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I can tell that Rocky is getting worried.
I am too, in a distant sort’ve sense. I’m trying very hard not to dwell on it. I had come to terms with my death the moment I had turned the Hail Mary around. Saving Rocky (and the entirety of Erid, by extension) had become my priority, and I had known at the time that I would starve to death in the process.
Thanks to Rocky’s clever, clever ideas, though, I at least have something to fill my stomach with. I won’t die from starvation. Fortunately, there are enough Taumoeba in our rigged storage bay to last me far beyond the trip to Erid, and it would be trivially easy to breed more if I ever needed to for whatever reason. Unfortunately, they’re basically the microorganism equivalent to snacking on rice cakes. They fill me up, but lack any nutritional benefits. Between the flavorless, nutritionally bereft Taumoeba and the disgusting pill-tasting coma slurry, I won’t die for at least a few years.
I am suffering pretty bad from malnutrition, though. And general bad mood from the poor-quality food, but if I couldn’t at least use the crutch of malnutrition to excuse my ever-shortening temper, what was the point in anything? The coma-slurry was intended to be a fully complete nutritional diet… For coma patients. Even if I had been taking the full daily doses, I’d still likely find myself growing thin walking, talking, and generally being conscious in the 1.5 g’s of gravity my reluctant body was experiencing. And I haven’t been taking the daily dose– Far from it, in fact. I’ve carefully worked out exactly how much of the slurry I should consume per day until we reach Erid, give or take a month or so in case of unseen factors. This leaves me not even eating half of what I should, nutritionally. After just about three years of this (my real food had long since run out, even with my attempted rationing), I can tell that my body is getting weaker. I’ll miss my muscles, but at least my body is consuming something other than my brain matter. I kinda need that.
All of this to say, my little buddy’s concerns are valid. He can tell that my body is weakening probably better than I could, as observant as he is. Even if he isn’t an expert in human biology, he knows what my baseline looks like, and he knows that I’d strayed pretty far from that.
The best thing I can do to slow the malnutrition setting in is to rest, but there’s only so much that I can sleep. I find myself growing increasingly restless. There isn’t much maintenance to do around the ship that Rocky doesn’t insist on taking care of himself. I let him, of course. Both because he enjoys busying himself and because I’m going to waste my energy on the tedium of keeping a spaceship functional despite travelling roughly twice as many lightyears as it’s intended to. I probably wouldn’t be much help, anyways. Rocky is the engineer, not me.
My main task is to keep an eye on the genetically modified Taumoeba, but now that they no longer can escape their containers they are remarkably boring for organisms that were (hopefully!) going to save two entire planets. Having that small “job” did help me feel somewhat useful at first, but there really wasn’t much to it. Just another layer of tedium, in between choking back disgusting slop and sleeping.
Most of my free time is spent reading, or playing video games, or watching television. I’m grateful that Stratt had thought to load the ship up with excess entertainment, even if it meant that I have to sift through literally every single piece of media ever created in order to find anything of actual value. At least I have plenty of time to discern what I enjoy and what I don't. I hadn’t had much time for video games on Earth, but I was pretty sure that the amount of gaming I’ve been doing the past year could rival any teenager. I have literally nothing but time.
Briefly, I wonder if there even are still teenagers on Earth, much less the structural systems in place needed to support excess video gaming habits. Maybe everyone is dead. Or maybe they’ve nuked themselves back into the Stone Age, and video games are regarded as ancient relics. I don’t know. I doubt I ever would. I close out of the software I was using to run Pokemon White 2 on one of the many laptops I own. Clearly it wasn’t entertaining enough to keep my thoughts from straying into dark places, so I needed a better distraction.
To be honest, it isn’t just the lack of nutrition that has me feeling so empty. Or the boredom.
Look. It isn’t that I don’t love Rocky, far from it. Rocky is perfect company, witty and funny, and I probably love him more than I’ve ever loved any human (as messed up as that probably makes me sound). But after several years in isolation, I just can’t help but miss being touched. Pressing myself up against the xenonite barrier he resides in always leaves me feeling the same as when I consumed Taumoeba. It placates me, holds me over, but I still ultimately feel hollow and unsatisfied.
The last time I had been touched by another human was when my unconscious body had been dragged onto the Hail Mary for my unwanted suicide mission, buckled in by the now long-dead Yáo and Ilyukhina. I’ve never been a particularly tactile person, but the complete absence of all physical touch was one of the problems that I’m beginning to realize that I had severely underestimated.
While psychology has never been my area of expertise, I know enough to recognize the symptoms of depression in myself. Slowly succumbing to malnutrition on a space ship I never wanted to be on while knowing there’s a significant chance that the entire human population could be dead regardless of my actions is definitely putting a strain on things. Especially with how much time I have to dwell on it. It’d be rough for anyone! My mental health historically hadn’t been great at the best of times. This is definitely not the best of times.
Touch starvation. Or skin hunger, according to the Wikipedia page I’ve frequented. It sounds gross, but it’s an accurate term. I feel voracious. I want to be touched the same way that I want to sink my teeth into a steak. I want it enough that the thought of it was enough to bring tears to my eyes. I try to lick them up the best I could; I don’t want to waste the salt. An irrational, animal part of me is convinced that all of my anxieties would be soothed if only someone held me.
