Work Text:
I was still recording video diaries for Earth, even though I knew none of the data would ever reach them. The probes were sent; the food rationed; and my decision had been made. And I don’t regret the decision, obviously. It was just a way to feel connected to them, despite actively getting further away every second.
Calling them video diaries is the most accurate term, because that’s basically what I’m using them as: a diary. There’s a bunch of notebooks around in the Hail Mary that I could have used instead, but the diaries weren’t just for me, not really. Rocky got a lot of enjoyment out of them as well.
It was during one of these video diaries that Rocky and I had an.. Interesting conversation.
“Ground Control, this is Major Tom– Actually, no, that’s morbid.” I wasn’t off to a great start. “Grace here, checking in.”
“Rocky here too.” He was distracted at the moment, working on another invention. He raised an arm in the direction of the camera, but I knew his attention wasn’t fully on me at all.
“Yes, Rocky’s here too,” I roll my eyes a little, because he is NOT present at all. “Rocky and Grace: intergalactic best friends.”
The word ‘best friends’ invokes a memory in me. I remember being age 13, sitting by myself in the school library because my best friend had run off to chase her crush. At the time, it was one of the saddest moments in my little life. I felt abandoned, and lonesome. Feelings I was used to feel, for sure, but never around her. And then it kept happening.. Again and again she left me for others, until I had to stop talking to her in Junior year. I decided to stop breaking my heart.
I pause for a moment after that memory. “
I pause for a moment. “That doesn’t seem right.. Best friends. We seem like more than best friends. I’ve had a best friend before, when I was way younger, and it wasn’t like this. We’re.. Different.”
Rocky trilled distractedly. I laugh under my breath, “You don’t have to respond, you know I’m just talking to myself. Anyways, as I was saying. It’s just a little different. A lot different, actually.”
I trail off to think about it. Even when I was in college being the most social I’ve ever been in my life, I didn’t have a relationship similar to anything that me and Rocky have. With Rocky, there’s no second-guessing, there’s no hesitation to respond. I don’t worry about saying the wrong thing because there’s no ‘wrong’ thing to say. If Rocky doesn’t understand, he’ll say so, and if it’s not funny, he’ll tell me that too.
What’s deeper than best friends? I search my brain for a word.
“...Maybe soulmates?”
“Don’t know word.”
I startle. I didn’t really mean to say that out loud.
“Oh, it's,” I stutter over my words for a moment, which catches Rocky’s attention to my immense chagrin. “It’s a way humans talk about relationships that are deeper than anything they’ve experienced before. Like, different from anyone else they’ve known. Better.. It can also imply an aspect of fate, or determinism. As if two people were destined to meet, and get along better than anyone else.”
I try to use a light-hearted tone during my explanation, but I can tell Rocky doesn’t buy it.
“Grace thinks we’re soulmates? I’m the best friend you’ve ever had? Question.” His voice is low but hopeful.
“Yeah.. I mean, hah, it’s a little sad that the best relationship I’ve ever had has been with an alien–”
“Rocky feel that way too. I’ve never.. Rocky is considered weird among other Eridians. Talk too much at times, talk too little at others. I fidget too much, or sometimes too still.. Rocky was happy when Adrian say yes to courting. Rocky was so, so happy.”
I smile at him, as I always do when he talks about Adrian. Soon, he’ll see his mate again. I begin to feel a familiar feeling. On Earth, whenever my close friends would talk about their significant others, I would get weird. Maybe it was FOMO – The fear of missing out? They would talk about dates, and I would say that those outings sounded like great hang-outs. Then they’d stop smiling, or grow uncomfortable, and say that only couples did those things; that they couldn’t do those things with me anymore because they had someone else. And then they would distance themselves from me.
“Rocky was so, so happy when Grace come back for me.” He continues after a moment of hesitation. “So happy, it felt like when courting Adrian. But I wasn’t as nervous, or worried about weirding them out. Same for you, question?”
“Yeah,” I feel myself starting to grin. “Yeah, exactly the same. When I talk to you, I get so happy it’s almost embarrassing.”
Rocky trills his happiness, and his body language gets less hesitant. He rises on his legs and leans towards me.
“In Eridian culture, there is something like soulmates too! Called 𝄞♬♪ 𝄞.”
