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“Grace ever make love with other humans on Earth, question?” Rocky asks one morning when they’re just finishing up a modest breakfast in the Hail Mary dormitory.
Ryland nearly spits out his mouthful of pb&j but valiantly manages to swallow. “Why are you asking me this right now, dude?” he asks, voice still thick with peanut butter stuck to the roof of his mouth. “No lead-in or anything, jeepers creepers.”
“Rocky has been studying variation in human mating rituals on laptop while Grace sleeps,” Rocky says matter-of-factly. “Is a straightforward question.”
“I’ve had sex before, yeah,” Ryland mumbles, wanting to stuff the rest of the sandwich in his mouth to avoid this conversation continuing. “But c’mon, Rock, you knew that already.”
“Not what I asked.”
Ryland blinks and feels his blood pressure jump. “Making love is another way of phrasing ‘having sex’—you asked if I’ve had sex back on Earth, and I told you that I did,” he says. “How does that not answer the question?”
“Because Rocky asked if Grace has ever made love, not just had sex. Two different things according to human social philosophy—one much more intimate and emotionally stimulating.” Rocky settles back on two arms in his xenonite tunnel as if to indicate he’s patiently waiting with all the time in the world. “Answer nuance in question, please.”
Grace forlornly gazes down at the remaining pb&j in his hand and sighs. There’s no use in trying to dodge an adamant Eridian—he’s tried and failed before, more than once. “Uhm, no,” he says, clearing his throat a bit and looking at Rocky’s pinchers instead of his carapace, and then feeling silly about avoiding eye contact with a guy who doesn’t have eyes. “I don’t think I’ve…ever made love before. But I’m sure a lot of people haven’t, if they never find the right person.”
Rocky ponders this for a few moments. “Grace ever want to make love with other humans?” he asks.
“I think this fire round of twenty questions is getting a little too personal this early in the day, bud,” Ryland says, stuffing the rest of his sandwich into his mouth to push up off the floor and head into the lab. He suddenly can’t make himself chew, though, and stupidly holds it like a dejected labrador until he winces and reaches up to pull the soggy bread from between his teeth again. “Look, let’s put a pin in this one for later after I’ve had coffee. We need to finish watching Twin Peaks and then do those minor hull repairs we’ve been putting off—”
“Evading truthful answer out of modesty and embarrassment,” Rocky notes. “Grace’s heart rate is elevated but Rocky is not easily distracted. Get coffee here, drink while we talk.”
Ryland spins on his socked heel and does an about-face, hands already hitching up on his hips. “What’s got a bee buzzing in your bonnet about the particulars of my nonexistent love life this morning?” he asks. “Notice how I haven’t asked how you and Adrian prefer to mate in the privacy of your own home—just one shining example of those little things we discussed before called personal boundaries.”
“Mary, please bring Grace coffee,” Rocky says to the computer, and then waits until the robot arms in the dormitory ceiling bring down a fresh packet of liquid beverage and hold it out for Ryland to take. “You are agitated but I don’t understand reason. We share many things and truths with each other, but now you give pause and try to change the subject. Why?”
“Because it’s—it’s just vulnerable stuff, Rock!” Grace relents, raking a hand back through his wild bedhead as he takes an aggressive sip of coffee. “Usually you only talk about that kind of thing with your partner because it’s private and intimate. When two people make love it’s like, I don’t know, showing your innermost souls to each other or something? You have to trust somebody with your life to be able to do that sort of thing—be physically naked but also emotionally naked at the same time, if that makes sense.”
Rocky briefly drums his claws on one forearm. “Hmm, think Rocky understands,” he says in a contemplative tone. And then: “We make love together but without the sexual intercourse aspect.”
Grace nearly inhales a mouthful of dark roast into his nasal cavity. “We do?” he squeaks.
“Yes, Rocky and Grace are partners and friends drawn together by cosmic fate,” Rocky says. “Have shared many intimate moments and emotional outpourings together during our mission and beyond. Risked our lives for each other and willingly given up comfort and safety, even faced death. All treasured and sacred to me. What else could be the building blocks of love?”
The bewildered look on Ryland’s face slowly melts away into something more sedate. “Well, you’ve kinda got a point there,” he says, raising his coffee in the air. “A weird point, but a point all the same. So, cheers to the love we made along the way—now back to work!”
Rocky raises an invisible glass of his own in a mock toast. “Cheers!” he says. He thinks about telling Grace that the sexual congress aspect of making love also intrigues him, but perhaps he’ll save that line of thought for another day. Ryland has already darted up and all but flown into the lab, leaving his half-eaten sandwich behind on the dormitory floor. There’s something about the subject that makes him incredibly jumpy and flustered—even more so than their previous discussions on the topic of manual masturbation, Rocky notes—but he isn’t entirely sure why that could be just yet.
That’s okay; Erid is still three years, 319 days, and seventeen hours away.
They have plenty of time to figure some things out.
Nearly half a calendar year has passed by the time the subject comes up again; five months and twenty-six days.
They’ve been watching a lot of television and film on the laptop in their down time, which seems to accumulate exponentially with every passing day. Grace has quietly started rationing out his food supply and pointedly not mentioning it, even if Rocky noticed the difference within the first week. He’s still debating on how he wants to tackle that particular conversation, because short of eating from a bounty of taumoeba, there’s not much either of them can do to fix the issue of food shortages on an interstellar ship that was only ever stocked for a one-way trip.
But for now—back to the laptop, that magical purveyor of stories and endless imagination, holding its legends of war and science and monsters, but perhaps Rocky’s most favorite of all: love. There are so many kinds woven throughout humanity’s lexicon, from unconditional to star-crossed, budding and doomed. The Earthlings seem driven by it as much as they’re driven by any of their biological impulses, and will even kill each other or themselves in the face of love. Grace takes much of this for granted, having witnessed it all unfold since he was a small child, but Rocky is enchanted and enraptured by it. If something just so happens to have a sexual scene of any pairing or nature in it, he watches with rapt attention as his translation device converts the image into sound.
This, of course, leads to many slightly awkward conversations.
“What does putting the penile appendage in oral orifice do? Does it taste good to humans?” (“It doesn’t usually taste great, no, but that depends on who you’re asking.”)
“Why would a human have sexual relations with apple pie, question?” (“I dunno, Rock—sometimes people just get desperate and do weird things, I guess. This is meant to be a comedy by the way.”) ((“Rocky is not laughing, though.”))
“How do humans simulate fornication in media if they are not actually mating?” (“There’s a separate genre of film called ‘pornography’ you may want to read up on, but don’t come crying to me if you see something crazy.”) ((“Rocky has already seen many fascinating things during research hours while Grace sleeps, statement.”)) (((“Wow, that’s comforting.”)))
