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Grace never thought his feelings towards Rocky would come to this.
At first he didn’t even realize what was happening. Their relationship had always been close - it was hard not to get attached to Rocky - but now with the inclusion of the fairly new Xenonite EVA suit, they had become even closer. It was like a flip had switched, and now there was always some kind of idle touching going on between them - hands on arms and legs and ruffling through hair, bodies pressed close as they laid together, and so so many hugs.
It was honestly pretty nice.
But Grace couldn’t shake this underlying feeling that he was missing something in those interactions. It was like an increasing tension that only seemed to wind up more and more as he sat and waited for the inevitable shoe to drop. He didn’t even really know exactly what he was waiting for, why he was getting so antsy and paranoid during cuddle sessions or movie nights, until one day it hit him like a proverbial truck.
Loud and jarring and extremely unwelcome.
He was experiencing sexual tension for Rocky.
That’s what it had to be, right? He didn’t know what else it could’ve been. Why he felt like there were needles prodding his skin at every lingering touch Rocky gave him, why he always expected a question for more and more; and the feeling was reminiscent of a scared dog flinching at the sight of raised hands, even if those hands would do nothing to it. He was anticipating the advancement of their relationship; those caring touches and nightly cuddles only meant the eventual upbringing of something more in their relationship.
There was always an obligation to uphold.
And so the tension continued, like a horrid weight at his back, as he tried to continue through the days like everything was normal. He was beginning to feel more and more pent up as every moment of peace dragged on, when expected questions were never asked, and when calm was trying so hard to be present.
Where his and Rocky’s relationship was currently resting at - and Grace didn’t try to think too hard about that either - was where previous partners would have tried to have sex with him.
Was that what he was missing with Rocky?
Something about that didn’t feel quite right, but he also wasn’t in a normal situation either. So he figured that, if anything, wanting to have sex with your alien best friend after spending weeks cuddling would actually be the most normal thought to have. It’s what was expected, anyway. It was just the natural flow of relationships - you got together, you cuddled, and then you had sex.
His and Rocky’s relationship was probably the deepest one he has ever had, so this was just the natural progression of it.
Grace would mull the idea of turning their hugs and cuddles into sex over and over in his mind like an endless, spinning cog for days on end. It felt maddening at times, that he had gotten himself so worked up over something that may or may not even be there to begin with.
He wanted to have sex with his friend.
Surely that was what all of the tension he was feeling came from, right?
He would think about it constantly, weighing the scales like his soul was on the line, and he never came to any real conclusions. He was stuck in a loop of worry, and every single touch that he and Rocky shared only seem to amplify that feeling.
It was that kicked-dog tension again, but this time he felt like both the dog and the hand that would strike it.
The feeling was beginning to eat him alive until he just couldn’t take it anymore. He needed to breach the subject and just ask Rocky. There was no harm done in suggesting such a thing, and honestly the worst that his friend could say was no. But even then, the possibility of Rocky saying yes felt even more daunting and uncertain than any rejection could ever be.
Grace needed to table these thoughts, there weren’t going to get him anywhere except being, what he assumed was, sexually frustrated. It was one thing having to navigate such feelings with a human partner - and he was now quite literally treading unknown waters with Rocky - but Grace wasn’t even the best at that from as much as he could remember about his past life.
He just needed to ask Rocky. It would be fine. It was going to be simple. He’d get his answer, yes or no, so all he had to do was ask.
Three day cycles passed before Grace built up the nerve.
It wasn’t that he was procrastinating telling Rocky, he just hadn’t found the right time to do so yet. It wasn’t an easy question to spring up on someone, what was he going to do? Walk up to his friend and just blurt out I want to have sex with you? No, he needed to wait until the mood was right. There was the legitimate fear that, if rejected, their relationship would take a turn for the worst; that Rocky would see him in a different way, and that their friendship would slowly fade until they were completely avoiding each other.
So that’s why it took him many days of pacing and restless sleep and chewing his fingers or any pen in the vicinity before he worked up the tiniest ounce of courage just to ask.
It kind of happened suddenly, in all honesty.
