Chapter Text
Rocky’s xenonite-shrouded feet pitter-pattered upon the sandy surface of the biodome floor, Adrian’s familiar steps padding behind him as his mate followed loyally.
“All are trying to more effectively synthesize Grace’s food,” Rocky rambled as they walked, “or, more accurately, find a better alternative than his ‘meburgers’. You know this, obviously, is just frustrating. Grace keeps sighing about missing ‘variety’, is making me feel bad. Human tasting things is becoming issue.”
“No better alternative yet?” Adrian fondly prompted. They were also in charge of helping Grace, though their jurisdiction lay with the biodome for the most part.
“Khhh. No better alternative.” Rocky replied, stamping his feet with more vigour as they skittered along. “Will fix this, but is very difficult. Wish I could help with more science, but Grace and Eridian scientists much more capable,” he shifted his carapace to ‘face’ Adrian, a habit he’d picked up from Grace who had to face him every time he spoke because of the goopy light-sensors in his face, “makes me feel better you are helping too.”
Adrian didn’t say anything, but the way they moved forward to bump their carapace to his—even through the xenonite barriers both Eridians sported—told Rocky all he needed to know, and his hearts were warmed.
The conversation kind of pittered off as Rocky skittered properly up to Grace’s door, calling back to his partner. “We bother Grace now!”
Adrian pleasedly came up behind him just as Rocky was pausing in place.
One of his limbs had stalled mid-way up to a knock and he froze, his whole being going stiff.
Fear blazed through Rocky as he processed what he was hearing from Grace through the wall, a visceral heaving sound, his voice pitched and wheezy, he– he’d never heard a noise like that from him, the closest had been the man’s nightmares—which were never this bad, this was so far beyond that, he was sobbing, yes, that was a sound Rocky knew, but not like this, this heaving thrashing, whimpering and wheezing like he was choking, he- he sounded like he was dying—Rocky let loose a desperate, shrill, short shout as he burst forward through Grace’s door, neglecting to knock because who cared about that when Grace was dying he was dying, no, no–
“Grace”—Rocky rushed to the man’s bedroom, stumbling over his own limbs and the xenonite, which shielded him but also made him clumsy, crying back—“Adrian, get help, help!”
Adrian’s footsteps rushed off to call the other scientists responsible for helping Grace, whom Rocky had clearly startled—though when he was breathing like that Rocky couldn’t care.
The Eridian burst into the man’s room, making all sorts of musical clicks to get a proper assessment of the situation.
—
This was certainly not how Grace expected to be waking up. Not that it was an unusual way to wake up. Rocky deciding he was chill to randomly enter his house, normal, horrible nightmare, sort of normal and growing more so.
He could still feel the tears wet against his face. His mouth was dry, his throat was sore.
That was all unfortunately usual to how he was waking up recently. The kind of nightmare that caused this reaction was, somehow more unfortunately, his new norm as well. He was used to PTSD nightmares getting to him sometimes, but this? This was too much.
It was just…it was so much blood. Not a normal amount of blood. Even whales don't have as much blood in their bodies and they are the mammal with the most amount of blood on Earth. No, there was so much. A whole giant ocean of it. Miles and miles of just blood.
Grace could drown in it.
He had drowned in it. So many different times.
It was like he could feel it, which is ridiculous. Not totally ridiculous, dreams occur in so many different parts of the brain, including parts of the brain responsible for sensations. It's just... never been so visceral.
He's had nightmares before. Some about being drugged and kidnapped onto the Hail Mary. About waking up and finding the only two people he was sent up to space with dead. That fear of being in the middle of fudging space and not remembering how or why he was there.
Those nightmares were so bad.
They weren't drowning in an ocean of blood bad.
He didn't just drown in the ocean either. Sometimes he bled out. Of everywhere. His eyes, his mouth, his nose, his ears. It was brutal, the feeling of losing the very thing that kept oxygen flowing through his body. It was so bad that he had literally woken with his throat hoarse and it didn’t take a rocket scientist– or in this case an astrobiologist– to tell him he’d been screaming.
