i could hear the water at the edge of all things (chapter 1/?)
"Rocky worry worry worry."
"You don't need to worry, Rock," Grace insists with a smile and a gentle three-beat tap against Rocky's ball. "You just need to heal. Grace worry worry worry."
(After the fishing mission, Grace and Rocky are both worse for wear. Grace breaks a rib. His lungs don't like that.)
Please enjoy a celosiaa classic pneumonia fic. I can't help myself
Thereâs too much to do. Heâs not stupidâ at least not more than usual, as Rocky would say. He knows that both of them are a little worse for wear. Maybe a lot worse for wear. But they have to keep going. There are too many repairs to be done on the ship, and if theyâre going to make it out of this alive, they both have to keep moving forward.
 Grace shifts in his seat, hand reaching up instinctively to protect his left ribs as he does. Gosh, theyâre sore. No matter what way he sits or lies down, or how faithfully he takes anti-inflammatories, his left side is killing him. Heâd even lamented as much to Rocky, who told him never to use the words âkillâ or âdieâ unless he is serious. That is, Rocky told him so after Grace witnessed the Eridian equivalent of a panic attack for the first time. Itâs not an experience either he or Rocky would like to repeat.
 Not only that, but thereâs been a steadily increasing pressure in his lungs, it seems. This rib situation must have irritated the delicate pleuraâthe lining of the even more delicate lung tissueâand caused his asthma to act up. At least, he thinks he had asthma, maybe as a kid. His childhood memories are among the least clear, but there is something to the sensation of breathlessness, of medication on his tongue, of running, runningâ
 Nope. Donât go there.
 âGrace,â says Rocky, from across the room. Heâs added some layers of fabric to his usual toolbelt, enough to overlie the places where his many legs hinge. Maybe Rocky is sore too. âYou make sounds of discomfort. You are okay, question?â
 "UhhâŠyeah bud, I think so," Grace replies, clearing his throat and rubbing at his eyes, as if that could wipe away the memories. Incredibly, it does not help in the slightest. He distantly hears the sound of his friend entering his ball, then clunking over towards where Grace has set up shop for today. Rocky's movements are still slow and uncoordinated-- an odd sight given his usual flighty nature. That ends up being the ticket to snap Grace out of his hair-raising reverie.
 "Oh--hey, hey, don't hurt yourself," he urges, standing from his chair, both knees popping angrily in protest. He meets Rocky halfway, closing the distance and sitting on the floor in front of him. "You still need to rest."
 "Grace need rest too. Heartbeat too fast. Breathing too shallow."
 "Hey, what did we say about using the screen reader on me?"
 "Screen reading device not needed. Rocky hear without assist. Not good."
 Of course he would be paying more attention than usual. Rocky had been limited in energy and movement over the past week, leaving him with only observation and occasional conversation between sleep cycles. Even knowing he would have done the same, Grace can't help but feel a bit irritated. He hates the sensation of being watched at all times. It had been hard enough getting used to Rocky's observance while he sleeps, but at least he's unaware during most of those hours.
 His head gives an unpleasant throb, a building pressure somewhere behind his eyes. Sliding off his glasses, Grace pinches the bridge of his nose, attempting to quell the urge to snap at his friend, who at the end of the day, just cares about him more than anything. Even if it can be in the most annoying way possible.
 "Grace?" Rocky asks warily, inching ever so slightly closer. His carapace drags along the ground as he does, like his legs won't hold him up.
 "Buddy, you gotta rest," Grace deflects easily, now that he has a new focus of concern. "You're not looking so hot."
 "Am hot. Much hotter than Grace. Burned Grace."
 The barely-visible tremor becomes more apparent as Rocky speaks, signaling increasing anxiety. Reflexively, Grace places his opposite hand over the still-bandaged wound. Nothing there that Rocky needs to hear.
 "Not what I meant."
 "Rocky worry worry worry."
 "You don't need to worry, Rock," Grace insists with a smile and a gentle three-beat tap against Rocky's ball. "You just need to heal. Grace worry worry worry."
 Rocky gives a hum equally disapproving and exhausted, carapace thumping heavily on the ground. With that, Grace knows he has won this particular battle, and gets to his feet.