The night cycles on the Hail Mary were usually dressed in low, warm lights that created a comforting and relaxing atmosphere to the otherwise cold, sterile, and almost a little clinical white halls of the ship. Blue light still filtered in from the screen of the laptop that rested on Grace’s legs. Normally, on nights like these, he would forgo the bed altogether and choose to lay in a blanket pallet he had constructed on the floor of the dormitory - it was just a lot easier to settle down with Rocky when they both weren’t trying to fight for space on a twin sized mattress. So, the floor nest - as Rocky called it - was made, and it was their go-to spot now for their many sleepovers. Which didn’t really differ much from their usual nightly routine, but instead was located on the floor and involved a lot more late night chatting, movie-binging, or laptop scrolling.
The computer was like a heating pad on Grace’s lap, but it paled in comparison to the Eridian tucked next to him, searing a steady heat and pressure through his Xenonite suit and into the side of his hip. One of Rocky’s hands was very close, resting on his thigh, as he set up his light-to-texture screen reader for their late night laptop browsing. They had recently gotten hooked on scrolling all of the archives of Reddit that were in the Hail Mary’s database, and Grace briefly hoped that this would be another night of reading and debating Am I The Asshole? posts together.
But the hand on his thigh kept making his mind wander.
Glances kept being shot in Rocky’s direction, and Grace wondered if his friend even registered the touch; it was so intimate, yet extremely mundane as well, like it was supposed to be there and nowhere else. A hand on his thigh, but one that never traveled, it stayed locked just above his knee. He wanted to reach down and place his own hand on top, hold Rocky there for the rest of the night in solid, present contentment, but-- there had to be more, right?
Grace always remembered there being an escalation to these sorts of things - hands on his thigh that always moved higher and higher, while kisses on the face traveled lower and lower---
“Want to watch movie, question?”
Rocky’s sudden question snapped Grace out of whatever that was, and a weight settled deep into his stomach as it flipped over and over.
It was now or never.
Why did his excitement feel more like dread?
“Ah-- Actually...” he swallowed thickly - somehow his mouth felt both insanely dry and wet at the same time. “I was... thinking we do something else tonight...?”
Rocky hummed, “Mmmm... More Reddit?”
“No, no like-- something not on the laptop, like--” Grace set the computer aside, and dumbly flailed a hand between the two of them, like that’d get his point across, as he tried to wrangle his thoughts into a coherent sentence. It was easier said than done.
“Grace okay, question? Heart rate is rising.”
“Hah--! Wow, yeah. Sorry, sorry--” he rubbed a sweaty palm against his leg, the fabric of his pants shifted with the pressure. “I’m okay, Rock. I just-- I need to... to confess something that’s been really... weighing on my mind lately.”
“Oh... is okay. Rocky already know Grace cheat at human board game. No way Grace win that many times in row.”
“No, I don’t mean--- Wait, you knew I’ve been cheating this whole time?”
“Yes?” Rocky said, like it was obvious. “Can hear when Grace take extra cards.”
“That’s so-- Okay, no no. That’s... not what I was going to tell you.” He was getting sidetracked. It was easy to fall into a rhythm with Rocky - their back and forth felt like settling into an old pair of shoes; something comfortable and that fit just right. It almost lifted the weight in his gut, until he remembered what he was going to tell his friend. “It’s important. Very very important.”
“I’m listening.”
And Rocky shifted upwards, not quite into a stand, but enough so that Grace knew his full attention was on him now. The hand on this thigh - the one that felt searing hot, and not only in a physical way - moved as well. Not higher, like how Grace expected - like how he should want - but instead it slid off to the side, and the moment the contact between them almost ended, Grace chased the feeling and took hold of Rocky’s hand in both of his desperate ones.
There was an agonizing pause as he just stared at their interlocked hands. He just needed to say it - he had already dragged out this entire situation longer than it needed to be.
“I’ve been... feeling certain feelings lately and---” but he ended up dragging it out anyway, “you remember the human reproductive lessons I gave you, right?”
“Yes. Can’t forget. Learned all about weird human mating rituals.”
“Okay-- good, good... So I uh---” just spit it out! Why was this so hard? It was like his brain was having a war with his mouth - and the longer it took him to say it, the more and more he just wanted to run away and hide. “I’ve been feeling... that towards--- for you. For a while now. And... I--- IthinkIwanttohavesexwithyou?”
He had spat the question out through clenched teeth - and even more clenched shut eyes - like a sickness.