It never had coherence. Never a beginning, or middle, or end. There was just blood. It was dark. There was never any light. No stars, no sun, not even moons to reflect the sun's light.
As if the blood wasn’t enough, it was even more terrifying because it looked– it looked like how Grace imagined it would look if they hadn't found the Taumoeba. If the astrophage had eaten through all the stars in their galaxy.
Sometimes there was a tree. That tree felt important, like it mattered, like there was something to it. Sometimes Grace was swimming, and swimming, and swimming to that tree. And he just couldn't get there. And he'd drown.
Sometimes he was teaching the pebbles and that blood, so much blood would pour out in front of the kids—he always fought to hide it, but he was never fast enough.
Today, the blood roulette spun and landed on drowning. That horrible tree stood ever-looming in the distance, shrouded in what was somehow a mixture of red light and utter darkness, like the sky couldn’t pick between void and horrid red-light. Ryland swam, sunk and drowned, choking on the blood.
He was sniveling, now. Awake, at least, but in utter disarray, gasping in air like it was the last breath he’d take. He heard Rocky in the distance—even in his panic he recognized the clicking of his xenonite suit on the floor—and just tried to breathe before his friend arrived. He was fine. No drowning, it- it was fine.
Blood is mostly water, but it's slightly thicker; it tastes like iron, he could still taste the iron. Why did he still taste the iron?
Eugh, he- he couldn't focus on that. Not when Rocky- in his house, clicking in pure concern- was here. Grace blinked, wiped his eyes with a loud sniff to clear the remaining tears.
"Rocky, it's alright, I just- uh- had a bad dream. I'm okay though, just breathing," he finds himself naturally talking as if he was soothing a child. He doesn't mean to do it. He just…does. He certainly doesn’t need to do that around Rocky of all people.
All those years of being a teacher, being around kids, sometimes in his most visceral moments of panic, it just made him forget how to act around adults. They weren't all in need of his soothing tone, of an adult to assure that everything was fine, Rocky maybe wanting that least of all from Grace.
—
That was from a bad dream??? Rocky did not dream, obviously, no Eridian dreamt a thing. Their sleep was a complete shutdown, basically, it left no room for brain activity.
Grace had explained, however, that human minds were still rather active during sleep cycles. Sometimes taking them to indescribable places, memories, fragments, all within their own heads.
Rocky could imagine things when awake in what Grace called a daydream, so he understood the concept to a point, though somehow dreaming while asleep was still so odd. He already knew all this. In fact, he'd seen Grace have decently bad nightmares before as well. But even if they ended in or caused tears, it- it was never so bad that Grace sounded like that. Like he was choking, dying.
He at least was not panicking so hard, but wow, the human had scared him. Grace had vaguely told him before about these dreams, but Rocky hadn’t known how bad they’d gotten.
"Not alright," Rocky replied, almost instinctual, because that was such a blatant lie. He knew Grace better than that. Rocky maneuvered a little closer, "need help. I help you breathe. In and out. Slow."
He bit back saying bluntly, no choke and die, because saying that felt like maybe it was an unnecessary addition. He just helped as he was used to, something that had grown much more familiar over the course of their friendship. When Grace needed help with a nightmare or any sort of human panic moment, Rocky knew now what to do.
—
Rocky was as blunt as usual, which was certainly comforting after such a horrific nightmare.
Anything Rocky did was comforting at this point. Just his presence was helpful for Grace to calm down. They spent so much time together on the trip back to Erid. Rocky was the bestest friend he'd ever had, ever will have, still has.
Which is why his blunt assessment of not alright didn't make Grace feel discouraged or upset. Not when he was right. Grace knew he was objectively not alright. That was a little obvious. Or blatantly obvious.