The only problem is that my only company is a 210*c rock.
It isn’t that I was opposed to the idea of seeking physical affection from Rocky. God no. He'd bemusedly tolerated my charade of cuddling on multiple occasions when I’d caved and asked for it, pressed close to the other side of the xenonite for my benefit despite Eridians not having any instinctive drive to touch each other. At least, not as adults. Rocky had explained that sometimes newly hatched Eridians would huddle for warmth with both their siblings and parents in the event of lower-than-average temperatures. So it was cool to know that he sees me about as physically capable as a baby. It hadn’t even really helped, anyways.
It had been like giving a man dying of thirst a single drop of water. All it served to do was remind me of how deep my want went.
Embarrassingly, in my occasional fantasies that involve being touched, it never is a human who soothes me. It’s always, without fail, Rocky. I've taken to having recurring dreams about us being able to exist in a shared atmosphere. Dreams where his hands won't burn my skin, and he runs his segmented claws through my hair and down my back and across my lips, commenting in his sing-song voice how soft that I am until I cry.
Those dreams are terrible. I’ll wake up and have to feverishly remind myself what it had been like the single time I had touched him bare-handed, while he was unconscious and burning. It had hurt us both, and I’m being an idiot wanting to repeat it. Those reminders are sometimes the only thing that keep me from trying to climb inside the airlock separating our halves of the ship. That would be a very, very stupid death. And definitely traumatic for Rocky. Bad Grace!
Rocky is under the impression that those recurring dreams are nightmares, judging by my reactions when I wake up. He'd teased me for it once, when I woke up sobbing, in the way that friends tease their friends in crisis when they wanted to help them feel better but lacked the emotional intelligence to meaningfully help. He tells me that it's funny that human brains sometimes torture themselves in their sleep for no reason. Admittedly I have to agree. It is pretty funny.
Pushing down my thoughts, I stand up from my nest on the floor. I'd taken up sleeping on the ground ages ago because I can be closer to Rocky that way. He can't exactly clamber up into the elevated bed with his immense weight and unwieldy suit, and he gets bothered when he can’t watch me sleep. I have more than enough bedding to make it cozy, especially now that I’ve mostly gotten over the heebie-jeebies of sleeping on blankets and mattress-pads that my friends died on. It’s almost as comfortable as a real mattress on Earth, especially when Rocky’s there.
I let out a soft groan as I stretch. My entire body feels perpetually weak and a little sore, and getting up off of the floor is unpleasant. I manage, though, and clamber up the ladder to see what Rocky has been up to.
Nothing terribly exciting, it turns out. He had accidentally smashed a laptop the other day when he'd been scrambling around, and he's made it his mission to repair the screen. Not his own laptop, of course, because that would be too polite, but one of the ones that I had previously used to run the Eridianese translation software that we no longer needed. I’d only been sad for as long as it took for me to remember that the one who broke my laptop is probably one of the greatest engineers in the universe. I did take out the hard drive just in case, though. I don’t want to risk Rocky destroying the records of our earliest conversations, back before I could understand him fluently.
“How is Grace feeling, question?” Rocky’s voice is pleasant as ever, a quintuplet of notes chiming in harmony as they relay their message in a brief burst of music. I can detect the ever-present concern in his voice, but evidently he hadn’t been concerned enough to actually come check on me. In fact, he didn’t even appear concerned enough to quit tinkering with the broken device.
“Fine, just tired,” I admit, knowing that I can’t fully lie to him. I’m hungry, too, but I’m always hungry and saying so would be both redundant and also make Rocky sad. Being both tired and restless is agonizing. I feel like I want to crawl out of my own skin like how Rocky sheds pieces of his carapace. He’d shed a lot when he’d first moved onto the Hail Mary, following whatever injury he’d sustained to his arms in my absence. Despite how extensive the damage was (he hadn’t ever volunteered the full details of how he’d sustained such massive injuries, either), he’d barely scarred. I wish my own scarring had gone away so easily, but I’m pretty sure that the skin on the left side of my body will always look a little weird after sustaining chemical burns from being exposed to Rocky’s atmosphere.
The thought immediately reminds me of my desire to touch Rocky again, and God I sound like such a creep thinking that. And an idiot. Hadn’t I just been lamenting my burn scars?
It’d be so nice, though, I can’t help but think.
“Rocky can watch sleep,” he offers helpfully. “Can work on laptop in bedroom, if don’t mind noise.” His voice does soothe some of the tightness in my chest. I’d appreciate his company, for sure, but I don’t actually think I could sleep yet.
“Nah, it’s fine. I’ll just sit up here,” I say, taking a seat on the makeshift bed that had already been lying on the ground. It consists only of a mattress pad, sheet, and blanket, similar to the one in the bedroom. I’m pretty sure this one belonged to Yáo, but I’ve honestly lost track. I often spend time resting in the lab as Rocky works, so having somewhere comfortable to rest my body was important. I always feel the need to be around him, and I’m pretty sure the feeling is mutual. You’d think after spending so many years with just the two of us that I’d start to resent him, like those crazy Russians did with that Mars trip they’d been planning back during the Space Race. It seems like all you need to endure constant companionship is the inability to touch them. Who knew! Take that, Stratt!