Eridians didn’t reproduce like a human does - back when he and Rocky explained to each other the mating processes of their respective species, Grace learned pretty early on that Eridians had a very hands-off approach to how they mate. Sex was a pretty inaccurate term; the way Rocky described it almost sounded like a bizarre, abstract menstrual cycle, where two Eridian mates needed to be synced up in their egg-laying cycles for a baby to be conceived. There was an intimate days-long ritual that took place during the syncing process, but it had sounded more like pampering your partner instead of any actual sexual intercourse. That just wasn’t a thing on Erid, Grace realized.
Rocky had been pretty fascinated with the way humans went about reproduction - but it seemed to border more on morbid curiosity, like the way Rocky would always call Grace leaky and gross but not pull away when tears and snot built up on his Xenonite suit during sad movies or hugs after impromptu heart-to-hearts. He had asked questions during the lesson, and Grace answered all of them in the most professional way he could, and then afterwards it was never brought up again.
There was a need to bridge a gap between them, but Grace wasn’t so sure Rocky wouldn’t even want to in the first place.
“Oh. Sex is... human mating ritual?” Rocky slowly asked, and Grace slightly cringed.
He swallowed. “Yea-- yeah. Uhm, but sex isn’t done just for... for reproduction. It can also just be for pleasure, too. It feels good.”
“Ohhh, understand. And you want to do this with Rocky? It will make Grace happy, question?”
“Yes?” he said, cleared his throat, and repeated it less like a question. “Yes. Yeah, I do. But, uh, I want to know if you want to do it, too, bud. It’s your choice, I don’t want you to... to only do it because I want to.”
“I want to,” and that weight settled in even heavier. “I’m curious. Want to experience it with Grace. Maybe I’ll like!”
“Oh-- okay, yeah!” A small smile spread across his face, but worry still pinched at his eyebrows, causing lines right at the bridge of his nose. “When do you---”
“How to begin, question?”
“Wait-- you want to do it now?”
There was a pause.
“Yes? Why ask if not want to do it now, question?”
“Oh-- I just thought--” that they would schedule it. That it would be talked about and planned and then never happen. That Rocky would change his mind and never bring it up to him again. That they could just go back to finding a movie to watch. “Okay. Yeah, we can... do it now.”
Right. The actual initiation of sex.
In the past, Grace had never been the one to initiate it. That task always landed on his partners at the time - the idea would be brought up in the form of lingering touches and soft kisses, or sometimes just outright asking for it. There had been times where weeks would pass without him and his partner having sex, all because he never noticed that they’d stop trying for it. He didn’t really give why he never felt the need to be the one to initiate a second thought, but when a girlfriend would get mad at him for not being present he’d always try to argue that she ended up enjoying the sex anyway, so why did it matter if he wasn’t the one starting it?
Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say.
He needed to channel those past experiences now - what did his previous partners usually do when initiating sex?
---there were lips on him now, traveling from the base of his neck up to the pulse line beneath his ear. A tongue and teeth dragged over the crest of his jaw---
“It usually starts with kissing,” he explained, and was thankful that he didn’t need to explain what that was to Rocky. They had shared a few kisses in the past, but it was always just light, friendly pecks that Grace viewed as forehead or cheek kisses in human-related terms. They hadn’t done anything to this calibre before.
Rocky hummed, then pushed closer to Grace. “Okay. You kiss Rocky now.”
Grace laughed, a flighty airy noise. “Am I the one initiating, or are you?”
“Taking too long.”
“Okay, okay--”
He then took a steadying breath, in through his nose and out his mouth. It was just a kiss; they had done this plenty of times before.
Grace removed his hands from Rocky’s and instead placed them on either side of his friend’s carapace. His hands had began to slightly shake, and Grace knew that Rocky could definitely feel the tremors that traveled through his arms and down to his fingers. Why was he so nervous? He wanted this, Rocky wanted this, there shouldn’t be any hesitation.
Steeling his resolve, Grace leaned in close.
The kisses started out small and exploratory - the same kind of friendly pecks that he had given to Rocky in the past - before he began to experiment a little on the intensity and longevity of each one. It was kind of awkward kissing at the smooth planes of Xenonite - normally there was a give-and-take to kissing, where two people would share the workload - but here Grace had to do all the work. But with his eyes closed, and the way Rocky pressed forward into each kiss and how the warmth from his friend seemed to seep through the barrier and onto his lips, it kind of gave the illusion of making out with someone.
His tongue soon joined the mix, and Rocky immediately tensed at the inclusion, making Grace pause and pull back.
“You okay?”
“Yes yes. Did not expect, but not bad. What is Grace doing, question?”