“What’s that mean?” I hadn’t heard this word before. I recognized the cord for song, but nothing else.
“It means song mate. Every Eridian is gifted a song from their parents when very young. Song meant to be manifestation of Eridian soul. Very private, typically only parents and baby know it. But sometimes, you meet someone who is so special it feels like they were part of your song from the very beginning. When parents think of you before hatching, they also thought of that special person, before they even know baby.”
“You.. And you feel that way about me?” I ask, hushed. I feel the telltale warmth in my face that means I’m about to cry, but I blink it away. Rocky makes an embarrassed sound, and slouches down a little.
“Yessss.” He draws it out.
“Me too..” I scoot over to press my hand to Rocky’s xenonite ball. “Me too, buddy.”
I expect him to reciprocate the touch, but instead he just slumps down deeper.
“What? What’s wrong?” I tilt my head to see him better.
“Songmate usually.. Romantic. Statement.” I blink, and then feel my ears start heating up with a blush. “Usually only mate, like Adrian, songmate.”
“Shoot, yeah. So are soulmates, usually.” I frown, feeling nervous sweat start to build. I never feel this way around Rocky, so it’s kind of freaking me out. “So– So we can’t be that, then.”
“No..” He sounds dejected too.
“Rocky.. You don’t..” I loathe to even speak about the possibility. “You don’t like me like a mate, right?”
He shoots upwards with an outraged sound, and stamps all his feet. “NO! Ew, Ew! Grace gross, why even think that?!”
I throw my hands up, “I was just making sure!!”
“Grace is a leaky, squishy blob! How Rocky attracted to that?! Never! Ew, ew, ew!” He’s reaching pitches I had otherwise never heard from him except in dire situations. He keeps making stabbing motions at me with one of his fingers.
“Hey now, I’m almost getting offended!” I laugh, then take my glasses off and rub a hand down my face. “Phew. I was worried for a second there.”
“How dare Grace even say that?”
“It’s happened to me before, okay?!” I use the hand holding my glasses to gesture with reckless abandon. “I get too close to someone and they mistake my friendliness for romantic gestures! Rocky, you have no idea the amount of friends I lost to that stupid assumption.”
“Really nasty,” He repeats. “Disgust, disgust, disgust!!”
“Okay, I get it!” I’m full on giggling now. Thank God. “I get it, I’m a nasty human with several leaking orifices. So gross!”
“Exactly.”
“But,” I say, putting my glasses back on with a smile. “Is there a way to be platonic songmates? It’s way rarer, but some humans say they have platonic soulmates.”
“No, that’s not a thing for Eridians.” He sounds thoughtful. “But Rocky is an inventor.”
“That you are, buddy.”
“Rocky also weird already. Would not be too much weird to have songmate but for friend.”
“Wait, what about Adrian? Are they not your songmate already?”
“No..” He assumes that semi-embarrassed posture again. “Rocky not think of songmate when with Adrian. Rocky think of songmate with only Grace.”
“Heh,” I feel tears start to well up again and sniff them away. “Me, too. I can’t imagine a life where I never met you.”
“Rocky don’t even want to think of that.”
I laugh. “So.. soulmates?” I raise my fist for Rocky to bump.
“Songmates.” Rocky confirms, and he says it with a happy trill tacked on to the end of the word. He fists my bump.
—-
The malnutrition is, of course, one of the worst things I’ve ever felt. And it’ll only get worse. We have a year left until we reach Erid, and I’ve already run out of most nutritious food. It’s horrible, but at least Rocky’s here.
My quality of sleep keeps getting worse and worse; I toss and turn and wake up exhausted and shaky. And that’s without even mentioning the nightmares.
When I first started experiencing sleep paralysis, Rocky tried to make it a funny thing, making jokes that I was turning into a superior human– more like an Eridian. And then I explained the hallucinations. And then it wasn’t funny.
“Grace feels… scared, question? Even when I watch you sleep?”
“It’s hard to explain, bud.” I was soaked in sweat, and my breath kept hitching on aborted sobs.
“Try. Try to explain.”He stamped one leg on the ground for emphasis.
“It’s like..” I take a deep, heaving breath. “It’s like I’m awake, but I can’t move. It’s a dream, but I can see you watching over me, I can see the Hail Mary, I can see everything. But I also see dead bodies.”