Or, more likely, Rocky in particular is just absurdly good company. Anyone else’s voice would’ve become grating after so much time, but his windchime whale song is still beautiful. Even if he is a meanie, sometimes.
“Damaged internal hardware when broke laptop,” Rocky sings, tapping the mangled device with one of his legs as if I won’t know what he’s talking about if he doesn’t physically indicate it. “Grace shouldn’t have left so close to edge.”
I roll my eyes, but I can tell by his tone that he’s teasing me. Granted, it was my fault a little. I probably shouldn’t have left it on the edge of the pilot chair, but it had been there for months undisturbed before Rocky had skittered into it when chasing a loose ball of paper around the engine room that I had thrown. He enjoys the occasional bout of exercise, and it turns out entertaining an Eridian is very similar to entertaining a cat. They both have similarly high prey drives, anyways. I wonder if Rocky’s ever seen me as potential prey, or if I’m simply too alien to register as a food source. I push that question aside immediately, not wanting to examine how the thought makes me feel. Not as scared as I should be, probably.
“Rocky shouldn’t have been running around like a dummy,” I say, my tone light and playful as well. I scoot my bed a little closer to the xenonite wall and lean into it, sighing at the warmth. I always feel cold nowadays. Probably the malnutrition. Rocky clambers a little closer to the wall as well, dragging his project across the floor with him so that he can be as close to me as possible. He no longer even remarks upon it. He knows about my touch starvation, and I have a feeling he knows that it’s affecting me worse than I let on.
Rocky didn’t bother responding to my banter, instead beginning to play Minesweeper on a different, functional laptop while simultaneously continuing to work on the broken one. Glad to know that the most intelligent life form in the galaxy has Cocomelon brain. His screen reader is being put to good use, as usual. It reminds me of when one of my students had asked if I could put on Subway Surfers gameplay on the board during my lectures.
I regret not bringing the laptop from my bedroom. I could be playing videogames, too. I don’t mind the opportunity to just quietly observe Rocky for a while, though. Despite the time that had passed, I still find his anatomy incredibly impressive. How can I not? Eridians are probably the coolest organisms in the universe, and I’m lucky enough to have one as a roommate. I particularly like watching the way that his fingers move. All three on each hand are rigid and end with sharp points, but I’ve never seen him break or cut anything by accident. His vents gently rise and fall with his breathing as he draws air in over his radiators, and the rapid click of the touchpad (modified to work for Eridian fingers!) signifies just how good he is at Minesweeper. He beats it quicker and with more ease than any human could, even on the maximum difficulty levels. He hasn’t worn his little overalls in a while, which is a shame because I admittedly find them adorable, but the shirt he’s wearing seems comfortable. The fabric looks thinner and softer than what he used to wear in front of me. I’m pretty sure he’s wearing the Eridian equivalent of pajamas, which is fair. Not like he has anyone to show off to. His carapace looks rough in the way that granite is rough. Organic, unlike the artificial metal of the ship around me.
I want him to touch me.
“Grace heartbeat speeding up,” Rocky observes, with more than a small hint of worry. He actually stops what he’s doing on the laptops, though I am pretty sure part of him is still calculating what moves to make in Minesweeper. “Is okay, question? Or having anxiety attack, question?” I’ve had a few of those in front of Rocky, much to my mortification. Each time Rocky had been convinced I was dying, which hadn’t helped me at all. I feel my face heat up and I look away in embarrassment, hating that I’ve inadvertently been caught being weird while simultaneously reminding Rocky of some of my lowest moments.
“Yeah, yeah, sorry for worrying you, buddy. Just thinking about things. Human things.”
“Be more clear. Elaborate, what human things, question?” I can sense Rocky’s unease, and possibly some annoyance, too, judging by the way that he tilted back and forth. I feel a little bad, now. I know I’m being weird, and now I’m worrying him about it, too. I grimace, deciding to just be honest. He’s all I have, after all, and I’ve told him much weirder things.
“I miss being touched, is all,” I mumble, sighing. I know it’s something that I’ve been lamenting with increasing frequency, but it really does weigh on me. Again, I want it as much as I want food, and I am literally slowly starving to death. Rocky hums out a note of acknowledgement, before going back to fiddling with the laptops. Feeling a little stung at the dismissal, I continue speaking before I can bite my tongue.
“I want you to touch me,” I admit, and suddenly it’s spilling out of me like a dam had burst. “I keep having dreams about you petting me, y’know? And every time I’m near you I can’t stop thinking about it. I don’t mean to be weird, I know that you don’t really do that, and I respect it. I mean, I didn’t used to think I was a particularly touchy person either, but at least as a teacher I’d get hugs from students and when I was working on the Hail Mary, Stratt and I would sometimes sit close together and that was enough, I think? But now I actually feel like it’s killing me, Rocky.” I think I’m done, but then, unbidden, I admit one final sentence.