Now that he was a little out of his own head, out of assure and comfort mode, he was able to follow along with Rocky's words. He first shifted a little bit closer following the way Rocky had maneuvered towards him. He follows the words of breathe, in and out, slow.
Grace knew so many different breathing techniques. He often did them with his Middle Schoolers, back on Earth. He remembers when they'd have state testing for science. They'd be forced to sit in a room, on computers, and take a test to measure their success that year. He taught his students different breathing techniques, to ground themselves, so they didn't stress themselves out over the tests.
He was using those techniques now. It was silly that he remembered, not for himself, but because of the students he taught. It was still coming in handy. The taste of blood was starting to fade, he didn't feel like he was choking on blood still stuck in his throat anymore. He was on Erid. He was breathing oxygen. He wasn't anywhere near a giant blood ocean. Rocky was here. Everything was alright. He just had to keep telling himself that and let the adrenaline fade from his body. There was no need to be in fight or flight over a blood ocean that didn't exist... probably.
It felt so real. Even if every logical part of Grace's brain told him it wasn't real, it felt so real. He just... had to keep reminding himself it was just a nightmare, and breathe. He would get through this. He didn't feel fine, but that was just because his body was having a physical reaction to the dream. That's fine. That's great. It can stop now.
Once that reaction did finally stop, Grace was able to glance at Rocky, giving him a confused glance, head naturally tilting, "I'm sorry- did you have to wake me up?"
Grace thinks that's what happened. Judging by the fact that Rocky is here and Grace does not recall getting up to let him in. He actually doesn't recall anything beyond Rocky's panicked stomps and clicks and him sitting here and breathing for heaven knows how long.
—
Rocky's hands moved forward to clumsily wrap his xenonite covered arms around his friend, Grace reaching back at the gesture with a desperation Rocky was sure was unintentional, though the Eridian paused at the question.
"Don't know. Think we woke you by scaring you," Rocky replied honestly, still miming slow breathing noises and leaning his carapace solidly on Grace's chest. It was grounding, the Earthling had said before, "never heard you make those sounds. Scared both of us. Made very loud entrance. You sit up very fast." Rocky chittered a bit to get a better view of his friend, a bit anxiously saying, "thought Grace was choking. Can you breathe? You okay now?"
He wanted to ask more questions, and it was hard not to, but he didn't want to overwhelm the man either.
—
Grace naturally leaned into his friend, focusing on the way Rocky mimes the slow breathing. Rocky breathes differently than Grace does, all Eridians do. Rocky had just learned how to mimic Grace's breathing after he confessed that it helped to have something to latch onto like that. The grounding pressure of Rocky's weight on his chest was certainly a help too. It was grounding and comforting and exactly what Grace needed to help calm down.
The explanation made sense, he scared Rocky—Adrian too judging by Rocky's explanation of we and both of us—which made Rocky bust in, which scared Grace awake. It made perfect sense.
He's never not woken up before. No matter how bad the nightmare was, he's been able to pull himself out. They feel so real, but he wakes up, he wakes up before he has to leave to go on his walk with Rocky in the morning.
The lack of sleep must be getting to him for him to oversleep that much. It's concerning. Grace wasn't an over sleeper. Not like this- anyway. He was used to waking up early despite staying up late, he got his doctorate, he was a teacher for heaven's sake. He woke up on schedule basically every day, but…he didn't this time.
And Rocky thought he was choking. Well, he- he kind of was. Not really, there was nothing for Grace to choke on in here, not even his own carbon dioxide release. Grace was just choking on blood in his nightmares and he guesses that translated to how he sounded while dreaming.
Instead of saying that, Grace slowly wraps his arms around Rocky. It's so comforting. His best friend, his being—because Rocky wasn't a person in the way most considered a person. And even then, Rocky was his being even when including people.
He gathers the energy to physically show assurance through nodding and verbally explain it in a gentle, "Yes, I can breathe. Yes, I am okay. I'm sorry I scared you."