Rocky chirps in horror.
“They’re the bodies of everyone I’ve ever known.” Commander Yao, Ilyukhina, their bodies frozen and stiff from space and decay. I see Stratt with dead, unseeing eyes staring through me. I see Carl standing behind her, expressionless and dull. “The worst though, is my students. I see them frozen as I knew them, but also literally frozen. Which is what will happen to them if the beetles don’t make it to Earth. And I can’t look away, and I can’t move.”
“....Human brains are horrible,”Rocky says in a low tone of voice. “Eridians have nothing like this.”
“I know.” He’s explained to me already that he never dreams: he doesn’t have the capacity for it. I pitied him then, and he pities me now.
“How can Rocky help?” He angles his body towards me, and I slump against his ball, feeling the soft heat he emits even layered in an inch or so of transparent xenonite. For once, he doesn’t say anything about me smearing my fear sweat against his ball.
“Um.. Try to wake me up? It stops when I wake up.”
“Rocky will do this. Rocky will do much to help ♪♫♪Grace𝄞𝄞. I don’t like seeing ♪♫♪Grace𝄞𝄞 scared.”
A trembley smile grows on my face. “What’s that mean? The notes before and after my name that you just made?”
I heard the chords for ‘love’ and ‘special’, and a bunch of other words but they were all strung together in a way I was unfamiliar with along with my Eridian name. Rocky made a noise I had very rarely heard in our years together– a low rumbling. It was the sound the Earth made right before a quake (or maybe that was my San Franciscan side jumping out?), and I secretly loved it. It was the sound of a deeply embarrassed and cagey Eridian.
“Nothing. Means nothing.” He rumbled. I tilted my head at him.
“You’re lying to me, now?” He makes the rumble again. “Come on, you can tell me. I won’t make fun of you.”
“Grace lies.”
“Okay, I won’t make fun of you that much. Just friendly teasing, come on, pal!”
“Don’t make fun of Rocky at all.” Oh, he was serious.”It’s a new Eridian name for Grace.”
“What’s the difference? I mean, I can hear the extra words but.. You know.”
“The name Grace is simple, means human-elegant in Eridian.” He said ‘Grace’ in the way I’m normally used to hearing my name pronounced in his tongue. Then he said it in the different way, “♪♫♪Grace𝄞𝄞 is more complicated. Means many things, more.. Everything about you.”
He was still clearly dodging the question: he hadn’t told me what it meant. Eridian names could be an experience, a combination of words, or just senseless music; but they all meant something. Rocky told me his name meant Hearth-Wind-Flow in Eridian, referring to the burst of warm air you feel when opening a hearth. His parents were the equivalent of Eridani blacksmiths (which meant they had the job of making ceremonial clothes), and they passed on that feeling to him.
“Okay, but what does it mean?” I pressed. Rocky grumbled again.
“Hard to explain,” he relented. “But means lots of things. Means Songmate, and love, and Grace, and special. Means genius, scientist, and savior. Will tell other Eridians how close we are, how smart Grace is. How important you are. I guess.”
“You guess?!” I laughed, my cheeks hurt from how wide I was smiling. “Rocky, why were you embarrassed about that? That’s so sweet.”
He reared up in defense. “It’s too sweet!! Embarrass, embarrass, embarrass!!” He released the equivalent of a whine. I fought the urge to giggle at him, and instead just beamed.
“I love you too, buddy.”
“Urrrghhh!!” Rocky groaned. I laughed.
We lay there like that for a while afterwards. Me wrapped around his ball as well as I could from my half laying down position, him slumped towards me. My eyes fell closed at one point as I listened to the gentle mrrr noise he made – almost like a cat’s purr.
“Grace feel better, question? No longer scared about hallucinations, question?” He stamped his foot twice gently.
“Yeah, I’m better now. It’s just scary.” I opened my eyes and gave him a beseeching look coupled with an exaggerated pout. “But now that I have my songmate cuddling me, I guess it’s not so scawy anymore.”
He moved his body to bump me with the ball roughly, and I let out a huff of laughter. He prodded at the ball in sharp stabs, making a poignant sound as he spoke.
“Should never have told you about songmate.”
