Chapter Text
Grace was quiet, not the usual quiet where he still made noise and clattered about in his wake. No, he was quite in the way, Rocky knows he is scared, and he supposed Grace had always been a very fragile person. He cried over a broken vial, over the leaves falling off trees, and sometimes when Rocky wasn't looking over his broken and silver-stained carapace. Grace was similar but very different to those of his own world, too sensitive, too emotional, and most of all, too fragile. In all the ways that Rocky has come to learn, make him so achingly human. Rocky knew his people were kind, sometimes too headstrong, but always willing to lend a helping hand, and very few derailed from that trend. He himself was not always well-liked back on Erid.
His clutch mates had told him it was because he was too brash, too loud, too emotional. He also swore like a sailor, so there's that too. But he was the only one who could help make the impossible possible, and maybe they tolerated him just a bit more for that. He sometimes, in the quiet, wondered if Adrian found a new mate; he wouldn't begrudge them that.
Yeah, it would break all six of his hearts and make him want to sleep forever. And maybe sometimes he thought of shooting himself out of the airlock so he wouldn't have to face a world without Adrian, but now he had a pebble who needed him.
Not that grace-minded Rocky calling him his grace or his pebble, he actually played into it most of the time. Rocky wondered if he did it to distract him from the fact that two of his arms were mangled and in casts, with his carapace all burned up and leaking internally. Hopefully, soon they would make it to World 3, drop off their star eaters, and go to Erid. Before he reached eternal sleep, and he became stardust like all the ancestors before him.
He watched as Grace quietly stood up at some point and curled himself around Rocky's small ball, his much thinner limbs lacking their once robust nature. Tears spilled over his ball, and Rocky quietly hummed, trying to lull Grace to sleep. He hoped soon they would be free of the horrors that had gripped them in space. But he knew deep down, they never would.
So Rocky watched Grace sleep. When all his tears ran dry, and his fingers stopped shaking.
As time wore on, Grace started asking more questions about Rocky. More about his home, about life, Adrian, and how they met.
"How did you and Adrian meet, Question?"
"Rocky meets Mate. Question? Why does Grace want to know, Question?"
"I don't know, Rock just wanted to know how you met your oh so magnificent mate, if you want to tell me that is..."
His voice tapered off into a quiet, almost wounded shake. Rocky found that the longer he stayed with Grace, the more he realized Grace didn't know all the things that gave his emotions away. So he put down his tools, making sure to announce himself more than usual with every step as he headed towards Grace's small nest against the Xenonite wall. Tapping the wall three times, he listened to Grace's movements get comfortable against the wall, touching against Rocky's own carapace.
Sliding down the wall with ease to fold his limbs comfortably under his carapace, he turned to Grace, pulling out a small, misshapen woven flower and placing it as close as he could so Grace could hopefully see it. Using one of his three claws, he ran his finger carefully over the now weathered petals, a small hum of sadness leaving him. Memories of a life that felt more like a story than his came forward once more.
"Rocky was not liked by many other Eridians, Statement. Seen as Bad, Bad, Bad. Cluster haver even kick-... Rocky out for not being Amaze, Amaze, Amaze. Like clustermates."
Rocky could remember it now, the long screeching notes, limbs flying to protect his carapace. His cluster haver had not been bad to Rocky; no, they had been patient with Rocky compared to his siblings, but Rocky was not the most stunning, nor the most intelligent, Rocky was just rocky. Broken, tiny, rocky with all the bad, bad, bad, stuck inside of him, unlike his clutstermates. His "Father" was not mean like those films Grace loves to watch that make him a leaky space blob, no, they were kind for the most part and willingly ignorant at worst, until they weren't. His clustermates grew higher and higher in their society while Rocky, with all his stuttering notes, feeble body, and failing limbs, could barely make himself walk most days properly. But he learned! He grew, grew, grew! He fought all those fuckers who laughed at him and made sure to kick them into dirty alleys anytime he could get away with it. But his "Mother" was not a patient eridian; they wanted Rocky to soar above the clouds like his classmates had, but he never quite made it that far. Then they got into an argument! BIG, BIG, BIG, ARGUMENT. And he was pushed out of the nest by his parents, told never to come back, that a bad pebble like him should have been given to Erdian authority to dispose of. Rocky had screamed and wailed in anger, his tones mixing so horribly it mangled his vocal cords for the next few years. And sometimes even now.
"But Rocky is able to build! Great, BEST, BEST, BEST ENGINEER!"
He had wandered around Erid's surface for years seeking out any job opportunity he could get; his parents may have been right about him. But he would never allow their correctness to submerge him in sorrow. He was great at building, was very resourceful, and most of all, very creative. So he found ways to do odd jobs here and there, build from the ground up what little he could, even when others hummed at him weirdly for being unable to speak properly. With great effort, he found his teacher, who took him under his wing and left him to flourish, reaching new heights that Rocky knew were mostly due to his mentor's reputation. Sometimes he wondered if his parents would be proud of him.
"Rocky got a new job, there Adrian best most, most, most, attractive eridian ever! But Rocky, not meet Adrian till many months into working in the engineering department, statement."
To be more precise, Rocky was kept out of the way in a quite secluded area where no one could hear him. So used to barely having anyone around, Rocky would think out loud, sing, and scream in frustration with a few flavorful curse words thrown in there. Years of not being able to speak left him with the habit of constantly talking, if only to remind himself he was able to and nothing more. He had noticed someone coming and going from his little corner of the building for some time before actually finding any evidence of someone being there. He was already called crazy by Oil, who worked in the radio department, and he wasn't about to interact with a stranger just because he was lonely.
"One day, Rocky bumped into a much larger Erdian! Sound out to sense Adrian! Amaze! AMAZE! AMAZE!"
Rocky had been all over the place with the latest request from the broadcast department! How dare those fucking, pieces of low-life shit try to pass off his hard work for OIL'S! He knew that Eridian bastard was up to no good, and when Rocky got his claws on him, he would chuck him out the third-story caves into the river below just to hear him flail around and drown! With wild whistles and thumbing legs against the hard ground, he failed to notice a much larger Erdian hiding just around the corner! With a loud thump and humiliating pitched squeak, Rocky ended up slamming into one of the erdians' legs and slamming back against the cave's walls.
"'I'm so sorry, are you alright?!'"
"Apologies, apologies, apologies!"
Rocky, of all people, should have recognized that voice. After all, it was Adrian of the Bio department that everyone in the resting halls liked to gossip about being constantly courted and for some reason, still single.