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Grace sits on the beach once again after his class ends, waiting for Rocky to finish working and visit him again. The water temperature has been made near perfect by now, gently lapping at his bare feet and the bottom of his long, flowy pants that Rocky has made for him for his last birthday. Grace was completely choked up when he saw what it was, and it came with a new shirt and a new sweater as well, courtesy of Adrian. He wore the clothes he was wearing on the Hail Mary for a very long time before they started deteriorating, and he had no idea how to get new ones. Eridians don’t wear clothes for warmth, nor for modesty, but Rocky did tell him once they properly settled in and Grace accepted that this place was now his home that they have synthetic fabrics and he could make him something or Grace could learn how to sew or knit to make himself clothes. So Rocky tried his best to make him more clothes, even though some of them didn’t exactly… turn out great, to say the least. Grace loved them all the same, laughed so hard out of pure joy when Rocky gifted him a pair of booty shorts — then Grace spent an hour explaining what ‘booty’ was, and Rocky kept saying it constantly for days like a vocal stim found by a toddler — and decided to wear it on days when the biodome was warmed up a little bit for him to experience at least some semblance of a season. He loved the fog, and the cold water, and the beach, but after having spent three Earth years on Erid, it became just as mundane as his daily routine.
The worst thing for him, out of all of the things he missed from his Earth, but not enough to even consider going back, was touch-starvation. The only thing Rocky couldn’t provide for him. They even managed to synthesize food for him from his own DNA, and that was a hurdle to get over, but the burger he had managed to make was too good to pass up on the opportunity. Back to the topic at hand, though. Grace was touch-starved. Rocky was there, always, of course he was, he visited every day and sometimes even stayed multiple nights in a row, especially in the beginning, when Grace was still sick from actual starvation, when he was sleeping a lot and recovering. The medical team had been amazing in aiding him back to health, and even though he was still not fully back to his original state, even after three years, he was closer to it than he thought was possible when they arrived. He had run out of those wretched, awful coma slurries shortly after their arrival, and eating raw Taumeba was… an event he’d rather forget about. They managed to synthesize vitamins for him and make him the aforementioned burgers, that he called “me-burgers”, because that’s what they were — and still are — and Eridian scientists have been working tirelessly over the past three years to figure out new ways to make food for Grace. He’ll always be eternally grateful for that.
Touch-starvation, however, was an entirely different beast to deal with. Adrian gifted him a plushie for “Christmas”, even though Grace insisted that they didn’t need to celebrate, Rocky’s mate was adamant about doing a proper celebration, and even made a tiny Christmas tree from xenonite for him, decorated with little bulbs that they managed to light up with the lighting in Grace’s Eridian house, and they celebrated, sitting in their custom-made ugly Christmas sweaters — Rocky actually got upset at Grace for calling the sweater the human made for him ‘ugly’ — and handing gifts out. Well Adrian and Rocky were handing proper gifts out, and Grace did manage to ask for a help from one of his students by asking them to copy the drawing he made onto the whiteboard onto a xenonite slab. Both Rocky and his mate were overcome with emotions at the thoughtfulness behind it, and promised to put it into their den for safekeeping. There wasn’t much else Grace could’ve done for them, but he did his best. The plushie is really soft, and Grace has absolutely zero idea what it is made of, but it is a mini-Rocky for the days real life Rocky couldn’t be with him. It helped. A lot… but it was not enough. At one point he became so desperate that he numbed his hand just to be able to touch his own face, to feel a human’s touch. He broke down in tears. Thankfully, Rocky was not present for that experience, otherwise he would’ve gone mad with worry about Grace’s mental condition. It’s gotten better, over the years, he didn’t really get touched much in his daily life anyway, but even the possibility was taken away from him when he decided to stay on Erid despite the Hail Mary being ready to return to Earth.
Grace lifts his head, and with that, out of his miserable thoughts when he hears the all-too-familiar chirping of Rocky arriving. He twitches in place when he sees him, about to open his mouth to yell in panic about Rocky coming into his biodome in nothing, the images of a smoking, burning, dying Rocky sealed into his very being from the snippets of half-conscious memories he remembered from their journey together. His heart rate spikes, but then he notices the clear-ish xenonite glinting in the artificial light of the dome, and his posture sags back with relief. He leans backwards on his arms, turning his face towards the top of the biodome and exhaling a long, slow breath.
