Archive of Our Own

Rocky's been tetchier than normal for a few days now.

I'd figured he'd just slept wrong at first, though how that might work when eridians' sleep cycles work the way they do is beyond me, but when it lasted longer than one of Rocky's "days" and he just got pricklier, I couldn't help being worried.

I'm still worried.

The Taumoeba tanks are still chugging along pleasantly, and we're only losing the expected amount of fuel each day, so it can't be nerves over potentially not getting back to Erid. We're getting really close, too- I'm down to a bit more than half a year before I have to consider phasing coma slurry out of my diet, but we're only three months of Mary-time away from our destination. Short of some kind of catastrophe, we're both making it.

Hopefully the universe is kind enough to hold off on any catastrophes. I acknowledged the possibility. Please let that be enough to hold off any potential jinxing.

"Grace?" Rocky calls from the dormitory. "Can-? I need to tell you something."

His voice sounds a bit less like his usual whistles and chirps and a bit more like a quintet of 8-year-olds with plastic recorders- that is to say, pressed and tense. If he was human, I'm pretty sure he'd sound pretty high-pitched and thin.

"'Course you can, Rock," I say instead of outright panicking. He can probably hear me hauling butt across the ship anyway, even before I swing my way to the ladder and start climbing down. "What's going on?"

"Rocky preface with disclaimer," says he, which really does so much for my blood pressure. "Normal biological process. Not illness disease injury, statement."

I swallow as subtly as I can and nod. "O-okay, that's good to know. Why, uh, why would that be something that I might be worried about?"

Rocky is wiggling his fingers slowly when I reach the bottom and turn around, and I lower myself down to the floor and cross my legs. "…Rocky?"

"Grace…remember talk about eridian reproduction, question?" Rocky eventually manages.

Oh, okay, something's wrong with- no, Rocky just said it's a normal biological process. Okay, so, uh-!

Instead of relating every single firing of my neurons, I nod again. "Mated eridians lay eggs together, which only fertilize once they've been laid."

Rocky chirps thinly and lifts one hand to gesture vaguely in the air. "Yes. Thing about that is…eridians have timed cycle. Body produce eggs after reach adulthood, many mate or one mate or no mate. Not often by human time, but common enough. Need need need to lay once produced. Eggs remain fertile long time, in case potential mate cycle not in sync."

I worry at my lower lip. "Are you getting close to needing to, uh, lay your eggs?"

A single little jazz hand. "Normally no issue. Eridians lay eggs for all history. Blip-A have machine to help with this- keep crew eggs separate from other crew eggs, prevent fertilization and keep safe. Radiation hurt most eggs, but I bring viable eggs from crew home for crew's mates, if crew wanted pebbles. I…I used machine much much much."

"Geez, yeah, 46 years is a while, huh," I breathe.

"Rocky too used to machine, I think." He keens and tilts his carapace to get me to look at a hodgepodge something next to him. "I try to lay without on Hail Mary as soon as I realize, but can't. Body refuse to lay, but need to lay. I try to build temporary machine, but can't get texture of insides right. Can't lay. Didn't realize eggs would come so soon, or Rocky bring machine in first place!"

Oh.

Rocky only has the one orifice. If there's enough matter in there to make him frustrated, there's an evolutionary reason for a blockage to need fixing ASAP-

-a blockage. In the orifice that, among other things, is where Rocky eats and expels waste from.

AKA, nutrient intake is blocked and waste explusion is also blocked.

Oh, shit.

Hardy har har, universe. That shows me for wanting things to just keep going smoothly, huh?

"What do you need me to do?" I ask, adrenaline already kicking my brain into high gear. "Is it- do you think maybe something in my half of the ship might help?"

"Rocky doesn't know!" He honks.

"Y'know what? I'm gonna go- I'm gonna look at what you've got so far. Maybe a fresh pair of eyes might do the trick," I declare, already scrambling towards the closest point I can reach to the half-built machine. Rocky shifts to get a better listen at me, but I'm basically plastered to the xenonite, leaning to one side for one angle before leaning the other way for another.