Oh, right. He had to explain the different stages of kissing; how when a tongue was involved it became a deeper, more intimate gesture. He knew that Rocky had seen several human kisses while watching shows and movies together, but he figured that watching a kiss and participating in a kiss were wholly different experiences.
“It’s a uh-- it’s a deeper kiss. Well, it’s usually called a French kiss cause of the use of tongue, but I don’t really know why---”
“Sort of understand. Is like a showcase of deeper bond, question?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
He didn’t know if Rocky fully understood what Grace was telling him - this was truly one of the bigger gaps in their different biologies and cultures - but he didn’t seem to dislike the idea, so Grace pressed onwards.
He trailed his tongue and more kisses down the front of Rocky’s ‘face’ - which was just the flat plane of his carapace that was currently pointed at Grace. Two of Rocky’s hands moved forwards until they were rested at Grace’s shoulders, and he could feel the tips of his claws absently brush against the hairs on the nape of his neck. There was a shudder from Rocky, and then a low whistle, and Grace smiled into the next pass of his tongue.
---he was licking along the collarbone of his girlfriend at the time - or maybe she was someone he had matched with on Tinder? - and she was making breathy whines with every pass of his tongue. There was a hand buried deep in the back of his hair, locking his head in place so that he could only continue to work his way along her neck and shoulders---
Grace never minded the making out portion of sex.
There was something about it that didn’t bother him. It was almost like a way to unwind - an intimate experience between two people that didn’t feel like an obtrusion - so when partners wanted to make out he always reciprocated with the same level of enthusiasm; it was almost kind of fun. It didn’t feel bothersome or forced - a far cry from the escalation that almost always seemed to come with it.
Which, he guessed, was now the time for that.
Grace moved until he was in a position where he was sitting on his knees, both thighs now flanked either side of Rocky as they sat in the nest of blankets. There was now some strain in his pants as heat pooled uncomfortably in his stomach. His hands were sweaty again, and the heat coming from Rocky did not help with that at all. He wanted to wipe his palms against his shirt or pants or anything to try and dispel some of the nerves that were making his stomach and mind do endless somersaults.
Instead, he kept his palms squarely on top of Rocky as he scooted himself closer to his friend. It was a little awkward to do so while sitting on his knees, but he managed to position himself in a weird half-straddle where the front of his crotch was now pressed directly against one of Rocky’s limbs that he used to stabilize himself. The pressure was just enough to pull the tiniest whine from his throat.
---there was a hand toying with the waistband of his boxers. The fingers were nimble and steady as they traveled underneath the thin fabric and ghosted so gently against his dick. He could feel his body tense - everything about this situation was tense - and there was a breathy whisper in his ear; someone telling him how hot he was and how much they wanted him. The hand pulled his boxers away entirely, and began to move in slow deliberate strokes around his dick, but all Grace could think about was the glowing television and how they were missing the movie he had put on---
“Is there something I should do, question?”
Rocky was still holding onto him, he could feel the way his friend’s claws tapped unsurely against the back of his neck. It was a steady rhythm that almost matched the nervous pounding of his heartbeat. Grace could hear the blood in his ears, and he wondered how loud that must be for Rocky.
“Uh-- ah, yeah. Yeah--” there was more heat pooling in his stomach, and the blood in his ears had been traveling further and further south. “Can you--- can you take my pants off?”
This was what he wanted.
He had been thinking about this moment for nearly a week now.
This was what was expected of his and Rocky’s bond - there was a need to do this, to check it off a box and get all of the sexual frustration out of his mind.
“Oh! Oh-- is stripping part of sex, question? Rocky can do.”
And now the two hands that had been resting along his shoulders moved downwards until they were settled at his hips. The gentle, mundane touches made Grace want to lean into them, to move his body even more until he was pressed flush against Rocky, but he stayed as still as he could.
“Humans... normally get naked to have sex, yeah. It’s-- it’s easier to reach all the reproductive organs that way.”
There was a fumbling with a waistband tie, and then Grace’s pants - along with his boxers - were being pulled down to his bent knees.
He was almost fully erect, and it laid awkwardly and unceremoniously against his stomach. It was a vulnerability laid completely bare before him, and Grace nearly closed his eyes and looked away at the sight.
