’t even know there was intelligent life elsewhere in the universe until I met you.”
“Yes. Space very big. Distance make communication difficult. Much effort.”
“Okay, other than me being loud, what else? Like, what did you think?”
“Thought loud. And confusing. Grace run away from Rocky ship. Did not know containers hold message until many tries–”
“It was only twice–”
“Scared! Grace scared of everything. Many time, even after knowing.”
“I wouldn’t use the word scared. More like, cautious. Humans are fragile. We die easily.”
Rock rattles in agreement, though he seems more concerned about this simple fact.
“Very fragile. Soft. Brittle. Sensitive.”
Without thinking about it, Grace glances at himself. He is most certainly not the peak example of what a prime human male could be. Just enough muscle to get him through the days and lift his equipment. Soft skin, pale from the lack of UV now, muscle that he’s slooowly gaining after finding some workout equipment aboard the ship and being nagged by Rocky about maintaining health.
Easily scarred.
The print of Rocky’s fingers are forever etched into his forearm. A forever reminder.
Rocky sports a similar silvery scarring on his carapace, but it’s less from Grace’s contact, and more from the way his atmosphere was killing him during his attempt to save his life.
Matching reminders than in more ways than one, they wouldn’t be alive right now without the other.
“My answer was sufficient, question? Grace gains something by asking, question?”
“Hah, I’m just bored. It’s like, a silly little question friends ask each other on Earth when there’s not a lot left to talk about. What did you think about me when we first met. Emotions and first impressions are very important to humans. It’s how we learn about each other, form feelings and stuff. Relationships grow and change endlessly.”
Rocky is quiet, like he’s processing it all, and then he rattles again, a ripple of his carapace pieces. Grace has learned that this means he is amused.
“Grace’s first impression of Rocky. Question.”
“Scary. But only because I’ve never seen another life form like you. You look like a boulder. Rock. Rocks on Earth are not sentient or move unless other life or nature moves them, and they certainly don’t communicate with us. Hmm, and cute, after I got over the initial fear part. Because you’re small and enthusiastic about everything. You’re a nerd.”
His companion chirrups in his typical, light laughter. He leans closer and the thin connection of xenonite glass bends slightly, a nudge on Grace’s shoulder.
“Grace also cute. Nerd. Like science, same way as Rocky.”
“I’m not as big of a nerd as you are. I shouldn’t have taught you that word.”
“Help to not be bored.”
“Hm. True.” Grace rolls over onto his back, focus on the sterile white ceiling before he closes his eyes. Rocky has given him enough to think about to no longer feel bored. He just doesn’t get a lot of time to mull those thoughts over, however.
“What else to not be bored, question?”
“Like other questions to ask?”
“To do.” Rocky says with exasperation. The tone he uses when he’s thinking the words Grace is stupid. Idiot.
“Hmm, well. On Earth we had more access to things like books, and TV, and music. Like waaaay much more than what I have here. We could go out and walk around to see new places. Restaurants. Museums. There were varying places to be entertained or try new food or things. Entertain the six human senses or any combination of them.”
“To do when in enclosure. Like space ship. Question.”
Grace thought about most of his time on the Hail Mary like being stuck in a college dorm room with an incredibly bossy roommate. Most of his time spent in college was an incredibly monotonous routine of study, sleep, eat horrible junk food, jerk off, study, sleep, repeat.
Well, he and Rocky have done plenty of studying.
“Grace thinking about something exciting or scary. Statement.”
“What?”
“Heart rate is elevated. Getting faster. Grace thinking about something exciting or scary, question?”
Oh boy.
He feels his face flush. He shouldn’t have even let his brain drop into that stupid gutter of thoughts. And he can’t even roll over and hide his face because Rocky can’t see his blush, but he can hear his heartbeat. Jeez, that’s kind of mortifying. He know Rocky had great hearing, but didn’t take into consideration that that could mean he could hear his body getting excited.