The device is roughly Rocky's size and somewhat pentagonal- or at least, I assume it's meant to look that way if I were to stand directly above it and look down. The largest flat face of the thing is at a slight angle, with…ah. There's a hole through the middle of this particular face, and a look through it indicates that the whatever-it-is that should be inside just…isn't.

This must be whatever he's having trouble with.

"How big is that?" I ask, pointing as best I can to the hole in the machine. "What, two inches in diameter? Three?"

"2.72 inches," says Rocky tiredly. "Is meant to be larger across to accommodate any crew member and allow for sterilization between uses, but for just Rocky just once, is fine. Correction: would be fine, if work!"

"And any eggs would go through and into whatever collector is set up?" I ask.

"Is ♫𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅘𝅥𝅯 stimulate tunnel first. Then egg collector." Rocky shrugs two of his shoulders. "♫𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅘𝅥𝅯 stimulate tunnel is problem. Meant to be softer, squishier than other things in use, since ♫𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅘𝅥𝅯 softer squishier body part. Rocky have no soft squishy enough materials. Figured out stretchy xenonite, but stretchy xenonite stretch, not squish! Bad bad bad!"

I am…going to just put aside my questions about what that word I don't know is. I've got some idea already. Instead, I'm gonna focus on- "What dimensions do you need that tunnel to be? Like, both 'at rest' and 'in use.'"

"Is-" Rocky begins, though he winces before trying again. "Apology. Hard to focus."

"Hey- hey, Rock, I'm not the one with my everything orifice blocked," I do my darnedest to soothe, scooting back over and pressing my palm against the xenonite closest to him. "I've gotcha, bud."

"Thank. Thank." Rocky shudders and just lifts two of his hands to gesture as he speaks. "Length is this. Width is this, but needs to be squishy enough to be this."

Those dimensions spark something in the back of my mind, and, brows furrowing, I sit up straighter-

-as the teacher finishes passing out the packets for today's lesson. She had us separate from the boys because this is one of those subjects, but I still feel a little awkward about it as I look down at the xeroxed copy-of-a-copy-of-a-copy of a textbook diagram of what's sitting between my legs.

Or rather, what's not.

I'm sort of half-paying attention as the teacher launches into the lesson. She's talking about things in really vague euphemisms, and she keeps going on tangents about "saving ourselves for marriage" and "being a good wife."

She's not actually teaching us anything.

I listen well enough that I'll probably at least pass whatever counts as a test for this unit, but more importantly, I'm squinting at the dimensions listed for the "opposite sex's" anatomy, both when "at rest" and when "in use." The numbers have been reduced to blotchy black smudges after being copied so many times, but I'm able to read enough to make out that the diagram is meant to be "life size."

When the teacher's not looking, I bring up my hands to the diagram and, to get a feel for the size it would be in real life, I-

-match the gestures Rocky's showing me. "That's, uh, that's the size?"

"Yes."

Well, that's a lot of thoughts I never thought I'd have in that particular order.

The solution to Rocky's problem is staring me in the face. At least, metaphorically. I'm not sure I'm flexible enough for it to do that literally.

He's my best friend.

He might be the only person I've ever trusted this much, even in the way I'm now thinking of. Even when I'd tried dating back on Earth, there was always this feeling that the other shoe would eventually drop.

I think Rocky would rather chuck himself out the airlock than drop the other metaphorical shoe on me.

"I have…an idea," I say at length.

Rocky sits a little straighter, and with a little more gusto than before: "You do, question?"

"It's gonna sound weird. Like, really weird," I warn him. "You, uh, y'know how I've got all these leaky orifices? A bunch on my head, a few on the bottom of my torso, uh…"

Rocky does a remarkable "gawking at me, completely dumbfounded" impression for a being without any eyes whatsoever. "But…that is you body. Rocky can't ask Grace to-"

"And I appreciate that. Really. A lot lot lot." I crack a grin. "But I'm offering. It's- you just gotta lay these things, right? Then you can do whatever you need to to keep 'em safe afterwards, but the main issue right now is actually getting them out of you?"

Rocky inclines his carapace in a tiny nod.

