project hail iwo

first of all I need fic recs.

Grace Goes Eridian Via Weird Sci-Fi Medicine AU

very Rocky/Grace. I'm not sure yet where Adrian fits into it. I like to think they are poly and all mated together, but idk what to do with them yet.

it happens through a very complicated, rare and dangerous medical procedure. think organ transplant for your whole body. I have no idea about any more details, don't ask me, it just works. after a few years of living on Erid, Grace starts to get very sick very fast. it turns out the difference in gravitation and the lab-grown food are not the best for him in the long run and he's on a steady decline. it's a "die from organ failure or die during insane medical procedure that might save you" kind of situation. of course he chooses the procedure.

I do have an alt version of the AU where Adrian actually passed away while Rocky was in space, for a bigger angst factor.

like, Rocky just lost one mate and couldn't even say goodbye, and now Grace is suddenly starting to literally fall apart. could have some "Grace just wants to give up and die because he's so tired and hopeless from the sickness but Rocky will be damned if he loses him too and insists on the procedure" plot. maybe even a "signing my boyfriend's treatment agreement for him because he is clearly not sound in the head from how sick he is, that's why he keeps saying no" plot.

the procedure is a success, but for years after Grace is basically unfit for anything. it's a long, difficult recovery. for the first few months, he mostly just sleeps and only wakes up when he really needs to feed.

absolutely hates feeding and immediately understands why it's such a taboo subject. before he can feed himself, he has nurses and Rocky help him. it's uncomfortable to different degrees for everybody involved.

he could understand and read the eridian language before, but learning to speak it is a whole other thing, rendering him basically non-verbal for a long time. at first he communicates with random sounds and just hopes somebody understands.

once he can speak, he ends up with a very weird accent he never gets rid of fully.

he also never learns to fully control the more involuntary sounds. kind of like a person with a VERY expressive face that just can't ever hide their feelings, except that he's got a very expressive voice instead.

'seeing' through echolocation is very overwhelming to him at first, because he can suddenly sense things way further away than he's used to, through walls, in all directions at the same time. it takes a lot of time to learn to focus his attention on one particular direction or sound source.

it also messes with his depth perception real bad, so when he's even well enough to try walking he keeps bumping into stuff. at first, he just lives in a fully soundproofed room and gradually transitions to more and more 'normal' surroundings (it helps that most Eridian homes and hospitals are soundproofed for privacy).

on the subject of walking, mastering movement takes him the longest. not only is he having problems navigating his surroundings, but also using five independant limbs that can be both arms and legs if needed. probably uses some kind of mobility aid for a long time during the learning stage.

the first skill he learns is writing/writing equivalent.

Rocky is like his personal nurse, always by his side - first at the hospital, then at home. usually lying right next to him or on top of him in the 'constantly asleep' stage, then helping with everything during the learning stage.

Grace humanizes a lot of new social behaviors he now has access to in order to understand them better. he already did that before, but now there are new ones to catalogue and his mind never truly abandons a very human way of thinking. two Eridians bumping their sides together briefly is the same as a high five. clicking sound? someone is annoyed. there is a different singing frequency, more difficult to hear from bigger distances (and completely undetectable to the human ear) that's basically whispering. tapping on the floor or furniture can mean clearing one's throat to get another person's attention, though sometimes it's just fidgeting. Rocky tapping his closed hand along the ridges on his front side? that's like a small kiss, a peck. open hand, slow, caressing movement, makes him feel a little funny? that's making out.

a long time into the recovery, when he can get around freely and mostly without running into things, Rocky likes to mess with him by throwing small objects at him. he says he's helping Grace train his reflexes and spatial awareness. he also says that throwing them back at him is not "depth perception practice" and is just rude.

Rocky also likes to chase him around the house, again swearing that he's doing it to help.

NSFW under cut!

I hc that in the Eridian language proper grammar functions based on small changes in the sound. like, note slightly lower - past tense. note slightly higer - future. note slightly longer - plural. or something like that. you don't say a new word, you change the existing one.

and since Grace is not very good at controlling his voice, like he fully re-learns how to speak with a whole different body that produces sound in a whole different way than he was ever used to, he ends up talking a little bit wonky.

You're sick. You recognise the symptoms from your crew, you have radiation poisoning. The astrophages that were protecting you and powering the ship are gone. You couldn't find the leak in time to stop it. And now you're dying out here in space, alone.

The life support systems on the ship are shutting down. Everything is shutting down. Your planet will die– your entire star system will die. They'll never know how close you came to saving them.

You think about Grace. Is his ship dying too? Or is he on his way home, none the wiser to your fate?

Maybe you're fighting until the end, or maybe you've 'made peace' with it.

And then you hear knocking, on the outside of your ship. Furious, desperate banging on the window. Your friend, your lab partner, your first contact, has come back to save you.