“Eughh-- that’s human reproductive organ?” Rocky’s notes had a trill of curiosity, but also disgust laced throughout. He was tapping his claws together - and a few explorative clicks were sent in Grace’s direction - and he realized that Rocky was probably trying to get a better picture of it. Grace could swear he heard the uplift of a tiny laugh somewhere peppered into his chords. “Weird.”
“Hah-- yeah. It really is, isn’t it? Not gonna lie, sometimes I forget it’s there--- ah.”
One of Rocky’s claws briefly brushed against the head of his dick, and when his friend pulled back cautiously, Grace inched just a tiny bit closer.
He wanted this.
He wanted this and it was happening.
“You can-- you can touch it. Reprodu--- sexual organs need to be... be stimulated for it to feel good,” and that weight inside of him reared its head again, adding more and more to the heaviness.
Grace almost felt nauseous at the request - all of his nerves were amplified up to an eleven. It wasn’t a new feeling - he always felt this way before and during sex - so he tried his best to push through the anxiety. It was just normal nerves; he had been anticipating this exact thing with Rocky for what felt like ages, and now that he was finally getting what he wanted he had expected there to be some pre-sex jitters.
“I touch that?” Rocky, with a slight tilt to his carapace, was now pointing at his penis.
“...Yeah.”
“Okay. Tell me if Rocky is doing it right.”
And then there was a hand on his dick.
He didn’t know how to feel about it.
There was a bit more explaining that needed to be had (Rocky had just placed his hand atop it and rested it there) and a demonstration unfortunately involving spit for less friction - all done through clenched teeth and bitten back whines - until Rocky knew what he was supposed to be doing. There was a small inkling of thought in the back of Grace’s mind that betrayed the uneasiness of his stomach, that told him that this felt good - and he could feel the pressure building in himself, like he was an unwatched pot about to bubble over into the fire.
A three clawed hand stroked upwards on his dick, and when it dragged back down it was now a five fingered hand---
---it had been pleasurable, quite briefly, when the touches first started. It was like a mashing of buttons, and somehow his partner knew when to press all of the right ones. He could feel the hand on his dick, it was slow and precise, dragging out this encounter longer than he really wanted, but he knew this is what she wanted, so he would oblige and play his part as best as he could. She didn’t have to know that he was occasionally stealing glances at the television behind them to try and parse where he was in the movie after all of the scenes he had missed---
---and when the hand moved upwards it was three claws again; it was Rocky again.
Grace’s hands were back on Rocky’s carapace now, splayed flat along the top of his mantle. He was hunched over his friend as those claws worked through him. His gaze was watery - was he crying? - and through the obstructed vision he could see another one of Rocky’s hands, one that wasn’t occupied with being wrapped around him or scratching through his hair, was tapping out the seconds in a rhythmic beat onto the floor.
He was timing this.
There was another downwards stroke that caused Grace hips to jerk, and he stuttered forward until he was now practically leaning his chest against Rocky.
Why was he timing this?
---he wanted to finish before the movie ended, just so he could watch the last few minutes of it uninterrupted. But when she climbed on top of him in a straddle, he knew that the movie was definitely going to end long before they were done.
Why couldn’t they have just watched the movie?
The question lingered in Grace’s mind as he worked through the motions of pleasuring his girlfriend; a thrust here, a few kisses there, and a whole lot of questions burning in his mind. He had been excited to show her this movie, and had planned the entire evening around it, but it seemed like she had misconstrued his idea of alone time---
Rocky was now talking - his musical chords were light and casual - and Grace had partners before who talked during sex; usually in the form of breathy words of praise and pleasure or moaned cries of more more more. Grace strained his ears to listen passed all the white noise in his head to hear what Rocky was saying to him.
“---that OP is not asshole. Their friend broke rules of ‘girl trip’ inviting romantic partner---”
Oh, he was talking about Reddit stories - and Grace vaguely remembered the one he was currently ranting about; some group of friends uninviting someone from a shared vacation because she invited her boyfriend without asking first. It was honestly a pretty cut and dry post compared to all of the other drama-laced Reddit stories they had read. He wondered why this one stuck with Rocky.
“They-- ah--” his voice was strained and a little breathy as he tried to wrangle his vocal chords in a way that wouldn’t only produce embarrassing moans, “cuh--could have been a... a little---mmf-- nicer to her.”
“Ughhhh, Grace no get it,” and he shifted his carapace in a way that Grace understood as his version of an eyeroll. They had had this disagreement before. “Friendship very very very important! Time and place for boyfriend, and ‘girl trip’ not one of them!”