—
Rocky wrapped his arms more firmly around Grace in kind, careful not to put too much of his weight on Grace. His human and his fragile bones, he wasn't in the business of cracking anything in him because he just leaned too much on him. Rocky'd never wished to weigh less before meeting Grace, but now he found himself often wishing he was two or three hundred pounds lighter, maybe even more. Besides, maybe then Grace wouldn't call him Fridge-weight.
"No sorries," Rocky replied. Grace was always apologizing for no reason. One of the Eridian's hands lifted, lightly ruffling the human's fluffy hair as the boulder fondly replied, "happy Grace okay."
—
Grace could only give a small chuckle when Rocky ruffled the hair on his head. Something Rocky picked up from noticing Grace do that himself.
He was able to relax a bit more with the confirmation that everything was fine, because it was. It was.
It just didn't always feel fine after nightmares. Especially not…those nightmares.
It was awful. He's never experienced this kind of fear before. That’s saying something, considering he woke up in space, super far from Earth with no idea why he was there, no clue who he was, what he was supposed to be doing, or how he was going to get back home—he’d been smart enough to do the math and realise he wasn’t going home, too, that– that was so scary.
These blood nightmares were somehow more terrifying than that.
—
The Eridian gave Grace another moment to breathe, before worry did admittedly get the best of him- because that had been scary- and he asked a bit quieter, "what happened?"
—
Grace's eyes trailed to Rocky. There was a brief moment of hesitation in wanting to answer. He didn't want to scare his friend... but he kind of already had scared him. He already knew about the nightmares, there was no need to pretend they weren't happening.
"Blood ocean, again. I wish my brain would get more creative and less Eldritch horror terrifying, hah, haha…ah, it’s..not funny, but like. Seriously. Horror movie tree?" Grace jokes, because he doesn't know how to talk about this seriously. "I mean, it's always the same thing. They're always centered around blood. And- and an empty sky."
That part was awful too. He didn't like seeing the empty sky, it was just– just too personal. But somehow, someway, Grace just knew that wasn't why the sky was empty, which is ridiculous seeing as Grace doesn't know anything. They're nightmares, nightmares with no rhyme or reason or explanation. He's not a psychologist, he’s not a dream analyst. He can't tell himself why he's having those dreams. All he knows is a bit about how you dream because Middle Schoolers find that interesting.
—
Rocky hummed a soft trill back at his friend; nothing that was words, simply an Eridian acknowledgement.
When Grace had first explained exactly what dreams were, Rocky had thought him insane, considering that sounded like some magic, psychic thing, but Grace had gone very in detail about the scientific reasons for dreams, which was how they came to the conclusion they were like Eridian wake-sights, or to Grace, daydreams.
This was an odd one and neither Rocky nor Grace knew the origins.
"Is getting worse," Rocky worriedly noticed. "Is normal for your human dreams?" He swiftly added, "Bad dreams."
—
It was getting worse, as much as Grace didn't want to admit it. He wasn't able to wake himself up from it, which is terrifying in its own right because Grace has no idea why they could be getting this bad.
He's never really been the, uh, terrifying nightmare type. Yes Grace has nightmares, more now than he ever did on Earth. Most of them on his way to Erid. Mainly the getting betrayed, drugged, and kidnapped.
This had no basis. Surprisingly enough, Ryland had never drowned in a blood ocean. He was never even at risk of drowning. He was at risk of dying after collecting the sample from Adrian, but that was possible death via fiery explosion.
Technically it is normal for human dreams. People have all sorts of nightmares, reoccurring ones. Usually as children. Some have night terrors as adults. Some have nightmares because of PTSD. But this isn't normal for Grace. Never in all his life has he ever had any kind of nightmares like this.
