Tired

Rocky stood as tall as he could in the water, holding his midsection as high above the water as possible. Grace hadn’t seen him look this uncomfortable since—well, they promised to not even think about that incident ever again. What happened on the Hail Mary stayed on the Hail Mary.

“You alright, buddy?” Grace asked.

Rocky lurched away from a wave that threatened to lap at his underside. “Yes,” he lied.  

Grace fought back the urge to sigh. He didn’t understand why Rocky was torturing himself like this. “Hey, why don’t we go take a break and come back later?” he suggested. 

“No.”

Rocky shook himself, then slowly—slowly— untensed his legs until the water was just barely touching the bottom of his carapace. He shivered.

“Cold,”

They were still working out the kinks with the water cooling system, so it was far warmer than any Earth ocean, probably closer to the temperature of a hot bath. But Grace didn’t think that would be helpful to mention. 

“Looking good, buddy!” he said instead.

Rocky took a few more hesitant steps towards Grace, the water rising to meet the inner tube he’d designed to ring around the bottom of his carapace. Grace could tell the second the water got high enough to pick up the inner tube and lift Rocky out of the water—partly because Rocky stiffened in shock, but mostly because he let out a clipped screech. The water picked up the floaties around each of Rocky’s arms too, pushing him higher up in the water. He held out each of his limbs completely straight, looking like the universe’s most miserable star fish.

“Look at you!” Grace exclaimed. “First ever Eridian to go swimming!”

“Not first,” Rocky objected. He plunged all of his limbs back into the water with a splash, scrabbling for purchase on the sand.

“Okay, first to swim and live to tell the tale,” Grace corrected, patting Rocky on the top of his carapace.

Usually Rocky would make a nominal objection to being “pet like Earth canine” but today he was silent. His whole body shook finely under Grace’s hand.

“Hey,” Grace told him. “I won’t let anything bad happen to you, okay?”

Rocky pressed his body into Grace’s hand, making some kind of high pitched vibrato sound that was right at the edge of Grace’s range of hearing.

“You’re okay,” Grace reassured him as he wrapped two of his arms around Grace’s middle, the warmth of Rocky’s xenonite suit nice against his damp skin, the other three still firmly planted in the sand. Rocky’s floaties compressed as they squeezed into Grace’s ribs. “You’re okay.”

“Scary.”

“I know. You wanna get out?”

“No.”

“… you wanna try again?”

Rocky was still for a moment before he reluctantly loosened his hold on Grace. The sand shifted underneath them both as he redistributed his weight, water washing the base beneath their feet away. Grace caught himself no problem, but Rocky snatched Grace’s hand like the bottom of the beach was going to open up and swallow him whole.

“I’ve got you,” Grace promised.

Rocky’s vents puffed hard—once, twice, three times— before he lifted his other limbs off of the sand. 

“You’re doing great. I’m going to take you a little bit further out, okay? Seriously, you’re doing great.”

And he was—right up until a wave came in and started pulling him away from Grace.

“Woah woah woah woah!” Rocky exclaimed, flailing and clambering up Grace’s front like a dog who decided it didn’t want to be in the water anymore. Which would’ve sent Grace sprawling backwards into the water if Rocky had been the size of the chihuahua, so he only lasted half a second under the weight of a 300-something pound boulder. They both went careening with an immense splash, Grace losing his hold on Rocky as they fell.

For a moment, he was startled by the strange noisy nothingness of being submerged underwater before his reflexes took over. He popped out of the water with a gasp, spitting up mouthfuls of water. His nostrils stung with salt.

“Rocky?!” he shouted, looking around frantically. “Rocky!”

“Grace!” Rocky cried. “Grace!”

He was bobbing in the shallows a few feet away, spinning in slow circles as he thrashed uselessly in the water.

“Hold on, pal! I’m coming!”

Rocky made a keening noise that Grace felt in his chest.

“Just hold still for a sec, okay? You’re gonna give me a black eye,” he said as he trudged within swinging distance of Rocky’s flailing.

Rocky stilled enough to let him get a hold on his carapace. His vents puffed furiously as he paddled Rocky like a wayward kayak.

“It’s alright, you’re alright,” he said over and over as he pushed Rocky back to shore. As soon as he could touch the bottom, Rocky scrambled away, fumbling up to dry ground as fast as his legs could take him. He made it as far as the patch of sand where they’d deposited their towels and gave himself a full body shake, sending water flying, before he collapsed into a puddle of limbs and floaties.

Grace jogged after him.

“Hey, let’s get you dried off,” he called out. Rocky replied with a disgruntled noise that Grace didn’t take as a ‘no’, per se, so he scooped up a towel and started rubbing Rocky down as soon as he got within arm’s reach.

“Swimming is fun, Grace says. Enjoyment, enjoyment, Grace says. Not fun. Not enjoyment,” Rocky muttered to himself under the towel. “What could be enjoyment about swimming? What—?”

“It’s freeing,” Grace heard himself say even though he knew the question was rhetorical. He’d never given it much thought before but that was what he loved about swimming. It was freeing. It’s what he’d loved on Earth and what he loved even more here. Being underwater—where the laws of buoyancy were unaffected by Erid’s increased gravity—felt like the only time he could escape the crushing monotony of his body recovering from malnutrition, the only time he could move the way he remembered moving on Earth.

Rocky hummed doubtfully. Grace dropped the towel—the ambient heat from Rocky’s habitat suit had already dried the water anyway—and plopped onto the sand next to his friend.

“It is,” he insisted. “When I’m swimming, it’s like…” He trailed off, unsure how to explain himself. He’d been a clumsy guy as long as he could remember, had a major growth spurt before all the other boys in his class and never really felt like he grew into his gangly limbs. But in the water… in the water he felt different. He felt like, for once, his unwieldy arms and ungainly legs did exactly what he wanted them to.

“Like Grace is graceful,” Rocky supplied, shaking the towel off of his body. It had already dried from the heat he radiated through the xenonite.

“Aww, thanks.”

“Less painful to watch than usual when you are in water.”

Grace sighed. “Just had to ruin it, didn’t you?” 

Rocky chittered with laughter.

Grace laid back, lacing his fingers behind his head. The beach pebbles were warm on the backs of his hands, smooth where they pressed into his skin. Above them, the sky was a soft, misty grey.

“You know I learned to swim before I could walk?” he asked.

Rocky scooted closer, pressed against Grace’s hip. “Did not know.”

“I think that’s what my mom used to say, at least. I don’t really remember ”

It wasn’t an amnesia thing, not this time. His mother had been gone from him for a long time now and, with her, the last memories of an early life he never cared to ask about when he still had her. It had been a long time since anyone could corroborate his hazy half-remembrances of his childhood. The uncertainty was a wound that had long since healed over; poking at it was like touching a scar, all dead nerve endings and the indistinct sensation of pressure.

Rocky dipped his carapace, acknowledgement and sympathy both. 

“Can we try again tomorrow?” he asked, quiet and low.

Grace was surprised. He’d thought today’s lesson would’ve been distressing enough to ensure that Rocky never stepped into the water ever again. But, then again, Rocky always found new ways to surprise him.