“I think I’m depressed.”
“Rocky can’t touch Grace. Human skin weak, will burn,” Rocky sings, sounding admittedly regretful. “Apology, cannot help.”
“Maybe we can just for a few seconds,” I say, a note of desperation in my voice as I start to think deeper on the calculations I’d definitely been subconsciously doing in my head for weeks or even months. Maybe even years. “If we don’t touch for too long, the burn will be light enough that it doesn’t even scar. Maybe if you just squeeze my arm a little?”
“Rocky doesn’t want hurt Grace!” Rocky protests, clacking his legs along the ground in a rhythmic motion that signifies annoyance. “Grace needs preserve nutrients to survive to Erid, not waste on healing unneeded injury. Won’t do it.”
Stung, I feel tears starting to fill my vision. I know, logically, that he’s right. My health is already at a steady decline, and will continue to worsen as time goes. I can’t afford to tax my already weakening body with intentional wounds. But the fact that I had been so quickly and completely rejected still hurts a little. I had never been one to seek out physical comfort before Rocky, but now that I feel like I need it to not go insane, I can’t have it.
I sniffle, tears spilling down my cheeks, and Rocky hums out a soothing note, pressing his body into the xenonite barrier between us as if it would help. The heat radiating from his body makes the clear structure feel a few degrees warmer, and that does admittedly make me feel better.
“Grace will be okay,” his tune is an octave lower than usual with sympathetic sadness, though he does sound a little awkward. He cares, but he’s ill-suited to comforting me. The fact that he’s trying makes me cry more, though. “No need for gross fluids, Rocky here. Will solve depression for Grace. No touch needed.”
And Rocky does try, to his credit. He sits down and researches human depression for as long as his short attention span can bear over the course of several days. I know that single-mindedly focusing on a task like that is generally unpleasant for an Eridian, so I’m pretty touched. I tell him that he doesn’t have to, but he insists that it’s important. He enjoys having a project and learning more about humans regardless, so I just hope it’s not too much of a burden on him.
“Grace should talk about feelings,” Rocky says, a couple days after his research began. I snort a little, unable to not find it a little funny, just the absurdity of it all.
“You don’t have to be my therapist, bud,” I tell him, though I am smiling a little. He really is the best friend I’ve ever had. Not that he’s competing with much. I’ve never really been one for close interpersonal relationships. Who can I even compare him to? Linda? I feel closer to Rocky than I ever did with her, to be honest. Stratt? Closer, but I can’t ever imagine Rocky betraying me, for all of his apparent gruffness. “I don’t think that would be a healthy addition to our dynamic.” Rocky stomps his little feet in annoyance.
“Not therapist, talking to friends important. Rocky best friend. Only friend, also. Talk to Rocky. Why Grace feel depressed, question?” I sigh, leaning against the xenonite wall that split my bedroom in half. It’s late, or what passes for late while hurtling through space at near-lightspeed. I’ve tried to mostly keep to a 24-hour sleep cycle, in hopes of it keeping me a little more sane. Jury’s out on how effective that is. It’s about ten P.M. Moscow time. My bedtime is eleven. I feel tired, but I’m unsure if that’s impending-bedtime-tired or depression-tired. I feel a little pathetic about that.
“I miss being touched,” I start, but he knows that already. I decide to elaborate. “It makes me feel sad and lonely. And I miss eating real food. I loved food, back on Earth. I had rituals around eating, which is typical for humans. I’d have eggs and bacon every morning, and a steak every Thursday night.”
I’m not really used to talking about my emotions. The words feel awkward in my mouth, further exacerbated by the fact that Rocky seems to feel just as uncomfortable as me, especially since I mentioned eating. It’s a little comforting, though. We’re both way out of our element. Rocky spins in the way that he does when he’s really focused on a particular sound, and the sight makes me smile a little despite the tense atmosphere. He’s such an attentive friend. My smile fades as I continue, though.
“And I’m…” My throat feels tight, tears pricking at the corner of my eyes again. God, I’m such a crybaby. It’s hard to even get the words out. It’s hard for me to even admit how I’m feeling to myself, let alone verbalize it. “I’m scared for Earth.”
“Grace sent Taumoeba to Earth, correct, question?” Rocky asks, and I nod. Rocky’s clever enough that he understands my nonverbal communication, and continues singing to me. “Means Grace save Earth. Grace tell me humans has thirty years before too late for rescue. Taumoeba will reach Earth before then. Humans smart, will figure out.” Rocky places one of his hands against the xenonite wall, and I place my hand over his. My hand is so much bigger than his, and so much more complex. I marvel at the differences. Rocky once told me that, evolutionarily, Eridian hands were meant to be used as spears, not for handling delicate tools like human hands. He was just particularly nimble, for his species. “Rocky knows humans smart, Grace human, and Grace smartest Rocky ever meet. If anyone near as smart as Grace on Earth, humans will survive. Sol will be saved.”
I’m crying again, and Rocky taps the xenonite with one of his claws comfortingly.