“Grace fall asleep, question? Rude! In middle of conversation! Wake up. Faker. Heart rate is too fast for sleep. Statement. Answer question now.”
“I wasn’t thinking about anything in particular.”
“Liar. Grace bad liar. Very bad.”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“Share. Share. Share. Won’t understand if Grace keep to himself. Share.” The tapping on the glass between them gets more insistent, annoying. Bossy, per usual.
So he brings both hands over his face, groans into them, and takes a deep breath trying to will his heart to stop beating so fast and giving himself away.
“A lot of humans will jerk off when they’re bored.”
There. Shared. Done.
“Do not understand. Jerk. Word meaning?”
Urrghh. And the fact that Grace could understand Rocky asking without the translator was even more mortifying somehow. The tonal up down of jerk sending dozens of memories flooding into Grace’s brain of his own hand around his dick.
“Uh. Like…” Eloquently, Grace tries to stutter through the right words to make it clinical and not…
Instead, he just takes his hand in the air, miming a loose fist and shaking it in the air a few times. Rocky’s body shifts, a few clicks and low vibrations as he gets a picture of what Grace is doing. He sits up on two of his legs, tilting this way and that slightly, like he’s trying to get a better view.
“This is jerk. With hand, question?”
“No it’s… I mean yes, this motion but it’s… uh”
There’s no easy or nonpainful way of explaining this, he’s realizing, a growing hot mortification burning the back of his neck and the tops of his ears.
“I told you about human reproduction before. Sex. It’s done for reproducing offspring but also for pleasure. Just because. Stimulation.”
“Humans are very tactile. Yes. Rely on vision and touch.”
“Well this is just touch. Jerking off. The penis is very sensitive, so you can just rub it to mimic mating and it feels good.” Grace tries to turn his whole brain off as he folds his hands over his stomach, very pointedly ignoring the way Rocky is now fully standing up attentively right next to him.
“Jerking off when bored. Grace has not done before. Statement.”
Grace practically chokes on his own spit, and sits up to cough. Rocky tilts to look at him, another clicking sort of amusement rattles the pieces of his carapace, but he doesn’t say anything. Just waits for Grace to continue.
“I’ve jerked off before. Just not, around you. Or on the ship. It’s private. Embarrassing to do around others.”
“Embarrassing. Strange human emotion. Grace say this often, still does not make it any more understandable.”
“Can’t really change how I feel about stuff, bud. It's like, cultural. Sex is private, and anything that is sex adjacent. Like masturbating.”
“Masturbating. Do not understand word.”
“Sex by yourself. Or not– uh. Self pleasuring.”
“Oh. Jerk off. Slang.”
Grace nods. What a freaking weird conversation. Explaining masturbation to an alien 16 light years away from Earth.
“Grace still bored, question?”
He can’t help the laugh that puffs out of his mouth.
“Not anymore, that’s for darn sure.”
Rocky rumbles and Grace almost snaps his neck from his fast he turns to look at him, the way his carapace has tilted and lowered… Disappointment. Rocky was disappointed that he wasn’t bored anymore.
“That’s… a good thing, yknow. Being bored isn’t fun.”
Rocky sounds like he’s pouting when he replies.
“Grace could have jerked off if bored. Now cannot because no longer bored.” One of Rocky’s claws is tapping at the floor of his bed, the space where it meets Grace’s mattress. A soft clinkclink of xenonite glass.
His head is reeling. A thousand thoughts running in his brain like a centrifuge. Grace can’t get it to slow down enough to try and determine anything coherent.
“Rocky. Masturbation is private for humans.”
“Have not had privacy together. Only us. Grace and Rocky share many times supposed to be private but instead together.”
Okay, that’s true, but most of it was because they didn’t have a choice, sharing what little space on the Mary they had together and the fact that walls did not mean any sort of visual protection from Rocky, left privacy a completely redundant concept for them. That didn’t mean that Grace took it to the extreme like walking around naked or masturbating in front of his alien roommate slash best friend.