“Nooo, come on! We’re human soulmates, come on!”
“You use for evil.” And I couldn’t really deny that, ‘cause I was.
—
Rocky spun around in a circle and squealed so loudly I stopped being physically capable of hearing it after a while. I looked up from my desk, unable to stop myself from smiling.
“What’s up, pal?” I asked, glasses slipping down my nose.
“Grace can finally meet Adrian!” Rocky trilled and began doing jazz hands. “Rocky and other engineers found way to produce EVA suits faster, easier! Now doctors, scientists, but more importantly: Adrian can visit!!”
I smiled at Rocky’s excitement. Of course, I had met Adrian before, though briefly. Adrian is a very busy Eridian, as was Rocky. The extent of our meeting was seeing Rocky waving energetically at me while another, taller, cobalt figure waved much more sedately at me from behind the thick Xenonite wall. I was later informed by Rocky ambling casually into my room, that that was Adrian.
“That’s great news! When?” I asked.
“Right now!” Rocky squealed.
“WHAT?” I was in my pajamas! Actually no, not even my pajamas, Ilykhina’s oversized fuzzy cookie monster pajamas. This was paired with a shirt I had found and hypothesized might have been from either the original or backup crew’s luggage, because it was oversized on me. I was probably the most comfortable I could ever be.
Certainly not an outfit to meet my songmate’s spouse in!!
“Wait, no, let me change, Rocky, come on–” but it was too late. I heard the hiss of the airlock, and the measured tick-tack of heavy Eridian footfall.
I turned to look, my glasses almost falling off my face with the force of the movement, to see an extremely tall Eridian walk into my room. I knew Eridians could come in many shapes and sizes, with there being myths of some as large as mountains, but this was the first time I had met an Eridian taller than I was.
Adrian was at least 7 feet tall, maybe even taller, and a deep blue color that was awash with lighter sky blue pattern; almost like freckles or birth marks. They reminded me of the surf on Ocean beach in SF, and their demeanor seemed reminiscent of it as well. It made me remember the few Sundays back on Earth, where I would grab cheap beignets from a local bakery and walk the closed great highway, looking out onto the foggy horizon as the ocean purred in my ears. The memory made me melancholy.
Which was not a great mood to be in to greet my soulmate’s spouse.
“Greetings, Savior Grace.” Adrian used my official Erid name, which meant something along the lines of Human-Savior-Grace-Scientist-First in English. They then put two hefty arms together to bellow their own name. “I am [Deep-Ocean-Geyser-Bubbling-Darkness-Depth-Life-Against-All-Odds]. I am honored to meet you.”
“I’m honored to meet you as well,” I smiled nervously, and then decided to match their formality. “I’m Captain Dr. Ryland Grace. But you can call me Grace, or Ryland, if you want.”
“You have four human names,” they noted. “I believed humans only had one name.”
“Oh, no. Humans can have many names. But for me, the first two, uh, Captain and Doctor, are titles that I earned through schooling or accomplishments! I’ve only got two names: a first and a last name. Um, that’s Ryland and Grace respectively.”
Oh god, I was floundering. My usual tactic of imagining important Eridians as my students wouldn’t work this time; Adrian was far too tall for me to pretend I was talking to a middle schooler who can smell fear. I peeked at Rocky and saw him practically vibrating from excitement. So I could expect no help there.
“Understand. Much like myself. I am the equivalent of Eridani Nobel Peace Prize winner. It is nice to meet an alien academic.” They purred proudly.
“Whoa,” I said. “You’re that decorated? I– Wait, how’d you know about Nobel Peace Prizes?”
“I have been utilizing Rocky’s human thinking machine! Great for learning Savior Grace human language and culture.” They tapped their fingers together jauntily. “Correct reference, question?”
“Yeah, you did great! Perfect reference.” I was still a little in shock that I was casually speaking to functionally a Nobel Prize winner. Young Ryland used to daydream about days like these. “Wow.”
Rocky scittered over to me, and bumped my leg affectionately, and then rotated towards Adrian.
“So, what does Adrian think? Adrian speak, Grace respond, much in common.” Rocky asked, before leaning in and continuing with a teasing lilt in his voice. “Grace is so strange right?!”
“Hey!”
