the horror persists, but so do i

So I made a list.

Reasons why friend Grace's eyes leaked this Eridian cycle:

One of the students gave him a carving of Earth. It was lopsided and the continents were wrong, but Grace held it to his chest and his eyes started leaking. It looked like the round-soft-thing he gave me when we first said goodbye.

He found out 🎶🎵🎶(he calls them lizards) are often pets here. His voice warbled to a pitch nearly too high for humans to reach.

He told me the rocks here have color. He studies them in his biodome and calls them “beautiful.” He informed me I have color beyond black-brown-medium-smooth-stone. “Blue,” Grace said in that voice he uses when he is feeling sad but not-sad at the same time. “Like the ocean.”

He tried a new recipe with a new version of his recycled tissue meat. Humans are still disgusting when they eat, but he was happy with the taste.

He remembered that 🎶🎵🎶are pets here and asked if they are ever dressed up. I told him that sometimes children will make collars for them out of smooth stones.

I finally finished the xenonite suit and knocked on his door. For the first time, there was no wall separating us. I told him to kneel down (humans are so tall) and I wrapped my limbs around him and squeezed. I could feel his breath catch, his body shake (fragile fragile fragile), and he used his two grabbing limbs to wrap around my carapace and cling.

“Sorry, I’m leaking everywhere,” he said, voice thick. “I know it’s gross.”

“Not gross,” I said, even though it always is. But Grace can leak on me anytime he wants. “This is good?” The concept of hugging is so strange to us. But I could feel his heart fluttering, could see the way his body’s core temperature spiked and then smoothed out, calming.

“Yeah,” he said, sniffling. “Thanks, bud.”

I gave him this list. He can read my language now, can speak it well too with the help of his portable Earth thinking machine and the sing-speak instrument our musicians have given him. I heard him laugh and even the sound was wet. "C'mere," he said, and I was wrapped in his strange arms again. He pressed his face to my xenosuit, and I held him tight. Another hug. I would hug him everyday, just to make him happy. He is so fragile, nothing to protect his soft, strange skin. He almost died on the way here and now I can listen to his heart beating, strong and steady. I feel mine pounding in response. He can't hear it, but it says, Love love love.

inspired by that one reddit post