 "Come on. You go, I'll help push."
 He puts more confidence into his voice than he actually feels. At least, that's what he tries to do. He's pretty sure the jig is up when he has to stop pushing Rocky's ball with a gasp, swearing he could feel his rib sliding in his chest. The thought alone makes him feel woozy, enough to send him to the ground. A precautionary measure, of course.
 Why is he so sweaty?
 "Grace okay? Grace hurt?"
 Rocky. Okay. Focusing on Rocky.
 "IâŠI'm okay. Just felt weird. It'll pass."
 As he sits, trying his best to breathe and not be sick all over Mary's floor, he can sense Rocky's silent urgency. They both know that Rocky needs to get back to his tunnels--that he never should have left in the first place. He's trying to outrun his sleep cycle again in favor of watching Grace, which they've talked about. Extensively.Â
 Rocky's legs seem to want to fail him again, though he does his best to hold himself up.
 "Grace?" he says, voice lowering enough that the computer does not translate.
 I know, I--I gotcha, hold on," he says, still somehow breathless, despite his position on the floor after minimal effort.
 "Rocky sorry. Sorry sorry."
 "Don't--ah, don't apologize," Grace grunts, throwing his shoulder into Rocky's ball, making a bit of progress toward his 'airlock.' "Not your fault."
 "Should not have left tunnel. Statement."
 "Now that, I do agree with."
 At last, they reach the tunnels, and Grace hears the familiar sound of his panel opening. Rocky weakly scoots inside--so weak, it's starting to become alarming. Grace can hear his own heartbeat in his ears, whether from anxiety or physical effort, he cannot be sure. He is sure that it sounds thunderous to Rocky's sensitive hearing.
 "You gonna be okay, buddy?" he whispers in lieu of an apology, still blinking the stars out of his vision.
 Rocky does not answer, the top of his carapace elevating slightly to form the echo-sounds. Grace wishes desperately in this moment that he wouldn't. There's nothing to see here that wouldn't stress him out. Although, who knows what kind of echoes Rocky sees in this state.
 "Grace will watch, question?"
 "Grace will watch, statement."
 To the untrained eye, it would be nearly impossible to tell when an Eridian enters a sleep cycle. Grace supposes he can feel more than see it, as if the consciousness of his friend were tangible, a palpable loss. Or something. Grace couldn't pretend to know anything about that--he has his Doctor of Philosophy in molecular biology, after all. Not a Doctor of Philosophy inâŠwell, philosophy. He couldn't possibly speculate on the nature of souls. But something about the way Rocky lies so still, collapsed in on himself in a way he never chooses to be otherwise--it reminds Grace horribly of the countless days (weeks? Months?) that his friend had spent incapacitated and motionless. A sunlit absence.
 Grace couldn't stay awake to observe then, no matter how hard he tried. His own body ached for collapse beside his friend until it finally happened without his consent. They're both lucky he had been awake enough to start the Taumoeba farms at all. He may have had to crawl to the breeder tanks at first, but by god, did he do it. But he could not do the one thing Rocky needed to feel safe in his most vulnerable moments: observe. He did his best. He did everything he could.
 As always, it was never enough.
 It's never enough.
 --
 The next time Grace opens his eyes, he regrets it. The lights in the lab shine directly into his eyes, sending a jolt of pain through his head. That part of the post-insane-EVA-concussion hadn't quite gone away yet, but even then, this is the worst it's been in a while. He turns away from the light, bumping into--
 Xenonite. Rocky.
 Oh no.
 His eyes shoot open again, realizing with a sickening feeling that he had promised to watch. He had promised, had even said "statement." He had failed again.
 Rocky, for his part, had not moved. He would never know that he was left unguarded, unprotected, vulnerable. Not unless Grace told him, which he is not particularly keen to do. He feels stung by his own betrayal, somehow.
 Not stung enough, apparently, as his eyes begin to flutter closed again.
 Nope!! Nope, not doing that, thank you.
 He forces himself to sit up, leaning against Rocky's barrier for support. Even that small motion makes him breathless, which is unbelievably frustrating. Maybe he really should visit the nannybot. Did he have an inhaler before? Does he need one now? Is there even one on the ship?
