“Grace?”
“..Yeah..”
“How spell last name of project lead director, question?”
It takes him a moment to process the question, but he eventually responds. “...Stratt?”
“Yes.”
“S … T … R … A … T … T”
He types the letters in. “Thank you.”
Grace lays there with his heavy, swollen eyes closed, listening as Rocky saves the newly translated word and repeats it once for confirmation.
“Stratt.”
“You got it…” He mumbles with disdain.
Rocky goes quiet and still for a bit, lost in thought. Grace is about to ask him what he even wanted the name for when his unspoken question is suddenly answered.
“Rocky kill Stratt.”
--- --- ---
Grace opens up about a memory that haunts him.
Pairing: Grace/Rocky (with poly Grace/Rocky/Mary/Armando quietly developing in the background (sentient Mary & Armando))
Word Count: 2.6k
CWs: [Not Canon Compliant] [angst] [crying]
When you're falling asleep with a gun to your back, ‘cause they sold you a dream with a nightmare attached.
“No!”
The sudden noise in the otherwise quiet room startles Rocky so badly that he drops one of his tools. It clatters to the bottom of his xenonite bunk but the sound doesn't wake Grace from his sleep below.
It only takes him a moment to process what's going on. After all, this wouldn't be the first time it's happened. After the first baffling instance of Grace talking in his sleep, Rocky questioned him profusely the next morning.
Grace had then explained both the concepts of sleep-talking and dreaming. How humans will experience ‘visions’ in their sleep that feel real in the moment but upon waking are understood to actually be nothing more than products of their imagination, or memories being relived.
Fascinating creatures, truly.
Rocky has little time to be fascinated at the moment though, what with how distressed Grace sounds. He's shifting a bit in his sleep, slurring out a mixture of nonsense and objections. Rocky can only make out the occasional comprehensible sentence, given the way Grace is currently laying on his stomach with his face halfway smushed into the pillow.
“I can't do it!”
Usually when Grace sleep-talks, it's more like Rocky gets to eavesdrop on one side of a relatively calm but nonsensical conversation. Occasionally though, it'll be like this. Grace will begin to stir, then he'll begin to mumble, then he'll begin to shout, and then he'll bolt up in the bed, finally awake and heaving shaky breaths.
Then he cries.
Rocky tries to comfort him, though he's never quite sure how. He offers physical contact, which Grace sometimes welcomes and sometimes rejects. He offers to listen, if Grace would like to tell him what the bad dream was about. He's never taken Rocky up on that offer.
Grace rarely returns to his sleep on the nights where he has these bad dreams. Sometimes he will ask Rocky to talk to him instead. About engineering, about Erid, about Adrian, about anything, really. Grace says it's a good distraction and Rocky is happy to help. Sometimes he will ask Mary to play some of his Earth music, and they all listen together. Sometimes he will play some sort of video entertainment on his portable human thinking machine, and they all watch it together. Other times they will just sit in the quiet together until morning.
Rocky doesn't know what sort of night this one is going to be, but he prepares himself for any possibility. Donning his xenosuit and leaving the atmosphere of his bunk, he watches Grace warily from the floor nearby.
“Please, don't do it!”
He's never seen Grace move around quite so much in his sleep. It isn't unusual for him to fidget or twitch a bit, or shift one of his limbs, but this is something else entirely. It’s like he's trying to fight the blankets.
Like he's fighting something, or someone, off of him in his dream.
“DON'T DO IT!”
In a sudden chaotic burst, Grace shouts and flails so hard that he sends himself off the edge of the mattress and onto the padded floor below.
Rocky isn't sure if Grace woke up before or after the fall, but he's certainly awake now, sitting on the floor and glancing around the room in a disoriented panic.
“...Grace have bad dream again, question?”
He seems to relax ever so slightly when his gaze lands on Rocky. He doesn't answer the question immediately, chest heaving. Rocky remains patient, giving him time and space to reorient himself in reality.
“...Y-Yeah…” he eventually manages to say.
Rocky watches him shift onto his left hip, reaching a hand around and cupping the back of his right thigh.
“Grace injured, question?”
He palpates the area for a long moment, searching for an ache that isn't there.
“...No.”
Mary chimes in while Armando hovers nearby. “Would you like assistance getting back into your bed, Captain?”
He's quick to reject the notion. “No. No… thank you. I’m… fine.”
His breaths are still a bit labored and he's visibly disturbed.
Rocky isn't convinced. “Rocky can help, question?”
In spite of knowing when and where he is, Grace still manages to look just about as lost as he feels. “...I don't know.”
“Is okay,” Rocky assures him, settling down where he is and maintaining the few feet of distance between them. “Is no rush to know.”
After a while of sitting there with his head in his hands, Grace eventually voices a request. “...Can I have a hug?”
Rocky tries to not let his eagerness show as he immediately stands up and walks toward him. “Yes. Yes yes.”
Settling down between his legs, Rocky wraps two arms around Grace's waist. He tenses a bit, prompting Rocky to pull back.