I nod back. "Well, one of the orifices in the human body- at least, the version of the human body I have- is, uh, where a baby-carrying human is meant to take in something like this. It's probably not currently stretched out, but…"

I shift in place and gesture to my lower gut. "You can get a feel for it, right? Not one of the 'waste' orifices, but the one sorta in the middle there?"

One of Rocky's claws comes up to the xenonite directly in front of my crotch, and he carefully tick-tick-ticks at the surface for a few seconds before nodding again. "Can."

"The dimensions you were just showing me are pretty solidly in the range of what I've had in there before," I tell him. "And…even if the eggs themselves take up too much room altogether, humans with the same anatomy I do down here are, uh…we tend to enjoy the sensations of things shifting around and coming out and going back in. So if you need to take whatever body part you use to lay eggs from out, shuffle the eggs around, and then go back in, it shouldn't feel bad or anything on my end."

"But human bodies poisoned from mercury," Rocky says thinly. "And Rocky body temperature dangerous for human bodies."

I twiddle my thumbs. "…you mentioned stretchy xenonite? Humans use stretchy materials to keep from leaking into each other if they want to, well, have sex without actually making any babies. When it's used inside an orifice like mine or over the body part meant to go inside it, it's called a 'condom.' Xenonite's the sturdiest material I've ever seen, and it's about as nonreactive as can be outside of very specific circumstances that don't exist in my body- y'think it'd be a good enough condom to keep me from getting any mercury in me?"

There doesn't seem to be any reaction from Rocky at first, but then I hear what sounds like tinnitus, except-

"Xenonite ♩♩ keep Grace most most most safe safe safe-!" shrills the tinnitus as Rocky starts trembling.

"Do you have enough time to figure out some way to set up the stretchy xenonite for this?" I press.

"Yes yes yes!" Rocky shoots to his feet, and though he wobbles for a second, he scrambles for one of the other piles of projects-in-progress he's got laying around. "Can use xenonite suit prototype!"

My eyebrows fly up. "A prototype xenonite suit?"

"Meant to be surprise for Grace for final leg of trip," Rocky explains, hauling out the prototype in question to give me a good look at it. "Only finished last sleep cycle. Can replace ventral xenonite with stretchy ♩♩ for lay eggs!"

Two images pop up in my mind's eye, vying for dominance. One is of Rocky and me actually hugging, no ball or deadly atmospheres in the way. The other is of Rocky in the suit, standing over my legs with an ambiguous organ pressing into the space between and-

"That sounds perfect!" I chirp, desperately hoping my raging blush isn't audible. "How long do you think that'll take?"

"Will take 1800 human seconds to replace xenonite." Rocky is already carrying the suit towards his supplies. "Stress test take 900 more human seconds. Wish could take more time but-!"

He cuts himself off with a pained squawk, but just digs into his work with gusto. "Grace will be safe. Rocky promise promise promise. Grace set up nest for comfort, question?"

Hm. Right. If I'm gonna be getting desperately fucked by my rock alien best friend, I probably shouldn't be laying directly against the metal paneling of the Hail Mary.

"Good idea!" I launch myself to my feet and yank my mattress from its usual place in the dormitory. I'll probably want blankets, too, and maybe pillows, and…

I spend the next half hour racing around the Hail Mary for everything that could even remotely be considered "cushiony." Clothes I haven't gotten around to cleaning? Into the nest. The duffle bags? Into the nest. A few layers of sheets over the top to keep any human-specific fluids from staining anything important, then, after thinking for a moment, I yank off my pants and my underwear and shove them under the sheets with the rest. The good luck quilt gets loosely folded up and set aside, because I have a feeling neither of us are gonna wanna move for a while once we're done.

While I work, Rocky is zeroed in on adjusting his new suit with a fervor I haven't seen since we were finishing up the last few yards of the chain. By the time I'm digging through Ilyukhina's bag for lube, (which she did pack! Hallelujah! I am not gonna think too hard about why she had that in her stuff!) Rocky has moved on to the stress testing phase of prepping his suit.

Near the end, this includes him shoving his entire arm into the newly-stretchified xenonite along the ventral side of his suit.

(That is doing things to me-!)

"If suit handle whole stony arm, suit handle squishy ♫𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅘𝅥𝅯," Rocky explains before I can even think to ask. "Suit handle whole arm with no rips, statement."

