just thinking about how much of a relief it must have been for rocky that grace is like, constantly making noise. even while asleep.
rocky spends half an earth century alone in space, which is notoriously so extremely quiet, and people have been exploring the idea of eridians experiencing a version of touch starvation in the form of like, a lack of noise. and then grace comes along. and he is just so goddamn noisy. he breathes audibly. his body has no exoskeleton, and all the little things inside of him also make noise. he snores. a thing done while sleeping.
rocky does find the fact he can hear all of his internal organs and their functions somewhat disgusting, but eventually it becomes such a comfort to him that when he and grace go their separate ways home, the hardest part is being in the quiet again. the sounds of his ship do little to comfort, because there is no heartbeat. there is no blood rushing to listen to like white noise. no disgusting mouth sounds and 'humming', those vaguely eridian-but-not-quite noises that grace insists do not have meaning.
rocky sits in his ship with the fruits of his journey actively killing him, not knowing what's wrong, not knowing how to fix it, his planet doomed and the families of his crew never receiving their remains, thinking he has failed, and the only thing he can think is that it is so quiet.
and then there's a knock.
