So I ofc adore all of the art and fics about Grocky exploring each other’s bodies in the name of science while road tripping to Erid. That said, one thing that’s always in the back of my mind is that Rocky is an engineer, not a scientist. I feel like while he is extremely curious, he’s more likely to want to know just enough to know how something works, and then once he's reached that point he wants to move onto something new. Adrian, however, I do hc as a scientist, specifically a biologist (specifically specifically an ecologist but still).
What I'm saying is that I think Rocky learned exactly enough about Grace’s digestive system to understand how to keep Grace healthy and not a whit more (ew eating gross gross gross) and then one day he walks into Grace’s house in the biodome and Adrian has their claws fully in Grace’s mouth
Obsessed with the idea of Grace fully assimilating into Erid's society, meaning he becomes an Eridian teacher.
"Teacher" isn't really an profession on Erid like it is on Earth. Their school system is set up in development stages and pebbles move up as they're ready. Eridian teachers are more accredited caretakers than they are focused on a specific subject, working to make sure the young of their city or village are developing the best they can. Less "we're going to sit down and learn division" and more "this is a structured place pebbles go to hang out with a qualified Eridian who can nurture them." For smaller education stages, it's normal to drop your kids off for days at a time.
Grace expects to be a science teacher, but then he becomes an Earth-studies expert, which then turns into a general education teacher. They're curious about his planet! He's teaching both English and Eridani, social studies, science, and art at the same time. Grace has no complaints—it's incredibly rewarding and an honor that Eridians trust him to help their children grow.
His classes range from Eridians just a little smaller than Rocky to little pebbles he can carry around like a football. He loves his older kids, but his favorites are the little ones he has to teach things like walking in a line and how to raise one arm when four are on the ground. They're just... so bad at being alive. Some days he can barely believe the sea of skipping stones chirping around his feet are sentient beings.
Functionally, they're kindergartners, but unlike ones on Earth that Grace had to do observations of for his credential, these ones come with a certain... expectation for his job.
This results in a unique predicament: five pebbles on his doorstep.
The artificial Sun has barely touched the horizon and they're just... there. A group of little ones from his youngest class chirp at him in their bio-dome suits, the less coordinated of them rocking back and forth in little xenonite hamster balls.
The teacher just stares and listens to the chorus of little clicks and stomps (read: angry taps, the heaviest of them is 20 lbs in the dome) for a second. He has to be dreaming—a messed up nightmare where someone abandoned five entire children on his doorstep before he's even had a cup of coffee.
Rubbing his eyes and pinching his arm doesn't make the little guys go away. Any other day he'd go grab Adrian or Rocky from the bedroom, but the pair are off at a science conference a few cities over and won't be back until that night at the earliest.
"Parent said give this to Mr Teacher Grace," the largest of them, Orange, bonks his right calf with a tablet.
Grace takes it and squints, tracing his fingers over the writing. It's fluent, true Eridiani written with elegant penmanship—not the pidgin he's fluent in. There's an attempt to break apart certain words, but most of it is incomprehensible.
♮! Grace-Doctor-Savior-Captain-Teacher-AdrianRocky-Mated𝄐 ... ♮. Parent back by λV̶.V̶V ... ♯ ? Erid teacher ... Dome ... Already fed ... ♮ !Thank you𝄐
Like Grace has been doing since he met his first Eridian at Tau Ceti, he shrugs, says, "what the heck, sure," and goes with it.
Orange, Marble, Burrata, Turnip, and Plum are great students. Some one-on-one time would be good for everyone. It's an honor to be trusted like this, really.
He can handle 5 free-roaming pebbles for 24 hours.
"Please, come on in," he smiles and bows with the confidence of a man who has only ever done this through the auditorium's thick barrier.
Grace thinks this might have been easier if more than one of them could form actual sentences. Orange happily points and says a few words, but the others just stomp and chirp nonsense that kind of translates as emotion in the human's mind.
By the time the marine layer fogs the windows, he's sure his baseboards are never going to be the same. The biggest in their xenonite suit has clipped the hallway corner enough times that there's a chip taken out of it. There's a reason Orange is still in his youngest group—they're incredibly bright and creative, but they're still working on the locomotor skills needed to execute those ideas.
His ankles are bruised from the balls hitting them. Not stepping on them becomes a challenge. It's like bumper cars, but Grace is a giant in the middle of the track that was once his kitchen.
Grace gets a moment of peace from placing them into the nest in the bedroom. The stair platforms Rocky and Adrian take turns sitting on surround the mattress the human lays on, creating a little fenced in nook. It works great for watching each other sleep, but it's purpose now becomes pebble jail. Four of them settle down and starfish easily, snuggling down with happy little chirps that squeeze his heart. Burrata gets their little legs tangled in a blanket and the resulting struggle is like watching someone try to pick up noodles with chopsticks for the first time. Grace feels so bad that he lets them all back out.
It isn't until the sun is fully in the sky that he decides to integrate them into his day and go about as normal.
The kids get beckoned into one of the sleds for transporting his teaching equipment to the amphitheater. It takes at least ten minutes to get them all down to the garden—he ends up putting marble in his pocket—without them falling out.