“Do humans always cry when making love?”
Grace shifts on the blanket palette he’s cobbled together next to Rocky’s xenonite ball and stretches his neck, looking slightly left of the glowing laptop screen. It’s mostly dark on the Hail Mary after they shut down all the overhead lighting and the stars wheel outside the rosette window. “Uh, I don’t think so,” he says quietly, not bothering to pause the film they’re watching. “It probably depends on the situation. Some people cry because it’s overwhelming to feel so much…love and affection and pleasure, I guess? So all that pent up emotion has to exit somewhere. The tears are like a pressure release valve.”
“Humans are very leaky in increasingly strange ways,” Rocky observes. “Has Grace ever cried during sex before?”
“Oh jeez, here we go,” Ryland huffs, taking his glasses off to pinch between his eyes. “If I have, I don’t think I remember it. Probably tried to block it out of my mind depending on who I was sleeping with at the time. Most likely?—the answer is no.”
“You have never felt an interpersonal bond strong enough to induce emotional response during mating before,” Rocky says, neither offering it as a statement nor a question.
“Not really, to tell you the truth,” Ryland sighs. “Sex has never been super high on my itinerary, generally speaking. Different strokes for different folks.”
“Don’t understand new phrase,” Rocky says, but then remembers a past conversation he and Grace have had. “Ah, yes…human sexuality is a broad spectrum.”
“Bingo,” Ryland says around a wide yawn, pointing at the air for effect. “Everyone is different, with different needs and different values. But on that note, I think I’m gonna head for bed, Rock—it’s getting pretty late.” He makes note of where they’re leaving off in the film and then shuts down the laptop. “You don’t have to come to the dormitory straight away if you have some things to do, I’ve gotta clean up a bit and brush my teeth, the usual space blob business.”
It’s mostly a formality between them, a cultural nicety that Rocky observes out of politeness. They both know he can watch Grace through the walls of the ship if he really wants to, but it’s still nice to let a guy take a leak and wash his pits in peace at the sponge bath station.
Interestingly, Ryland is not brushing his teeth or washing his armpits when Rocky finally prepares to enter the dormitory a few minutes later. He’s got one hand stuffed down the front of his lounge pants, bent at the waist so he can awkwardly grind against the side of his bunk. It’s not the most effective way to masturbate, Rocky supposes, but he goes quite still in his tunnel and waits outside the dormitory to give Grace the illusion of privacy.
Ryland’s breath comes in short, hot bursts against his mattress while he furiously ruts against his fingers. He’s being remarkably quiet otherwise, but after half a minute or so Rocky catches the faintest, thinnest whispers of “please, please, please” like Grace is begging someone to grant him release. Who is he talking to? The video camera isn’t on and there’s nobody present or watching but the two of them. Mary can’t discern audio input that low and muffled. Rocky keeps watching in his stillness and vows to keep a secret, if only he can selfishly keep it for himself.
Grace stimulating himself turns more fraught a moment later when his hand dips lower as he shoves his forearm down his pants and tries for a deeper angle. His breath hitches and Rocky can see the two middle fingers of his right hand press into the wet, leaking place between his thighs. They’re hardly long enough to perform any real penetration with the forced angle, but Grace still curves the two digits into a rough C shape and strokes something inside himself that makes him moan into the mattress. He’s starting to sweat at his temples and between his shoulder blades, a fine sheen of clean perspiration that Rocky achingly wishes he could taste. There’s a mindless sort of animal desperation in Grace’s movements when he’s like this that Rocky never sees him exhibit at any other time. He could sit here forever and watch his human come undone, but it’s over almost as soon as it began: Grace crushes his prick into his wrist hard enough to bruise his mound and thrusts his fingers up one more time, punching a high, pitiful whine from the back of his throat as his whole body goes taut and then finally, blissfully, shakes apart.
Rocky can’t wait any longer. He counts off ten earth seconds and then starts clambering into the dormitory, every sense he’s got attuned to Grace, Grace, Grace. When he scuttles in through his xenonite tunnel, Ryland’s hand is out of his pants but he’s limply sitting on the side of the bunk, furtively wiping at the corners of his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt. There had been tears in them as he climaxed, Rocky realizes. Trace evidence of saline.
“You doing okay, bud?” Grace asks roughly with a somewhat forced air of nonchalance, voice slightly husky in the back of his throat. “When was the last time I watched you sleep?”
“Rocky will sleep tomorrow during the day while Grace works in the taumoeba lab,” he answers, climbing up into his little overhang above Ryland’s bunk. He settles in for his night shift of watching over his companion and weighs out the consequences of what he’s about to ask. Mathematical likelihood that Grace panics is moderately high, but his propensity for forgiveness in the face of Rocky’s social overstepping is even higher. Well, the Eridian thinks: you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, as Grace always says.
“Why was Grace crying just now?” Rocky asks, pitching his voice to be soft and inquisitive. “Heard small sound of distress and became…concerned.”
“Oh, me? I’m—uh, I’m totally fine, Rock,” Grace says, now choosing to go over and brush his teeth. “Just a little snag, happens sometimes. You know how it is.”
“Snag of interest was inside Grace’s pants, question?” Rocky asks. He knows he’s being a little shit but he can’t help himself. He aches to know more, see more, and be delivered into a version of their partnership on the Hail Mary where he can watch his beloved Grace come undone without the false pretense of pretending he doesn’t know precisely what’s happening with the space blob’s soft body at any given moment on the ship.
Ryland just groans in a long-suffering way and braces himself against the lip of the tiny sink. “Come on, dude. You were watching all that? Give a guy a break sometimes.” His heart rate increases and blood flow accelerates with a brief adrenal boost. He tries to force himself to stand and sound casual but he’s failing spectacularly, especially with a damp patch still gathered in the crotch of his boxer briefs.
“Grace doesn’t need to be embarrassed about biological needs,” Rocky tells him. “Just wanted to know why you were crying, is all.”
There’s a long stretch of silence. “Well, the thing is,” Ryland says eventually, throat bobbing in place. There’s no use in hiding the ace up your sleeve when the dealer caught you red handed from the start. “Sometimes it just. Happens?”
“You need emotional release, question?” Rocky asks. “Cathartic decompression from mission, or…feelings of despair?”
“Kinda, maybe,” Ryland mumbles, finally giving up the ghost of shame and padding back over to crawl into his bunk under Rocky’s platform. “When things feel really good, and life is stressful and weird, having an exit point for all your tension and energy can be nice. I didn’t plan on crying—it just turned out that way. Er. Yeah.”
They sit together and marinate in that for a beat. “Rocky would like to watch next time from a closer vantage point,” he says without any other preamble, letting out an endearing trill. “I want to see you at the peak of orgasm very much. Perhaps from this angle, if possible.”