“No privacy between Grace and Rocky. Not needed. Special. Grace show Rocky jerking off. Not be bored together.”
“You don’t get bored,” Grace hears himself say weakly, like that’s all he can get out on his collapsing lungs.
Rocky rattles a grinding noise and Grace knows what rolling his nonexistent eyes sounds like by now.
“You wanted to watch me jerk off in front of you.”
“Yes. Grace jerking off feel good. Want to hear.”
“Uh, usually… Yknow, sex things are done with people you like.”
“Rocky like Grace!”
The simmering blush on his face that had just begun to ebb away comes rushing back full force. He could pretend that Rocky doesn’t understand that statement, or the gravity of it. But the two of them have had enough deep conversations about Eridian relationships, compared their concepts of love and sexualities enough that Grace can’t pretend that an almost 300 year old alien is too childlike to know what he’s talking about. Rocky knows what love is, knows what attraction is, and can experience it.
“Rocky like Grace,” he repeats himself, stronger now, less an excited exclamation and more of a surefire statement like a truth as bright as the stars, “Rocky want Grace to feel good while Rocky watch.”
Another rumbling vibration makes the carapace shudder and Grace watches him between his fingers where he’s hiding against his knees and behind his own hands. There sure is a lot of revelations being made right now.
“Would like to do it. But cannot touch. Rocky not know how to jerk off, either. Grace show first, so Rocky can learn. Maybe do later.”
Three of Rocky’s claws raise and they open and close as they sway this way and that, all pointed at Grace. The only thing keeping them apart is a thin layer of xenonite and the incompatible atmospheres. Air and a few atoms. Somehow, the idea that Rocky might have just shoved Grace over and started touching him because he wanted to had him embarrassingly hard. He would be strong enough to. Grace wouldn’t even be able to fight him off…
“Grace thinking about something exciting. Statement. Share.”
Taptaptap, a claw on the glass. Excited.
“Body is changing. Erection. Observation.”
“Okay, you looking through my clothes is cheating,” Grace wheezes and puts a hand between his legs to squeeze at the traitor of a boner he is currently sporting.
“Grace not bored, but can still jerk off. Yes, question?”
He takes the biggest breath of his life and blows it out, lips blowing a very exasperated raspberry as he does. Fine. Fine.
As he starts to undo his pants, Rocky practically bounces around in a circle on his bed, legs clickclickclicking on the xenonite in a rapid tap of noise. Grace could tease him about being way too excited about this, if he had any guts about himself. But Rocky has proven many a time that any sort of quip is easily matched. Rocky is fascinatingly quick-witted and always gets the last word for any sort of argument or teasing spat they have.
So he just keeps his mouth shut as he shucks his pants and underwear to the side, shoves his pillows into a more comfortable position to lean back on, and flops over with his dick hard in his hand.
“Maybe this time around we can have a quiet learning experience? No talking?”
“Hm. Hm. Grace say one thing, mean the opposite. Liar.”
“I am not. Jerking off with an audience isn’t really easy to do. Being watched is embarrassing.”
“Hm. Grace like being embarrassed. Observation. Fact.”
“Now who’s a liar?” Grace huffs, feeling defensive. But Rocky isn’t exactly wrong. This is oddly thrilling, in a way that his dick is not flagging at all even though Grace wants nothing more than to wrap himself in all of his blankets and wiggle away.
“Not Rocky. Grace stalling. Keep going.”
Bossy.
Grace could roll his eyes and complain, but it’s all a front. Rocky’s stern voice that buzzes like music in his alien language makes Grace light up. He squeezes his fingers around the base of his cock, biting at the inside of his cheek to muffle his groan before he starts to stroke himself.
