Chapter Text
It’s cleaning day in the lab. According to Rocky, Grace’s scientific breakthrough with the taumoeba made his side of the lab <<dirty dirty dirty.>> Which, sure, carefully and painstakingly breeding new strains of nitrogen resistant alien organisms to save not one, but two stars of two civilizations and beyond, you’re going to go through a few beakers and several instant packages of coffee. That’s what it takes when you’re breeding and experimenting on colonies of microscopic predators to be perfectly acclimated to several new planets.
They also decided that since they have years to kill they might as well try to save a few more stars in the process so there will be something to look up to at night. Don’t want to go messing up the zodiacs.
<<Are all humans unorganized? Or just Grace specific, question.>> Rocky chitters in a way that Grace has come to associate with his endless teasing.
“Ha ha.” Grace responds in a flat tone, turning to toss a crumpled wrapper of some protein bar of sorts at Rocky’s xenonite wall, it bouncing off harmlessly. Rocky shrinks back from the offending trash, his carapace raised high in indignation.
<<Disguuuust, exclamation!>>
Grace does not rise to his friend’s goading and instead continues with his task of finding all the loose pieces of trash scattered around the lab.
“If Eridian’s were as inefficient as humans then I’m sure you’d be right here with me cleaning up your own mess.”
Okay, maybe he did rise to it.
<<Incorrect. Rocky clean. Rocky smart. Rocky organized. Rocky know where trash go and how to keep clean. Grace dirty. Grace dumb. Grace put things where Grace know they do not go. Is a Grace problem, statement.>>
Grace huffs and walks over to the xenonite barrier where Rocky was at currently. “Oh so all Eridians are like Rocky?”
<<…Yes. Eridian much better design than human.>>
The moment of silence before his response was answer enough to Grace.
“Ah Ha!” He points a finger at Rocky, who doesn’t so much as even flinch. “So there are messy Eridians.” Rocky does not dignify him with a response. Grace leans against the xenonite and slides down it to sit, watching Rocky work on whatever little project he was currently engrossed in for a long moment.
“So maybe I will be just fine on Erid and not stick out like a sore thumb.”
<<Why thumb stick out when mildly hurt, question? Thumb always stick out from the four other fingers.>>
Grace can’t help the huff of laughter that escapes him and he rests his forehead against the zenonite.
“It’s another figure of speech buddy.”
<<Is confusing one, but noted.>>
This guy. Grace rolled his eyes.
<<Erid will love Grace.>> Rocky continues. <<Grace will love Erid. You save Erid and know so much you can teach Eridians. Will be famous! All Erid scientist will want to talk to Grace about relativity and visual sound and thing only Grace know. Smart smart smart, even if messy messy messy.>>
Grace can’t help the small smile at those words. He’s definitely not tearing up either. Nope.
“Thanks Rock.” He says softly.
Grace places his palm against the barrier, wishing for the upteenth time that he could actually physically interact with Rocky. At that Rocky himself ‘turns’ to face Grace, placing his own hand to match Grace’s, tittering softly.
<<Rocky Grace best friends.>>
Yup. Definitely more moisture in his eyes than there should be. He has to sniff to get his voice to not crack before speaking.
“Yeah Rocky. We’re best friends.”
Rocky sways back and forth, one of his arms doing jazz hands, chittering away happily. This makes Grace break out into a full smile and chuckle.
Pushing away from the barrier Grace twists to stretch out his back, muscles shaking when he holds it for a few seconds.
<<Biiiig stretch.>>
..That was a mistake to teach Rocky.
Grace waves his hand in a shooing motion towards his friend.
“I gotta get back to cleaning since no one around here seems to want to hel-whoaa-“
A sudden lightheadedness and black spots overtake his vision when he releases from his stretch.
<<Grace okay, question? Why word of exclamation and loss of coordination, question?>>
“Ah, give me a second bud. Must’ve stood up too fast or something.”
<<But stood up at normal speed. Grace being dumb again. Is Grace sick, question?>> He taps one of his arms on the ground twice, something Grace has come to notice he does after every question.
“No, it’s a fairly common human thing. It’s when our blood pressure drops really quickly. It can be for a couple of different reasons. I’m probably just a bit dehydrated.”