“What?” He had laughter in his voice. “You are strange! Rocky has said this before. Grace is leaky, Grace is soft, Grace only have 4 legs! You are alien, but it’s cool. Adrian is scientist like you, so they think you’re cool, too.”
“Extremely.” Adrian echoed. “Savior Grace is extremely cool. An organism made of almost all carbon. Unbelievable.”
Rocky trilled in joy, but stopped when Adrian physically turned to orient more towards him.
“Rocky is unbelievable, too. Unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelieveable.”
“Um..” Rocky said, shrinking in on himself a little. “What does Adrian mean, question?”
I considered myself fairly fluent in Eridian, but I had never been the best at social cues, nevertheless alien social cues. But even I could tell that Adrian’s tone was not a friendly one. The deep, sonorous quality of their voice had turned flat.
“Rocky call Grace songmate, question?” They moved closer, looming over us.
Both me and Rocky said ‘oh’ in sync. Rocky had used his name for me when talking to Adrian – my songmate name – which he had been refraining from using around the other Eridians because they wouldn’t understand. He wanted the other Eridians to focus on meeting me, saving me, and integrating me before he brought up the… inventive term we used to define the depth of our friendship.
“Rocky not call Adrian songmate ever. Savior Grace is interesting, smart alien. Understand. What Adrian not understand is why Rocky would not tell Adrian that Rocky find songmate in Savior Grace. That Adrian is no longer the most beloved one before I meet Savior Grace.”
I looked at Rocky. He was still, which was not a good indicator, since he was very rarely still. He was making these hem-haw voices that didn’t really mean anything. Essentially, he just kept saying ‘Um’ and ‘Uh.’ Adrian stomped one arm on the floor. It left a dent.
“Answer!”
Rocky actually squeaked in shock. I decided to come to his rescue. Or, more like my mouth decided to come to his rescue without consulting my brain.
“It’s platonic!” I blurted out, spreading my arms out wide to interrupt Adrian’s interrogation of my best friend. “We’re platonic songmates! Completely friendly, no romance, no mating. You have nothing to worry about! You’re still his mate!! Not me, never me!!”
“Impossible,” they said. Their voice deepened with anger, to the point where I felt the sound of it vibrating in my chest. “Songmate not for friends. That is exact opposite of what songmate is. Savior Grace think Adrian is small-born idiot?”
“No, of course I don’t think that!” I sputtered. “I would never– I– Rocky, it’d be nice if you helped me out here, pal..!”
“Rocky and Grace are weird!” Rocky shrieked out, touching his fingers together in his typical nervous tick. And then he didn’t say anything else. Just nervously fidgeted. Jeez, we were both awkward.
Adrian couldn’t seem to even muster a reaction. If they were human, they’d be standing there with their mouth open, flabbergasted. Then they shifted, and seemed to come to some conclusion.
“Yes. Rocky Grace very weird.”
And then they turned around and left the room.
“Oh no,” Rocky slumped to the floor. “Oh no, no, no. Adrian does not understand.”
“Well, we didn’t exactly do the best job explaining it to them.” I ran a hand through my hair, suddenly exhausted. “You kind of froze up there, Rocky.”
Rocky released a single, forlorn note from his vents. “Adrian and Rocky rarely argue. When we do, Adrian lets me write down what I want to say before big conversation. Adrian knows if Rocky does not write down how he feels, Rocky will not be able to remember when in argument. Rocky gets.. Overwhelmed. So mad, say bad, bad, bad things.”
“Oh.” That system for arguing sounded genuinely wonderful. I wished people on Earth did things like that.
“Adrian must be big mad to argue and not give me time.” He made the sad noise again. “Oh no… no, no.”
“It’ll be okay,” I crouched down to his level and wrapped my arms around his EVA suit. “You guys have been together for over a hundred years. One weird, squishy alien isn’t gonna stop that.”
“But you aren’t just a weird, squishy alien! Grace is Rocky songmate! Platonic, friend songmate. Most important person. Which.. Which Rocky invented. Concept does not exist on Erid.”
The sad noise continued, becoming a steady drone playing underneath Rocky’s speech. I finally registered what it was: Rocky was crying; weeping. I held him tighter.
