Work Text:
Grace has been asleep for λI Earth minutes. He hasn’t been sleeping well lately – he tosses and turns more in his sleep now than he did during the mission, in part because he’s actually sleeping rather than crashing at the end of each wakeful cycle. The portable thinking machine contains much information on human sleep cycles, and how consistent neglect regarding one’s sleep can result in what it calls ‘sleeping difficulties’. Grace already displays some of these; the first time he spoke in his sleep, I had thought he’d awoken, and spent the next several minutes trying to figure out why he was talking nonsense.
“People sometimes talk in their sleep,” he had said sheepishly the next morning. “There’s not really a reason, other than that some parts of us are more awake than others.”
Human biology is fascinating. I wonder what the sleep-scientists of Erid will think, once they see my Grace? There are few within that field – it isn’t one which begets study, unless dealing with a small selection of animals. The only Eridian sleep-scientists are the ones who work to fix broken sleep cycles. What will they say, once they learn of an alien whose entire species can never fully rest?
“Muh,” Grace says articulately, waving his arm about until it eventually settles over his forehead. This is what his most common type of ‘talks’ look like – gibberish, spoken as though it has meaning, with an unclear but internally unequivocal purpose.
I like watching Grace sleep. It’s programmed into my biology, yes, but I like watching Grace specifically. Where Eridians are still and silent, he is an explosion of noise and movement and, to any who know better, decisively so. He is a joy to watch, because I can never, ever get bored.
We settle in for another ‘night’. There is no day-night cycle here, billions of kilometres from any other living beings and millions from any celestial bodies, but the Hail Mary keeps its day-night cycle without interruption (if you exclude Grace’s time-changing), for the sake of its expected inhabitants. It helps him sleep. Where Eridians are made to sleep when tired, Humans are made to sleep depending on the position of Sol relative to their position on Earth, becoming unconscious at regular intervals as it crosses their sky. If they break out of this rhythm, it can have many, many adverse effects on their squishy, sensitive bodies – and then, getting back into it again can cause some small issues. For Grace, one of these issues is sleeptalking. He apparently doesn’t know when it started, but knows it started at least semi-recently, as his previous mate never said a word about it. Said he slept like a rock. Grace found this memory amusing.
“G’night, Rock,” the subject of my thoughts says blearily, eyelids shlock-ing open and closed as he fights to keep his optical organs functional. “You gonna watch me sleep?”
“Always,” I respond, a high-pitched droning emitting from my carapace which Grace has dignified with the definition of an Eridian eye-roll. I do not think even the best Eridian songsmiths can replicate the slosh-click sound of a Human eye-roll. “What else would I be doing?”
[What else Rocky do, question] is what the translator spits out, but Grace has started getting used to more advanced Eridian grammar now; he grins unabashedly before wrapping himself up in his quilt, effectively cocooning himself in its warmth.
I turn back to my work. We aren’t saving the universe anymore, but the Hail Mary still needs maintenance. It wasn’t designed to run for this long – yes, it would have held up well for a year or so, but that’s assuming that it would have stayed in one place, and wouldn’t have done a whole lot of the things this ship has done. As such, I’m almost constantly fixing it – and, when I’m not, I’m working on a way to make it better for Grace.
A panel came loose a small while ago. It wasn’t high-priority, so I hadn’t done anything about it until I started working to patch it a few days ago. It had come loose because some wires, which previously hadn’t been near each other, got tangled together, wrapping around one another until they formed a protruding knot. Grace managed to untie the knot, but I’ve been designing some little bridges that can be installed within the walls to keep the wires in place. They’re small, and there’s going to be lots of them – if I do a job, I’m going to do it properly, after all, so the whole ship will be outfitted with them. I get to work.
Link. Cut. Link. Cut. I’m glad I also watch Grace sleep; his constant oozing and leaking makes consistent work bearable. If he weren’t here – before we met – I, as most Eridians, could only work on exactly one thing for about thirty minutes before my mind grew so bored of it that I simply ceased to be able to perform the action. Where Eridians combat this by conversing, solving equations, or just doing multiple tasks at once, Grace acts as my own personal soundscape, which varies so greatly minute-by-minute that sensing him counts as its own task.
Link. Cut. Link. Cut.
Grace kicks his legs.
Link. Cut.
Two shlocks echo throughout the ship, nanoseconds apart.
Link. Cut.
Two arms wave around aimlessly above Grace’s head.
