Twilight Angel

Be real Adrian who do you think you’re fooling

They wear suits, but they don't even know basic etiquette.

Do you think there came a time when he realized he couldn’t clearly recall the faces of anyone he’d known on Earth and knew with a haunting certainty that it wasn’t from the amnesia drug?

Do you think there were times when he would stare up at the simulated night sky of his biodome and think about how he’d never see the constellations he grew up with again?

Do you think there were days it got to him? The enormity of the distance between him and any other human in the universe?

Do you think he ever compared himself to point Nemo? It’s the farthest away anyone can get from any landmass on Earth, it feels laughable from Erid.

Do you think there were times where he’d miss his own species so badly it burned?

Do you think Rocky ever watched Grace, surrounded by Eridians who loved him, yet painfully isolated in a way no other creature has ever been?

Do you think Rocky ever thought about his decades drifting in Tau Ceti’s solar system and the aching loneliness he felt being the lone survivor of a dead ship?

Do you think there came a day where he looked at Grace and realized that Grace had spent a longer time proportional to his lifetime alone than Rocky did?

Do you think Rocky ever thought about their time on the Hail Mary? Not just the adventure and danger and ‘saving the universe’ parts, but the way Grace’s frigidly cold (to an Eridian) body would press against the outside of Rocky’s xenonite and Rocky would press back like a dying creature just for the contact that was never enough?

Do you think Rocky ever reminisced about how he felt landing back on Erid and feeling another warm carapace against his for the first time in decades?

Do you think he thought back to the relief of feeling his own atmosphere pressing down on him and the lovely resonance of another Eridian’s voice ratting through his body?

Do you think it eats at him? The guilt? The same guilt he’d felt every day during the return trip that he’d retreat in private to eat another one of his endless Eridian rations while Grace starved? The guilt that nearly chokes him every time he savors his mate’s touch knowing that Grace will never get to touch again?

Do you think that Rocky’s sleep cycles are disrupted because he stays up wondering if he damned his best friend by bringing him to Erid?

They can finally touch!!! Yeah they cuddle for a longggggg time after Grace wakes up

I still have the baby blanket I made your son, it's embroidered with his name on the front, but it never made it to the mail, he must be nearly ten years old now, I remember when you mentored me about that one life skill, thanks for letting me talk to you when you were busy, do you remember when I was telling you about my family, what about the time you and I voice called over dinner, or when I told you to try rambutans and jujubes, I still have the pencil holder you sent me seven years ago, but of course I ate the chocolate, the last time we talked you didn't seem so good, you were worried about your health, I haven't been back there in years, I hope you're well -

Being a very metaphorical thinker, the image of a butterfly came to mind. This beautiful thing that grew out of something else. No longer what it was before, but something new and wonderful. A continuation, a becoming, a realization of self.

I turned to my wife and said "you do not mourn the caterpillar".

It just made them happier

Our main concern was how other people would treat them and we wanted them to know that we were firmly in their corner

But they were still the same kid

Researching trans and non-binary stuff also unlocked my own gender journey but that's unrelated

But my husband, who is as cis as they come, was like "yeah that's the same kid"