Grace did the math early on. He doesn’t have enough proper food to last the entire trip to Erid. He wants to stretch it for as long as possible, so he already is eating less here and there. Skipping a meal if he’s not overly hungry or too engrossed in his work to care. He knew it was futile, but Grace really wasn’t looking forward to the day he ran out of ramen and coffee for the rest of his life. And apparently drinking water also slips his mind from time to time.
“I just need to be a bit more careful, I guess.”
Rocky let out a series of notes that sounded way too much like human grumbling to be anything else besides that.
<<Is impossible task for Grace. But drink more water. Water recycles, does not run out. Does not need rationing like food.>>
Grace scoffs incredulously. The attitude this rock can give out is astronomical.
“Okay, mom.”
Grace successfully gets a bottle refilled from Armando before getting back to his task of cleaning. With the loose trash now out of the way his main focus was on the used beakers throughout the lab. The pair lapse into comfortable silence, each focusing back in on their own individual tasks. It’s nice.
It was easy for Grace to slip into the soothing rhythm of working in a lab. The work was methodical, not mind numbingly so, but something that clicked just right in his brain that left him feeling at ease. Where all his other worries could take a back seat for a bit and he could get lost in the simple focus of Doing This Task. He didn’t realize how much he missed it when he was ousted from higher academia and became a middle school teacher. He wonders how his kids are doing now. He hopes they ar-
<<Been 2700 seconds since last water break. Hydrate hydrate. Statement.>>
Grace startles a bit at Rocky’s chittering, surprising him out of his meandering train of thought. The test tube in his hand is jerked along with him when he jumps, and the side of it catches the lip of the table juuust right to where it-
Suddenly there is now broken glass in Grace’s hands as he startles from Rocky’s reminder. Fumbling, he panics and grips at it tighter, his brain focusing on ‘don’t drop the glass,’ first and ‘it’s already broken so now there’s sharp edges in your hand,’ second. Which in this case was the wrong sequence as when he tries to save his already doomed lab equipment the now razor sharp edge cuts right through his vinyl gloves and into the soft muscles of his palm.
“Aaugh!” Grace drops the pieces on pain instinct now, sucking in a sharp breath thru his clenched teeth.
“Zoo wee mama. Christ on a cracker that- agh, that hurts.”
High pitched trilling comes from Rocky. Too quick for the computer to pick up individual words, but Grace can hear the worry in the chords.
“I’m okay, Rock. Just cut myself on accident.” He tries to assure his friend.
He has a hold on his wrist, trying to keep his injured hand still. He needs to get the gloves off so he can get a proper look at the cut and get it patched up with Armando. He pulls the ruined one off first and-
oh no.
That’s already a lot of blood.
Grace has never been… the best.. when it comes to seeing blood. Even back in his teaching years, so much as a student getting a bloody nose would make him queasy. And now being up in space, that wasn’t something Grace expected to run into again, if we forget the whole disastrous fishing trip. But he wasn’t even fully awake for that! And he was too high strung about Rocky to think too much about the red residue on his bandages when he did wake up! But now there is a dark, liquid line of blood seeping into the lines of his right hand and steadily drip dripping onto the lab floor.
The test tube had cut right in the center of his palm, straight and deep with the quick pressure of Grace’s panicked clench. Looking at it, his stomach seemed to simultaneously drop to the floor and rise up his throat. He could feel his knees turn to gelatin and threaten to give out.
<<Grace! Grace hurt! Grace hurt, big statement!>> He could hear Rocky’s worrying trills over the pulsing rush rush of his heartbeat in his ears, his friend’s three out of five legs tapping in quick succession on the xenonite barrier closest to him.
<<Grace blood leaking from laceration in hand! Not good not good not good.>>
Oh god. Hearing it out loud like that doesn’t help.
Grace swallows thickly as he all but stumbles back into the table behind him, leaning on it heavily with his waist to hold him up. He can’t tear his eyes away from the cut on his hand. He gags on reflex.
<<Grace question? Grace status, hard request.>>
Oh god he can’t even answer his friend who is also freaking the flip out right now. Everything seems to be tunneling away from him while his bloody hand swims in his focus. Icy pinpricks rush up the back of his neck into the base of his skull. Are the lights on the Hail Mary dimming? Everything seems to be going dark on the edges of his vision and getting fuzzy. There’s a looming, empty feeling of space behind his eyes.
“..’m g’na ff”
Grace is out before he hits the floor.