"Well, that's good," I manage to croak, plopping down onto the nest.

Rocky pauses and turns so one of his faces is aimed squarely at me. "Grace…sure about this, question?"

"I'm positive." I swallow to try and get my voice back under control, then gesture towards myself with one hand. "Bodies like mine tend to react like this when anticipating…well, mating. Or something close enough to it. I'm not having second thoughts, if that's what you're worried about."

"…how make human mating feel good, question?" Rocky asks carefully.

"Hey, don't worry about-"

"Grace save me once at Tau Ceti, when I thought I would be alone forever," Rocky interjects. "Then Grace save me again above planet Adrian despite danger. Then again when Taumoeba escape and eat all fuel. Now Grace save me again in last segment of trip to Erid. Grace offer to let Rocky use Grace body to lay eggs when Rocky can't lay otherwise. How make Grace feel good while Rocky lay eggs, question?"

Oh. I think I might be crying a bit.

I sniffle and swiftly scrub at my eyes before I try to respond. "O-okay. Well, I have a few sensitive spots that react well to being touched in this kind of context. Y'think the suit's ready enough for you to come over here, so I can show you?"

Rocky observes his suit for a second, then jolts at something I can't see (or, more likely, feel) before hurrying to shove himself into it. "Yes! Suit ready ready ready!"

I stifle a snort as he scrambles to suit himself up, then just about jumps into the airlock between our sides of the ship. Once we cycle between our atmospheres and I open the door on my side, he hauls himself out and takes a few shaky steps.

"How's the suit holding up, Rock?" I breathe.

"Is still hot hot hot for Grace atmosphere," warns he, "but…atmosphere seal holding so far. Give moment for outer layer to cool."

I nod and hold my hand up next to the suit, feeling the heat waft off of Rocky in waves. In less time than I expected, however, the heat dies down, and I bring my hand closer, and closer, and…

The xenonite under my hand is warm to the touch, but not dangerously so.

One of Rocky's closer hands tentatively lifts to my shoulder, and I hurl myself at him for the best bear hug I've ever had. "Oh my g- we're hugging! We're actually hugging!"

Rocky twitters at me and brings another arm forward to envelop me in a hug, squeezing in a way that's probably barely anything for him but is comfortably snug for me. "We are."

We hug for a long moment, then I feel Rocky shudder underneath me.

Shit.

Right.

We've got eggs to lay.

Reluctantly, I pull back and bring my fingers down to point between my legs, where my clit's already standing at attention. "There's a little nubbly thing down here that's really, really sensitive. If one of us fiddles with it, it'll help make me feel good, and it sorta multiplies with the sensation of penetraaay-aha-!"

Rocky's claws are already there, and while the very tips of the xenonite are about as pointy as can be, he's being extremely careful to stick to flat panels and- woof- occasionally sliding the borders between panels along my clit. Not lengthwise, but using the flats of the seams as occasional extra pressure.

"Y-yeah, just like that." I lean back on one arm and focus on catching my breath. "You're a nuh- ohmyGod- natural!"

"Good good good. Want Grace to get good feelings out of this as much as Rocky," says he.

"I'm not the one who-" I start, though it sort of fizzles out into a grunt when Rocky brushes a claw against my clit with just a smidge more force than he'd been using. God, I need to get something in me soon, because Rocky's playing me like a damn violin.

Still, Rocky concedes. "Grace has point."

The seam across the bottom of his body splits open, and I watch with bated breath as something snakes slowly out and presses into the stretchy xenonite condom panel of the suit.

Yep. I've been on the internet a fair amount in my time, and that is most definitely an ovipositor.

Rocky's ovipositor.

"Looking good so far," I manage between huffs for air.

"Not at problem point yet." Rocky says. "♫𝅘𝅥𝅯𝅘𝅥𝅯 come out, no issue. Actual laying is issue."

"Well, whaddya think?" I shift and spread my legs a little more beneath Rocky's ministrations, giving my pussy a bit more air and letting Rocky get a better listen. "Think this'll do the trick?"

