after they've watched a decent number of films and TV shows, enough for rocky to feel confident in his assumptions about human culture (grace DOES answer any question he asks but rocky knows damn well his human is biased), rocky waits for grace's attention on his task of the afternoon to wander and then asks, "Grace miss kissing question?"
and grace startles, and turns to face rocky, and says "Huh? What?"
rocky says, "Kissing. Casual human affection gesture with face-mouth. Grace miss kissing question?"
they have not yet had any kind of 'what are we' discussion. rocky is already working on his xenonite suit -- rocky has been working on the xenonite suit since he realised something like grace's EVA suit would be easier, for grace to look around the blip-A in, and then while wearing it grace kept touching him -- and they've picked up exactly where they left off re: spending literally every waking moment in arm's reach of each other. but they have not talked about what that means.
and rocky isn't really angling to start that conversation, right now. rocky is mostly trying to work out what the fuck the appeal of kissing is
"Uh," grace says. "Not... Oh, huh. I don't think I've ever really liked it that much?"
rocky focus-clicks at grace, pointedly. grace is chewing on the skin of his lip. grace is always chewing on something. grace has small lumps of an polymerised oxygen-silicon compound just to chew on, so he doesn't instead chew on important research equipment.
"Kissing doesn't involve teeth!" grace protests. "It's just-- wet. And close. I don't know, everyone else seems to like it, but I always just want to--" his face-mouth snaps shut abruptly. the blood flow to his face has increased.
rocky feels his hands still. grace swallows. rocky says, "Want to just what, question?"
grace puts the oxygen-silicon polymer lump in his mouth. between his teeth. applies pressure with his teeth.
they're in the sleeping room, each on their respective sides of the wall. grace is sat with his back leant against it -- he was doing something on his portable thinking machine, which might have been research or might have been one of his visual sorting-matching games, rocky hasn't been keeping track.
by now, rocky can get into the ball and into grace's space in under a human minute. the tactile feedback panel is on its fourth iteration, it's where he's been testing for the finer parts of the suit. he is endlessly grateful for the chorus of mechanical engineers preceding him, that he hasn't had to invent from complete silence, that he's already gotten the segments this small.
he gets the panel level with grace's face. he pushes one hand out through it. the polymer lump drops from grace's teeth. is replaced with rocky's finger.
there's no temperature change. no sense of moisture. but there's pressure, and the sound of blood vessels expanding, grace's heart-beat quickening, grace's lung-swell quickening. a small, soft note from grace's throat.
rocky says, "No one in visual human story songs do this. Grace weird, question?" just to make grace make another small, soft note. "Grace weird, statement. Grace Rocky's weird little freak."
and they do not manage to circle back to the general appeal of kissing.
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