They're all eager to help and soon he's on his knees in the dirt, surrounded by an excited thrum.
"I don't know what the word for this is," Grace pats the bundle of what he can only describe as a zucchini-carrot cross hanging off a large stem, "but it doesn't kill me, so."
"♮?♫♪♩𝄐" Orange's claw points and there's an agreement from the rest of the group.
"Yeah, that sounds about right."
Plum points at Grace, back to the vegetable, and then back to the human. They punctuate a rumble with two little stomps of a back leg.
Grace knows that one. He takes out the small notebook he keeps in his back pocket and unclips the heavy charcoal pencil on the cover.
"On Earth it's kind of like a zucchini. It's more," Grace gestures towards his mouth with the pencil, "sharp to my mouth. Which is fine, that makes it taste different than other things. Humans need variety."
"Sharp," Marble echoes. They jazz two hands clumsily and Grace tries to keep a straight face, but it's a little like watching a meatball become animated for the first time.
He coughs and starts digging the charcoal into the paper, "Now, I'm by no means an artist..."
Gardening turns into making pickles. Grace is a little jealous that the pebbles learn anaerobic respiration faster as kindergartners than he did as a freshman in undergrad. They parrot back the Eridani words for some of the concepts, but they're honestly more excited about the bubbles than they are learning about heterofermentative processes and decarboxylation.
Making pickles turns into watching Grace cook, which becomes it's own chemistry lesson. Orange sits on the counter and Plum, Marble, and Burrata go in the fruit bowl. Turnip bravely conquers fire and Grace helps them use a spatula to flip a piece of bread in the pan.
Once they're knowledgeable about the wonders of sandwich creation, they politely banish Grace to the soundproof bedroom while he eats. Normally he eats over a lesson plan or movie on his laptop, but listening out for any pebble xenonite-ball accidents keeps him entertained.
He's expecting a three Eridian pile up, but it never comes.
Grace finishes eating and goes out to check on his houseguests to find them all tuckered out around the coffee table. He plucks them up one by one and puts them back into totally-not-pebble-jail for safe keeping during quiet time. It's a task done in a few quick trips—Grace has dumbbells heavier than Orange. Marble and Plum can both fit in his arms.
There's protest when he goes to put Turnip down, so he settles down with them on his side. It takes a little work to find a position in the bed that doesn't crush anybody, but soon all five pebbles scoot up against their teacher. Grace takes the quilt from over the closest platform and covers the lot of them. Burrata scoots up to below his chin to avoid another incident, and the warm xenonite against his skin has Grace's breathing growing heavy.
Quietly, the front door shuts and two pentads of claws click across hard floor. The taller of the pair starts to sing Grace's name, but is quickly interrupted with an angry stomp.
"Adrian will sleep on couch if wake mate-Grace," Rocky trills and pokes his partner's arm through the xenonite suit. "Rocky put things away, mates stasis together."
The taller Eridian scuttles off to the far side of the bungalow, quietly rumbling as they take in the uncharacteristic mess of the place.
Rocky sets down a heavy bag of trinkets from their travels on the table and hums quietly at the thought of Grace opening them tomorrow morning. They'd been bickering over a "backsplash" for the human's food preparing station for awhile, and he had found a beautiful cut of intricately patterned xenonite at the market that Grace should love.
A high pitched whistle from Adrian has Rocky scrambling out of his thoughts.
"Song, come quiet."
Blunt claws slide across the smooth floor as the shorter Eridian shoots over, frantic clicks bouncing off the soundproof wall their human insisted on in their own home. It's not quiet, but it's urgent.
"Mate-Grace okay, question?"
He slides into Adrian's with a hollow thunk. Rocky stomps worriedly, rumbling and pausing when the sleeping body of their mate bounces back with five little shapes.
"There's pebbles in our nest, song."
They rumble and click together in the doorway for a moment. Rocky's hum picks up, gently thrumming against their mate. The connection buzzes with life—adoration, pride, want. The mates' contentedness echos across the space, kept a piano symphony to not wake their sleeping third.
"Grace very good with them," Rocky chimes with a low whistle and steadies himself against Adrian. "Mates very lucky."
Adrian hums with interest, tapping two claws together in thought. They still the movement and bring their hand up to their mate's carapace, gently petting the scarred surface through the thin layer of xenonite.
"Will talk tomorrow. Rocky, Grace, and pebbles sleep. Adrian watch."
Adrian and Grace are still getting used to each other, I like the idea of Rocky and Grace already having an established dynamic, one that Adrian is perfectly okay with of course but she’s still warming up to Grace themself. And unexpectedly they start to have interest in getting closer.
My favourite Adrian headcanon is that they're a biologist/zoologist who has seen so much shit, they're completely unphased by any and every alien habit of Grace's.
I mean full-on khaki-shorts-wearing, traversing-wilderness-with-nothin'-but-a-machete Adrian who yoinks snakes outta trees and pets swamp puppies and will unflinchingly dig around in elephant faeces for signs of a rare parasitic tapeworm if needed.