“Oh my gosh,” Ryland says, dragging a hand over his face and leaving it there to hide his eyes. “Please, somebody end it all now.”
“Stop with human melodrama,” Rocky tuts. “I have shown you Eridian eating, sleeping, and even mating vocalizations—all very private and personal rituals. Intimate things. Human masturbation is no different to Rocky. Grace is always beautiful, nothing to be ashamed of, and I want to watch.” He pauses for effect and then adds in his most pleading tone: “Please, question? For science.”
“For science?” Ryland snorts, finally parting his fingers to peer up at Rocky through the crack. “Right now?!”
“Not necessary, but definitely preferable,” Rocky admits. “Have rest of night to waste.”
“It’s always nighttime in space, I guess,” Ryland mumbles, letting his hand fall away from his face. “And five o’clock somewhere.”
“Don’t understand reference,” Rocky says.
“Hang tight, I’m trying to amp myself up to do something crazy,” Ryland says. And then he’s up off the bunk, swinging his legs out and hitting the floor at a half-jog. Rocky watches him disappear into the lab and then he comes back a minute later with a plastic test tube as thick as two of his fingers held together and a bottle of water-based lubricating gel.
“What’s that for?” Rocky asks, watching as Grace unceremoniously climbs back into his bunk.
“For science,” Ryland answers primly, and then hitches his thumbs into his waistband and pulls everything down to his thighs. Rocky gets a bird’s eye view—Earth reference and eyeball joke, ha!—of Grace’s sandy thatch of pubic hair and the pink, glistening lips of his parted labia, already wet from his earlier activities.
“This will be good,” Rocky says, clasping his pinchers together. “Wonderful, wonderful.”
“Show hasn’t even started yet, pal,” Ryland grunts, popping the plastic cab on the medical grade lubricant and slicking up the test tube. “Don’t try this at home—we’re going against every lab equipment safety rule I ever taught in the classroom.”
“That’s okay,” Rocky says, mesmerized when Ryland takes the lubricated phallic shape and presses the rounded bottom against the opening of his hole. “No school children on Hail Mary, only responsible adults working in the lab.”
“Questionable rationale but I’ll take it,” Ryland says, and then draws his heels up and butterflies his thighs open to grant himself further access. “Watch closely, now. Are you gonna take notes?”
“Taking prolific notes as we speak,” Rocky says, thunking something adjacent to the temple of his carapace. “Ready when Grace is ready for big science.”
“Right, here goes nothing,” Ryland says, wetting his bottom lip with the tip of his tongue before gently biting into it. He pushes the first half of the test tube up into his cunt with a wet shlick, and then briefly tightens the muscles in his abdomen and lets them unfurl again with a deep breath. Rocky watches on, carapace already flush with the floor of his xenonite platform, and waits until the whole test tube disappears into Grace’s body. The human makes a soft sound as his mouth falls back open, and then his nose wrinkles and his brow furrows, but it soon passes as he readjusts his grip and starts fucking himself with the makeshift toy.
Rocky purrs in appreciation, chirping and warbling from above. “Grace ♬♩♪♩ hole took test tube so well,” he says. “Easy, simple. So beautiful, like was made to be filled.”
“Oh, Jiminiy—Christmas!” Ryland groans, moving his other hand to start jerking his prick in slow pulls. “Are you gonna talk like that the whole time?”
“Rocky could, if Grace wanted,” Rocky replies. There’s a thrumming sensation building in his carapace, warm and liquid as mercury pumps throughout in anticipation of a mating session that won’t come. “Grace want Rocky to talk dirty…? Question.”
“Yeah, Grace wants,” Ryland says, lashes fluttering as he pushes the test tube in all the way and then presses it further with the heel of his hand. “Oh sheezus, Rock. Maybe we should’ve done this a long time ago—”
“Deeper than human fingers could ever go,” Rocky intones. “Can see test tube wedged in vaginal canal, almost touching Grace’s cervix. Just two millimeters away. Rocky could make it go all the way if Grace wanted.”
“It’d hurt me,” Grace whines, pulling the tube out with a lewd sound and then jamming it back in again without any resistance this time. “But God, I’d let you do it, Rock.”
“Wouldn’t breach barrier, only touch,” Rocky hums, and then waits as he watches through the human’s pelvis as Ryland starts trembling from within, the first few waves of descending pleasure making his muscles twitch. “Like leaving a kiss inside Grace against his womb, full of love.”
It shouldn’t have ended so quickly like this, but Grace howls with six inches of a test tube stuffed in his cunt and shakes apart for a second time, clenching and bearing down on the laboratory plastic for all he’s worth. He tries to push himself through it, shallowly pumping his wrist to chase the high of a great orgasm, but he’s slightly sleepy from the first one and almost instantaneously feeling raw and exposed after coming down from the precipice of being out-of-his-gourd horny.
“Welp,” he rasps, laying there in an obscene wreckage of his own making with Rocky gazing down on his limp body, soaked between his thighs and still feebly clenching every few seconds around the test tube. Are there tears in his eyes again?—sweet mercy. “There was some practical field science for you.”
“Grace is leaking from eyes,” Rocky observes, voice low and gentle. “Lovely, lovely. Gorgeous and ♪♩♬♩♪.”
“Does that turn you on?”
“Grace want honesty?”
“Duh, dude.”
“Then yes. Rocky likes to see Grace cry from pleasure and release.”
“Oh brother,” Ryland sighs, finally withdrawing the disgraced test tube from his used hole, now slightly sore from two rounds of impromptu penetration he hasn’t dallied in for a long time. “Guess I figured as much.”
“Did you enjoy yourself too, question?” Rocky ventures, though he surmises that he already has his answer in the bag. Grace goes still for a moment but then nods, and sets the sticky tube to one side. His eyes are open but cast somewhere over in a shadowed corner of the dormitory. He still hasn’t bothered with pulling up his briefs and lounge pants, so Rocky admires the carved out shapes of his hip bones and the puffiness of his labia after so much blood flow.
“You said I was beautiful,” Ryland croaks after a moment, thumbing under one eye. “That wasn’t for science.”
“No, not for science,” Rocky agrees. “Selfish reasons, mostly. This was for Rocky.”
Grace nods but doesn’t say anything else. He lets out a shaky sigh and eventually tries to pull himself together enough to drop the test tube in the washing station and change his underwear. He comes back and crawls into bed and closes his eyes, but only after reaching up and gently tapping three times on the xenonite platform above his head.
“Night, Rock,” he says.
“Goodnight, Grace,” Rocky answers. “I will watch until you wake up.”
He waits for Ryland’s breathing to shift into its typical sleeping pattern, and then promptly gets to work on a brand new personal project.
