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I woke up with a start. That was something I was getting used to. Something went wrong during the transfer, so now every time I sleep, I wake up in the human body I’d been hooked up to. Luckily, there weren’t any adverse effects on my brain. The biology team made sure of that before I was allowed to return home to Adrian.
Speaking of, they’d been a bit upset and worried about me running off as soon as testing was done. Come on, I was given the tools to actually ‘see’ my best friend for the first time ever and everyone thought I wasn’t going to take the opportunity as soon as possible? They were more worried about me than anything, and found the story of how Grace was worried I’d been a runaway meburger and had a panic attack over it funny but also worrying.
They’d personally gone to assure Grace that no, they don’t grow full humans for mergers, only muscle tissue out of what Grace would call a 3D printer. They also told Grace that I was ‘grounded’ for a while after my little stunt. Grace then proceeded to start leaking (crying) again after he realized that the strange human who didn’t know how to human was me. I was forbidden from linking to the human avatar for quite a while. (Three months in earth time.) Grace still hadn’t learned Erid time yet so I still translate it.
So, everyone was confused when I woke up in the avatar seconds after falling asleep instead of waking up with Adrien watching over me at our temporary home in the lab. Even now I’m not used to it. I sat up and tried to rub the blurriness from my eyes. Yes I needed glasses like Ryland does. No I didn’t like wearing them. Stupid squishy eyes that don’t work right on their own. Stupid glasses that make my ears hurt.
I groaned and looked around the room. His house had been expanded to accommodate two people. There were two beds in a larger bedroom. Ideally we’d watch each other sleep, but I’m only ever in this body while asleep and Ryland’s sleep schedule and mine don’t always align. A stay might only last 7,200 seconds, or it might last 43,200 seconds.
I’d never know how long my real body would be asleep. Sometimes it’s longer than normal, a side effect of the link since it takes my repair cells slightly longer to do their job in relation to repairing my brain while linked. My brain didn’t fully shut down as a whole, instead it’d cycle. One part of my brain was always active so once repair were done to the rest, another part would come back on and the active part would shut down for repairs.
It was morning, artificial sunlight poured in from the windows. Ryland wasn’t awake yet so I settled in to keep him safe. I flopped out of bed and shuffled through the drawers until I found my crochet supplies. It was different than weaving xenonite, but it was a similar enough concept that it’d been intuitive to learn.
I was currently in the process of making a sweater of my own so I wouldn’t have to keep wearing Ryland’s clothes. They didn’t quite fit me right anyway. I was a few inches shorter than him, and a bit more muscular to account for the increased gravity. There were other things internally different than maybe the gravity easier to handle in this body, like a woven pattern in the bones, and xenonite reinforced joints but they didn’t affect the avatars appearance.
Long story short, Ryland’s clothes didn’t fit me quite right and I wanted something that was more, me. So I was making a sweater as I watched Grace sleep. The plan was a green sweater with brown overalls. I’d figured out how to synthesize yarn and fabric so getting the materials wasn’t an issue.
Why was the outfit more me? Well, I’d gotten to see what my real body looks like for the first time. I was mostly brown with green splotches near my ‘shoulders.’ As it happened, green was my favorite color so I was pretty happy that I naturally had it on my body.
Was green my favorite because it was the first color Grace told me about and was the same color as the planet I’d named after Adrien?
Yes. Yes it was.
I also wanted to look more like myself as much as I could and matching my own color scheme was as best as I could do. I also already had a green sweater and brown overalls at home so really, I was just making human version of clothes I already had.
I’d made decent progress on the right sleeve when Ryland mumbled and sat up. “Morning Rock, Morning Armando.” He muttered as he scrubbed the sleep from his eyes and felt around for his glasses, then Froze and squinted at me. “Rocky? How long have you been… linked?” He’d tapped his foot twice against the covers. I smiled at his subconscious inclusion of Eridian grammar.
“5,400 seconds. Roughly.” I replied. He blinked a few times then nodded.
Seemingly satisfied with my answer, he located his glasses and shuffled out of bed. Still bleary eyed he shuffled into the kitchen then ducked his head back in to the bedroom. He shuffled awkwardly, and I realized what he was about to ask. I usually bug him about eating. Watching someone starve is rough so I don’t like it when Ryland doesn’t eat. I also don’t like it when he asks if I’ve eaten, if the avatar has eaten. The way humans eat makes me nauseous. Nausea was an entirely new sensation and I hated getting nauseous. I grew to stand Grace doing it. I still struggle with having to do it. I can handle drinking better at least.