So all he can do is softly admit, "I don't know, Rocky. Human dreaming is a complex system that we still don't fully understand back on Earth. It could be normal," but that was just the scientific answer, not Grace's answer so he continued, quieter, "in my opinion? It doesn't feel normal. Not for me. Something feels... off about it. I just can't place my finger on what."
—
Well, that was incredibly worrying. There were no true human experts on Erid except the one human there, and that human didn't even know what this was. They obviously had specialists and scientists rapidly trying to learn, but there was only so much they could do.
The other nightmares were only fixable via patience and comfort—which Rocky was happy to provide, obviously—so he had to assume that this was the same. Grace had less of those old nightmares now, of that 'Stratt' human and bad things from Earth. Maybe they could work with this. Help him heal as he was from his other, less bad nightmares.
"We will fix," Rocky lightly pressed his carapace closer, ignoring the nasty, squelchy human-sounds. He was used to how gross Grace's body sounded by now, and it had grown comforting. "Will figure out. I help Grace heal."
—
Grace smiled at Rocky's assurances that they would fix this. He isn't exactly sure how to fix this one in particular since, to his knowledge, there wasn't really anything that was the root cause of it. It wasn't like the other nightmares where he had to start to process and accept what happened to him. This never happened to him. He doesn't even know what this is.
It's scary, not that Grace was particularly eager to admit as such aloud.
He had been trying to fix it. His white board is covered in descriptions of the dreams, trying to parse out a deeper meaning of them. Grace never kept dream journals or analyzed them like that, but dreams were a scientific problem. This had to be solved scientifically.
For now, he focused on his friend, his rocky-carapace doing its best to mimic a hug. He just leaned his head onto his alien friend and muttered, "I sure hope so, Rocky. They are getting worse and I still don't know why.”
—
Sympathy rippled through Rocky as the familiar voice-vibrations of Grace's words echoed around him, and the Eridian gently suggested, "maybe talk? This has helped in the past. Other bad human dreams. I will listen."
Grace liked to work methodically through his issues anyways. The man thought like a scientist, truly. That was basically universal, apparently, Rocky had seen Adrian and other Eridian scientists do this many times.
—
Grace nodded at that and then muttered, "Alright, hold on, I gotta-" and snuck himself out of Rocky's hold. Not because he didn't appreciate it, but because he has a system for this now. He's going to use his system.
He stands up for the first time that day and trots over to where he kept his dream journal on the white board, ignoring any lingering shakiness. Written in big, capital letters it had the main types of dreams he could have, with counts of how many times it happened.
At first, the leaking blood dreams were the most common. Then, the dreams of him being on a sinking ship in the blood ocean, looking up at the dark sky were the most common. Then, the ones of him just drowning in blood off the bat were the most common. Now, the ones centering around swimming pointlessly to the tree in the blood ocean are most common.
He ups his count on that dream description in particular and walks himself through what he's been going through.
"Okay, so all these dreams have blood in common. Lots of it, that one’s literally never changed. There's a blood ocean, that's consistent. The sky is dark, like- either just straight-void or sometimes kinda red, but still dark, that's also consistent, every- every time it’s red I feel like I’m being stared at, it- it’s really uncomfortable, buddy, you have no idea. I drown in blood almost every nightmare. Whether it's because it's pouring out of my body- gross, gross, gross, I know- or because I'm in the ocean, I'm drowning," he points to various things on the whiteboard as he speaks. "Before there was no goal to them, I was just drowning in blood, but now I'm swimming towards a bloody viney tree in the complete dark. That tree is a goal. I don't know if I- if I reach that goal if the nightmares will stop. I feel like I never get any closer to the tree every time I swim towards it, but that's impossible, because every direction I swim is towards the tree. So the tree must also move whenever I swim towards it... ooooor it's a metaphor about some unreachable goal."
Maybe the tree was meant to be Earth, but this was a weird way of his brain telling him he was homesick. Because Grace himself wasn't even homesick. He liked it here on Erid. He wanted to stay. He had the option to go home and he just... hasn't. Sure, there were things he missed, but he was overall happier on Erid, and he didn’t think he would ever want to move back to Earth.