Things are kinda different between them after that night.
Not in a bad way, no—but Ryland still can’t ignore the fact that many novel discoveries were made on both sides of the equation. If it was selfish science for their mutual benefit, it was still science to some degree, because he and Rocky both walked away from the experience with a brand new working hypothesis on what makes the other tick. Is it an endlessly mortifying ideal to be known and witnessed so intimately? Yeah. Is it somehow easier to bear when your other half on an interstellar ship is a rock alien with completely different expectations and customs about sex, gender, pleasure, and the performance thereof? Also yeah.
Grace doesn’t regret his little tryst with the test tube because he’s ashamed or didn’t like it (unfortunately: he loved it). The only pinch of regret comes from the fact that he wants to keep doing it. Perhaps frequently? And with Rocky’s omnipresent and attentive approval. Yeah, definitely heavy on that last part—it’s nowhere near as appealing when Rocky isn’t directly involved.
Because the truth is, it felt incredibly good to let go and be seen for once, and felt even better to have Rocky talk him through it. God, just thinking about some of the stuff he was saying when Ryland was jerking off—mmph. He gets wet again and has to squeeze his thighs together and breathe while his cock idly twitches in his briefs. It’s like Rocky peeled back the topmost layer of his brain and somehow found secret things hiding there that Grace didn’t even know would get his engine revving until he heard them sung into his ears by an alien. Man, it was blistering hot.
There needs to be a repeat performance, but Ryland doesn’t know how he’s going to float the idea or when. Rocky would probably be down to get dirty at any time of day or night, so that’s not an issue; it’s more about wrapping his head around the mutual benefit part. Grace can get himself off with his captive audience, sure, but does Rocky want the same thing in return…? And does he have different expectations about participation points? They can’t physically touch each other and it’s painful to realize that in this specific context, among every other context in existence. Grace drops his head into his hand while he wretchedly considers all this and nearly jumps out of his skin when a familiar voice abruptly asks, “Grace feeling alright?”
“Oh—yeah, I’m all good,” Ryland answers, clearing his throat. “Just daydreaming.”
“Dreaming of what?” Rocky asks, rolling into the room with a clatter.
“Stuff,” Grace says vaguely. “Things.”
“Helpful,” Rocky says in a dry tone. “Grace would have a heart attack if I said Eridians could read minds.”
Ryland’s heart truly does skip a beat. “Don’t you dare,” he stammers. “I’ll bust out the Reynolds Wrap and make a tin foil hat right now—”
Rocky giggles in his wheezy little laugh. “Just kidding. But look on your face definitely means Grace is guilty about something, so may as well spit it out.”
“It’s honestly kind of offensive that you can suss me out so completely without any eyeballs.”
“You forget that Rocky wasn’t born yesterday and has been studying Grace’s mannerisms for months now.”
“So then tell me what I’m thinking about, wise guy,” Ryland says, tipping his chin up in a mock challenge. “Since you know everything there is to know.”
Rocky pauses, carapace tilted slightly forward in obvious interest. “Risky game to play.”
“Try me anyway. Let’s hear it.”
There’s a slow thump, thump, thump as Rocky rolls right up to Ryland’s knees and looms there in the xenonite orb. He didn’t need to get any closer to inspect anything, he just did it for effect, and it seems to be working because Grace feels a cold bead of sweat prickle between his shoulder blades.
“Could sense chemical human arousal from across the ship,” Rocky says. “Blood rushing to clitoris tissue and making Grace’s ♪ ♬♪ erect. You are thinking about sexual congress or masturbation again—most likely encounter we shared last week with blatant misuse of lab equipment. Is Rocky correct, question?”
Ryland’s gut does a quick somersault in his belly as he feels his face and neck flush a vivid shade of raspberry. “You’re a real piece of work, Rock,” he mumbles, looking away and then back again. “Remind me to never play poker against you.”
“Being oblique again with purposefully evasive language,” Rocky chimes, the little bastard. “Correct guess or not?”
“Correct, statement,” Ryland coughs out. “But you knew that already—you just wanted to hear me say it.”
Rocky titters but gives the approximation of a shrug. “Rocky cannot fix something if I don’t know what’s wrong,” he says airily. “Grace want something…to be fixed?”
“Uhm, hold that thought for a sec,” Ryland rasps, feeling like his face is going numb in the face of whatever’s happening right now. “Before this runaway train careens any further off the tracks, we need to establish some level groundwork here.”
“What kind of foundation was Grace thinking?”
“Well, first of all, what are we? Because I don’t usually mix work and play as a general rule and this is getting a little intense. But then again, I’m not even sure it’s possible to label a bizarre sexual liaison with your alien roommate—”
“We are friends, peers, equals,” Rocky calmly interrupts. “Partners. Better together, if you ask Rocky.”
“Better together,” Ryland echoes, wiping a hand over his mouth. “Yeah, I mean. That’s putting it mildly.”
“Don’t need labels,” Rocky says. “Impossible to name all things in the universe—they exist, but more than we could ever comprehend. Doesn’t mean these things aren’t real.”
Ryland drops his forehead into his hands and heaves out a big breath. “True. I’m just trying to figure out what I want and what I’m doing, Rock,” he says, raising his eyes to look at Rocky over the tops of his glasses. “Because I don’t want either of us to get hurt, here. Especially not from me doing something stupid.”
“Rocky would die before I ever willingly hurt Grace,” Rocky says in a soft tone. “Would never harm you with intent, and know you would never hurt me. We feel the same way.”
“Strongly agree, statement,” Ryland says. “Look, you gotta tell me something, Rock—what do you want?”
“Finally Grace finds the sense to ask,” Rocky trills, doing a pleased little shimmy in his orb. “Want you, of course. Pretty, crying, vulnerable—receptive to Rocky’s words and touch. Want to show you the love you deserve while exploring all kinds of intimacy together.”
Ryland makes a strangled sound in the back of his throat. “But we can’t touch each other, sweetheart,” he rasps, sounding vaguely broken by the fact.
“We can get close,” Rocky says, vibrating with sudden excitement. “Rocky has been busy fabricating new xenonite suit in workshop at night.”
Grace’s mouth falls open ever so slightly. “What?”
“Yes, yes, yes!” Rocky sings. “It is newly finished—wanted Grace to have big surprise. Come see, come see!” He scrambles back to the dormitory like a bat out of hell and Ryland follows in hot pursuit, nearly tripping over the hatch in his haste. He jogs into the dorm just in time to see Rocky prying open one of the storage compartments in the wall and revealing the new suit in question—shaped like his carapace with five sleeves to accommodate each of his arms and an open point for entry at the back.