“Rocky weird.” I made an affronted noise but Rocky plowed over my words. “Rocky weird! Rocky learn to act less weird, hide some things. But Adrian love all of Rocky. Friends ask Adrian why they love weird Rocky. They asked if Rocky was a lot to deal with. Adrian always said no, no, no. Love, love, love. But now… I am scared that this is one thing Adrian cannot continue loving Rocky for. I am scared Rocky is too weird for Adrian now, after so long alone.”
“That…” I trail off because I have a lot of opinions about that. It always stunned me how similar Rocky and I were despite being from completely different planets. “First off, those ‘friends’ don’t sound like good friends. That’s so mean to ask, and condescending. You deserve better. Secondly… If Adrian can’t handle who you are now, then they can get lost.”
“What?! No, Adrian is perfect! What the fuck?” (He really said ‘fuck’, by the way. He had translated an Eridian equivalent to the human expletive while on the way to Erid, and now used it liberally, to my utter chagrin.)
“Well, I think you’re perfect.” I squished my cheek against his suit, feeling the familiar warmth heat my skin. “And that’s why you’re my soulmate. You should tell Adrian that I don’t feel romantic attraction in that way, or at all, and that it truly is completely friendly. They’re so smart, Rocky. Surely they’ll understand.”
“I don’t know how I’d explain…” Rocky grumbled. “Rocky can barely put it into words.”
“Here, wait a second.” I had an idea. I quickly crawled over to my desk and grabbed four items: a pen & paper and an Eridani slate & stylus. “Let’s write it down.”
Rocky made a grumpy ‘hrrmm’ noise, and I answered with an encouraging Eridian ‘mmhh?’ type noise.
“Come on,” I bumped him with my shoulder, and he moved slightly to humor me. I knew he only moved for my benefit, my weight didn’t affect him at all. “You just said Adrian lets you write down your thoughts. Let’s write them down together so we can explain this the right way. So neither of us act like stumbling idiots and just say we’re weird freaks!”
“....” Rocky picked up the stylus. “Why Grace so smart all of a sudden?”
I snickered and shoved him with my shoulder again.
“No, no, no, seriously. Rocky like Grace better when Grace not emotionally intelligent.”
—
So, to my complete and utter dismay, my entire care team now knew that Rocky and I called each other songmates. The wonders of sound being your primary sense: they all heard that entire argument. And yeah. None of them got it, either.
“Ooooh,” Pearl, one of my nurses, cooed. “I understand. Savior Rocky and Savior Grace need alone time.”
She titled her carapace towards us in a smug, knowing motion.
“Holy shit, no.” Rocky groaned. One bad thing about becoming fully fluent in Eridian was that I now realized just how much Rocky swore on an everyday basis. It’s like he was trying to make up for the fact that I didn’t.
“No, no, it’s okay..” She drawled. “Pearl understands. Pearl knows. When two people.. Er, one person and an alien– love each other very much, these things tend to happen..”
I full body cringed at the very implication, shoulders curling in and tongue sticking out in an exaggerated disgust face. I was almost tempted to fake gag if I didn’t know that'd cause 6 Eridians to come rushing into my room immediately.
“Pearl, no. Just no. Fudge no.” I made an X motion with my arms. “We’re just gonna watch a movie.”
Pearl perked up.
“A movie, huh? Very, very interesting..” She repeated suggestively. Oh my GOD. Do Eridians have pornography? Because it sounds like she’s insinuating that we’re gonna watch an adult movie. I was simultaneously disgusted and intrigued. Sign me up as scared and never horny.
“If Pearl want,” Rocky deadpanned. “Pearl can watch the movie with us.”
Now she recoiled. I smirked. Revenge sure did taste sweet.
“Yeah, come on, Pearl.” I coaxed her, mimicking her suggestive coo. “Come join us.”
“Um,” she looked right and left like she was in a sitcom. “No–No, thank you! Pearl has to check on, um. The… Medical machines..”
Then she scrambled out of the room. We waited until she was back into the Erid atmosphere before breaking out into laughter. Rocky laughed so hard he tripped on his own 5 legs like a pebble, and just stayed on the floor giggling. Seeing that, I went from laughing to wheezing, and tears sprang into my eyes.
“Oh man,” I croaked. “We probably shouldn’t have done that.”