“Humans had thirty years if they’d kept their shit together,” I rasp, and it usually feels so good to cry but I feel like I’m suffocating. I want to fling myself into Rocky’s arms and just be held by my best friend in the universe. I want him to shush me in that sing-song language, to feel the heat radiating off of his carapace. “They could’ve gone to nuclear war over food already, for all I know.” Rocky only has a vague concept of nuclear war, and of how terrible humanity really was. I haven’t had the heart to tell him the truth, that sometimes I wonder if my species would’ve wiped themselves out even without the Astrophage eating our star. That we’d been killing ourselves over much less than global famine and total ecological collapse for centuries and never bothered stopping it. I’ve always been a hopeful person, but I feel like an ant spiraling the shower drain.
“Everyone could be dead, and I’ll never know.”
Rocky is tapping rapidly on the xenonite again to get my attention, and I turn my gaze back up towards him. My glasses are smeared with tears, more wasted salt. I’m struggling to breathe, and my vision is blurry– Oh, another panic attack. Nice.
“Grace okay, Grace okay,” Rocky sings, voice a little frantic, but no less melodic for it. “Well, Grace not okay, but that okay.” I shakily wipe my eyes, trying to get my heaving breaths under control. I remind myself distantly to take time to be grateful for the Hail Mary’s excessively high oxygen supply later. I could have a panic attack every day on the way to Erid and still not run out.
“Even if Sol die– Big if! Grace still save Eridani. Erid still will be habitable, thank to Grace. Grace always welcome on Erid, Grace stay rest of life. Will wait and see if Sol brighten before despair, yes, question?”
“It’ll take sixteen years at minimum to see if the sun’s gotten brighter,” I stammer out, but I do feel myself calming, if only a little. He’s right that my despair has no purpose. Still, it’s hard to contend with the death of my entire species without feeling at least a little helpless. At least the Eridians will be okay, probably, provided the Taumoeba do their jobs. They’re lucky enough to have decades longer than Earth does before 40 Eridani grows too dim to support life on their planet and mass dying begins. Lucky bastards.
“Then Grace wait sixteen years. Time will pass regardless. If Sol brighten, Eridian scientists will help Grace get home. Until then, Grace-Rocky will be together regardless. And after, if bad bad bad news, Rocky always there for Grace. Grace is important. Rocky want Grace happy.”
My frantic breathing begins to slow, as do my tears. The despair I feel doesn’t lighten so much as I feel too tired to contend with it anymore. I lean into the xenonite barrier with my full weight, the occasional sob still wracking my body.
“How can Rocky help, question?”
“I just wish you could hold me,” I murmur, so quiet that a human at Rocky’s distance wouldn’t have been able to hear, especially not through a solid wall. Luckily for me, I’m talking to an Eridian, so I could whisper at this volume from the control room and he’d hear me clear as day. Rocky is silent for a few moments.
“Cannot. Would hurt Grace if touch. Apology.”
“What if it was worth it, to me?” I ask, sitting up a little to look at him directly. He tilted his carapace a little as if confused. It was sickeningly endearing, even in my partially-numb, despair-wracked state. I continue talking before he can reject me again.
“Look, Rocky– Just, touch is really important for humans,” I know that I’m whining, that I’m still crying and that I’m being a massive manipulative dick right now. I know, and I can’t stop myself from pleading. “I’d rather deal with physical pain than mental, to be honest, buddy. It would be a small burn, if you only touched me for a few seconds. Please?”
Rocky seems uncomfortable, and I hate that I’ve put him in this position. He’s done so much for me, and here I go, pushing him too far. I am a terrible friend. I can tell that he’s starting to cave, and I also hate how happy that makes me.
“What about atmosphere?” Rocky asks, a little desperate, which is fair. He burns in oxygen, and I burn in ammonia. Unluckily for him, I’ve been thinking about this.
“We could use the miniature airlock,” I say. We have one in the laboratory, to pass objects back and forth without having to deal with the full-size airlock that we have that allows Rocky to exit his side of the ship in his ball. It’s similar to the airlock Rocky initially constructed in the tunnel that connected the Hail Mary to the Blip-A, back when we’d first met a million years ago.
I tell him my plan.
The airlock is a cube a little over a meter in length. We (and by we, I of course mean Rocky, who is our engineer. I’m the science guy, not the builder guy!) can divide the box into two with an airtight door, allowing us both to reach inside the airlock without touching each other’s atmospheres. Flexible silicone seals will clamp down on our arms, preventing air flow. Then, both sides of the chamber will be flushed with nitrogen at roughly the temperature of my atmosphere, which is inert and will not harm either of our arms by simply being in it. The panel separating our arms will be removed and finally, mercifully, I can be touched.
Rocky doesn’t like the plan.
“Grace stupid stupid stupid,” Rocky says, before lowering his carapace and pulling his hand away from where it had been pressed close to mine. The absence stung. “But Rocky will try. If not too dangerous, will see. Rocky touch you arm for only seconds, question? Light touch, injury not too bad. Acceptable risk for Grace mental health, if insist.”
I try not to look too pathetically happy, but I don’t think I succeed. The despair I’d been feeling was gone, replaced by a sense of genuine joy and excitement that I hadn’t felt in weeks. I smile like the idiot that I am.
