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Grace let his eyes fall closed for a full breath. They burned. He should stop closing them.
The screen was blurry when he looked back at it, but he remembered most of the calculations by now anyway. It was basically etched into his corneas. Something just didn't make sense and he just knew that he had probably fudged up one of the conversions when trying to apply Earthan science concepts they hadn't quite translated yet but his stupid brain didn't want to search properly.
"Grace." Rocky tried again, melody gentle, but loud enough to ensure Grace had definitely heard it.
"True, yeah, you're better at this, could you-"
"No." Rocky replied, cutting the note off as soon as it was out. Stern today, huh?
"I just need-" Grace didn't get to finish, rocky stepped closer, shoving the laptop further away on the floor, away from grace. As great as the perfected atmosphere regulating suits were, Grace missed the clunky, round ones. Rocky was a lot less annoying when he couldn't physically get in the way of Grace's projects.
"You are nine hours past your required sleep time- and you haven't eaten since you started work." Rocky continued closer, putting himself entirely between Grace and the Laptop, leaned halfway into his lap. Grace automatically let his hands curl around Rocky's sides, holding him steady. Too many years of sleeping together would do that to you- not that Rocky could sleep on top of Grace, he was much too heavy for that (not that it stopped him from trying)- but Rocky would cuddle up as close as he could and Grace had long ago realized he felt no need to stop him, letting his hands fall around him as they saw fit.
"My sleep schedule doesn't need to be so rigid- humans are-"
"I have read about humans. All studies suggest you need rigid schedule."
Grace closed his mouth. He also missed being Rocky's only source of knowledge about humans.
"Okay," he looked over Rocky's top. The screen was still on. Still blurry. "Could you just read over my calculations and figure out where I went wrong and then we can go sleep?"
Rocky didn't even pretend to think about it. "No."
"Rocky-"
"Grace doesn't work like that. Sleep now."
Grace sighed. Eridians remembered too much. Held grudges, even.
"If you want me to stand, you have to get off me." Grace grumbled.
Rocky studied him for a moment, and nodded. Careful not to crush any unfortunately placed limbs, he climbed off Grace's lap- immediately stepping over to the laptop and gently closing it.
Grace made a wounded sound. He was using that.
"Up." Rocky skidded over to Grace's side, getting in under his arm and helping him up. Grace grabbed his cane as they walked past it, maybe more in case he blacked out from tiredness, rather than the knee pain.
The bedroom was only a few steps away, overlooking his rocky garden and gently lit up by bulbs simulating the moon outside. According to Grace's clock it should definitely not be night outside.
"You shouldn't mess with my daylight."
"I am activating Human Sleep Mode."
"I'm not a computer; you can't hack me." Grace defended, but he was unfortunately interrupted by a yawn, and so he knew he had automatically lost the battle. Once Rocky learned what a yawn was it had been the end of many work binges.
"You say so." Rocky pushed Grace to the bed, skittering back out of the room as Grace laid down, pulling the covers over himself.
He was always wearing pajamas, so that wasn't an issue at least. He found it cut out a few minutes of Boring from his day and there weren't exactly any social penalties.
"Where's Adrian?" Grace asked, not bothering to raise his voice. He was too tired for that. Not that he would be admitting that at any point.
Rocky made a wait-sound, coming back with a squeeze tube of vague fruit mush. Yellow, of course. Grace's favorite.
"Eat before sleep."
"You gonna watch?" Grace took the tube- Rocky had already screwed off the lid- and squeezed the cooled mush into his mouth. It was almost like sorbet. Extremely exotic sorbet.
Rocky only made a somewhat sarcastic sound- or at least Grace had somehow not yet learned the meaning- and followed him up on the bed. "Grace is mushy and leaky anyway. Doesn't get more gross."
Grace stuck his tongue out, I'll show you mushy and leaky, and immediately got back to his evening snack. He was hungry. He tried not to let that remind him of their trip back to Erid, but it always did.
Human eating instinct wasn't perfect and Grace had been rejecting the coma-slop barely days after his normal food supplies ran out. He could still feel it in his gut sometimes. The animal desperation that made him prefer hunger and pain over another bag of what felt like pure poison.
Rocky's free limbs started reminding him of the first body-suit, rather than ball. A suit that would allow rocky to hold Grace down. To make him eat.