“Entire suit is pliable and ergonomic for optimal movement,” Rocky says, showing off his handiwork with pride. “Very many small xenonite panels knitted together to allow for touch and stretch. Take Rocky seven mark four-six of Grace’s sleep cycles to complete. What do you think, question?”
As Rocky pulls the suit out of the storage compartment into the dorm room, it practically sparkles under the artificial lighting, like thousands upon thousands of tiny faceted gemstones. Unlike his hard-surface xenonite ball with the hexagonal planes, the new suit is malleable under his pinchers and gives like any other fabric or flexible material would.
“Wow, Rock, this is beautiful craftsmanship,” Grace manages. For a long moment he dumbly forgets why they were even discussing it in the first place, he’s so mesmerized by the glittering xenonite. “Wait—we can touch each other through this? And neither of us will get hurt by the other’s atmosphere?”
“Yes, should be completely safe like other xenonite barriers, but we will need to run tests before any prolonged use,” Rocky says. “Grace want Rocky to model, question?”
“Duh! Of course I do,” Ryland says, laughing. “Show me what you’re made of, hot stuff. Give us some blue steel.”
“Egregious Zoolander references,” Rocky sighs. “Be glad I like you.” But he dutifully works his way into the new xenonite suit with some finessing and then uses three of his arms to quickly knit up the back, using the third to hold the seam together while the other two pinchers weave it closed.
It’s really quite like watching an Earth spider spin silk in a weird way, and Ryland feels a strange, squirmy shiver run up his spine before he snaps out of the trance enough to see that Rocky is now fully suited up. The Eridian strikes a strongman pose for effect, giggling at the expression of awe on Grace’s dopey face.
“Come on out through your airlock so I can see it better,” Ryland says. “No time like the present for a test run.”
“Agreed,” Rocky says, already headed in that direction. “No prolonged tactile contact yet—preliminary test to gauge atmospheric pressure resistance in Grace’s side of the ship.”
“Copy that,” Ryland says, and then lowers his voice as if imparting a secret. “Can we touch a tiny bit?” he wheedles as he follows Rocky, holding his finger and thumb a half-inch apart. “Just a teeny weeny little—”
“Maybe if Grace behaves himself,” Rocky answers, going through the motions of preparing his xenonite airlock chamber. “Hold please.”
When Rocky emerges into the open air of the ship on all five of his arms and trills out a note of success, Ryland very nearly starts crying. He goes down on his knees and holds his arms open, suddenly unable to speak, and Rocky comes straight to him without any hesitation and merely wraps himself around the human in a full-body hug.
“There, there,” Rocky hums, vibrating inside the malleable xenonite suit that’s so warm it almost feels like touching another human. “Grace is okay, Grace is safe. Rocky always been here, just have better barrier suit for holding leaky space blob now.”
“We were supposed to be doing this for horny r-reasons,” Ryland sobs out, dropping his head against the top of Rocky’s carapace as a tear spills over the crystalline xenonite. “Sorry, I’m a freakin’ m-mess—”
“No apologies,” Rocky purrs, rubbing Grace’s back and cradling the back of his head at the same time. Being able to feel the approximate texture of his hair through the finely wrought suit is staggering and wonderful, and it makes Rocky’s insides feel like they’re falling from some great height. “Tender touch is vital to Grace’s health and happiness, Rocky knows this. I will take good care, promise—best care.”
Ryland just cries harder, shaking a little in Rocky’s arms. It goes on for longer than it should, given that this is their first contact with the newly innovated apparatus, but Rocky can’t bear to rip himself away. Engaging all of his extremities at once with the hull of the ship and Grace’s body is almost overstimulating, but it also allows him to zero in on the scar his claw once burned into Grace’s arm. Just slightly raised enough to detect through echolocation when he’s looking for it.
“Oh jeez, get it together Grace,” Ryland faintly mutters to himself, slowly gathering his composure back up. He leans away ever so slightly, clearly reluctant to part, but pulls his glasses from his face with one hand and drags a sleeve across his eyes. “Well. There’s your preliminary test, I guess. Success?”
“First trial: success,” Rocky says, stepping back so they’re facing each other where Ryland still kneels on the floor. “Cannot overstretch atmospheric limitations at first—will wear ergonomic suit for one hour today, and then increase time increments until we know it’s safe for longer use. Deal?”
“Deal,” Ryland says, grinning for all he’s worth. “This is great, Rock. I think something in that hug healed me.”
“Happy, happy, happy!” Rocky sings. “Grace wait and see for more, Rocky is just getting started.”
Each new day cycle adds a little more progress to their agonizingly slow crawl toward Erid—and inchworms gradually closer to something else Ryland still isn’t entirely certain of, but which seems like it’ll be a net positive if only he ever reaches it. He thinks it might be sexual tension and touch starvation making him slightly stir crazy, but at this point there are too many rogue factors in the mix to know for sure.
All preliminary tests with the new xenonite suit have gone swimmingly and Rocky seems satisfied with the results. He spends more and more time inside the ergonomic shell as days roll over into a full week, and will even allow close contact with Grace for up to an hour before he departs to gauge internal temperature and atmospheric pressure. Rocky also insists on monitoring Grace’s oxygen saturation levels and core body temp to be sure the closeness isn’t adversely affecting him as well—and when Ryland says offhand that he’d handle some flu-like symptoms if it meant getting to be closer to Rocky, no sweat, that particular comment doesn’t go over super well. (“HOW GRACE LIVE THIS LONG IF BASIC SURVIVAL INSTINCTS SO STUPID, QUESTION?”)
But things are pretty good, all in all. And the very first time Rocky climbs into the dormitory bunk to carefully settle his weight between Grace’s legs for a cuddly nap, he thinks he might be in heaven. When that quickly turns into some heavy petting after Ryland wakes up, well, could you blame a guy? Grinding his dick against the finely-knit xenonite through his cotton briefs provides just enough stimulation to make him shiver and see stars, and Rocky’s purring encouragement turns him into melted butter. The xenonite is warm but not overly hot to the touch, thank goodness, and having Rocky carefully draped over him is almost like having a super-weighted blanket fresh from the dryer pinning him into place.
After that particular success with no adverse effects, there are only two primary tests left to run: prolonged exposure without clothing involved, and also the matter of how the new exosuit performs internally during, uhm. Penetration.
Thankfully, Rocky isn’t wholly opposed to scientific procedure and pleasure going to bed together, in a manner of speaking. But that doesn’t stop him from fussing to no end about how this particular trial needs to be perfect.
“Dormitory bunk is too narrow ♩♪♩♬ extracurricular activities ♬♩♪♩with partner,” he insists, throwing one of the foam mattresses onto the floor before pulling Grace’s pillow and quilt down with it. “Have to make a proper nest—more space and room to work.”