“Grace okay, question?” Rocky taps twice at the end of the sentence in the sand, and Grace lets out a soft laugh, trying desperately to swallow past the lump that was created in his throat.
“Yeah, bud,” he croaks, clearing his throat. “I thought, uh… I thought you weren’t wearing your suit.”
“Oh. No, Rocky is wearing xenonite suit. It is thinner!”
“I can see that, buddy,” Grace lets out a soft laugh, and breathes out again.
“Grace… not like Rocky new suit, question?” the taps are slow this time, uncertain.
“No, no, that’s not it, Rocky, I just… I remember…”
“Oh,” Rocky sits back on his legs, tilting his entire being to the side a little bit. “Grace remember when Rocky…”
“Yeah,” Grace nods, rapidly blinking to make the stinging in his eyes go away. “Yeah, I do. That was so stupid of you, Rocky, so, so stupid, but you saved my life and I would’ve died without you, we both would’ve died, so I can’t even be mad, but still, you…”
“Rocky did not want to let Grace die. That was not option, statement.”
“Yeah. I would’ve done the same for you, bud,” Grace whispers with a smile, wiping his face and taking another deep breath to calm himself. “Anyways, what’s up with the thin suit? Is it not too thin?”
“No. Xenonite suit very comfortable. Xenonite suit now good for… hugs.”
“Hugs?” Grace’s heart skips a beat again, even though he just managed to calm down, dang it.
“Yes. Grace has been lonely. Grace crave touch. Rocky make suit thinner so Rocky can touch Grace better. Rocky is sorry Rocky not able to bring more humans to Erid for Grace.”
“Oh, Rock, don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault.”
“Rocky not like when Rocky can’t fix. So Rocky fix xenonite suit for better movement. Grace want hug, question?”
“I— yeah,” Grace nods, completely transfixed at the way Rocky gently approaches him, carefully placing all five of his limbs between his legs. It’s a tight fit, he needs to stretch his muscles more, but it works. Rocky places his weight on his ‘back’ limbs, which he doesn’t really have, but he’s taken to facing Grace with the smooth side of his body as if that was his ‘face’, to show he is paying attention. Then Rocky does something Grace doesn’t expect, and his breath catches in his throat when the clawed limbs wrap around his shoulders, and Rocky pulls him in until he is completely plastered against his front. His breath catches again and again as he wraps his own arms around Rocky, completely encasing him in a proper hug, and he breaks. Rocky doesn’t move, just presses slightly closer, ever-so-gently to avoid crushing him, as if he is trying to say—
“Rocky is here for Grace. Rocky can give Grace hug now.”
“Y-yeah, bud,” he stutters, his face contorted into a sob as he cuddles closer, the warmth emanating through the thin xenonite barrier almost too much to bear, but it’s not burning him, and even if it was, he wouldn’t care at all. What’s a couple burn marks when he can finally hug his best friend properly? It would be worth it. He is sobbing in earnest now, his hands shaking so much they nearly slip off the suit, his entire chest jumping with hiccups that come from his very soul. “Thank you. Thank you, Rock.”
“Rocky happy Rocky can fix. Grace like hug, question?” the question taps this time arrive on his back, and Grace breaks out into an entirely new set of sobs, coupled with a laugh at the almost-perfect imitation of a comforting back pat.
“Yeah,” he croaks when he manages to take half a breath. “Yeah, bud, I like it.”
“Rocky hug Grace all the time now. Rocky hug Grace when Grace sleep while Rocky watch.”
Grace lets out a soft laugh, that is wet and it’s disgusting, and he feels every bit of a leaky space blob that Rocky often calls him, but he doesn’t care. The xenonite doesn’t dig into his skin anymore anywhere, and Rocky’s warmth finally manages to melt the ice loneliness wrapped around his heart. He fears he will never let Rocky go, so he tries to pull away, but Rocky doesn’t let him.
“Rocky does not feel hug is done.”
And Grace breaks all over again.