In response, Rocky starts to rumble. It's too low for my ears to process it as speech, but it resonates through his entire body and the xenonite around him, and the spot where his claw touches my clit is no exception.

My best friend is turning himself into a vibrator. And I'm not sure he even realizes how good he's making me feel.

Hm. I should tell him.

"S'that good?" I pant as I grab for Ilyukhina's lube with my free hand, squirt it in the general direction of my pussy, and start prepping around Rocky's claw. "Vibrating- feels good here-!"

"Grace orifice…perfect," Rocky rumbles. 

I crack a grin. "Good good good."

Rocky shifts in place to position himself more squarely over my pussy as soon as I finish lubing up, and I can feel it as his ovipositor traces around the edge of my cunt for a long moment, flashes of heat just the right side of unbearable.

"Go on, Rockhhh-!" I start, only to cut myself off as his ovipositor roughly shoves into me, my supporting arm collapsing and dropping me flat on my back.

Well. It feels rough for me, and it really is, but I'm pretty sure he's holding back as much as he can.

Which is kind of extremely hot (in multiple senses of the word), I won't lie.

The xenonite really does feel rubbery like a condom, ("ribbed for my pleasure!" cries a hysterical part of my brain,) and my legs shoot up to cross over the top of Rocky's carapace as I gasp at the sensation.

"Grace still feel good, question?" Rocky's back to sounding like the music class from Hell, and I can feel him trembling. Inside me.

"All full good!" I warble.

"Rocky very strong compared to Grace," says he. "Don't want to hurt Grace."

"Yeah, well, Grace trusts Rocky," I counter, wresting control of my mouth from the part of me focused entirely on the lovely things going on with my clit and my cunt. "You know my lim-mmm-mits, an' Armando's right here on th' off chance something does happen."

It might be a bit mean of me, but I purposefully give my cunt a clench around Rocky's ovipositor to emphasize my point. For his part, Rocky whistles like a teakettle, then pulls the claw from my clit and presses down against me with significantly more force, his ovipositor wriggling inside me like an appendage possessed and his entire body vibrating even more loudly.

I am now very glad for the nest.

He doesn't really thrust, at least like a human would, but what he does do is press down harder and harder, even after his orifice meets my cunt with only xenonite and lube left between them. He doesn't squash me down hard enough to do any sort of damage (at least, that I can tell), but then I feel the first bump in his ovipositor press up against my cunt.

The eggs.

"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, y' got this, Rock, I can handle this-!"

The first egg shoves through my opening, and I can feel it as it works its way through his ovipositor before-

-pop!

It's still in the xenonite, that much I can tell, but it wiggles and follows the tip of Rocky's ovipositor as it moves inside me, sparking off my insides every time it touches me.

One egg down, who knows how many to go.

"See?" I laugh wetly and squeeze my legs around Rocky as best I can. "We c'n do this!"

Rocky manages a wordless chuckle and, well…I'm pretty sure the vibrations are him moaning. It's the only explanation for the way he gets even louder as the next egg presses into me.

God. My rock crab-spider space alien best friend is holding me down and laying his eggs in me, vibrating at a frequency that sends the best kind of lightning up my spine, and I know full well that he'd stop if I asked him to, despite the danger it would pose to his own safety.

I think I'm gonna need to ask if this can be a regular thing. Without the whole "Rocky's life hanging in the balance" bit.

Egg three starts making its way into me, and I flop an arm up to pat at Rocky's elbow. "Word o' warnin', I think three 't once's my max."

Rocky doesn't respond verbally, but he does creak the same two-note "okay" noise I've been known to make on occasion. So.

The egg pops out to join the first two, and Rocky makes a choked-off noise before yanking his ovipositor and eggs out and fumbling with them.

"There's more, 'm guessin'?" I pant, clenching around the sudden wet nothingness in my hole.

"Half done," Rocky wheezes, wrangling the loose eggs up and out of the condom section of the suit. His ovipositor is damn near lashing at this point, but he still manages to feed it back into me with a ragged thrust that nearly makes me see stars.

Oh. He's started actually trying the "thrusting" thing.

