Work Text:
Grace waved a scarf wildly in the air. “Go!”
Down the beach at a starting line Rocky had drawn in the sand, all four participating pebbles took off.
Or tried to.
“This hard!” yelled Fox as they immediately toppled over, plopping into the sand and making a sizable dent. They popped back up and then fell over the other way. Sand poofed into the air at the impact. Doing a cartwheel, Fox scrambled forward and back onto two limbs. “Uncle Grace make look easy! How?!”
“Bad bad bad design, human design bad, need more leg,” Skittles complained. They were doing a decent job at staying upright, but they were wobbling and going super slow.
“Go slow. Steady.”
“We are not turtles from story, RJ,” Artemis said, but she was alongside him, both of them with two limbs outstretched, a third crooked above their tilted in the facsimile of a head. Fox and Skittles were also trying to do the same pose.
“Kinda look like turtles, sometimes,” Grace said, “Spider turtles. Children alien ninja spiders.”
“I want to be grumpy red one, Raphael!” yelled Fox.
“Fox is orange party turtle,” Artemis said. “Skittles is red grumpy turtle, RJ is blue turtle obvious, and Artemis is purple technology turtle.”
“I think it depends on the version, but yeah, lines up mostly,” Grace said, putting his hands on his hips.
Beside Grace, Rocky was whistle-laughing. “Human race going as expected.”
“Yes. Not good.” Mary, who wasn’t competitive at all when it came to sports and didn’t want to play this game, was sitting on the side of her dad’s carapace.
That afternoon, the pebbles had gotten fixatedly curious about how Grace was able to walk on only two legs. They had been learning about different animals on Erid in class, and most Eridian animals walked on three to fifteen legs, though there were creature that used different ways to get around. Only a couple went on two legs. One was a kind of insect and the other was a scaley creatures that had massive feet for kicking its way into burrows.
Anyways, RJ had suggested they attempt to walk like humans. Then they had gotten competitive and demanded a race.
“Mary sure does not want to try?” Rocky said. Reaching up, he patted her fondly.
“Did try, am not good, no fall again,” Mary declared. She patted Rocky’s hand back and nuzzled against him before lifting two arms up to Grace. “Up, please.”
“You have a perfectly good perch.”
“Yes but please, want see from Uncle Grace human tower height, so high, please please please.”
“Are Rocky-La not good enough, question?” Rocky teased.
“Love love love you, but not high tower,” Mary said.
She stretched her tiny arms up and elongated her legs and made graspy motions with her fingers. How was he supposed to resist that? Overwhelmed by the cuteness, he scooped her up and set her on his shoulder. His right shoulder sagged under her weight but he could manage. She snagged onto a loop near the collar of his oversized hoodie, one an Eridian designer had made for him. The loops had been specifically for her and the other pebbles when they were little and used to hitch rides on his shoulders all the time.
“High in sky,” Mary said.
“Fox get tired, human walk no good,” Fox said, toddling along and then dropping forward into the dirt. They started making Eridian sand angels, aka curvy pentagons.
“No give up, so close,” RJ said. He and Artemis were holding one set of hands now, trying to keep each other upright.
“Skits will win,” Skittles said, “Even if legs not work right this way. Uncle Grace, how you live, question?!”
Grace snorted. “Your dad is stubborn.”
“Grace survive through luck,” Rocky said, “Good and bad. Also Rocky will not let Grace die before old. Very very very old.”
“Uncle Grace never die,” Mary said with an indignant gasp, “No talk sad.”
Aw kiddo. Grace scratched her carapace gently, not wanting to get into his super short life cycle right now. They were all too little to understand. He nudged Rocky affectionately with his leg because he was slumping a little.
Rocky responded by knocking a fist gently against Grace’s knee. “Humans squishy but tough.”
“Tough! I am tough! Fox attack!” Fox ran over on all five limbs and knocked into Grace’s legs, tumbling him over. It wasn’t that hard of a tackle, but it still made Grace have to fall with the momentum. He grabbed Mary and held her up, making sure she didn’t crash.
Grace laughed as Fox scrambled over him. Mary fussed a little, displeased at losing the height advantage.
“Play hard sometimes,” Rocky said in a gentler tone as he scooped up Fox, lifting him up while their arms flailed. “Grace tough but easy gets the turn a painful different texture human health problem.”
Bruising. There wasn’t an Eridian word for it because beings here didn’t bruise. They cracked or got scraped or crumbled but no bruising. His medical team could tell when he had bruises now thanks to the fine tuning of Rocky’s crystal scanner. Made it a lot harder to hide problems.
“Oh sorry sorry, no turn texture,” Fox said, snuggling against Grace’s side before hugging his arm.
“It’s okay, you didn’t do anything.” Lie. His legs were definitely going to turn blue, but hey, he didn’t want Fox to feel bad. He hugged him back, enjoying the fact that his family consisted of the huggingest Eridians on the planet. He got more hugs from them than he ever got back on Earth.
“RJ win!” Rocky announced as Skittles fell backwards right before the finish line, which meant RJ reached it first. Both RJ and Artemis dropped a third leg to the ground and did jazz hands. RJ danced in place. Rocky did jazz hands back at them as they ran over to him and Grace. They did a happy circle around their parent before rushing Grace.
“Sorry Uncle Grace always walk like that,” RJ said, setting a hand on Grace’s arm.
“Not stable,” Artemis said, settling by him as he sat crosslegged.
Skittles stomped over. “Make Uncle Grace third leg.” He threw himself down beside Grace.
“A cane,” Grace said, “Humans use canes like a third leg, sorta. Maybe one day.”
“Tell Rocky, can make.” Rocky took the spot right behind Skittles, which gave Grace someone to lean on. “Can make tough squishy best friend whatever needs to not fall over.”
“Thanks, bud.”