The suit got a lot of use already then. Rocky made the first handful of prototypes while Grace was sleeping. After all, there were many years left until Erid and Grace's tolerance for the food didn't get much better. He was somewhat sure that he fought less and less though- caused by something other than his quickly weakening muscles. He thought maybe that was what had created this in them.
Rocky made sure Grace ate, always, the same way he always watched him sleep.
Grace was also different, though he couldn't quite put his finger on it. He still liked food, well, at least since it began tasting good, and he was hungry and he wanted to live- but the willingness to eat, to seek it out, was permanently outsourced. Grace didn't eat unless someone (well, Rocky. Always Rocky.) told him to and handed it to him- though nowadays he liked to put it into his mouth by himself.
He wasn't sure if he liked the closeness of it, if he was simply craving care, or if his body didn't trust him with that anymore. Or maybe his mind didn't trust his body. He didn't particularly want to do a lot of science on it. The process didn't sound very pleasant.
The bag emptied in less than two minutes. They didn't speak. Grace had internalized that it was rude to speak when eating. Rocky had internalized that eating was to he observed. Strange compromises, as always. But it worked.
He could probably eat a bit more before sleeping, but as mentioned, he was tired. Rocky had probably picked one of the calorically enhanced packages anyway. He doubted it would be an issue.
Once the bag was empty, Rocky grabbed it back, putting it away behind him with one arm and walking forward to press Grace down on the bed.
"Alright, alright…" Grace laid down, pushing the cover down to his hips- he would be warm anyway, and let his head fall back on the perfectly soft pillows. There were a few nice things about having everything made personally for you.
Rocky made an approving noise, still quite deep though, and gently sat his underside down on Grace's chest, legs folding in to rest on their elbows, held firmly against his sides both under and over his shoulders. Rocky had perfected the pressure long ago. Hard enough to feel like a tight hug- but with no risk of breaking any ribs.
"Sleep. Sleep. Sleep." Rocky commanded. It seemed he wasn't planning on entertaining himself for this rest, all arms stuck around Grace, observing the room and probably the entire dome. Maybe Grace seemed worse than he thought.
Grace hummed an approximation of goodnight. He knew Rocky would understand.
-
When Grace woke again, to fake but quite accurate morning sun through his window, Rocky had moved to the side. Three of his legs were still over Grace's body, placed carefully where he could bear their weight, while the rest of him was tilted over on the mattress.
Already knowing, Grace looked up to find Adrian at the end of their bed, large, teal limbs curled up like a cat loafing. He made a soft chirp of hello, staying unmoving. Grace made a muddled sound back, gently folding Rocky's limbs off himself so he could stretch properly.
His feet were rather warm, so he pulled them entirely out of the covers.
While Rocky set his suit to emit exactly 37°C (not that it stopped him from checking for burn marks on bad days), Adrian kept his closer to 45. In one way it was comforting, like a very mobile heating flask, in another, Grace really needed to get out of the covers.
"Good morning." Adrian sang, turning his body a bit from side to side. Grace greeted back once he was leaned on the headboard, feet laid out over the covers.
"Slept 10 hours." He informed, elegantly unfurling his limbs and stepping back over the mattress towards Grace. "Can do more, question?"
Speaking to Adrian sometimes reminded Grace of the tunnel between the Hail Mary and Blip-A. Of nights hung up on the wall so Rocky could observe him sleep and of very clunky computer systems taped together to try to make sense of literally anything.
It was almost strange how foreign the music was that first time. Grace had never known anything about music, and now he practically had perfect pitch. Now he was the second best inter-species translator in maybe the whole universe. Something about that and a hundred other things probably caused the knot of discomfort in his stomach at the thought of returning to Earth. It wouldn't really be a return if he was something completely different, would it?
Adrian tapped his foot, as if maybe Grace had answered but the sound disappeared into a wall.
"Ah, no." Grace shook his head, ruffling through his hair and reaching over Rocky's very still form to grab his glasses off the nightstand. He hadn't broken a single pair since he got one made of xenonite. It was magical. He was definitely taking credit for it, indestructible or not. Knowing himself, he could definitely get stupid enough to do it if given enough time. It was impressive he hadn't. "I'm fine."
He let his head fall into a slow circle, wincing when his muscles stretched painfully. He needed to change positions more when he was working.
"Grace hurt, question?" Adrian didn't wait for an answer, carefully stepping across the mattress until he could lean forward, carapace almost touching Grace's face.