—
Ah, and of course Grace had a board of this. It had been a growing issue, Rocky really shouldn’t've been shocked by this development. Honestly, more than anything, he was just a bit embarrassed that he hadn't properly processed it until now. He'd heard it somewhere in his mind, obviously, but he'd been so focused on Grace he'd missed it until now.
He listened. He did. Though the main thought that he ended up having, which escaped him a bit impulsively, "human dreams so weird," Rocky said, feeling utterly baffled. "Maybe you need to go swimming? Or miss Earth trees, Erid’s simulated tree not enough. Can go to 'Don't Go Crazy' room and see proper trees."
He wasn't sure if that would work, but solutions may be nice. If not, this might just be a listening moment. He was fine with that if it helped Grace, and made it so that he didn't make those horrible dying noises that frightened Rocky so.
—
Grace couldn't help but chuckle when Rocky commented on how weird human dreams are. Humans are weird, even on their own planet. Other animals dream but not the way humans do. At least he thinks. Dreams are so complicated and he is an astrobiologist. He studies cells, not dreams. That's not in his wheelhouse, thus he doesn't know a lot about it besides the few things he learned to tell his middle schoolers when they had questions.
He had asked plenty of questions to the Google archives from his laptop, at that point, and he came up with a good few things and none of them were proper answers for exactly what he wanted to know. It was all speculation. Thus, he was stuck with the whiteboard of doom, despair, and little understanding.
For now, he focuses on Rocky's suggestions. Go swimming, don't go crazy room. Grace nods, giving a small, "Mhm, mhm, maybe. As long as the water is Grace safe temperatures," Grace can't help but tease.
He supposes he can try that, he just…he really hopes that swimming doesn't make him more panicked. Grace doesn't have any issues swimming, in fact he usually loves it, but after drowning in a blood ocean... about 26 times according to his white board, he might not take to the water as he usually would. Maybe the water being colder will help. The blood was always warm. Like it was alive.
He shudders a bit and states, "Okay, we'll try looking at trees, then we'll try swimming and hopefully that will make everything normal and I'll stop drowning in blood!" He claps his hands together as if it was a done deal. That'll work, it makes sense. He just misses some Earth things and his brain is making it clear in the most horrific way it possibly could.
—
"Trees and swimming," Rocky replied with a gesture of excitement that Grace referred to as jazz hands, keeping close, worried further after sensing that little shudder. The man was still shaken. That was understandable. "We go together!"
Referring to the water, mischievously back, Rocky continued, "water has been Grace-temperature for long time. Picky picky picky. Human so picky. 'Need oxygen, need cold but not too cold water, need much food', so picky picky picky, Gr"—Rocky paused mid-sentence hearing frantic movement outside right as Grace was saying hey, and the boulder chittered out—"Uh-oh."
Perhaps he had forgotten that, uh, he'd sent his mate off to get scientific assistance. In Rocky's defense, though, Grace never made noises like that unless injured or having a nightmare horrific enough Rocky couldn't truly comprehend it.
Grace stiffened.
"'Uh-oh'?" Grace repeated, more properly swiveling his head Rocky's way. "What's uh-oh? I think we've had enough 'uh-oh's for now, bud, uh- why???"
"Might have sent Adrian off for help." Rocky explained, clicking as he watched his mate and another couple scientists rapidly approaching on the beach.
"What?!"
"Grace making dying noises! Wanted personal human specialists of Erid! Grace no die!"
"Sobbing, Rocky- just- worse sobbing, not dying, just- oh my god," Grace sounded like he was between sobbing and laughing like he did sometimes when feeling particularly emotional but also fond, "These dreams are just bad, nobody’s dy- just- oh my god. Okay."
"Let us tell Adrian you not die, maybe."
"Yeah, that'd be a good idea there, Rock. Let's."