It's really just him pressing down on me, letting up for a split second, and then repeating, but between this, the vibrations that are shaking me down to my bones, and the constant sensory information from my clit, I'm pretty sure I'm on the brink of the best orgasm I've had. Ever.

I try to coax him into laying those next few eggs, but my brains are starting to feel a little scrambled, because what comes out is an insensate, garbled mess. I think. Maybe. Still, I seem to get my point across, because Rocky presses down and holds me there before egg number four winds its way past my opening and directly into my cunt. Eggs five and six come much the same way, and my body starts writhing under Rocky without my say-so. I'm able to cling onto his carapace tightly enough to make the point that I'm not in stop-laying-eggs-in-me pain or something, but I'm so damn close to cumming-!

Rocky doesn't pull out right away this time, and I hear a pitchy oboe (or maybe a bassoon) tell me, "One more egg, one one one, last one, please please please please please-!"

My mouth has taken up a job in not listening to me, so I just nod frantically.

Three pushes me to my limits.

Maybe four will push me past the edge.

I'm so incredibly full, and Rocky keens before pressing me almost completely flat against the nest, two of his arms even grabbing onto my shoulders and holding me down- I might even be feeling the floor beneath all the layers of cushioning, which is a thought to examine later.

The final egg- the seventh that Rocky's laid, and the one that'll set my egg-holding record to an all-time high of four- feels bigger than the rest. Maybe it's just the fact that there's so much less room for it, maybe it really is that big, but it gets a choked-off gasp out of me as it presses against my cunt.

Rocky shudders atop me before forcing it through with a whine that makes my ears ring.

I can't help the jagged shriek that bursts out of me, but I can hook my ankles together over Rocky to keep him from flinching back and away. Good thing, too- that's exactly what he tries to do, but as soon as he realizes I'm not overwhelmed in the bad way, he tangibly relaxes, his grip on my shoulders shifting slightly.

"Grace doing so good," coos Rocky, starting up his excellent attempts at thrusting again. "Final egg laying now, no more blockage for Rocky, thank thank thank thank thank."

Thank God, I try to say through the maelstrom of sensation overriding my brain.

"Hnnng," I actually say at a much higher pitch than I even knew I could still hit.

Rocky, well, rocks down and into me as the final egg works its way through his ovipositor and towards the cunt at the end of the tunnel. "Grace deserve good good good things. Rocky watched human mating videos after first reproduction conversation- should be form of release soon, yes?"

Please, I'm so close, Rocky, I try to say.

"Pl's, close, Rock-!" I actually say.

"Grace save me again," says Rocky, bringing a claw back to my clit as he ruts into my cunt and as his last egg gets close to the end. "Grace deserve all good things. Rocky give release."

The egg pops out of his ovipositor right as he reaches my clit and slams into me, and between all three sources of stimulation, I finally crest the wave and let it carry me wherever it damn well pleases.

I'm a bit fuzzy on what exactly happens next. Logically, to get from Point A to Point B, Rocky must have pulled out and put his eggs somewhere, then returned to the mattress-nest and curled up next to me, and his ovipositor must have gone back into him and his orifice must have sealed up at some point, but I'm pretty much blissed out right up until he's nudging at my shoulder and saying something.

Huh. I should probably listen to what he's saying, actually.

"-ace? Grace, need you say something," Rocky's whistling when I manage to tune back in.

"I'm aaall good," I groan, blinking blearily. "We get all the eggs?"

"All eggs laid successfully," says Rocky, pointing back towards his half of the dormitory. When I look, the eggs are sitting pretty in a little nest of their own, and sure enough, one of them is just a bit larger than the rest.

I huff a laugh and drop my head back to whatever counts as my pillow right now. "Woo!"

"Feel good for Grace, question?" asks Rocky, clicking his fingers nervously. "Grace undersell sensitivity, I think. Am worried I did too much."

"Rocky. Buddy. Pal." I flop an arm up to rest a hand on Rocky's, and I meet his gaze (for a given definition of the phrase). "If we're counting 'helping you lay your eggs' under the 'this is sex for me' category, this was the best sex I've ever had. And I have actually tried it with other human beings before, so. I kinda know what I'm talking about."

Rocky bounces in place a little and gives me a mach-speed jazz hand. "Good, good, good."