Ryland watches this display from the sidelines with intermixed feelings of arousal and curiosity simmering in his gut. Good grief, he’s already getting wet and so far the only thing they’ve done is make a pillow fort on the flippin’ floor. “Is the blanket nest conducive to your experimental process, or…?” he asks.
“Nest is for cradling delicate human body to provide support and prevent bruising or muscle trauma,” Rocky says. He thinks about telling Grace that nesting on Erid is also an important part of the mating process, but then ultimately decides it may be slightly too soon for that. Either way, he wanted to include the quilted blanket because of how Grace clings to it for human comfort, always cocooning himself up in it whenever he gets the chance. There is something naggingly sentimental there that Rocky feels is imperative to the trial they’re conducting together tonight—he may not fully understand it, yet, but he’s been studying human mating rituals and it seems like the right thing to do.
If Ryland thought there was going to be some prolonged foreplay involved, he was sorely mistaken. After finishing the construction of the nest, Rocky promptly steps to the side and waves a claw at the t-shirt and cut-off terrycloth shorts he’s wearing: “Strip,” he says. “No clothes for this phase of the experiment.”
“Am I getting laid or going through a TSA checkpoint?” Ryland huffs, though he does as Rocky bids and leaves all his clothes in a heap on the floor. “Okay, I’m in my birthday suit. Now what?”
“Get comfortable in nest,” Rocky instructs, before picking up the same medical lubricant Grace used all those weeks ago during their little guided session with the test tube. “Rocky needs to adequately lubricate xenonite before any penetrative congress occurs.”
“Oh boy,” Ryland says, eyeballing one of Rocky’s arms as it uncaps the lid on the lube and squeezes out a generous amount. “Do you—gee whiz, Rock. Uhm.” He swallows thickly and suddenly feels like he needs some water, or maybe another helping of Ilyukhina’s vodka. “D’you think…? You can fit a whole hand inside me?”
“Not yet,” Rocky says perfunctorily, smearing some lubricant at the lower part of the suit below his carapace. “Can try another time after Grace has been primed to take things bigger than a test tube.”
Ryland thinks that sounds suspiciously like a challenge. His eyes narrow as he watches Rocky’s strange rub-down ritual with the lube, even if his dick is definitely feeling Some Type of Way about the current proceedings. He crosses and uncrosses his legs twice where he’s reclining in the blanket nest before he decides there’s no use in being modest. “If you aren’t planning on fisting me, what are you planning on using?” he asks in a slightly higher octave than usual.
“Ovipositor ♩♪♩ organ, of course,” Rocky says, like the answer has always been obvious. “What else was Grace thinking?”
“Well, I mean, I’ve never actually seen what you’re packing before, so you can’t blame me for asking!”
“Rocky will show you momentarily,” Rocky says, finishing up with the lubricant on his exosuit. He offers the bottle to Ryland and gestures for him to take it. “Apply generous amount to your orifices, perhaps slightly more than humans typically need.”
“Wait, orifices, with a hard S at the end? Plural?” Ryland chokes out. “Are we going in the back door, too?”
“Grace hasn’t been adequately prepared for anal penetration in this trial,” Rocky says. “Only trying to prevent sensitive tissue from getting chafed by external friction. Can try another time if ♩♩♬ ♪♩ hole is receptive to xenonite.”
“Right, gotcha, we’ll do the whole anal probe roleplay another time,” Ryland breathes out, nervously squeezing the lube like a stress ball. He unceremoniously uncaps it and jumps a little when he liberally squirts the cold jelly onto himself, smearing it everywhere from his prick to between his cheeks. Better to be safe than sorry when you’re venturing into uncharted waters.
“Rocky is outside seasonal mating window without Eridian partner to fertilize eggs and will have to manually override closed system to perform,” he says. “Grace must be patient, statement.”
“Look, I’m not complaining,” Ryland says, laughing a little breathlessly as he watches Rocky recline slightly and begin stroking his own vent at the bottom of his carapace until it nudges open. “Wait, one pressing question through—would Adrian be okay with us doing this? Like going all the way to third base?”
“Eridians will enter sexual thrum with others for pleasure, not exclusively with life mate,” Rocky confirms. “Mate is chosen for laying eggs and making hatchlings together—most sacred and esteemed part of mating. But we are not monogamous, no. Human social habits are clouding Grace’s judgement. Why you wait until now to ask, anyway?”
Ryland flushes deeply, so hot he can feel the blush burning above his belly button. “I know, I should’ve clarified that point a long time ago,” he mumbles. “I’m just—really invested in whatever we’re doing here, purely for selfish reasons. Because it feels really good, Rock. And…well. I wanna see whatever comes next, no pun intended.”
“Happy Grace feels good and trusts Rocky,” the Eridian says, crawling up between Ryland’s thighs in the nest now that they’re both properly lubricated. “We will do selfish science together. Ready to proceed?”
Ryland croaks out a weak laugh and nods. “I’ve been ready, pal. Now let’s see what you’re working with.”
At first it’s difficult to imagine how the new exosuit would even function in such a way, but Ryland watches as something begins emerging from the open cloaca at the bottom of Rocky’s carapace. A wet, periwinkle-colored organ with a narrow tip slips free from his insides with a small dribble of liquid mercury. It has some innate glow to it, Ryland realizes—almost like bioluminescent phytoplankton in the deep ocean at night. The ovipositor isn’t as long as he might’ve imagined, only about six or seven Earth inches at best, but it moves with a prehensile dexterity that makes his cunt clench on sight.
“Sweet jumping Jehoshaphat,” Grace groans, watching as Rocky’s cock molds against the inside of the exosuit and then neatly presses outward in an obscene but nicely-contained bulge. How did he not realize the entire thing is just one giant condom? “Can I—touch you there? With my hand?”
“Yes, gentle touch is fine,” Rocky vocalizes in a slightly strained tone. “Grace has beautiful hands, so good for touching. Perfect, perfect.”
The warmth radiating through the xenonite is startling at first brush. But of course it would be hotter than anything else he’s ever touched on Rocky—the ovipositor just came from directly inside his internal carapace. Ryland carefully strokes his fingers over the iridescent exosuit, marveling at the purplish organ that vaguely responds to his movements through the material. Rocky purrs while he explores, patient and soft vocalizations that feel like sweet hums reverberating between them.
Arousal is truly beginning to come to a boil inside him and Grace’s cunt aches with how much it needs to be filled by something at this point, anything. The intricately woven xenonite panels on the exosuit aren’t silky-soft to the touch, but they aren’t quite coarse, either. There’s definitely a rigidity and surface tension there but he doesn’t think it will hurt him beyond all repair going in. And if it does, at this point Ryland doesn’t truly care. If he gets an orgasm out of the deal and some much-pined-after intimacy with his alien roommate, then it’s a fair trade in the end.