 It hardly matters. He is far too exhausted to go all the way there right now anyway.
 "Rock? You awake?" he rasps, and his voice grates in his throat, his chest, his head. It's for the best that he receives no reply--Rocky does not need to see him in this state. He does his best to clear his throat, but the sudden nausea that brings stops him in his task.
 This isâŠnot good.
 He can't remember the last time he felt this awful. Every breath is tight now, pulling at his ribs. His entire being sinks like a stone, as if the gravity had gotten somehow stronger on the Hail Mary. All of him wants to let the crushing weight take him back to the floor, press his cheek against the cool metal, and drift away.
 But he will not do that. Not while Rocky sleeps.
 If he's going to have a prayer of staying awake, though, he needs to get up. Bracing one shaky hand on the xenonite barrier, he slowly pulls himself upright--
 Until his left side screams at him, knocking his breath away, and his legs out from under him.
 He doesn't remember hitting the ground. Maybe he fainted? But he's glad he didn't feel it, because it must have been absolute hell. As he comes back into awareness, his lungs are screaming for air, his ribs fighting against deeper breaths, too much too much too much. He can't breathe, he can't he can't--
 "Grace?"
 Rocky's voice from behind gives him a startle enough to jolt forward, jostling his ribs and his lungs both. The pressure builds in his chest, rising, rising--
 Oh god. Please don't cough. Please don't cough. Please please--
 "Grace okay? Question?!"
 No.
 The next inhale he takes catches in his chest at last, and there's no stopping it-- his lungs spasm, and he's coughing, coughing, coughing--wet and deep and excruciating. Each inhale is won at a cost, a knife plunging deeper. Grace desperately presses a hand to his side, his ribs screaming, slipping--
 Stars in his vision. Head throbbing. Lips tingling.
 Stay awake. Stay awake.
 "Grace breathe!! Grace calm, Grace breathe, breathe, breathe."
 Rocky sounds absolutely beside himself, his voice up at least two octaves from his normal register in his panic. Grace tries to focus on Rocky's trilling, the steady hum of self-soothing just within hearing range. He has to calm down. He has to breathe, or he's going to pass out.
 "Good good good. Grace breathe."
 Tilting his chin up, Grace leans his head back against the xenonite barrier, his own form of self-soothing. His airway is not closed. His lungs are expanding. Yes, his ribs are on fire, but he can breathe. He can breathe.
 He takes a tentatively deeper inhale, and then another, and another. His body still shakes, covered in perspiration, but the stars have gone away. For now.
 "What happen, question?" Rocky asks nervously, still humming the self-soothing tone beneath his words. Grace wonders if Rocky knows he can hear it too.
 Still panting, Grace takes another moment to gather himself. The sleeve he uses to wipe at his face comes away soaked. Does he have a fever? It wouldn't be surprising given--
 His body gives a powerful shudder, which tells him enough.
 "RockyâŠ" he starts, just as soon cut off by a few more coughs, hidden behind closed lips. The hand cradling his ribs moves slowly to his chest. Surely Rocky can hear the wheezing of his lungs, even if Grace can't.
 "I think I'm sick."
Chapter 2/?
Summary: Grace gets sicker and recovers a memory.
TW: transphobia, trauma, vomiting
"Sick? Sick how, question?!"
The utter terror he hears in the notes beyond Rocky's computerized voice speak to an agony that truly cannot be reflected in human words. Grace's heart drops with grief, even if his heart rate certainly does not. Every instinct tells him to take it back, to lie. Maybe it really isn't as bad as it seems in this moment. Maybe he just needs more sleep, or water, and he'll be okay. Maybe if he could just move around, the fluid he can feel crawling up his airways will somehow disappear.
"I don't know, maybe I--"
He stops, at a crossroads. Why is it so hard to think? God, if he could only get some more air, things would be clearerâŠ
--
It's a clear day in Arkansas, a blessing after the downpour of the last few weeks.
Ryland lies on his back in the still-damp soil, knowing it will seep into his clothes, and for once, not caring. His parents were going into the city tonight, leaving him alone for the first time since the rain started. No, since before then. After everything happened, after he had been pulled out of school, he'd had little escape from them. Sometimes not even the privacy of his own room. Until two days ago, his door had still been taken off the hinges. Everything exposed, everything suffocating.
