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The blanket scratches his skin. The sensation is far floating away though, as if it's someone else the fabric rests on. Blearily his eyes creak open, every movement is strenuous and tremendous, and he wonders how he survived in space for years on end, let alone trying to wake up each morning. There is an IV in his wrist and a monitor off to the side that pings off foreign symbols. Eridian, he reminds himself. Faint sunlight streams in from the window across from him, and he can make out the watercolor background of an ocean.
I love the ocean, he thinks pleasantly, his head beginning to swim.
"Grace is awake." Rocky's voice comes from another room, but he recognizes the chirping tones immediately. He almost wonders why the Eridian sounds hesitant.
"Hey bud," Grace croaks out, wincing at how dry his throat feels. "How long have I been out for?"
The skittering of rock against the tile comes first before the alien does. Rocky's carapace pops into view as he skirts into the room, a shimmering coat of a xenonite suit covering his body. He stretches up on his hind legs, two forelegs grasping onto the edge of a bed. There are a few tones he makes that are unrecognizable, before he asks again, "Is Grace really awake, question?"
"'Course I am," Grace smiles, he tries to move his hand to give the alien an assuring pat, but finds there's not enough strength in his limbs to do so. Instead the call of the bed is far, far more tempting.
"Grace has been asleep for 259,200 seconds," Rocky says, creeping up a little closer to Grace's side. "Was awake previously for less than 2340 seconds before this."
"Mm, tired," Grace agrees. He can feel it. The weariness calls to him like Rocky's voice. It is a dulcet thing that makes him think if he closes his eyes and only listens to it, he won't have to worry about anything.
"Grace, Grace say something." Rocky's voice is a little desperate, and he adds a soft ♪ ♬♬♩ at the end. Is that 'please' and something else in Eridian? He can't remember.
Grace eventually manages to work his jaw in a circular motion. His lips feel chapped. Shuffling further and further under the blanket, until it covers his chin, he blinks. It feels like his body is untethered and he's above the bed, maybe even above the roof. Just somewhere but actually there.
"Did I doze off?" Grace asks, because then feeling snaps back into him and he shudders because he is suddenly and infinitely human again.
"Grace dozed off, statement." Rocky affirms quietly. "Grace has been doing that much more frequently."
Humming softly, Grace finds the strength to wiggle his fingers, then rotate his wrist, then eventually shift his arm next to the Eridian. The pads of his fingers brush against the protective xenonite shell, and almost immediately, Rocky pushes up against him. The warmth radiating from Rocky, even with the barrier between them, is reassuring.
"You should get Adrian…" Grace says softly. "I think… I think it's soon."
"No." Rocky says firmly, stamping down with one of his back legs.
"Buddy," Grace murmurs, because what else can he do? They've been preparing for this since the past decade when his health began to decline. Of course it wasn't immediate. It had started with a dizzy spell here, a lapse of memory there. Eventually, the movement in his hands started to decline, and the shaking in his bones never appeased. Less than three years ago, his voice went in and out, as did his sight. Food no longer held its appeal and neither did water. Then within the past year, the sleep began to take him.
It started lightly. A late morning and an early bedtime. But then it became an extra one hour, two hours, and now most frequently—days.
"We had a good run, pal," Grace assures soothingly, he skims his palm over the top of Rocky's carapace, memorizing the eddies and edges of the xenonite. "Forty-five years is nothing to balk at."
"Forty-five years is nothing," Rocky protests with angry and dissonant chords. "There is so much more left, Grace."
"You'll have to tell me all about it then, bud, I'll always listen." Grace eases.
"Then stay awake. You must. No question, no statement. Only truth." Rocky protests.
"Rock, we've all been ready for this."
"Rocky lied. Rocky is not ready."
"No one is ever, ready, bud." Grace takes a moment to really look over the alien.
The Eridian really hadn't aged a day, at least to his eyes. Adrian had assuaged Grace some decades ago that Rocky had in fact aged quite well for an Eridian. He had then taught them the term "like a fine wine" much to Rocky's abhorrence and Adrian's delight.
"We did good though," Grace continued, staring back up at the ceiling where more hazy light poured in from various skylights. "There was another taumoeba expedition that went out, right?"
Rocky hesitates for a second before nodding up and down. "Expedition left a decade ago, statement. They communicated they severed several Petrova lines on way to Canis Major, Canis Minor, and M41. Now they're far, far far far. Too far away for contact."
"Wow a decade already! Time flies like an arrow," Grace manages to laugh. It's a choked and wheezing sort of things that takes too much precious air from his already weak lungs. His diaphragm stutters and he coughs out a pained sort of huff that takes too much energy from his chest. Thinking back on it, Grace doesn't think he's ever been this frail, even during the last few years on the journey to Erid, when he was starving on the Hail Mary…
…the…Hail Mary…
"Rocky?" Grace asks in such a way that has the small alien perking up in a way that a scorned dog may flinch from yelling.
"Yes, Grace?" his voice is weary and strained.
"How much longer until we get to Erid?"
Rocky doesn't answer for a long time. "The luminosity has completely returned to Sol. Bright, bright, bright. Life on Earth should be good again."
"Rock—" Grace tries again.
The Eridian doesn't let him. "And Tau Ceti has no more Petrova line, statement. Star is completely healed."
"C'mon bud, it can't be that bad. We knew it'd take six years longer since you wasted fuel for me to try and go back," Grace says, his eyes starting to close again. His eyelids were so heavy, and any relief on his vision would be a blessing.