Grace starts slow, a steady up and down, smearing precum from the slit down his own shaft before muscle memory kicks in and he’s spitting into his palm and bringing it back around himself. The wet glide is much better, and he feels the way his chest stutters on the pleasure, a strangled groan sounding embarrassingly loud in the small space.
“Put something from mouth onto hand, question?”
“Spit. It–hhh, it feels better when it’s wet. Less friction.”
“Moving slow. Poor friction.”
He knows he’s not mocking him, or chastising him for the pace, but Grace strokes himself faster after that, breath shaking.
“Taking it slow makes it last longer. Jerking off isn’t about finishing as soon as possible. Sometimes, if you’re in a hurry but– ngh– going slow is good too.”
“Go slower.”
Ugh. Grace whines and forces his hand to slow down again. His cock pulses heavy against his palm, a strong throb as the command zips up his spine like an actual touch rather than just sound.
“Hhh, too– too slow means edging. I can’t finish if it’s too slow.”
Rocky rattles in a way that Grace can feel against his shoulder, realizes that he’s slumped off to the side against the xenonite glass and Rocky is right there. Observing, hovering. If the glass weren’t there, Grace would be leaning against him.
“Finishing takes much time, question?”
So much for a quiet jerk off. Rocky won’t stop talking, asking things that Grace would much rather explain after this is done. His body is so hot and the heat radiating off from the other side of the glass isn’t helping. Making sweat bead at his hairline, blonde sticking to his ears and nape and forehead tacky. If he closed his eyes and let his imagination run a little more wild, imagined the ghost of a rough, hot claw brushing over his skin he could come in no time.
A tap on the glass by his head reverberates against his temple.
“Grace. Answer.”
His exhale is shaky, pleasure hooked low in his gut. He tightens his fingers around himself, and keeps his pace slow like how Rocky told him to.
“It can– Orgasm can come fast or not. Depends on how worked up you are when you start jerking off, or what you’re thinking about. Lots of things can make it change. Few seconds or a few minutes. Hours hurts.”
“Worked up. Do not understand.”
“Turned on. Excited.”
“Grace is worked up now. Because of Rocky.”
Yeah. He nods wordlessly in agreement to this and feels the rumbling rattle of Rocky against his shoulders. His cock gives another aching throb, and he tightens his fingers again on the upstroke, groaning.
“Faster,” Rocky clicks at him.
And faster he does. The pace of his hand speeding up, precum and spit slick and audible over his soft panting and occasional groan. He is rewarded by Rocky rumbling behind him, and the vibrations are like an expanding heat between his shoulders.
Grace groans, back of his head dropping back, a thump against the xenonite glass reverberating dull and solid. It feels so good, he almost forgot how good this could be. His eyes slip closed, letting himself get lost in the sensations of it.
Rocky starts clicking, not words. Simple sound. Except it’s… it’s not…?
The tones are soft at first, purring like a cat or a low grumbling as it switches to that vibrating rumbling again, pulsing, rhythmic almost, and then it drones, steady. Grace doesn’t even have time to be confused about it, or try and get his stupid horny brain to put a scientific meaning to the noises and vibrations, because it’s like the rattling is in his very bones.
His hand strokes faster, thighs spreading as he fidgets on the mattress, pleasure settling under his skin and blooming more and more and more. His breath stutters, and frantically, he realizes that the growing pleasure in his belly, blooming outward to slowly take over his whole body isn’t natural.
It’s Rocky. Whatever the heck he’s doing back there as he keeps clicking and trilling and purring. It’s doing all sorts of things to his brain, and his body is a pathetic mess connected to it, unable to do anything but be led along.
“Oh–” he gasps, a leg kicking out as his toes curl. His orgasm is right there at his fingertips. But the next time he slicks his hand down, squeezing at the base, that freefall over the edge doesn’t come.
Rocky clicks at him again, and horribly, Grace registers it as him chuckling.
Faster, Grace.