He was safe out here. Away from everything. The skies above him would fade slowly into night, a gentle spring wind ruffling through his hair. His actual hair, not the long, wavy wig his parents were making him wear at home since he had risked it all and given himself the chop. Stupid. Reckless. But it had felt like the only choice at the time, the only one that would keep him anywhere approaching sanity.
To his parents, he was still Riley Grace. To the people that mattered--and now the whole school, thanks to an overheard conversation in the hallway--he was just Ry. Before he knew, before he would ever have dared to think of describing himself as anything other than a "girl," his name had never quite felt right on his tongue. But in eighth grade, a friend had shortened his name to just "Ry," and that had felt more like home than anything ever would. Thank God, it stuck after that. It had been just a nickname, when asked. But he knew that this was something more--a sense of wholeness he had never experienced before. He considered other names. Ryan. Reece. Rowan.
Ryland.
A place of his own; a place he was making brand new.
In his head, he imagines fields expanding as far as the eye can see, all wheat and barley and rye; life-giving, life-sustaining. Needed. Nourishing. Grounded.
It's all he's ever wanted to be. All he ever will be, in the end.
He takes a breath in, as deep as he can with the forbidden bindings firmly wrapped around his chest, and feels freedom in that constriction.
Breathe in, breathe out.
The distant stars above greet him kindly as the star his planet orbits sinks behind the horizon. The whole galaxy can be seen from this isolated place. A reminder that in this moment, in the unimaginable expanse and beauty of this universe, he may be only a collection of carbon and water and iron, but he is a being that exists. He exists.
I exist I exist I exist
It's a daily reminder, his mantra. His reason to keep going. The pure belief that his continued existence matters. He has decided that nothing can take that away. Not even himself.
A shudder runs through his narrow shoulders, the earth beneath him soaked through to his bones now. He still doesn't want to leave. He barely feels the cold in the presence of the entire galaxy.
What he does feel within the next hour is the rumbling of the gravel road at his back, the headlights of his parents' car, and the utter panic of the walls unexpectedly closing in around him.
He prays to a God he doesn't believe in that his shadow cannot be seen from the road as he runs--his lungs contracting and screaming in protest--back inside. Back to what should be safety, but has not been for a long time, and never would be again. Back to dresses and long hair and the unacceptable idea that he does not exist, should not exist.
He ducks into the bathroom just in time to hear his parents arriving through the front door, seemingly none the wiser. He slowly, mournfully removes the bindings from his chest. Even if his lungs thank him for it, his spirit is crushed. But not forever. Not forever.
Please, don't let it be forever.
He stares himself down in the mirror, mud on his face, chest on fire, eyes darkened.
He breathes.
And breathes.
And forces the cut of his anger down just barely enough to avoid punching the mirror.
And breathes.
--
"Grace breathe. Breathe breathe breathe."
âŠRocky?
His friend's distressed song brings him back to the present moment, back to the crushing pressure in his chest. The spots in his vision keep up their dance before him as the nausea turns in his gut the way it so often does when the memories arise.
Especially this kind. The unexpected, the vulnerable, the leadup toâŠsomething bad, something he doesn't want to remember. Something his brain has been protecting him from.
"Grace. Grace!"
Oh, right.
He blinks rapidly in an effort to clear away the spots, to limited success. It will have to do for now.
"Sorry, Rock," he whispers, his voice still gutted. "M'okay."
Rocky's carapace shifts nervously back and forth as he continues. "Grace's mind traveled elsewhere. Breathing still not right. Temperature elevated. Where did you go, question?"
Now isn't that the question of the century. He supposes the answer would be "Arkansas," though that would mean nothing to Rocky, and the thought of saying the word aloud sends a violent chill down his spine.
Or maybe that's the fever. It's probably the fever.
"Just a memory."
"Oh. Bad memory?"