“..Grace okay, question? Change mind?”
He immediately wraps his arms around Rocky’s body. “No, no. I’m fine. I still want this.” His voice cracks and his breaths grow shallow. “I’m fine…”
Rocky reluctantly returns the embrace, confused by the mixed signals.
It isn't long before Grace starts crying.
Rocky moves to pull away, not out of discomfort, but concern. Grace clings to him tighter.
“Please… don't let go.”
“Rocky not making Grace uncomfortable, question?”
“You're not,” he sniffles. “You're really not. I-I'm just…” he breaks down again.
“Is okay,” Rocky reassures him, pressing back into the hug. He may not fully understand, but he trusts Grace’s words. “Rocky will not go. Grace not alone.”
-
Once it seems like Grace has cried himself out, slumped over Rocky with his wet cheek pressed against the barrier between them, he feels the next question as much as he hears it.
“Grace want to talk about bad dream, question?”
He's quiet for a long time.
“...I guess it's about time I told you.”
“Do not have to,” Rocky reminds him.
“I know,” Grace sighs, sitting up again and releasing him from the hug. “I… think I want to.”
“Okay.” He leans back a bit but doesn't move from his spot on the floor in front of him. “Rocky listen.”
“I.. uh, have something I need to tell you.” He takes the handful of tissues that Armando holds out for him, pausing and using one to blow his nose.
‘So many different fluids… gross and messy,’ Rocky passively thinks but has learned when to not say.
He uses another to dry his face off before continuing. “I’ve never fully explained how I ended up on this ship in the first place.”
“Grace say Grace not know. Not remember.”
“Yeah,” he clears his throat and nods. “That was true.. at the time. But, uh… the memories have been coming back to me over time. I remember what happened now.”
Grace tells Rocky everything he’s managed to recall. Getting roped into the project, discovering how to breed astrophage, accidentally becoming important at work. Tearfully, he recounts the events leading up to launch, the explosion, how they needed a replacement scientist and unfortunately he was the only candidate left for the job.
“I… I couldn't do it. Couldn't make myself do it. I wasn't an astronaut. I'm still not. But.. I guess I knew more about astrophage than anyone else. Stratt was convinced that it had to be me.” He exhales a shaky breath. “I told her no. I refused to go on the mission.”
“...But Grace here now.”
Grace's voice grows strained. “..Yeah.”
Rocky doesn't like where this is going. Not one bit.
“It uh,” Grace blinks hard, more tears falling. “It turned out that Stratt was never really giving me a choice in the first place. She was just hoping that I'd go down without a fight.”
Rocky’s never heard Grace sound so bitter and resentful. “Go… down? Question?"
Chasing you down like a dog in the field, you can run for your life, feel the breath on your heels.
Grace finally looks at him instead of the floor or the walls. “They forced me to do this, Rocky. They put me on this ship against my will and without my consent.”
“...Rocky hate 🎶.” He grows frustrated at the realization that the translation he needs isn't in the machine yet. “Hate hate hate hate hate.”
Grace nods along absentmindedly, his attention too caught up in continuing to vent out some of the details. Rocky could be saying that he hates him and he would still agree. “I… didn't go willingly, and I also didn't go proudly.”
Rocky remembers the way he thrashed himself out of the bed. “…Grace fight, question?”
“I… guess. I tried to.”
“Then Grace go proud.”
He scoffs. “I really didn't. It wasn't that kind of fight.”
“What Grace mean?”
“It was.. more of a run than a fight. A lot of running. And.. then I was tackled. Grass in my face. Dirt under my nails. A rainbow in the sky.” It gets harder for him to breathe. “Strange men on my back. Hands all over me, h-holding me down. A needle stabbed in the back of my thigh–”
He buries his face in his hands, breaking down again.
Rocky’s blood almost boils at the thought, but he does his best to keep up a calm facade for Grace. “Is okay. Grace safe now.” He shuffles toward him until they're touching again. “Rocky protect Grace now.”
Reaching out again, Grace clings to him like a lifeline.
But hold on, you're so close to making it out and you don't even know. So please don't let go.
He eventually cries himself into exhaustion. Slumped over Rocky again, he can't bring himself to move. He can barely even bring himself to speak. Sleep tugs at the edges of his mind, but he resists it out of fear of returning to the nightmare.
Rocky stares through Grace, focused on the straining muscles in his lower back.
“...Rocky can touch Grace, question?”
He mumbles a weak affirmative.
“Good. Grace can not stay in this position.” With reluctance, he raises his arms and begins to peel him up off of the xenosuit.
Grace still tenses a bit when he feels Rocky’s hands on him.
“No hurt Grace. Only move,” he promises him, gently laying his limp body down flat on the padded floor.
“Don't… don't go…” Grace whines.
“Rocky no leave, Rocky no leave,” he reassures. “Move Grace to more comfortable position. Rocky stay with Grace. Protect Grace. Promise promise promise.”
He attempts to take one step away, just enough to reach out and grab the laptop nearby, but Grace rolls onto his side and clings to him again.
