irl lab rat

#i know this post is supposed to have a sexual connotation but imo they're getting weirder than that#rocky lets grace observe his entire digestive process with an adapted x-ray machine#they make some slapdash endoscopy equipment so rocky can look down grace's esophagus and stomach#grace lets rocky pull a tooth for study because he's fascinated by the human body producing something that's similarly sturdy#to himself (also he wants to have it professionally embedded into his carapace as soon as they get to erid but shhhh)#rocky chips off pieces from his own mantle (his deformed legs are already brittler than the rest of him so it's not like it's hard)#also for “study” but is internally debating himself on how to ask grace if he's ever considered subdermal piercings#grace gives himself multiple surgicial lacerations so rocky can get a better view of his sinew and muscle#and document the (from his mostly inorganic perspective) insane restorative ability of human skin#maybe grace even lets some of them get infected on purpose so he can show off his immune system#anyways that being said#rocky is not a biologist and probably doesn't know the exact chemical make-up of his internal tissue.#so they're definitely shoving a heat protected spectrometer up his cloaca

if only the world wasn't ending,,, guuaahh, i want them to be friends so bad, and for them to be so happy to be friends with eachother, i need to be put down

I know there's a popular headcanon that Grace's crew died because of feeding tubes malfunction (based on the paperwork Grace was doing right before the explosion), but — in the book he specifically says that even after the accident he kept dealing with that same paperwork on minor Hail Mary issues, so I doubt that feeding tube problem was left unaddressed. May I offer instead:

*meeeting a friend for coffee* friend: how's work been?

when the characters never really make peace with it

its on Erid, long after Grace and Rocky figure out how to hug and snuggle. Eridians dont really do full hugs like humans because then you can hear everyone's internal organs that close so its a little weird, maybe tapping/hand holding is the usual affection. Everyone assumes the constant cuddling is purely for Grace's human needs benefit, and while Grace obviously does love and need the touch, Rocky being driven to space madness and having every form of ptsd means he is equal if not more in need of constant full body hugs because he likes feeling how alive Grace is.

Thanks for sexualizing peoples trauma fuckhead