“But it was funny! Funny, funny, fun..!” He was forced to trail off at the last ‘funny’, since he began laughing too hard to talk. 5 whole voiceboxes, and he couldn’t spare even a single one to not laugh.
“They’re gonna think,” I gasped. “They’re gonna think we’re pounding it down every time we watch movies!”
“Oh no, Grace!” Rocky wheezed, still laughing. “We watch movies every night!”
“This is horrible!”
“This is amazing!” He countered.
“Rocky! What if they want to watch?! For science?!” This set Rocky off again, which was my intention. After a while, we both calmed down enough to have a real conversation about this. I pulled out my laptop and he pulled out his gun.
We had been doing research to see if humans had invented anything like what we felt for each other. Just because Rocky had to be an Eridian trailblazer, didn’t mean I was. We found Wikipedia to be a wonderful source of information.
“So I’m aromantic and asexual, which I knew already. And you’re probably some sort of asexual too, based on what you told me.”
“Rocky unlabeled.” He said stubbornly. I rolled my eyes.
“Rocky, I’m telling you, you’re definitely under the asexual umbrella with how you feel.”
“I don’t understand why have to choose a human sexuality. Eridians don’t even have gender. Why label everything?”
I pulled my head back in bafflement. “Okay, but when I try to make human equivalents for Eridian genders, you shut me down! You’re asking me, a scientist, to not label something? Come on, man!”
Rocky threw two arms up half-heartedly into the air. We have had this argument before.
“Rocky Grace in human queerplatonic relationship. This label I accept.”
I smiled at him. It was kind of crazy. I had been in committed relationships before, but if I was honest with myself, I was not the committed party. With Linda, she suggested moving in, she was the one talking about rings and kids, and she was the one who pushed for meeting parents and family and such. I never cared or wanted to do those things.
But now, with Rocky, I wanted to do all of that. Rocky told me about his parents, and I found myself wishing he could meet mine. My mom would love him. Rocky and Adrian used to have plans for having kids, and now I found myself pondering being called ‘Uncle Grace’. I had even pushed Rocky into drafting up an attached habitat for me inside their home, even though he chided me on being too optimistic about Adrian.
My first committed relationship was with an alien. How fitting for a guy “with his head in the clouds.”
“And we’re in an Eridian weird mate-synchronous friendship.” I chimed in. Rocky had begun using the word ‘weird’ as a stand-in for queer, since Erid didn’t really have anything like that yet. Or well, Rocky assumed there were lots of other people who felt the same way he did, and that he was just the first person to name it.
“Rocky writing this all down,” his slate had been upgraded as we researched. He now had what was essentially a notepad on which he wrote his speech to Adrian in. He etched a couple characters into the surface with a xenonite pen. I wasn’t able to read much written Eridian yet, despite Rocky’s tutoring, so I couldn’t really tell what he was writing. “Grace think this will be enough to convince Adrian?”
“I hope so. I mean, you have to go home sometime, either way. As much as I love you, you can’t keep slumming it here.”
“Why not??” Rocky whined.
“You’re scaring the nurses! It’s not everyday that the Savior of Erid is at their workplace 24/7! They had just got used to me, it’s way harder with you!”
“Is this why Pearl is only nurse I see?!” Rocky exclaimed. “Are the other nurses scared of me?!”
“Yes! You see?! It’s having negative effects!”
Rocky harumphed, but nodded his head at me. He knew I was right; one way or another, he would have to speak to Adrian eventually. We heard a crackling on the intercom system.
“Um,” said someone I assumed was a janitor based on what was said next. “Was sent to clean after Savior Grace Savior Rocky have, um.. Alone time.. Are you two… finished up..?”
“I’m going to kill someone.” Rocky’s voice was serious, and his still posture affirmed it. He was mortified.
“You can’t,” I said, regretfully.
“Want to.”
“I know, buddy.”
“Very, very, very badly.”
“I know, buddy.” I said, then: “...It’s not funny anymore, is it?”
“Not at all.”
—--
Rocky was waiting for me in my classroom this morning. It was only my third day of class, so the parents of the pebbles were supervising. This peeved Rocky off, so he decided he was going to supervise them.