"Ah, Adrian…" Grace cleared his throat, but Adrian didn't move.
A claw rose slowly, tracing up Grace's arm until it found his stiff neck. Adrian made a discontented sound.
"I just need to stretch a bit more-"
Grace was moved. Physically.
One moment he was leaning against the headboard, the next he was laid against Adrian's warm body, held firmly still by two of his arms as two more of them removed his t-shirt. "Adrian, I don't know-"
"Grace rest. Adrian will fix." Within a few seconds, Grace's shirt was off and gently folded on the side of the bed. He was pressed tight against Adrian's longer front and two claws immediately got to work on his stiff muscles.
"Ah," Grace thought he was trying to say something, but nothing came out. The grip hurt, but Adrian was weirdly good at it. Too good to make him really want to stop it. Maybe he could somehow sense which muscles were wrong. That was an unfair advantage.
"Relax." Adrian pulled Grace closer, carefully supporting his every limb against himself or the bed. "Also when not massage time."
Grace made a confused sound, head falling to the side as Adrian laid gentle pressure on where his neck met his shoulder. The texture was strange. He knew it was xenonite, but it felt like rock. Rough on his skin, but not enough to hurt, all a little gentler on him than it would be without the suit. Not that Grace would be able to feel any of it without the suit. All his nerves would be burned off.
"It is ♫♩♩ time. You should relax." Grace somehow didn't recognize the word. Maybe he was tired. He knew it was some kind of holiday- that's why there was no class, allowing him a proper work binge for the first time in forever- but he hadn't gotten around to learning about the intricacies of it
"I am relaxed." Adrian pressed down on his shoulder. Grace whined.
Adrian was much more forceful than his mate. He liked taking matters into his own hands and fixing them no matter what Grace had to say about it.
"Rocky needs to talk to family." Adrian informed, flipping Grace over on his side so his chin rested on one of Adrian's joints, body tucked safely into his embrace before the pressure started up again. "Cannot when you are sick."
Grace frowned into the weirdly soft, teal rock. "Why?"
"Mind needs clear. Muddles group thought."
"Ah." Grace sighed. "Contagious worry."
Being a hivemind required being able to keep one's personal thoughts a bit to the wayside. Rocky was famously not great at that- though he would never tell Grace it was an issue. As much as their closeness had saved them before, Grace knew that it wasn't always good. Even mated Eridians didn't spend as much of their time together as Grace and Rocky.
"Tell him not to worry. Humans are resilient and a few hours of lost sleep isn't going to kill me." Grace pressed his face into the rock as Adrian continued down his back, laying painful but necessary pressure on practically every muscle there.
Adrian made an exasperated note. "You lie about radiation."
Grace whined. "I thought I was gonna die anyway!"
"Could have died in tunnel." Adrian replied coolly. "Earth and Erid dead too."
"Let me live it down!" Grace attempted to sit up to defend himself, but Adrian didn't let him. Never did. He liked having Grace soft and immobile for their more stern talks. It was probably some kind of pebble-rearing instinct. Grace hoped so, at least.
"Habit hasn't stopped. Cannot live down." Adrian moved to the other side of Grace's back, pressing a pained moan out of him.
Adrian had a point maybe. Humans could in fact die from sleep deprivation- but not like that. Grace was fine.
"Rocky will never stop." Adrian informed. "Rocky needs Grace alive. Grace will not let anyone else help."
Grace closed his eyes. His neck felt better. "Adrian helps." He curled into the warm surface.
"Not enough. Not food."
"I thought that was private to you guys."
Adrian made an exasperated noise. Grace sighed. Adrian had a point. Grace knew he was hungry. He had not asked Adrian to help him the same way he might ask Rocky.
When Rocky had to leave the dome, Grace didn't eat. Rocky didn't leave for long. Rocky couldn't go properly talk to his family without worrying about it.
Grace squeezed his eyes closed so hard he saw white stars. "Adrian."
Adrian hummed a monotone answer, continuing down Grace's lower back, working the pain and stiffness out much more efficiently than an alien really should be able to.
"Could…" Grace took a breath. This shouldn't be so hard. "I'm hungry."
Adrian made a soft sound. A much nicer sound. It might even mean something like good.
Almost immediately, another squeeze package was at Grace's lips. Already open- though when Grace tried to take it, Adrian pulled it away a few centimeters. "Let Adrian help."
Grace blinked, breathed. He opened his mouth.