“But immediately---ah---selling her ticket seemed a little mean. They could have talked to her about it more---”
“Ughhh. Guess you’re right. But Rocky still think OP not asshole.”
“I didn’t say they were---auhmm--!”
That pressure in his stomach was now cresting, and it snapped Grace back to what they were currently doing. It was like a rubber band had pulled back against his skin - that bitter stinging of reality.
It felt like a horrible weight that did little to ground him in the moment. It was almost like he was now viewing himself from an outsider’s perspective. He could see himself on his knees draped over Rocky. He could see how his friend was steadily pumping at his dick and how he instinctively leaned further into the touch. He could see how that persistent tapping was now like a metronome as it counted the time of every single one of their actions.
Pressure was rising even more, and the betrayal of pleasure sunk into his abdomen, like the hungry teeth of a predator, and all Grace could see was himself being pathetically worked out until he was a mess of stinging tears and warbled cries.
He wanted---he wanted---
Rocky’s hand never stopped its work on his dick - it was an insufferable presence that just kept going and going until there was nothing of him left. He could feel his body moving with the motion, his hips reached up to chase every upwards stroke, but it didn’t feel like he was the one in control of his body. Like a paralysis that settled in deep until he was only able to watch himself as he performed muscle-memory movements that he didn’t even remember learning.
His mind wandered - really to just about anything - he could hardly think about what was happening to him. It was a lackadaisical pull of his thoughts; in all honesty he was kind of bored.
There were better things that he could be doing right now - he had found a label machine a few days ago, and had been in the process of stickering labels onto every visible surface of the Hail Mary, and he knew that he still had the control room to get through. That sounded a lot more fun, honestly - the labels were even the kind that had raised lettering, so Rocky could read the words on it.
Definitely important stuff he needed to be doing; this was supposed to be a sleepover with Rocky. Maybe Reddit stories were the way to go tonight. He actually enjoyed their discussion about that one post, until he remembered that Rocky was actively giving him a hand job during it.
His mind gotten away from him, like it always had.
The tapping on the floor was what pulled him back into reality, as well as the building pressure that surged and surged.
There was now a crescendo in the noise as that pressure finally released. It was a devastating explosion of pleasure and horror and regret all crammed into one horrible feeling that didn’t seem to expel from him like everything else. Grace barely registered the cry he made. He barely registered the way his hands clawed and gripped at Rocky. He barely registered his friend holding onto him as he came crashing back down into his own body.
---He just wanted to watch a movie.
That would have been a more enjoyable evening than whatever it actually became.
He pushed back slightly, tapped out as best as he could, and sat in a pool of his stewing emotions. Grace panted, and he felt hot and gross all over. There was a sheen layer of sweat thick against his skin that caused his clothes to uncomfortably cling to every nook in his body. He refused to look down at himself - he didn’t want to know what anything passed his stomach currently looked like - and a burning shame caused his face to flush and the blood in his ears to return.
He gulped down much needed air into his lungs. He felt terrible. It was like he had just run a marathon in sweltering summer heat - his heart was almost beating out of his chest, and the only current thought in his mind was how glad he was that it was now over.
Rocky moved until he was now holding Grace at arm’s length. One his his hands was idly tapping - this time as a nervous tick and not an impromptu clock - and, Grace liked to think he got a hang of Rocky’s body language, he seemed to also have something on his mind.
“Did... Grace enjoy? You had fun, question?”
His throat felt stuck, like there was a stone lodged at the back of his tongue, and he floundered around for an answer. It was a simple question, so why was it so hard to answer? He ended up nodding at first as he tried to corral his mouth and throat into speaking, and his head lulled with the effort. His entire body felt heavy. “Yeah, buddy. I-- I did. I had fun.”
Rocky trilled, his hands shook back and forth in his excited, jazz-handed gesture. “Good good good. Hmmm... Grace Rocky watch movie now, question?”
Oh, he would really like that. That was exactly what he wanted to do; he almost felt dumb for how obvious it was.
“Yes-- yeah, yes,” he blindly grabbed for the laptop and moved it closer to Rocky. “Let me get cleaned up first. You can pick out the movie!”
The walk to the bathroom felt like a long mile.
His thoughts dragged behind him as he left the dormitory - like a lingering shadow that nipped at his heels - and they followed him into the bathroom. The small room felt even smaller with how much noise there was inside of his head; like his brain was expanding so far past his skull that it threatened to suffocate him.