"You gotta grab anything, now that you can?" I ask, flicking my free hand in the vague direction of my mouth.

"Probably should…" Rocky muses at length.

"Well, I'm not going anywhere for a while, but I don't think I'm gonna be sleeping anytime soon." I grin. "Howsabout you go grab something quick and come back, and I'll watch you sleep?"

Rocky visibly debates the idea for a second, then nods his carapace. "Good plan. I be back soon."

Rocky scuttles back towards the airlock and climbs through, and I politely avert my eyes as he snags one of his rations and clambers up out of the dormitory.

While I wait for him to eat, I do a once-over of myself. I am most definitely very sore between my legs, and I might wind up bruising down there. My shoulders, too, at least where Rocky was gripping me for that last egg. I'm quite glad I actually remembered to use the lube before we got to the point of Rocky penetrating me, too.

I'd do it all again in a heartbeat. It's the 'hurts so good' kind of ache. Honestly, with Rocky being as heavy as he is and from a planet with double my natural gravity besides, I'd figured I'd wind up more sore than this. This is about equal to that one time I tried indulging in an ex's kinks, except this time was much more enjoyable and didn't end in any relationships breaking up.

I glance over at the eggs again in an effort to get a better look at them. They all look to be the same general color as Rocky, but where Rocky's carapace has been chipped from usage and is overall a little rough, these are smooth and almost shiny. Little flecks of something seem to swirl through the shells, giving the base brown color an almost golden sheen.

Wow. Those were inside me for a bit there.

Rocky chooses this moment to re-enter the dormitory, visibly tired. "Graaace, stillgood, questionn?"

"Still good."

"Is good."

He stumbles back into his suit, and I make sure to watch as he puts it on and cycles through the airlock. Thankfully, his post-meal sleepiness doesn't prevent him from putting it on properly, and he's cooled down enough by the time he rejoins me that I can comfortably toss the good luck quilt over the both of us without worrying about overheating.

Rocky pushes his carapace against me from the side, buzzing tiredly. "Grace goodgoodgood. Bestbestbest. Adrian will lovelovelove. Rocky sleep now."

"I'll watch you, bud." I pull myself up onto his carapace, stomach-down, and give him a little pat. "Sleep well."

Rocky goes completely still under me, and for the next several hours I keep the watch, interspersing with occasional spurts of activity that I can multitask from on top of Rocky. Mainly, this includes "messing around on the laptop (for science reasons)" and "messing around on the laptop (but for other reasons)."

What? I'm perfectly content to take a lazy day for once. I checked everything that needed checking before Rocky called me down, so it's not like I'm neglecting anything. Armando brings me my slurry on time since I'm in range, too, so I'm not missing any meals, either.

Time passes for a while, and I fight the siren song of post-sex sleepiness long enough that, when Rocky finally wakes up shortly after my dinnertime, I'm still at least passably conscious. At least, my current round of solitaire has only been going for a few minutes, so I haven't been dozing enough mid-game for it to make a lasting impact.

"Mmm. Grace?"

"Right here, bud." I glance "down" at him and flash a tired smile his way.

He buzzes pleasantly under me, and when I shift to let him up, he helps lift me and my laptop back onto the mattress-nest. "Thank thank thank again."

"Hey, what're friends for?" I stifle a yawn as I settle in.

Rocky shifts to get a better listen at me, then tugs the good luck quilt up over my legs. "Grace tired, question?"

I shrug. "Eh, maybe a little."

He jazz-hands decisively. "Grace turn to sleep. My turn to watch."

"Sounds like a plan to me."

I close the laptop and bring the quilt up over me, and Rocky graciously allows me to curl up around him. I let myself float off to dreamland, though before I quite get there, a thought strikes me, and I crack my eyes open. "Hey, Rocky?"

"Yes?"

"I d'nno how often y'gotta lay eggs, but if y'need help again, feel free t'ask me. Maybe b'fore 's life an' death. Yeah?"

Rocky twitches, a tiny-but-sharp movement that doesn't even shift his suit, then leans his carapace against the xenonite closest to my face. "I will, Grace."

I smile sleepily, and then I'm out like a light.