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"You are leaking so much!" Rocky trills, somewhere between annoyed and disgusted. And worried, deep down.
"Uh-huh..." I can only mumble, wiping my mouth on the back of my hand. This is the second time in half an hour I threw up. Mercifully, into the toilet this time, that the ship pops out for me on command, instead of down my own shirt or onto the floor where I'll just have to mop it up myself, anyway. We have slight acceleration toward Erid and, therefor, gravity, so the latter is definitely the lesser of the two evils. Nevertheless, I think this is the start of my immune system clocking out because I'm not getting enough nutrients anymore. I started stretching the coma slurry with the Taumoeba a few weeks ago, so this is probably it.
Ugh, the thought makes me feel sick again. I shove it aside. I push up off the floor from my knees to stand up and tell the computer to dismiss the toilet. Puking made my eyes water this time. I really am leaking everywhere...
After making myself take a deep, slow breath, I hold out my hand. "Computer, water." The robot arms dutifully hand me a cup. Then I take slow sips. Easy to do. While my mouth feels dry, my stomach is reluctant to accept anything in it. Currently, my feeling bad balances itself out.
"You are okay, question?" Rocky, in his tunnel, has come closer to me again now that I'm done throwing up. I know the Xenonite doesn't dampen the noises I make any amount at all. While I've come to be less embarrassed by him telling me he can hear every—seriously every—sound I make, even the ones I don't notice myself, it's only fair that he keeps his distance in moments like these. This is at least as gross to him as it is to me.
"Mhm," I hum, and after a moment I even put a thumbs-up between us. "Better now." But I should disinfect everything my side of the Xenonite, I think. As I make my way to the lab, Rocky follows me in his tunnel network.
I feel dizzy, my legs wobble every step. The coma-slash-Taumoeba-slurry didn't taste any better coming up, and I really needed the little nutrition that is in there. I try to convince myself that maybe I'll try again later.
"Grace," Rocky warbles slightly behind me and I turn around. "You sit down. Wait some seconds," he suggests helpfully, shifting his carapace. He still has no problem being bossy with me, but he's careful now proposing I do something that he already knows I won't really want to do.
So, "No can do," I decline stupidly. "I need to kill all the germs." "Germs are in toilet," he provides, though I can hear the aversion to talk about my throwing up in his tones. Poor guy. I straighten up rather slowly, "Not all." I was looking for bleach in one of the cabinets in my lab. Found it...! "Some might have gotten in the air," I explain, "Or places I touched before."
I didn't touch his tunnel panels, but when I turn to face Rocky I feel paranoid. What if Earth germs can make an Eridian sick? What if they can get through the Xenonite, like Taumoeba did? Both are truly ridiculous thoughts to have in this moment—Earth bacteria wouldn't survive Erid temperatures and they were never bred to pass through Xenonite!—but they cling to my mind. Guess I'll just wipe him down, too.
Rocky watches me dilute the bleach and then start wiping with one of the rags I kept in the freezer for semi-cleanliness. "Liquid is what, question?" "Sodium hypochlorite." Talking science takes my mind off of things. Takes Rocky's mind off of things, too. "It kills a bunch of Earth bacteria, destroys the cell walls by oxidation."
But you're never supposed to use it to clean your toilet because it interacts with... Oh, gosh. I bristle. As much as he worries about the oxygen in my atmosphere, this is the thing I, all of a sudden, think about. Bleach and ammonia make chloramines. Erid atmosphere hasn't leaked back into my part of the ship since I popped open the airlock with the hopes of saving Rocky's life. There's never been so much as a tiny trickle from the joints connecting the Xenonite panels since then. And while I feel fine at this point, who knows what my lungs really look like inside...
"You sit." Before I spiral into complete oblivion, thinking about the very, very, very minor and frankly improbable risk of flooding the Hail Mary with mustard gas, Rocky chirps behind me. I'm leaning on his tunnel—darn it, now I have my gross, bacteria hands on his Xenonite—sinking down despite myself. I feel dizzy from puking and running around.
"You be okay." I nod. "Maybe you lie down also," Rocky presses. I hang my head in front of him, only separated by an inch of material as he presses two of his claws up to my hands. I still have the bleach-soaked rag in my grasp as I shuffle into the dormitory.
There, I wipe down the underside of the bed, the nanny-bot, Rocky's Xenonite bulb... "Grace," My friend chides. "Yeah, okay, sitting down." I do, I plop down on my bunk and prop my head up across my knee and one hand. I let the rag drop onto the floor.
A few minutes tick by. "Taumoeba look disgust," Rocky trills. I laugh, even though they really, really, really are.