Panting, he lifts his shaking hand, and stroking his cock feels like a monumental task now. Every slip of his wet fingers and squeeze as he drags up to the tip feels too much. His lashes flutter, and he blearily looks down his own body just to make sure he’s not imagining things. This is real, and the ripples of pleasure down his body are real, even though he can’t see anything physical touching him but his own hand.
“What are you doing?” he barely manages to moan, watching his own hand frantically stroking his cock, red and flushed and leaking.
Helping. Don’t stop.
“Please–!” he whines, feeling like he might shake apart if he’s made to wait any longer. Everything is so hot and tingling, a pleasurable buzz all over. His brain is liquefied enough now that he isn’t above begging.
As Grace opens his mouth to try again, another plea, for something he isn’t entirely sure about what he could be asking for, Rocky starts to rattle a whole octave deeper behind him.
It’s too much. His eyes roll, a weak moan tumbling out of his mouth as his jaw drops and the pleasure of waitwaitwait finally snaps in his belly. His cock throbs again, a quick kick before it starts to pulse wildly, cum dribbling over his fingers and shooting across his belly.
Grace tries to stroke himself through it, but it’s so sensitive that it hurts if he does anything other than keep his fingers tight around the base of himself. Even as his orgasm starts to edge into too long to be normal territory, Grace can’t stop, doesn’t even think about begging Rocky to stop.
All at once it’s like too much at once. An explosion of goodgoodgood and yesyesyes that clicks into nothing. A slip like missing the last stair running down the steps, a split second swoop of his entire body responding to a reflex that his mind is a half second too slow to catch up on. Tripping over a long cord across the classroom and the plug is violently yanked from the socket and snapping the projector off. A darkness that is instant.
Waking up is gentle.
Except for the alarm blaring in his ears.
Grace! Grace! Grace!
Then the tapping, or more… clinking? Taptaptap. Taptaptap. Five frantic legs on the floor. But not the tapping of xenonite he is used to hearing between the connections.
His body is still floating, warm and heavy and nice, and he groans quietly, blindly sweeping an arm out to try and get his hand to find Rocky’s orb and hold it still. Instead he meets air, and then his arm drops feeling twice as heavy as normal.
He opens his eyes sluggishly, and it takes quite a bit of effort to get them all the way open. He sees two little rock legs on the edge of the med-table. Taptap, and then leaving, reappearing on the other side before Rocky is suddenly hovering over his entire face.
“Grace!?”
“Wh-?”
Okay. Words are hard. That’s fine.
His tongue is heavy. Well, everything is heavy right now. Did they mess with the centrifuge settings?
“Grace!”
“‘Kaay,” he grumbles, hoping that annoyance comes across strongly, even though he can hear how slurred his own voice is to his ears.
He’s awake, he’s awake, jeez. Give him a second, he feels like he’s booting up AOL for his entire body, especially his brain. Maybe his brain is just running the plain old dial up. Slow. Slow. Slow.
Oh. Rocky is…
Not in his orb.
From his sideways view, it’s kind of silly to watch Rocky pitter around the room gracefully now, no massive atmosphere protective orb to roll around and bump into everything. No confinement to his special tunnels lining each room and passage of the Mary.
Rocky is freely moving around in the room. Grace squints, and sees the glimmer of the thinnest xenonite he’s ever seen. Like a tiny atmosphere around Rocky. A suit. Very well fitted.
“Wuh-? Lookit y’a!”
He makes the mistake of sitting up too fast, excited at the new getup, and suddenly he’s facedown on the ground. Fudge. The medical team needed to find a way to program these medical tables onto the ground. Ouch. Three feet was a long way to drop.
Also, he can’t feel his legs. Phew.
“Grace!” Rocky chitters with worry, and clammers over to him. His legs frantically poke around his body until he’s almost sitting on top of Grace’s chest.
