aroace grace (who doesn't know it) terrified because he loves rocky and adrian. they're best friends and have been through hell together; they've moved past their codependency on the hail mary and now settle down as separate individuals, comfortably moving besides one another on erid. grace is busy with unconventional lesson plans and introducing silicon computers to eridians; rocky is back in his workshop working on blueprints their mate supplies them with. grace finds himself looking for them whenever he hears a sound in the dome.
it's not that he doesn't find them attractive, he supposes. rocky is strong as all heck—he's able to carry grace like it's nothing. he thinks he could watch the eridian's hands work on intricate designs for hours. adrian is gorgeous, their carapace something that would be on display at a crystal shop. they're much smoother than rocky is (physically and socially) and grace loves tracing the turquoise swirls in their blue hematite and imagining how it feels through the barrier.
grace, like every relationship that came before, finds himself yearning. and he isn't stupid—he sees the way rocky and adrian court him. he overhears his students and how the three of them are the hot gossip of not just the village, but the whole planet—the eridian who saved the stars brings home an alien to their mate and they woo him together, more at IV̶.
but he knows the second he accepts their advances and they want more than just hand holding, it'll all go away. the interest will die like it was never there at all—the eridians will be furious or disappointed that grace wasn't present, that he was keeping a wall up. they'd think he lied about wanting them because he doesn't want to kiss and their dates are moreso "hanging out" than a romantic encounter. ryland can handle his own self-pity, but he doesn't think he can take the eridian he promised to be brave for call him a coward.
he's honest when he sits them down and says he can't be a boyfriend. rocky and adrian need to have the word translated—male-identifying human who participates in an established, exclusive romantic coupling. then grace has to explain human romance—and ultimately fails to do so in a way that the two can understand.
he starts rambling about how he wants it really bad and once he starts, he can't stop. he wants to be part of what they have, whatever it is in their language or culture. grace wants to be held and wanted and to take whatever pleasure they'll give him. he wants to live with them—not just the dome next door, but to actually live in the same house where they can sleep together. he wants adrian and rocky to come home from their jobs and tell him how their days was instead of stopping by his place. he wants to be part of something.
maybe it's just the lack of human contact and he's going crazy, maybe he's just always been insane and it's the reason he ruins everything because his stupid fucking brain is *broken.* sure he's not an eridian, but he isn't much of a human either when the passion he's been told is the backbone of consciousness doesn't work.
adrian says that wasn't what they wanted—they didn't want something from him. the human wants to curl up in a ball and die a little at first because he thinks he just read the room wrong. of course they're not courting him, they're happily committed in a romantic relationship of their own species—
rocky explains that they don't do "boyfriend" on erid. they have pairs that work as teams—rocky create adrian's visions that push their mate to come up with more ideas. together, they're a brilliant, persistent thrum. they're together because it's comfortable, not because of a driving force they can't see.
grace talks about the pressure of needing to conform and belong. how he spent years of his life trying again and again, wondering where the missing piece was to make himself feel whole and wanted.
it infuriates the eridians—the concept of something be missing, like grace's beginning is his end. they didn't mate to find a puzzle piece to be "whole," they partner together to build a foundation to die on.
adrian could be completely deaf and rocky would find peace next to them.
rocky could have never come home and adrian would have been happy their mate took space for just awhile, even if it wasn't enough.
mates is something that is as simple as sitting together in the sand. the full word is a little more complicated in eridani, the full pronunciation a series of polychordal morphemes an organic mind can't separate. in grace's language, the closest translation is complete, but that doesn't do it justice. mates is a song, constantly changing like grace's ocean shore.
they want grace as he is, albeit living together and for them to integrate the human into their mating mark. those things are just to be expected as they grow closer, but have nothing to do with an underlying process.
the pair wants grace in their lives because he gave them everything.
rocky and adrian want grace because he's their favorite song. they want to introduce themselves and for their names to tell a story of where he wove himself into their concerto, each note he speaks in human tongue as unique and boundless as the cosmos he came from. they can show him that where he came from was ignorant in it's understanding of his place among the very stars that his planet sent him to die among.
they want ryland grace because he is everything.