I actually had a pretty decent class size. Around 32 pebbles in total, with about 1-2 parents with each, for a total of around 72 Eridians, half of which were crammed into a classroom meant for beings half their size. So, pretty typical for the first few days of primary school.
Not everyone was there yet, obviously. I was the teacher so I made sure to arrive at least an hour before every class period. There were just a couple of my favorites.
I wasn’t supposed to have favorites, but come on. Of course I did. Even 3 days into teaching I could tell which little buggers would be my favorites.
Lee, a rowdy green kid, perked up when she saw me and waved with two of her arms.
“Hello, Teacher Grace!! Hello!”
“Good morning, Teacher Grace Savior Rocky!” Boomed Lee’s parent, Guy. (Okay, sue me, I named them after Naruto characters. Sometimes I listened to the things my kids on Earth talked about.) “Sleep well?”
Whoa, that was kind of an intimate question. At least by Eridani standards. Rocky made an offended noise.
“I.. Yeah, I guess we did. Can I ask why you’re asking? That’s.. Kind of. Well, you know. Private.”
“Oh!” Guy shied slightly. “Guy just assumed.. Is sweet when ask mates that question, right, question? Apologies if offend!”
Good grief.
“Not this again,” Rocky groused.
“We’re just friends, Guy.”
“But.. Savior Rocky call Teacher Grace songmate?” This time it was little Lee that spoke up. The innocent curiosity in her tone softened me a bit.
“Yes, we call each other that, but for us, it’s purely friendly.” The translator was so advanced that it even echoed my gentle teacher voice, which made Guy look a little less chagrined. I smiled: “We’re weird.”
“Very weird,” Rocky confirmed. “Rocky invent weird mate-synchronous friendship to better describe relationship Rocky and Grace made in space.”
“Is..” Guy sounded uncertain. “Is weird only for Savior Grace Rocky, question? Or can anyone be weird, question?”
Rocky stood at attention.
“Anyone can be weird!” He asserted, loudly. “Anyone!! And there are many ways to be weird! Grace Rocky just one way! Here, Rocky have pamphlet.”
And then he rushed over to the airlock in the classroom, pulling several slate-pamphlets from his bandolier. Guy looked deeply embarrassed, but he was also making interested chirping sounds.
Rocky had become Erid’s first queer ambassador. It was sort of touching. He really started a movement.
“Okay, so Teacher Grace Rocky weird… What about Savior Rocky mate, question?” Lee’s little voice chimed in again.
“Oh, well, that was a hard dynamic for a little while. But we figured it out,” I smiled and tapped lightly at my one pierced ear. It held a single deep, cobalt stud. “We’re all pretty friendly now.”
“Very weird!” Lee giggled. “I have two friends, can Lee be weird too, question?”
“Ough,” I froze. I wasn’t expecting to have this kind of talk with a pebble as young as Lee was. “...Yeah. You definitely can. If you feel a special connection with anyone or feel different than your peers.. I.. Um, maybe Rocky can give you a pamphlet too?”
Rocky gave me a thumbs down from his side of the xenonite, and fetched a separate, child-friendly version of his weird pamphlet for Lee.
Another kid got jealous, and requested their own pamphlet as well. Which only snowballed into every single kid and parent in my class ending up with one of them by the end of the day. Rocky excitedly ran back to our house to retrieve a box full of assorted weird zines and such, and even though it was a major distraction to the class, I didn’t mind. Seeing him so happy just made me happy too.
“I think I’m weird,” said a moody pebble. This one was a color so purple it was almost black, with red specks lurking within. I named them Shy-Guy since they rarely spoke up. Their parent looked at them with shock. Rocky chirped in glee.
“Me too!! Me too, Shy-Guy!” Yelled Sunny, jumping down from his seat to poke at the other pebble enthusiastically. “So are Nicholas and Garfield and Daphne! Come sit with us!”
“We form a group,” trilled Daphne, a pebble that always tied Erid flora around their arms. “A weird group.”
“Can I join if not weird?” Shouted another kid, Mort, from across the classroom.
“Sure.” Said Garfield. This made a lot of other kids start shouting about joining, to the astonishment of the parents.
“Oh, my god.” I said distantly. “A GSA. The kids are alright.”
“No. The kids are weird.” Rocky sounded very smug as he said that.