He allows himself to be pulled back, settling down next to him and opting for an alternative solution.
“..Armando bring translator to Rocky, request.”
It does as he asks, gliding around the room grabbing things for a moment before placing the laptop within Rocky’s reach, along with his crystal screen adapter and texture monitor.
“Thank you.”
It nods, quietly hovering nearby.
With two of his arms wrapped around Grace, he reaches out with another and presses a button on the keyboard. Making one particular sound, he watches the screen register it as ‘unknown’ again.
“Grace?”
“..Yeah..”
“How spell last name of project lead director, question?”
It takes him a moment to process the question, but he eventually responds. “...Stratt?”
“Yes.”
“S … T … R … A … T … T”
He types the letters in. “Thank you.”
Grace lays there with his heavy, swollen eyes closed, listening as Rocky saves the newly translated word and repeats it once for confirmation.
“Stratt.”
“You got it…” He mumbles with disdain.
Seconds before the sunrise.
Rocky goes quiet and still for a bit, lost in thought. Grace is about to ask him what he even wanted the name for when his unspoken question is suddenly answered.
“Rocky kill Stratt.”
He forces his eyes open, squinting up at the screen to see if he heard him right.
He laughs weakly. “What?”
“Rocky make new plan. We find solution to astrophage, we send Grace half of solution to Earth on probes, we go to Erid, we save Grace, we save Erid, we fuel Mary, we go to Earth, we kill Stratt.”
He laughs again at the absurdity of the thought, a bit of life returning to him. “We – We can't do that, Rock…”
“Why?” He asks stubbornly.
“Well… the fact that murder is illegal, for starters..”
“What Stratt do to Grace not illegal too, question?”
“She… was operating under an insane amount of legal immunity. I don't know if she ever faced any consequences for forcing–…” He clears his congested throat, unable to speak the specifics again so soon. “For.. doing what she did.”
Rocky lifts his back limb and stomps on the floor once, heavy and hard, though its impact is lessened by the padding. “...Stratt not immune to Rocky.”
He eyes him fondly.
“I don't… really doubt that you'd be strong enough to do it. But I just don't think you fully understand the legal repercussions that would hit us if you got caught.”
“We leave Earth after. Return to Erid. Grace safe there forever.”
He blinks his bleary eyes. “Are you saying that murder isn't illegal on Erid?”
He skillfully dodges the question. “This murder no happen on Erid. It happen on Earth. Leave scene of crime behind. Light-years away. Tell no one. Is no interstellar law yet. Grace Rocky safe forever on Erid.”
Grace sighs, shaking his head. “That's… a very grand plan. One that is glossing over a lot of complicated details…”
“Details no matter now. Rocky get revenge for Grace. Kill kill kill. Kill Stratt. Kill men that tackle and hurt Grace.”
He winces a bit. “It's… really not that simple of a situation. I should've just.. been brave and agreed to go. Then they wouldn't have had to–”
Rocky cuts him off, much to his relief at not having to finish the sentence. “Stratt force Grace on death mission. Kill Stratt is equal fair response. Is simple.”
Grace really can't tell if Rocky is being serious or just trying to make him feel better. For the sake of his sanity and ability to sleep at night without worrying about being trapped in a spaceship with a murderous alien, he chooses to believe the latter.
“...Y’know, bud, I really appreciate you coming up with this big new plan. But.. how about we table it for now? Take things one day at a time. My tired little human brain is getting kinda overwhelmed at the thought of it all…”
Rocky lightly places a hand on Grace's forehead. “No think, no think. Grace relax. Rocky have plan. Grace no worry. Rocky protect, keep Grace safe.”
With Rocky's gentle insistence, he lays his head back down on his folded arm and wraps his other around the Eridian again. In spite of the extreme nature of Rocky’s ‘plan’, he'd be lying if he said he didn't find some twisted sort of comfort in the knowledge that someone cares enough about him to even think of going to such lengths.
Armando moves in to hover over Rocky, reaching down with a damp cloth and gently wiping his suit clean of Grace's smeared, drying fluids.
Mary chimes in with a question, attempting to lift the mood and divert them from the dark topic. “Would you like an early breakfast, Grace?”
He chews on his lower lip for a moment, considering it. “...I’m not really hungry yet. I'm sorry.”
“You do not need to apologize. It will be ready whenever you request it.”
Armando lifts the quilt from Grace’s bed and cautiously drapes it over his curled form on the floor.
“..Thank you. All of you.”
Armando rubs his shoulder through the quilt and Rocky slides a hand up and down Grace's back in the way that always makes his muscles relax.
Mary and Rocky’s voices respond in tandem.
“You are welcome, Grace.”
A/Ns: This can be read as a oneshot, but it does exist as part of a larger 7-chapter fic of mine, which can be found right here on Ao3.
This is a songfic! All of the lyrics centered in italics throughout the fic are from the song "Seconds Before The Sunrise" by Dean Lewis. Here's a link to the official lyric video on YouTube.