“Yes, I insist. Thank you, Rocky,” I sniffle. “You’re the best.”
Rocky waves one of his claws in my direction, dismissing the compliment. “Only doing for stupid human so not go crazy,” he says, which I know is Rocky for ‘I love you.’
“I love you too,” I say, resisting the urge to kiss the xenonite barrier. I’m already putting him through a lot, I don’t want to subject him to more of my gross fluids. Also, weird. Before, I’d never been much of a kisser. Or a kisser at all, really. The thought used to disgust me. Rocky had always challenged my boundaries, though. I’d also never been the most social person, and look at me now! Bordering on codependent. The idea of kissing Rocky sounds… Weirdly nice, minus the burning. I dismiss the thought. I’m just touch starved and delusional from coming down off a panic attack. I’ve been trying to convince myself to like kissing for thirty years, I doubt things have changed now. I’ll examine those thoughts later, once I come to my senses. Or never.
It takes Rocky a while to get started on the airlock, but once he has everything planned, the upgrades are finished within a few days. He tells me that he wants to wait for a while, run a few tests, to make sure that it’s fully safe, and I reluctantly allow him. No point in risking our lives over my stupid obsession.
And “obsession” does feel like the right word. Ever since Rocky agreed to my deranged plan, it’s like I can’t stop thinking about it. How much of him will I really feel, past the heat? Is it going to feel good? Will he like it?
The thought of Rocky enjoying touching me was a little too much, in a good way.
I like Rocky. I really like Rocky. In a way I hadn’t really ever liked anyone before. He was clever and funny and I’m not a spiritual man particularly, but a part of me can’t help but feel like our souls are made of the same stuff. We’re connected, in some cosmic way. It’s like he’s my other half, one I hadn’t realized was missing until I’d met him. I don’t know if it’s romantic– Well, okay. I’m not an idiot oblivious to my own feelings. It’s definitely more romantic than it is not-romantic; Rocky is ridiculously easy to love. I love him in a way that I’m honestly scared to really contend with (and wow, is it weird to realize that the love I feel for Rocky is a million times stronger than anything I’d ever felt for Linda, or any of the other women that I’d tried to convince myself I was in love with). But it wasn’t just that. Rocky is my best friend, above all else. I’m more than content with this, just clinging to him like a small child.
And it seems as though Rocky is content to cling back, at least as long as we’re cooped up together. He’s ridiculously accommodating. I’ll have to apologize to him for all of this touch starvation nonsense, when all is said and done. I’d tried already, once, but Rocky had waved me off and grumbled about me being an idiot he would do anything for. How could I not love him?
The day arrived to actually use the touch-airlock (terrible name) exactly a week after Rocky had reluctantly agreed to create it. It was a complex mechanism, but Rocky is a quick builder.
My heart’s racing as I slide my left arm into the silicone entrance. I know Rocky can hear the pounding in my chest. He sticks one of his arms into the other sleeve, and I briefly wonder how he decided which arm to use. With his radial symmetry, all of his arms are mostly identical, save for a few markings and such. I chose my left arm because my right hand was dominant and it was already heavily scarred. Did Eridians have dominant hands? I’m surprised I’d never thought to ask. I press the button on my side of the panel to seal myself in, and it suctions to my skin right above my elbow, below where my sleeve is pushed up. It feels like a blood pressure cuff.
“Grace knows order to press to cancel in case anything go wrong, yes, question?” Rocky asks. I nod quickly.
“Press the button to close the center panel, then hit the release on my arm.” I don’t want to risk flooding my side of the room with pressurized hot ammonia. That would be incredibly bad and stupid. I have the EVA suit next to me just in case something catastrophic happens. I trust Rocky’s engineering, but it’s still better to be safe than sorry.
It’s surreal, to see my arm through the clear box. Rocky’s arm is parallel to mine, separated only by a thin pane of xenonite. Rocky presses a button, and I feel an air current. The oxygen in my side of the box is being replaced with nitrogen. It stirs the hairs on my arms, making them itch. I feel beads of sweat prickling at my palms as the same thing happens on Rocky’s side. We’re so close.
“Grace can change mind any time,” Rocky reminds me. “If gets scared, can try again later. If hurt too bad, can immediate cancel.” I nod, surprised I can even hear him over my own heart pounding in my ears. I’m anxious, I realize. I’m worried that it’ll just hurt, and that it won’t sate my hunger at all. That I’ll just have a stupid injury on my body, and none of the benefits.
“I’m sure, Rocky,” I’m not. “I’m ready.” I am definitely not.
He presses a button on his side, and the panel separating us slides out of place.
My arm is hit by a wave of warmth that’s actually pretty pleasant despite its intensity, compared to the cold of the ship. The heat radiating off of Rocky’s arm is enough to quickly warm the surrounding air. It would become like an oven, soon. I could already see my skin starting to turn pink. We both waited a few moments. I don’t smell any ammonia. Rocky’s hand doesn’t start smoking. It seems like we were in the clear.
We have to hurry, though. Not only would the box grow hot enough for the air to burn me as well, but there’s also the concern of the lower atmospheric pressure in the airlock causing Rocky’s blood to boil. It sounded extremely unpleasant, so we’re trying to avoid that.
