Chapter Text
There is this saying I heard in college, sex is like oxygen- too little and you might die.
Geeze the thought is just atrocious.
After this much time being alone, I may have became best friends with my own hand and any slick substance I can find. It's trite really, scientist is secretly a sex starved man.
Scratch that, not sex starved...
Needing to be loved, held.
The heat of the shower makes my bathroom smell of my honey body wash as I rinse myself. I feel every cell of blood actively working to harden my cock.
Fuck, even my body thinks I'm dumb.
I cannot ignore it, especially after god knows how long. Fuck, I'm the savior of two planets, I deserve this.
I deserve touch.
I wrap my hand around the base of my cock, stroking it to the tip slowly. The glide is heavenly, heat searing across me like a fever. My thumb circled the tip, breaths coming out uneven. I'm whimpering, biting my lip because Rocky is in my house. He let himself in, he's been doing that more often and I really don't mind. In fact, I get braver, stroking roughly, my other hand coming up to brace the wall. Something about him here, in earshot makes it dangerous and I whimper, letting myself be heard.
I hear his Eva suit scuttling around, pinging sounds like rain against metal, probably judging the messy state of my house like always. I hear him close to the door, his handwork reaching up to push it.
He's here.
In the same room.
And I have my dick in my hand.
The hum of the zenonite barrier settles into something softer, almost like a held note.
Rocky tilts his head slightly, watching me—not with embarrassment, not with judgment. Just… curiosity.
"Fuck," I muttered, grabbing a towel. "A closed door means busy, rocky!" I say sharply with a laugh.
“I did not intend to interrupt,” he says.
I let out a breath through my nose, wrapping the towel a little tighter around myself. “You always say that.”
“I am still learning what qualifies as an interruption.”
There’s no sarcasm in it. No defensiveness. Just a statement.
That makes it harder to respond.
I lean back against the sink, the cool porcelain grounding me in a way the rest of this moment isn’t. Steam curls between us, softening the edges of everything—of him, of me, of whatever this is.
"This...obviously." I trail off because it totally isn't, if it was it's welcome, it's been welcome since he saved my life.
I can't let him now that.
Not yet.
"When will Rocky know when it isn't, question?" He tilts that stupid carapace and I smile.
"When I reach for you. When it's need."
“I chose to come here,” he says.
It’s such a simple sentence.
It shouldn’t do anything.
And yet I'm aching from it.
My chest tightens, something unfamiliar and fragile threading through the embarrassment, the tension, everything else.
“That’s… not exactly the same,” I say, but my voice isn’t as steady as I want it to be.
“Then explain the difference,” he replies.
There’s no urgency in it. No pressure.
Just patience.
Like he’s willing to stand here as long as it takes.
I swallow, glancing down for a moment before meeting his gaze again. “It’s… when someone sees you. Like—really sees you. And doesn’t leave.”
Another pause.
Longer this time.
Rocky’s expression doesn’t change much, but something in the way he holds himself does—like a recalibration, subtle but real.
“I am still here,” he says.
And for once, it doesn’t sound like an observation.
It sounds like an answer.
"Rocky wants to be closer. Be with Grace, study closer."
I feel myself shiver, not from the cold of the porcelain. "When you say close, you mean intimate?"
He tilts his carapace, moving from handwork to handwork, his trill is full of reverence, almost shy yet loving. "Same story, we save each other. Rocky and grace compatible."
"We have a lot of catching up to do," I say, lips trembling. Am I really letting myself have this?
"Grace and rocky move carefully then."
Since when have we been careful?
There’s another soft chime as Rocky lowers one of his upper hands. Something glints between his articulated digits—a small loop, faceted and luminous.
"Rocky have gift. Finally give Grace gift."
The bracelet is cool when it touches my skin, but not unpleasantly so. The beads—zenonite, if i remember right—hold a strange inner light, like distant stars caught in crystal. They hum faintly, a vibration more felt than heard.
“It's beautiful." I turn my wrist.
Rocky’s trill lifts, pleased, but restrained—like he’s holding himself back from something bigger.
"Engrave patrova line." Rocky rubs his claws together. "Courting ritual, a gift. Do not need answer right away."
I wipe the tears from my eyes, nodding as I run my thumb down the bracelet.
"I didn't give you a gift."
Rocky's trill is full of devotion, almost yearning and my heart flutters.
"Grace has given Rocky everything."