He enjoyed the sex.
That was what he kept telling himself.
He liked it. It was good, it was fun. There was a tiny lull in the middle, but overall it was an enjoyable experience.
He wanted it. He had asked for it. He got it. So why was he still so torn up about it?
Thankfully it didn’t take long for him to clean up - ideally he would have loved a hot shower and fresh clothes, but the Hail Mary didn’t have that luxury, so a quick wipe down and the same pair of pants and boxers it was. At least he didn’t feel as terrible. At least not physically - his mind was still loud, and there were those doubtful thoughts that arose louder and louder than his assuring ones.
I liked it. He told himself over and over.
Somehow it didn’t make him feel better.
When Grace came back from the bathroom, Rocky already had the movie pulled up and paused at the beginning. It seemed like he decided that they were going to be rewatching Mamma Mia! tonight. He was glad that Rocky had enjoyed that movie as much as he did - it had become an on-repeat film for the two of them. Something familiar and comfortable that they would put on when things got too stressful or if they just needed a nice relaxing night together.
Grace tried not to think too hard about the implications as to why Rocky was putting it on now.
He and Rocky fit together like a puzzle piece in the nest of blankets as he settled down to finally start their movie night. As the movie began, though, Grace could tell he was having a hard time focusing on it. His mind wanted to keep replaying what had happened earlier - like a broken tape that just kept stuttering over the same frame.
In the moment, it had felt good; he could at least land on that. He had asked for it, he had said he wanted it, and at first everything was fine, but then it started to feel like a drag.
He just couldn’t shake the feeling of how much his mind wandered during it, how much he thought about being somewhere else, how he just enjoyed talking to Rocky a lot more than anything else that had happened. Their night had started off normal - great even - and he wondered if he had messed it all up with mentioning sex. He wondered if there was a way to salvage this.
There was a hand on his thigh again, but this time it didn’t make Grace’s mind wander about wanting more or situations escalating. It was a steady presence - secure and comforting - that didn’t feel explorative or seeking. Rocky had never wanted anything more from him. They had spent previous nights locked around each other - lasting hugs and tangled legs - that had never devolved into any kind of sexual activity; there hadn’t been a pressure for that, not until Grace had began pushing for it.
It reminded him of... well, himself. How past relationships would always end with his partner telling him how distant he was, how they never felt seen around him, how they never felt desired or loved because he wasn’t constantly seeking sex from them. He had learned quickly that no one was satisfied with just watching a movie, with just laying in bed, with just hanging out like he was. He had learned to enjoy sex as an experience but—
He didn't really like it.
And it didn't matter who he had it with, it seemed, for his opinion never changed. At first he thought that maybe, just maybe, he would have enjoyed it more because it was Rocky he was doing it with - his best friend, his closest partner, the person he would die for a thousand times over - but his mind wandered just the same.
He honestly enjoyed just spending time with Rocky a lot more.
Did he want to try sex with him again? Something in his stomach turned at the thought. Would Rocky even want to do it again? He didn’t seem all too interested in the process from what Grace could remember - the tapping, the topic changing, how quickly he was to jump onto a different activity afterwards. Maybe that was for the best, that Rocky didn’t like it. Grace had already made up his mind.
He placed his hand atop Rocky’s and just held it there. The movie was still playing, but he had stopped paying attention a while ago.
“Hey, Rock?”
Rocky let out a short hum that let Grace know his attention was now focused on him.
He swallowed, but somehow this felt easier to say than anything prior. “I... I don’t think I want to do that again.”
There was a short pause as Rocky likely thought it over.
“I thought you said you liked, question? What make Grace change mind?”
“I think I'd rather just... watch a movie with you.”
“Okay.”
Grace blanked at Rocky's immediate agreement. He didn’t know why he was expecting anger or coldness aimed his way; maybe it was due to the reactions of past partners that had tainted his view of the matter, maybe he just always expected people to blow up in his face.
“Wha-- are you-- You’re not like... mad? Or disappointed?”
“No? Why would I be? Rocky did not enjoy, either. Would do again if Grace wanted, but ughhh so boring. Watching movie is more fun.”
That was something he could agree on.
And in this moment, sat close to Rocky as they watched the movie hand-in-hand, he felt a lot more happier and satisfied than he had ever been.