Oh, humans eat socially? No problem, Adrian has observed many many animals eat. Did you know that an obscure species of small underground dirt creature from the north side of Erid also eats socially? Adrian can give you a not-so-short presentation on them.
Oh, the human has no external carapace and so its internal sounds are absurdly loud, wet and off-putting? No problem, Adrian was just conducting an expedition last month researching the incredible eridian animal, the Wet Loud Worm from the south-east region of Wet Loud Wormland. They're desensitised, it's fine.
Oh, Grace leaks often from many orifices and it can be a bit of a learning curve to get used to? No problem for Adrian, see Wet Loud Worm paragraph again!
Meanwhile, Rocky is bewildered as to how he's managed to third-wheel both of his relationships, because both Adrian and Grace are nerds who nerd out about things, and Adrian is shaking in their carapace with enthusiasm to learn more about human culture and biology, not to mention everything about earth animals. And yeah, sure, Grace might be a molecular biologist, but he'll be damned if he'll pass up an opportunity to learn about alien fauna from a fellow scientist, and yes, Adrian, he'd love to hear about the small underground dirt creature from the north side of Erid, and he's so excited to learn more about the Wet Loud Worm, do go on.
the funny thing about gracerocky with oblivious grace is that rocky is absolutely going through it. like he'd be thinking, "is leaky space blob STUPID, question? rocky try eridian courting. NO WORK! rocky try human courting. NO WORK EITHER! rocky try confessing. TRANSLATOR NOT TRANSLATE PROPERLY. 🎵🎵🎶🎵🎶!!!"
also i just know rocky is seething whenever he tries to talk about his feelings but the translator spits out some crude, chewed-up oversimplification of his confession that can still be reasonably construed as platonic. which grace absolutely does.
rocky: you are half of me, and i want us to be so inexplicably intertwined that it's hard to tell where i end and where you begin. love is too small of a word to encompass the depth of what i feel for you
rocky learning about last names is one of the most stressful days of grace's life on the way to erid.
it starts with them watching a movie, maybe the devil wears prada, and a little way through the movie rocky asks why miranda has two names. is it because she's more important?
grace, already anticipating a long conversation, says no, all humans have two names. everyone's just scared of miranda because her two names are really well known.
"grace have another name and not tell rocky?!" rocky asks, incensed. "what names mean, question? why two?"
"well," grace explains, "your first name is the name your parents give you at birth. usually people call you by your first name, especially if you're close. except in... some situations, i guess," he says, remembering stratt's vat. nobody had called him ryland there, but he still felt pretty close to all of them.
"and second name?" rocky prompts.
"right - last names correlate to your family. when you're born, you take your family name so that people know who you're related to. it also helps differentiate between two people with the same first name."
"so what grace last name, question?" rocky asks. grace blanches a little.
"uhh... grace is my last name, rock," he says, sheepishly.
"what?!" rocky yells. grace winces. "grace not tell rocky grace first name? grace not close with rocky? grace hate rocky?"
"no!" grace protests. "of course i don't hate you! don't say that!" maybe it's stupid, but grace does actually feel a little hurt by the insinuation.
"then why not tell rocky?!"
grace sighs. "i don't know, rock. i mean - when i met you i barely knew up from down, much less what my name meant to me. and i kept getting these memories and everyone kept calling me grace, and i just, i haven't been called ryland in so long it doesn't really feel like my name anymore."
rocky ruminates on this for a moment. then: "...ryland is grace first name, question?"
"yeah."
"rocky like grace better." grace deflates with relief. "yeah, me too, buddy."
"but," rocky says, "rocky want last name too now."
huh. okay, then.
"i guess i could figure that out," grace agrees. "we could give you movie rocky's last name? you wanna be rocky balboa?"
"mm, no," rocky says.
"okay, well we could go region based, i guess. where'd you grow up? i can make up something fitting, or i can look something up on my computer, i'm sure there's places on earth that are similar to places on erid -"
"no," rocky interrupts. "want grace."
"...huh?"
"rocky want grace last name."
grace is suddenly feeling very, very flushed. "you what??"
"last name is family name, question?"
"well, yeah, but -"
"and rocky grace family now. so rocky want grace family name!"
...well, when he says it like THAT, it's so much more innocent. grace... well, he agrees, because what else is he gonna say? that rocky should know that that that's as good as a marriage proposal?
no, that takes too much cultural context, and a longer conversation than he wants to have right now. easier to just let rocky have it. it's not like there'll be any consequences to bite him in the ass, right?
i just know rocky was pissing people off when they got to erid. like everyone DROP EVERYTHING and help my weird gross alien boyfriend BUT you have to do it with me hovering over him and biting your arm off every time you so much as poke him because we're codependent. id be mad as hell
went through the effort of making this gif just to remind everyone of rocky scooting closer to grace on the beach
[ID: A gif from Project Hail Mary of Grace and Rocky sitting together on the biodome's shoreline. Rocky folds his limbs in to "sit" beside Grace, and after a few moments readjusts to tuck himself closer to Grace's side. End ID]