I must have made a face because instead of asking if I’d eaten he snapped his mouth shut and shuffled back into the kitchen. Ryland returned second later with a, “Thank you Armando.” and held out a nutrient shake for me. I glowered at it, then set my crochet project aside and snatched the affronting sustenance.
The house had a relatively open floor plan, with the exception of the bedroom and bathroom. Even still, a lifetime of eating in private wasn’t just going to go away because I was playing human. I’m not ashamed to admit that I hid under the bed as I chugged my shake. I wasn’t fond of the flavor, Ryland said it was something called ‘cherry’ but I thought it tasted like what the color red looked like. The only redeeming factor was that it wasn’t red.
I didn’t want to focus on sustenance so my thoughts began to wonder. I thought back to the early days of this situation. I was still getting used to human speech at the time and I hadn’t quite mastered walking yet. Ryland had been teaching so he hadn’t been there to help me balance as I tried to pace along the beach in front of Ryland’s house.
I’d tripped over myself, and once again ended up face first in the sand with a pitiful whine. I was upset. I was tired of the testing done in my real body and not being able to function well in the avatar. I’d never cried before so the stinging feeling in my eyes was unfamiliar and more than a little alarming. I didn’t have Grace with me to tell me if something was norma or not.
I pushed myself partially up as I caught a glimpse of another Eridian bounding towards me in a xenonite suit. I was frustrated for a second, ready to complain about more brain scans as best as I could in the leaky, wet, flesh prison I’d willingly tied myself to. That is until I realized who it was.
My breathing hitched. Their carapace was a beautiful color somewhere between blue and green, even without the ability to name colors, I’d recognize their carapace anywhere.
Adrian.
I was looking at Adrian for the first time in my life. The burning returned to my eyes and my vision blurred as my breathing hitched again. Messy tears streamed down my face as I reached out towards them with a pitifully slurred wail, “Aaaadriaaan beeeauuuti-fuuuhuul!!!”
Grace was too nice to tease me, but if our positions had been reversed I’d have never let him live something like that down.
Knock Knock Knock!
I jumped, startled at the sudden sound. If I didn’t know better, I’d think Ryland was taking advantage of the fact that he can sneak up on me now. I rubbed the back of my head where I’d smacked against the underside of my bed.
“Are you okay under there Rock?” Grace asked tentatively. I contemplated throwing the empty nutrient shake cup at him in response. I did not like getting snuck up on. “Rocky? You still here?”
Oh, he was worried I’d unlinked while huddled up in my cubby. With the oversized bedsheets hanging down the sides, it was my own little spot to eat. It was also where I’d occasionally space out. Reminding things was different for humans. Most of the time information is just there, but sometimes if I really focused, it was like I was in a strangely distorted snapshot of what was going on during that moment. I’d usually go really still while doing that. I guess since I was new to that form of recall it took all of my attention to do.
“Yes. Still here.” I eventually replied after I heard his knees crack as he squatted down to check on me.Grace exhaled in a way I’d learned meant relief, “You’ve been down there for half an hour. I was starting to get worried.” He probably didn’t want to pull my limp avatar out from under the bed and haul me it back on top of the bed. That half an hour thing was ‘case in point’ on going still when activity recalling events in as much detail as a human brain would let me. “I was thinking.”
I heard Ryland get comfortable outside my cubby. If I closed my eyes I could almost pretend this was a normal interaction from inside my xenonite ball.
Almost.
Okay not really but I had plenty of time for normal interactions once my real body woke up anyway.
“What were you thinking about?” Grace asked. There were very few things we didn’t share with each other. Almost four years in a confined space together will do that. “Were you thinking about Adrian?” Okay maybe he would tease me. I was a bad influence on him sometimes but I don’t care.
I weakly threw the cup I’d been holding in his direction. It plonked against the draped sheet and plopped to the floor. “I’m just asking!” He sounded amused as his hand emerged from the other side of the sheet to grab the cup.
I huffed, “I was thinking about the first day I got to go home after linking with this avatar. Adrian couldn’t wait until I unlinked to tell me that we could finally move back home instead of living in the lab, so they donned a xenonite suit for the first time and went to tell me in my avatar.” My eyes stung thinking about it. ”Awe, Rocky. I’m that’s so sweet of them.” He was being genuine. I knew that much. He sounded more choked up than I did. However I wasn’t in the mood to get all sappy.
I huffed and crawled back out into the open, “Go teach.”
Ryland laughed at my dismissal. “Rocky, it’s the weekend. There aren’t any classes today.” Ah yes, another made up weird human culture thing.