Yes. No. He cannot possibly know yet, but something in his gut tells him that yes, this is leading somewhere he does not want to go. That he hasn't been in many years. Some kind of nuclear fallout that led him to the loneliness of this mission in the first place, despite his best efforts. Despite the desperate pleas of a wounded animal in the grass, pinned down, screaming--
Oh god. He's going to vomit.
The shuddering returns in earnest, and Grace tips his head back against the xenonite barrier, breathing becoming somehow more shallow to keep the rising bile at bay. It's not going to work, he already knows.
"Grace? Grace?!"
In lieu of opening his mouth, Grace shakes his head-- and the wave of vertigo that follows makes him gag immediately. His ribs scream as his body lurches forward once, twice, three times. His heartbeat rises exponentially in his ears, in tandem with his rapid breaths, desperate not to be sick, he can't he can't he can't--
He gags again, and it's all over.
Darkness begins to envelop his vision as he finds himself on his hands and knees, losing what little nourishment he had been able to keep down--until that's all unmistakably gone, and all that remains is the acrid bile his body seems determined to keep expelling despite the futility of it all. His ribs are aflame, his gut keeps spasming, and he cannot breathe. He can't breathe. Oh god, he can't breathe--
Humming.
A singular, steady note at his back. It's similar to the tones Rocky uses as self soothing, but this is different, somehow. This is a pitch Rocky would know for sure is well within Grace's hearing range, a pitch that resonates within the architecture of the ship itself. In spite of everything, Grace begins to feel the warmth of it in his belly, his chest. A wave of peace alights somewhere in the back of his mind, and he is grounded. Nourished. Loved.
Even if his stomach threatens to--and then does--turn again, it's the last ditch effort by his body to keep the comfort at arm's length.
It's not enough.
Grace wipes at his face with his sleeves and leans back, coughing heavily into the crook of his arm and shuddering as the note comes to a close. Rocky is still moving, shifting back and forth. Even with the projected comfort and calm, it's obvious to Grace that he is panicking beneath the love he's giving. Grace wonders if Rocky is also singing in a pitch well above his hearing range, trying somehow to hide his fear. He wishes more than anything that he had the strength to speak it aloud, to hum both perception and comfort back. But for right now, he just slumps heavily against the xenonite and breathes.
He can hear the wheezing exhale of his own breaths now, the dampness lingering at the very ends. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he is aware that he needs to cough, to expel the damp and the cold and the infection he's certain is lurking in his lower airways. But right now, the exhaustion outweighs anything else. Sleep is becoming more and more of a necessity with each passing moment.
"Rocky watch?" he asks, a hand pressing against his sternum again, to somehow overcome the shortness of breath ever on the rise.
"No no no. No sleep now. Bad."
"âŠbad?" Grace furrows his eyebrows, blinking in confusion as Rocky exits his tunnels and reenters his ball. "Wait--no Rock, you needâŠyou need rest, y--"
He's cut off mid-sentence by the overpowering need to cough, to clear his airways. But God, he can't get anything up. His chest is so tight, so full that he forcibly cuts off the fit at around the 15 second mark, knowing with one hundred percent certainty that he will pass out if he does not stop this, now.
The next time he has it in him to look up, Rocky is trembling bodily, silent to Grace's hearing.
He may as well be screaming.
"Rock, I--I'm sorry," Grace pants, trying desperately not to choke on the words again. For a long few moments, Rocky does not reply. He keeps still, and trembles, and Grace's heart begins to break all over again.
But as if snapping himself out of it, Rocky all at once stops trembling and stomps his front feet forcefully.
"We go to med bay now, statement. Now now now. Grace very sick. Need help, need medicine."
Grace can only nod his head in agreement, swiping at his sopping forehead. He tries not to look at the vomit still notably present on the floor beside him. Tries not to feel the shame. It doesn't work.
"Need a second, Rock," he says, eyes starting to flutter closed. "Just a second."
He jolts again at the sound of Rocky's forelegs slamming into the ground, the adrenaline of it sending a surge of energy through his body.
Cheeky bugger. He knows what he's doing.
"Grace go now. Rocky help. Lean on Rocky, now now now."
And well, it would be hard to say no to that. Struggling to keep the darkness at bay, Grace shifts up to his hands and knees again. And he crawls.
I exist. I exist. I exist.
I exist.