For his own part, Rocky seems to be a mind-reader again all of a sudden. “Should not be abrasive to Grace’s vaginal canal, but that is part of the investigative research,” Rocky says. “Do you think organ will fit inside? Will not proceed if Grace is not adequately equipped for pleasurable penetration.”
Ryland eyeballs the ovipositor again and wraps his hand around it, stroking it downward with a sweet twist of his wrist. If his fingers can wrap around what Rocky’s packing, he thinks his hole can more or less take it. He shivers and opens his thighs on some instinct he didn’t even know he had until Rocky’s bulk was leaning into him with the promise of more. Hoo boy, he’s down bad for this alien.
“We’ll make it fit, Rock,” Ryland rasps. “Please. Even if it hurts, I kinda want it to hurt. Humans are like that sometimes—dual sensations heighten the experience. Just trust me, I’ll let you know if it’s too much to handle. But I think…we’re gonna be good.”
Rocky seems to hesitate for a moment. “Don’t want Grace to cry from pain,” he says softly. “Want Grace to cry happy tears, pleasure tears. Tears from love.”
“There’s no guarantee I’m gonna cry this time, sweetheart,” Ryland says, feeling flustered. “I can’t exactly do it on command.”
“Oh, Grace will cry when making love,” Rocky says, reaching out with one arm to touch Ryland’s collarbone, and then gently dragging a claw over to graze his nipple and the faded scar underneath. “Rocky is one hundred and ten percent certain of this.”
“You seem super duper sure of yourself, pal,” Ryland tries to argue, even if there’s already a strange hitch lurking in his chest. “Yet to be seen. Better hurry up and get this show on the road.”
It’s only then that Grace feels the ovipositor finally thrust slowly over his folds and then against his aching dick. Rocky braces around him in the nest and repeats the movement, a slow, agonizing, slippery slide of strange friction that makes his breath seize in his lungs. It’s good. Oh, it’s more than good.
“Do that again,” Grace wheezes, feeling his abdominal muscles tighten in anticipation of that second spark of pleasure zipping up his spine. Rocky’s cock slips through his folds and the ribbed-like texture of the exosuit feels like it drags over every sensitive nerve ending Ryland’s got. “Oh, ffffffudge, Rocky. Please—I need more!”
“Already overstimulated and begging when ovipositor not even inside hole yet,” Rocky tuts, reaching out with two claws to gently pin Ryland’s arms into the nest. “Soft, tender human. Rocky’s sweet boy, beloved treasure. Tell me what you want and Rocky will give.”
Ryland’s eyes are aching behind his glasses but he’s not going to break yet, he’s not going to fold so easily. “Get inside me already,” he growls. “I can take all of it.”
“If Grace insists,” Rocky trills, and then nudges the tapered tip of the ovipositor against Ryland’s opening. The heat that blooms there is immediate and definitely noticeable but nowhere near uncomfortable yet. There’s so much lube between them they may as well be on a slip-n-slide doused in dish detergent, so when the head of that cock presses forward there’s only the slightest friction where the xenonite mesh briefly tugs at Ryland’s cunt.
He braces himself for a flare of pain, for more reasons than one, but it never quite arrives. Rocky only warbles out a strained sort of melody and then eases into him, pressing his carapace forward with the assistance of three braced arms until the strange intrusion turns into a slightly burning stretch. Ryland tries to breathe through it, slightly trembling as he does, and then simply feels a shallow pop as the thicker base of the ovipositor nudges past his opening and locks itself into place.
The fullness of it would definitely bring tears to his eyes, if the complete and utter rightness of it hadn’t done the trick first. Rocky hums and brings up one pincher to touch the side of Ryland’s face, tenderly tracing his cheek with his gloved claw. The new connection between them is like a conduit for his vocalizations and the gentle vibration is something Grace can feel thrumming at his core.
“Oh, God,” he says, wilting back in the nest as his cunt flutters and tightens around the strange but incredible thing nestled inside him. “Rock. You feel—”
“Feels like we are made for each other, yes,” Rocky says, voice full of reverence and awe. “I can feel it, too. Perfect fit with Grace.”
“Do you think,” Ryland starts to ask, and then hiccups around his own voice breaking in the hull of his throat. He tries to laugh and shake it off, anything to keep himself from sobbing, but it’s all in vain. “God, this is so s-stupid. But do you think some people can have more than one soulmate?”
“Think Grace and Rocky are proof of that,” Rocky says simply. “Fates spooled together through distant stars.” And then he lowers himself over Ryland’s body and starts to move.
There’s a pinch of discomfort there but it’s par for the course with plumbing that hasn’t been used much in the past decade or more. Ryland gasps anyway, delighted by the burning stretch of it, knowing he’s finally being filled up, held by somebody he trusts, blissfully used by five arms belonging to a creature that somehow found him across the universe—because they’re touching, they’re joined together even with an alien barrier between them but it doesn’t matter, none of it matters because this is the best it will ever get and he’ll drink whatever Rocky gives him down in gluttonous gulps until he’s dead.
“Grace’s entire body is loaded spring coil of tension,” Rocky says, angling his carapace so he can hook two arms under Ryland’s knees to prise him open further, little claws pressed like benevolent brands into the backs of his thighs. “Shh, shh. Tell Rocky how to fix.”
There are fat tears rolling down Ryland’s face, blinding him behind his fogged-up glasses. “I don’t want to fall,” he croaks, not even knowing why he’s saying it as the words leave his mouth in a mindless ripple. Maybe it’s not the falling that he fears, but the fact that there’s never been anybody there to catch him. Not his dead parents, not his distant peers in academia. Not Eva Stratt, who threw him upward into the sky from the palm of her hand like pennies into a cosmic wishing well. Not Carl or the others working on the Hail Mary Project who helped strap him into a rocket and then sat idle as somebody else lit the fuse. Not Yao and Ilyhukhina, friends he never truly had time to know, already dead and gone by the time he needed them most.
“Grace can fall,” Rocky says, letting out a low, humming reverberation that makes Ryland’s world tilt on its axis. “Don’t worry, Rocky will always be here to catch.”
So he lets go.
The sobbing cracks Grace open down the middle and nearly rips him apart. It’s like every ounce of grief he’s held in his bones and his body for the past twenty years comes up through a geyser and explodes outward in a violent rush while Rocky holds him open and pins him down so he won’t fly away. There’s a moment where he feels like he can’t breathe, and somehow Rocky pulls him through it, running his hands over Grace’s ribs and distracting him with a pincher wrapped in his hair to tug his head back by the roots. The pain is just enough to keep him grounded, keep him tethered in a place where he doesn’t disappear.