Dopey, Grace smiles at him, both arms up around him in a hug. The only thing keeping him from being crushed entirely by all 400 pounds of dense little alien body is Rocky’s tripodding on the ground either side of Grace’s chest. He doesn’t have eyes, but Grace can see the way his entire body shudders with shock.
“Grace is okay! Question!?”
He can’t help but laugh, practically giggling to himself over the shrill concern.
“Yeah, bud. I’m okay. More than okay, actually. I feel so…”
“Apology. Great apology. My fault. Got excited. Forgot Grace is fragile.”
So he was messing with him somehow.
Grace pats his hand over Rocky’s topside. The xenonite shell is almost soft, but still hot to the touch. Not uncomfortable, but he would likely burn himself if he tried to keep contact for a long time.
“I’m fine. Great, even. That was like, the best orgasm in my entire life.” He thinks, maybe. Not all of his memories are fully there, but even without having all of his long term intact, Ryland Grace is absolutely certain that he has never come so hard in his entire life.
“You broke me,” he breathes and lets both hands flop to the ground as he closes his eyes, enjoying the chill of the medical floor on his skin, “I’m dead.”
“Grace dying!?”
“Metaphor. Slang. ‘M not actually dying. Feels really good though. Shhh. Let me just…”
Rocky rattles above him with a concerned trilling. His claws tap the floor again as he paces over Grace’s body back and forth before standing over the top of his head, tilting this way and that like he’s trying to see him better.
Grace reaches up and grabs at him, and he’s heavy, and Grace is weak, but when he pulls, Rocky tumbles to the ground easily so that Grace can curl himself onto his side and tug Rocky against his torso in a hug. Or as much of a cuddle as one can manage with a sentient five-limbed boulder of molten lava.
It’s not as uncomfortable as one would think.
“You got a new suit. Fancy.”
“Let Rocky be closer to Grace. Worry. Worry. Worry. Grace look like died. Would not wake up, but heart beating and breathing.”
“Yeah. You just made me orgasm so hard I passed out. Small coma. Very good.” He throws up a thumbs up for good measure to get his point across.
“No. Not good. Scary.”
“Sorry. It was good though. Whatever you were doing was crazy, I’ve never felt like that before. It felt very good.”
Rocky rattles in his arms like an angry beehive, but Grace knows that noise as a mix of exasperation, relief, and concern. A small clawed hand reaches up to tap Grace’s cheek.
“Grace is okay, question? No lying.”
“I’m okay, seriously,” he promises, leaning into the touch and smiles at the pressure of Rocky’s fingers pressing into his cheek.
He might have gone a little stupid. His brain still feels all fuzzy weird, but it’s good. A dopamine rush so strong it’s lingering.
“Now shhh. I need to nap. Like, five hours minimum.”
“That is not nap. Is sleep. Nap less than three hours.”
“Shhhh.”
“Grace. Sleep on bed. Human spine weak. Ache when wake up.”
Mhm, sure. Yep. He can’t even think about that. Future Grace’s problem. He nods like he’s listening but easily slips into a nice drift of unconsciousness. Dreamless.
It must not be long. See, just a nap, not sleep. Because when he opens his eyes again, he’s back on his bed. Soft mattress under him, and a warm solid against his back. He glances behind himself, smiling at Rocky laid out against the thin Xenonite glass between their beds.
Somehow, Rocky being the big spoon between them makes perfect sense.
Rocky is awake, the way his carapace tilts as Grace looks over his shoulder gives him away, but he doesn’t say anything. Grace settles back into his pillows, comfortable, and leans back against the glass heavier, satisfied at the solid press of heat all long his back, and feeling oddly pampered knowing that Rocky is letting him sleep in for a little bit longer.
He’ll interrogate the little guy about everything when he next wakes up, but for now, he just listens to the soft, low undertone of vibrations behind him. Soft sound that slips over him like a blanket. A touch, and when he closes his eyes he can imagine Rocky is curled around him entirely in a protective circle.