“Go ahead,” I manage, unable to keep the shakiness from my voice.
The anticipation is worse than the burn.
Rocky is slow and deliberate, only lightly running his claws up my forearm. I hiss in pain as the skin turns an angry red in the wake of his touch. Despite the heat, chills break out over my body. It hurts so freaking bad, I almost want to stop, but I can’t. I bite my tongue, swallowing a whimper. It’s okay. It hurts, but I can do this. It feels good, I think. Rocky’s rough, sharp fingers scraping at my skin. I wonder if it would leave welts. Probably.
Then Rocky wraps his fingers around my wrist, and I scream like I’m being murdered. Rocky jerks his hand away, clearly about to abort mission, but I’m not done. I can’t be done.
Without thinking, my hand darts out and grabs his. Our fingers interlock, my five engulfing his three. His hand is smaller than mine, but his talons are still quite long, and they curl into me, sharp tips pressing into my soft skin. His exoskeleton is rough and craggy, with not even the slightest give. I close my eyes tight as if that’ll stop the tears that were streaming down my face. To my utter mortification, my scream turns into what I can only describe as a moan.
It hurts. It hurts substantially worse than when Rocky had grabbed me, the delicate nerves in my hand screaming out as I burn them off. I hold his hand for about four seconds before Rocky yanks his hand away and slams another hand down on the divider. The panel snaps closed between us, and I immediately hit the release button.
The faint scent of ammonia mingles with the stomach-churning smell of burned hair. Rocky is screaming at me, so high that his voice dips out of audible range almost immediately. He looks worried. I immediately slather ointment onto my hand, trying not to look too hard at what is clearly a nasty burn. Touching the worst parts of the injury with burn cream barely hurts, which is how I know that I messed up pretty bad.
“Grace! Grace!” Rocky’s voice comes back into audible range, and I look up from my hand. He’s braced against the xenonite wall, trembling with concern. The hand that he’d used to touch me was tucked close to the center of his body, as if protecting it. I’m crying pretty bad, but I realize I have a wild grin on my face. A mix of adrenaline and endorphins has my head swimming. I feel insane.
“It’s okay, buddy, I’m okay,” I say, feeling dizzy. It looks really bad, yeah. But I’d prepared for this. I had a robot to take care of me. I might need some minor skin grafts, but that’s okay, too. I have plenty of skin.
I lean my forehead against the xenonite wall hard, using it to keep myself from falling. I look over at Rocky, who seems hysterical, before looking down at myself.
Oh. I’m hard.
Maybe it’s the adrenaline, or the overwhelming rush of blood in my ears, or the fact that I haven’t touched myself in years, but my uninjured hand begins fumbling with the zipper that’s keeping me in my suit as I unzip it from my collar down to my pelvis. My hand is shaking so bad that it’s a struggle.
“Rocky,” I say, desperately looking over at him. He’s gone still now, and I can tell he’s observing me. “Rocky,” I repeat again, swallowing the rush of saliva that had filled my mouth. “Can I touch myself, right here, please? Sexually, question?”
“Grace need medical help,” Rocky sounds worried. My head is spinning so fast.
“After, I promise, I just–” I whine, and Rocky visibly shivers.
“Yes, yes, stupid thing, hurry, go,” Rocky says, skittering a little closer. I can’t tell if he’s concerned or– Well, he’s definitely concerned, but I can’t tell if he’s feeling any other particular way about what’s happening, too. I’m too lightheaded to double check with him, and I already have his permission.
I whimper as soon as I wrap my hand around my penis. Wow, it really has been a long time since I’ve done this. It feels weird. I’m looking right at Rocky as I touch myself, and he’s right on the other side of the xenonite barrier. I press my lips to where he’d held my wrist, feeling the residual warmth from his touch.
“Ah- Rocky,” I can’t stop myself from saying as I squeeze a little tighter. I know I sound pathetic, and that I’m being weird. I’m crying, and my voice is still rough from screaming. I’m in agony, and I’ve genuinely never been this turned on in my life. Am I a masochist?
“Grace,” Rocky chimes, before hesitating for a few moments, as if he doesn’t know what to say. Me too, buddy. I love the way my name sounds in his language. Is that weird? “Skin so soft and cold,” Rocky says, his song uncharacteristically dissonant, as if he’s an improperly tuned instrument. He shivers again, and the hand that was pressed to his center pressed a little harder into his core. God, is he aroused, too? Can Eridians even get aroused? I’d never thought to ask. I’d assumed they didn’t. I hope I was wrong. I hope Rocky likes seeing me like this.
“It felt so good when you touched me,” I tell him, clumsily bucking my hips as I start to stroke myself. I’m panting, it’s intense and I feel like I’m going to pass out. My hand has slight callouses on it, but it still isn’t as rough as I would’ve liked. “Thank you, Rocky, thank you.”
“So leaky,” Rocky sings, sounding disgusted, but the atonal notes in his usually melodic voice makes him sound wrecked. “Grace gross gross gross, Grace likes Rocky make hurt, even when I no want hurt fragile human.” Rocky pauses, as if struggling to speak, before adding, “Grace says for depression, really for sex. Grace ♩♫♫♩♩♫.”