“Rocky’s beautiful brave Grace, so leaky and wet, only for me,” Rocky purrs, delicately tracing the tear tracks on Ryland’s face through his exosuit. “Gorgeous, gorgeous. So full of love in tender human heart. So much precious love to give—Earth didn’t want, so Rocky will take it all.”
“Yours,” Ryland cries out. “You can have everything, Rock.”
The outpouring of grief only leaves room for pleasure, and when his breathing finally begins to calm Grace focuses on the sensation of Rocky so wonderfully pounding him into the floor. His hands fist in the quilt and he gives himself over to everything that’s happening—the all-encompassing stretch of his cunt being filled up so thoroughly he thinks he can feel Rocky in his lungs, the faint twinge of a muscle spasm in his right calf, the way he knows his elbows will both be bruised in the morning from bracing so hard on the hull of the ship, even despite the Eridian’s best efforts to soften the blow with a lovingly made nest.
The heat of Rocky’s ovipositor through the exosuit is gradually beginning to increase, like a star going nova where it rests at Grace’s core. There’s a strange impulse to press his hand against his abdomen, to try and feel for the physical intrusion—and he doesn’t know why he needs evidence of what they’re doing, to be so fundamentally changed and altered by it, but his heart already mourns the loss before it’s even gone.
“Been many years since Rocky…♩♪♩♬ !…could pass eggs to mate,” Rocky says in a rough vocalization. “Cannot give to Grace yet. Too hot, too big—will burn, burn badly! But pain of retaining eggs is…vast.”
Ryland Grace has never wanted something so desperately in his entire existence. “Let me feel it,” he begs, reaching out to wrap his trembling hands around two of Rocky’s arms. “Please, Rock, let me feel them—I gotta know, I want to feel all of you—through the suit, I don’t care, it doesn’t matter. I need it!”
“Eggs cannot pass through xenonite,” Rocky says a bit dumbly, and then gradually seems to track Grace’s train of thought. “Will stretch inside but not harm you—yes, yes! My clever Grace! Beautiful ♩♪ ♬♩♪♩squishy animal brain!”
Rocky swiftly pins him into the nest like snared prey and lowers his carapace so the weight of it is a rumbling, humming weight on Ryland’s belly. The endless vibration alone is enough to kill him, and then the ovipositor begins to swell as something starts traveling between them, through Rocky’s cock and into the tight heat of Grace’s body.
“Do it, Rock,” Grace rasps, lashes fluttering shut for whatever earth-shattering revelation hits him next. “Just like that, sweetheart, come on—I’m right here for the taking. Give me everything.”
“Hush now, no more talking,” Rocky says, clasping one of his pinchers around Ryland’s jaw so he freezes in place. “Be good boy and accept what Rocky gives.”
Grace chokes out a fractured sound when he feels the searing heat of something work its way into his cunt like a clenched fist. It’s a slow, agonizing push, and Rocky is making inane sounds he can’t even begin to parse out as the egg descends and inches ever deeper. For a brief moment Ryland starts to panic as the pressure impossibly builds against his cervix, like an instinctive threat he has to fight and thrash away from, but Rocky only pins him with his full weight on every arm and leg and lets out a sound that makes his human blood run cold.
“Be still,” Rocky quietly warns. “Will not breach you, only feel pressure. Grace begged for egg—now take it.”
Grace’s eyes shoot open as he feels the roundness of the imparted egg expanding within him, pressing up against the closed door of his womb. The exosuit dutifully keeps the worst of the mercury and heat contained but it still balloons outward, nudging up tight against every nerve and erogenous spot in its wake. The stark fullness makes him laugh around a jagged sob of hungering despair. He’s so close, so close to an edge between the rift of pain and astonishment that this is happening, and when he begs Rocky to let him feel his belly the Eridian only hums and frees one of his arms.
The same moment Grace palms the shallow bump in his lower abdomen, Rocky lets out a long string of sharp vocalizations that radiate through the firm egg lodged at his center. Ryland’s entire central nervous system lights up like a tuning fork and then his sight and sanity leave him behind for a while after that. Whatever happens is less of a bursting climax and more of a rolling wave that drags him under into a wending current, onward and upward through oblivion, in a ceaseless sort of maelstrom that he thinks may kill him before it’s over.
There are fresh tears on his face when he comes back to himself—alive?—and a puddle of wetness between his legs where he’s still weakly spurting something hot that dribbles out with each fluttering clench of his cunt. Ryland can only stare at the ceiling of the dormitory with its slightly tattered Hang In There, Baby! kitten poster and ponder how the hell they’re going to wash the good luck quilt in deep space.
“Wow,” Rocky says in his typical friendly cadence. “Did not know Grace was a squirter.”
“Me either, pal,” Grace grunts, finally reaching up to push his glasses into his wild hair. He has no clue how they managed to stay on his face through whatever just happened, but it probably involved nothing short of miraculous intervention. “I kinda thought the whole squirting thing was an urban legend until now.”
“Scientific trial very successful, then,” Rocky chirps. “Have many new variables to consider—and xenonite suit is working remarkably well!”
“You’re telling me,” Ryland croaks, tipping his head back with a groan. “Holy smokes. I think I’ve seen the light they’re always talking about.”
Rocky very slowly pulls out of him with deliberate care, and it stings for a moment but the pain of emptiness left behind in his wake is slightly worse. Rocky is quick to deal with the egg byproduct still stuck in the exosuit and hastily withdraws his glowing ovipositor back inside his carapace now that it has served its duty. He turns into a total cuddlebug in the afterglow, and Ryland gratefully holds his arms open so the Eridian can snuggle up beside him and tuck himself under the drape of one forearm with its familiar scar.
“Knew Grace would cry when making love,” Rocky hums smugly. “So pretty when crying tears from pleasure. Yes, precisely as Rocky expected.”
“Yeah, yeah, give me a break,” Ryland huffs without any heat, closing his eyes and deciding he very much wants to deal with the mess they’ve made another time. Preferably after an eight-hour uninterrupted nap, at minimum. “You’d be crying too if you had any eyes.”
“This is true,” Rocky says. “Love Grace very much, statement. Will need to repeat similar trial with exosuit many more times for optimal results, to be sure of xenonite efficiency.”
Ryland manages a weak laugh but the sincere warmth of it radiates through his chest and his cheeks, balmy and comforting. He feels good—better than good. This is the best he’s felt in years. It’d be monumentally embarrassing how much getting some alien dick healed him if there were anybody else around to care, but Rocky isn’t the type to hold something like that against him. Thank goodness for small mercies.
“Love you too, Rock,” Grace says around a wide yawn, snuggling up against his sole reason for living long enough to make it this far. “And count me in for more big science. We’ve got some important ground to cover."