Link. Cut. Link. Cut.
His torso lifts upwards, supported by his elbows which now lay on the bed.
Link. Cut.
Legs swing over his bedframe, and Grace stands for a moment, before he begins to walk to the ladder.
Link. Cut.
“What are you doing?” I ask absently. It’s not been that long – if he’s thirsty or hungry, he can just ask Armando for food or water. And the special leaking room is embedded into the wall.
I am not dignified with a response.
Link. Cut.
Grace pads slowly to the ladder, feet never quite slapping, but definitely plopping against the cold floor, which he normally refuses to touch bare-footed due to its temperature.
“Grace?”
He ascends. I, of course, follow him – he’s not asleep, but something’s going on, so I need to watch. To make sure he’s alright.
“You’re acting weird.”
Grace ignores me, opens the hatch to the lab, and continues up the ladder towards the control room. What could he possibly need up there?
Whatever it is, he doesn’t get it – he tries to open the hatch, and, when prompted by the ship for his name, he tsks, sliding back down the ladder flawlessly to the lab. He can’t do that. I know, because he’s tried many times when he thinks I’m not ‘looking’. He always gets too-hot palms about a third of the way down, and steps the rest of the way until he can flap his hands about in pain at the bottom.
“No tacos today,” he says mournfully.
“What..? Firstly, there isn’t a stock of tacos here, and secondly, why didn’t you answer the ship?”
“Nnh.”
He stands in the lab now, doing nothing. His hand reaches out as if to open a door, completing the full motion of it before returning to his side, having done absolutely nothing in reality.
“Mary,” I ask, “is Grace on anything?”
“No medication administered to Dr. Ryland Grace within the past week,” the ship responds, and I’m very glad that Grace absolutely refused to do anything with the ship until we’d programmed it to accept my questions and commands. It works through the translator, so it’s not perfect, but it’s just about enough in an emergency. Or if Grace is being weird.
“How is he?”
“Vitals are normal for a sleeping adult male.”
“...Sleeping?”
“Dr. Ryland Grace appears to currently be asleep.”
“No, Grace is standing.”
“Affirmative. Ambulatory motion was detected during sleep.”
There’s no way he’s asleep.
“Explain,” I demand.
“[slipˌwɔ kɪŋ] is when a person gets up and moves around while asleep. It does not usually require treatment, but it is important to keep yourself and/or your loved ones safe.”
Surely that can’t be right.
“So humans can wake up at any moment, sense their surroundings while sleeping, have sleep-hallucinations integral to brain-function that they only sometimes remember, some of which are so scary that they wake themselves up – and they can walk?”
“Affirmative,” says the Mary, neutral as ever. “If someone is sleepwalking, try to gently guide them back to bed. If you need to wake them up, try to do so gently. Upon sudden waking, a sleepwalker may be confused, angry, scared, or upset.”
Right. That makes sense. If, in the middle of the night for no apparent reason, a human gets out of bed – with their eyes open – then it’s your responsibility to take them back to bed.
“Is sleepwalking dangerous?”
“It is not usually dangerous; however, even in a controlled environment, an unaware person could always become injured and unable to call for help.”
I tap against the floor, waiting until Grace’s being reverberates where he stands. He hasn’t moved the entire time I’ve been asking questions. Can he hear me?
“Grace?”
Nothing.
Nothing, fortunately, means I can probably move him with little to no resistance. So, I gently roll my ball into his shins.
“Ouf,” he murmurs, quieter than his waking whisper. “Did you get me a taco?”
“Yes,” I lie, hoping he’ll move if he thinks there’s a taco waiting. “Taco in bed for you. Let’s go.”
He doesn’t respond, but he does move eventually, walking away from where I’ve been annoying him with the ball. Like what I’ve been told is called a sheepdog, I herd him downstairs and into his bed; getting him down the ladder just produced another perfect slide, which I will be telling him once he wakes up. He’ll hear of the whole thing and, hopefully, his sliding proficiency while asleep will annoy him enough to not attempt it during his wakeful periods.
Finally, we get to his bed, where he flops down into the sheets.
“Come back, m’cold,” he mutters into his pillows, reaching out vaguely towards me. When I indulge in his unconscious demands, his hand meeting the ball, he sighs, says something unintelligible but undoubtedly about tacos, rolls over, and starts snoring. Loudly.
I’d be lying if, when it happens again, I said that I didn’t enjoy it.