There Is No Circumstance In Which I Would Not Cherish You
He's getting used to Grace needing sleep so often. Less so to the decline in cognitive function (and the weirdness that comes with it) before sleep. Or right after. Or, as he finds out, when half waking in the middle of sleep.
"Wouldyoustill looove me if... if... if I was a w o r m?"
The last sounds mean nothing to Rocky, but he can guess from context that it means something-worse-than-Grace-as-he-is. Not that it makes any difference. If science could turn Grace into a different creature, or if Grace lost any parts, or if his voice changed pitch (Grace had explained that it won't happen again, it's a process that only happens to the age-teen humans) and started making different music... any mutations Rocky can imagine, and even the ones he can't, still would not change anything. Rocky would still look after Grace, make fun of his strange ways, make room for his strange ways, and be comforted and reassured by his strange ways, and by his not-so-strange ones too. His care and his fear, that Rocky has also felt. His curiosity and learning, that are also praised on Erid.
He starts singing it, slow and off-kilter at first. Conversation that is not about objects and numbers is always a little harder, the context makes or break a joke, or a feelings word. But they manage, usually.
It's a bit dry, but they have both learned the importance of being clear, at first. Elaborate after.
escapes him by accident, because. Obviously. Why is that even a question. But it's not like Rocky himself has never needed reassurance.
The translator pushes the meaning over with no finesse, no music, harsh lines all over. Rocky's affection, his curiosity, flattened. He starts a little trill, but it's not something the machine knows to translate, so he lets it wane.
He follows the sound of Grace, his now familiar shape (without the line of the glasses, for sleep), the peaks of his internal organs doing the blood thing and the oxygen thing, the temperature variations of skin and clothes.
The oxygen pump slows down gradually. Grace has fallen asleep again smoothly, without responding. Maybe it's better like this.
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