"Was not a waste!" Rocky insists, leaning further over the bed until he is practically leaning over Grace. There's a sense of deja vu here. "Grace. Grace let Rocky get Adrian. Adrian will know what to do. Please."
"But Adrian is so far away, Rock. Erid is still so far away." Grace wants to choke; they've both been traveling for so long, and he was so, so tired already.
"Grace, please. ♬♩♪♪♬♪" Rocky urges and Grace can only nod, because he missed what the Eridian said to begin with.
Hurrying away, Rocky disappears for a while. Grace can hear the soft lullaby of his voice and thinks that it's nice. His bones grow heavy, and his fingers and feet feel swollen with exhaustion. He just wants to close his eyes.
But he promised Rocky that he'd wait, and he will.
"♩♩♪ ♬♩♬♩ ♪" Rocky's voice is back and he's clambering onto the bedside beside Grace now.
Grace chuckles and scoots over a little. Normally when Rocky does this, it means he wants Grace to either watch him sleep or he wants to watch Grace sleep. There's a cozy sensation of Rocky and all his weight burrowing against Grace's side, under his arm. Grace supposes it wouldn't be possible to sneak off to the lab to go work on propagating the taumoebae. But he guesses it can wait. It's rare for Rocky to be this clingy.
"–an? Ca– un–tand –ocky, –Gra…?" Rocky's voice is cutting in and out more, and Grace frowns as he tries harder to discern the Eridian. He'd been studying the language for weeks and still isn't particularly fluent in it.
"♪," Rocky nudges closer to him. "♬♬♩."
"Do you think we'll make it in time to save our worlds?" Grace asks quietly. There's a fear that starts to worm his way into his chest. It burrows so tightly just beneath his sternum, right beside his heart, he thinks he could claw it out to get rid of it.
He doesn't startle when feels Rocky's claws smoothing out his thinning (?) hair, or smoothing down the blanket on his torso.
"Of course we will," Rocky says sternly and slow, as if enunciating every syllable. There's an urgency to his tone that assures Grace. "Grace Rocky save stars. Yesterday, today, tomorrow, statement."
"That's right. We'll do this all over again tomorrow." Grace murmurs, bemused, with a tender fondness, his hand goes slack over Rocky's carapace. It's time to go to bed, he thinks. "See you tomorrow?"
"Yes. Rocky see Grace tomorrow. And the tomorrow after that, again again again. Promise." Rocky insists.
The front door opens and there's a hurried scuttling through another portion of the room.
"Love you, Rock," Grace says, because it's true. He does. And he thinks that's a very fine thing to say, before he goes to sleep.
Rocky makes a broken, chiming sound. "Love Grace too, statement," he says before rushing to call out to whoever just entered. "♪ ♪♬♩♬♩♪♪♩♪♩♪♬ ♪♪♩ ♬♬♩!"
"'Kay," Grace murmurs. The feeling of Rocky's claws in his hair is calming, and gentle. He feels his body ease at the touch until there's no movement left to him. "Watch me sleep?"
"Yes, yes, yes," Rocky agrees. "Watch Grace sleep so Grace wakes up tomorrow. See you tomorrow. ♪ ♬♬♩."
Closing his eyes, Grace finds himself sinking deeper into the bed. It's an easy thing, to feel his consciousness slip away along with his breath and his heartbeat. His skin grows cold and his weary bones find their rest.
Of course he finds rest. He's home.
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»»»»»»»»»»»»»» Extrapolation: 0 COMPLETE.
»»»»»»»»»»»»»» Extrapolation: 0 FAILED.
»»»»»»»»»»»»»» SYSTEM NOTES: PLANETARY LIFE RESISTANCE FAIL. STAR SYSTEMS FAIL. UNIVERSE CULLING SUCCESS RATE: 93%. PROGRAM ENTITIES [CHILD], [PILLAR], AND [SON] OVERALL SUCCESS RATE: 7%.
»»»»»»»»»»»»»» ADMINSTRATOR α: Admin is curious why Entities [Child] and [Pillar] had higher success rate than Entity [Son]. No odd behavior in Entities [Child] or [Pillar]. Entity [Son] experienced extreme duress and biological deviation. Will compare to later outputs.
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Restart-System
[[World β]] <Instance World [Child; Pillar]>]
[αAuthentication <Instance World [Child; Pillar]>]
[-Credential <Adminstrator α>]
[Force Instance Reset]
[Wait]
[Timeout <Instance World [Son]>]
[Delay Instance Reset <Instance World [Son]>]
[Ẅ̸̡̱́̊͛h̴̨͔̤̥͆́ȃ̴̮̳͕̣ṯ̶̫̜̈́̌̈Ĩ̷̟͓̜̱͋͝f̸̪̓͜ ̴̥̂̀[̷̟͎́̀̀S̶͇̄̀̃͝o̸̡̼̟̒̒̇̚n̷̺̞͔̙͌̇͐̕]̵̢̡͐̍͗͌ ̶͎̟͑̏d̴̢̫͆̾͂̌o̷̢̲͖̿́e̷͖̔̓̊̂s̶̛̺̯̊̅ͅ ̷͙̾̃͊̽n̸̩̜̎͋̋ơ̷͇̣̌̅ͅt̷͓͉͂ ̵̣͙̯̑͆̊w̴͕͓͛̈́̋̀ȁ̸̯̐̃̚i̶̖̯͗́̇̏ţ̵͎̣̈̋͐͆?̶̦̼̿͒̌̏ ]
[-Confirm]
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……. INITIATING [1]