-----
The beach stretches pretty far. I enjoy the fog, but I'm pretty sure Adrian is working on spring weather for me. Warmer, perfect for whatever season it is on earth. Rocky walks close to me, taking his time trolling low and happy notes I can hear through the translation software. I can't stop looking at the bracelet, how it shines in whatever sun Adrian generated to make me feel alive.
"Rocky doesn't need gift from Grace, you gave me stars. Gift enough."
I shake my head, smiling as the evening fog curls around us.
"Not exactly how gifts work, you definitely upped your game." He laughs, high and happy as we make our nightly walk.
"Glad Grace likes gift. Make me happy happy happy." I beam hearing Rocky talk about his hard work.
"You should be proud,” I say, glancing down at the bracelet again as it catches the last of the simulated light. “You didn’t just make something—you thought about me. That’s the part that matters.”
Rocky quiets a little beside me, his trill softening into something steadier, more contained.
"Thinking about Grace is constant,” he says. "Constant but never enough." He continues and something shifts in me.
"God..." I sigh, my breath getting heavy as my grip tightens on Rocky's hand, something I wished I had done when he had saved my life. "I've been thinking a lot about you too. Guess this is good huh, my moon."
His carapace shifts from left to right, a thumbs down following as his voice gets trembling.
"Rocky is Grace moon question?"
I nod, feeling that I might cry. "Absolutely."
We arrive back at my house around what I believe is 4am and it just...it just happens.
Rocky had set up this lattice that went across my bedroom, luminous spores seem to let us share the same environment. Nanobite technology. Who would have thought science would be kind to me for once? My head hits my pillow, my hair seeming to fan out in a play with me fashion and my bare chest heaves. Rocky's close enough to crawl through me but not close enough. This is the second time I seen him without the barrier.
First time I get to touch him.
"No need to watch me sleep tonight," I reassure Rocky, his resonance evoking pure lip shaking arousal. "I'm not tired." I kiss along his carapace for the first time. The lattice has give, the surface of rocky feeling like skin. "Rocky not tired also. "
"You sure, I can watch you sleep."
"Positive. Rocky wants to touch Grace."
Fuck...
I close my eyes, indulging in the feeling. I feel claws across my bare skin, softer than you'd think, warm, my eyes flutter open.
"Undress for me, question? All the way."
I stand up, unbuckling my jeans and letting them fall to the floor. I lay next to Rocky and I can't seem to have him close enough. His hands map me out, exploring, petting me.
"Much better, can see everything especially graces sexual organ."
"Is this an apology for earlier?" I laugh, another gasp being pulled from me as feel a claw brush against my side.
"Maybe." His trill is smug, almost lighting me ablaze. When his claw wraps around my cock, my head falls back. The pressure, god the pressure.
"Don't squeeze too hard. Ah, Rocky just stroke it. Feels much better." I manage weakly with a kiss to his carapace.
That he does and my eyes almost cross. The gentle almost hurried stroking tells me he's learning me in real time. He suddenly finds the sensitive spot on the underside of my dick and I almost howl.
"I like this spot on Grace." His tone is high, almost like a cat in heat. "Makes him weak and stupid."
"Just weak, not stupid." I dumbly say.
"Right. Grace big science, save rid save earth."
I groan at that.
"Leaky." Rocky says smugly and my legs shake. I grip the sheet as his strokes build in pressure. I'm crying, actually crying from an alien handjob.
Eridians learn quick, adapting to find what will drive me nuts. I squirm against his touch as he continues, the slide of his clawed fist sliding as I arch up into it.
I feel the familiar tightening of my balls, signaling I'm close. Rocky strokes roughly as if he saw me earlier, knew how to send me over the edge.
"Grace want to stop question?"
"God no Rocky.... you stop I'll kill you." I laugh and he mimics me. "Rocky this feels..." I trail off, not knowing a word for something for once.
"Rocky has grace, relax. Finish for me." He murmurs. Three, four pumps and I'm gone, shuddering in Rocky's hand as I cum across the surface of it.
"It beautiful." Rocky's voice is reassuring, grounding me in everything while making me fall apart.
" I can watch you sleep rocky if you want." It's not asking, I'm telling him I'm here to protect.
"No, you have children to teach tomorrow- Grace rest, Rocky watch."
I fall asleep to the gentle tapping of simulated rain and rockys low resonance.