It’s been a while since Rocky has introduced new vocabulary, but I can tell from the context that it’s an insult.
“No, no, I didn’t lie, please,” I whine, though honestly I don’t even think Rocky is genuinely upset. I’m pretty sure he’s dirty talking? Oh my god, he’s definitely dirty talking. The realization has me picking up the pace of my frenzied strokes, racing towards the finish line embarrassingly fast. It just feels so freaking good. “Please, need word, what was that last word, question?” I press my mouth to the burn again, sniffling.
“Obsess with taboo sexual activity to detriment of self and others. Insult. Expletive.”
Oh, he’s calling me a pervert.
With that realization, my orgasm crashes into me so hard that my vision dims. I sink down into the floor, supported by the sturdy xenonite barrier as my entire body shudders. It’s so warm. All of me feels so warm. I faintly register Rocky scuttling backwards away from me, letting out a cry of disgust. My ears are ringing, and I realize that they probably have been for a while.
As I come down from whatever manic episode I’ve clearly experienced, the throbbing in my hand becomes increasingly unpleasant. It isn’t nearly as bad as what I’d experienced years prior when I’d been exposed to Rocky’s atmosphere, but it’s still pretty up there in terms of most painful injuries I’ve ever received. Especially my hand, which I don’t even want to move.
“Is okay, question?” Rocky asks, back to leaning against the wall next to me. He’s trembling, still, just a little. The discordant note to his voice isn’t entirely gone, but it’s not as obvious as it had been before. He’s obviously worried.
“Is okay,” I confirm, my voice raspy from strain. I feel boneless, and my good hand is covered in semen, which repulses me enough that I’m having to actively keep myself from thinking too hard about it. I’ve always been weird about sex, disgusted to the point of feeling immature. It’ll be a struggle washing my hand without using the other, but it was worth it. That was the most satisfying sexual experience of my life.
“Sorry for getting weird. I guess I learned something new about myself,” I force an awkward laugh. “Are you alright? Does your arm hurt?”He’s still holding it at a stiff angle, pressing it against himself as if he’s protecting an injury.
Rocky flexes the arm he’d used to touch me, touching it gingerly back to the ground and shifting to evenly distribute his weight. “Is okay, also. Cold, not pain.” He tilted his carapace up and down, tapping the wall and floor in order to observe me more clearly. “Seek medical attention now.”
I still feel limp, but I tuck myself back into my clothes and drag myself up off of the floor. I hear Rocky scrambling to follow behind me as I wipe my hand off on an old jumpsuit that’s been sitting on the laboratory floor for a few months before beginning to struggle with descending the ladder.
The ship senses my injury as soon as I touch the floor, and I allow the robotic hands to gently manhandle me onto the bed, which was prepared for me just for this occasion. By the time my hand and wrist were bandaged by the machine, Rocky’s joined me on his side of the room. He still seems a little worried, but significantly less so. There’s an incredibly awkward tension in the air, and it’s entirely my fault.
I relax into the cushy mattress, sighing. I’m flushed from a cocktail of pain, exertion, and embarrassment.
“You enjoy touch, question?” Rocky asks, and for a brief humiliating moment I think he’s talking about my frantic masturbation, before I realize that he’s obviously talking about us touching each other. The entire reason we were in this situation.
Funnily enough, in the heat (ha!) of the moment, I’d actually forgotten to slow down and think about it. I look down at my hand, twitching my fingers slightly and being rewarded with a dull, distant pain. I’d had some painkillers, sue me. Not enough to leave me completely numb, but enough to take the edge off and make me feel stupid. The points where Rocky had pressed his claws into my hand hurt in particular. I’m pretty sure he’d split the skin.
I reach for the tightness in my chest that had been there before, that bone-deep skin-hunger, and am surprised to find it completely absent. There’s some mild trepidation, yes, and plenty of embarrassment, but that yawning void is sated. I smile, feeling better than I have in months. It’s enough to make me tear up a little.
“Yeah,” I croak, and my voice still sounds terrible. “Yeah, buddy, it felt really good, I’m all better now. Thank you. Were you really alright with me, ah…” I trail off awkwardly, but Rocky seems to understand what I’m saying even with me feeling too flustered to explain what had happened.
“Enjoyed touch. Enjoyed listening you sexually stimulate self. All good.” I nod, relieved, feeling myself relax a tiny bit more. Maybe it’s the opioids keeping me from catastrophizing, but I feel less disgusted with myself regarding this sexual encounter than anything I’ve ever experienced with a human girlfriend. There was no sense of self-loathing or regret or disgust with myself and the other person involved. It had felt good, I’d wanted to, and I hadn’t had to do anything I hadn’t wanted to do. Rocky was wonderful like that. Even when he’d insulted me, I’d enjoyed that, too.
“We can talk more about it later. I think I need to sleep, now. Will you–”
“Rocky watch,” he chimes before I even finish my sentence, sounding offended I was even asking. I smile and close my eyes, relishing in the lightness I feel.
I really love that guy.