Chapter Text
Grace felt the pads of his fingers slip on the slick surface of the medical cot, hands clammy with sweat. He tried not to think about how Rocky could probably hear this: the minute layer of perspiration seeping from the whorls of ridged fingerprints. Pressing down, triceps flaring, he dug his weight into the heels of his hands determinedly and hoisted himself up with force, body heavy in the 1.5g. The weight was compounded with the anxiety, the dread—the fear.
His throat worked as he swallowed and tried to take a deep breath that would not come.
He was not afraid of the procedure, not exactly. He trusted Rocky completely to oversee him—to watch him and to take care of him, all his squishy wetness aside. No, it was the ever-alert medical robot arm whirring gently above him that gave him pause.
ARMando flexed its four digits experimentally, processing the sight before it. Languidly, it leaned low over Grace, hydraulics whirring within its casing. Grace shifted, feeling the unyielding metal of the cot press into his shoulder blades. ARMando’s clinical lens, unfeeling and unblinking, pinned Grace in its gaze. There was nowhere to hide.
“And you still think this is the best idea, Rock?” Grace murmured, cringing as his voice betrayed him and broke around the words lodged in his throat.
“Yes,” Rocky answered blithely, claws busy. Grace couldn’t quite see what he was handling, but he did not really want to know anyway. He left the specifics to Rocky, now.
When Grace didn’t respond, Rocky continued, “Need to understand Grace digestion problem. Ensure nutrients all absorbed. Is critical.”
Grace huffed through his nose, wincing. “Yeah. Need to eat to live.” He wanted to close his eyes, lose himself in the sounds of Rocky’s ministrations, but he couldn’t: still, the medical arm leered at him from above.
“Yes,” Rocky agreed, chords emotionally unremarkable. Grace wasn’t sure if he didn’t pick up on Grace’s doom-and-gloom gallow’s humor, or if he was soldiering through it in an effort to remain positive. Sometimes things were lost in translation due to the gap between their species and languages; sometimes things were simply lost in translation due to the learning curve that came with understanding someone else in continually novel high-stakes situations. And while Grace and Rocky had certainly had their fair share, none had been quite like this.
“That is why Rocky and ARMando will perform endoscopy,” Rocky continued.
Rocky was going to perform surgery on him. Sure, nothing would be cut. Nothing would be fundamentally altered. This was purely for information-gathering purposes. A nice little scope inside to ‘see what’s up’. But, still—Rocky would be in complete and total control, manipulating tools inside Grace while he lay there helpless. Helpless and unconscious, while Rocky was busy learning and cataloguing his alien body.
And ARMando would be… lying in wait. On standby.
Grace grimaced. “Right.”
He wanted to look over at Rocky, even for a moment, for the reassurance brought on by watching his casual competence. The way his claws moved fluidly, glinting in his xenonite exo-suit. The way he was no doubt handling several preparation tasks at once at no extra effort for his crystalline brain and available, capable limbs. But, instead, he panted up at ARMando.
“You heart is fast.” Rocky chittered, moving to Grace’s left side.
“Is it?” Grace muttered, daring a glance at Rocky.
“Yes, Grace heart too fast,” Rocky confirmed, extending an arm to lay it upon Grace’s shoulder. Grace felt himself relax a little at the touch. “Need to slow heart before sedation. Calm, calm.”
But at the mention of the anesthesia, Grace felt his heart rate tick up. He felt as if a pressure was mounting in his chest, keeping his diaphragm from properly expanding. “Rocky—”
“Grace afraid,” Rocky trilled mournfully, realizing. “Of sleeping with medicine.” Rocky paused, fingers on another limb clicking thoughtfully. “Grace needs to trust Rocky.”
“N-no, Rocky, it’s not that part that I’m worried about. I trust you completely, buddy. Of course I do.” He watched as Rocky’s carapace tilted slightly in what Grace had come to think of as his version of a small smile.
“Good. Grace should. But… you do have worry?” Rocky inquired, stomping thrice.
“It’s just—the thought of… the sedation. It reminds me of—” Grace stared up at ARMando. Remembered its mindless assault of post-coma care procedures. Remembered that, somehow, it had killed his friends. It and its drugs, anyway. Grace never had worked up the courage to find out if Yáo and Ilyukhina’s official cause of death had been recorded in the ship’s computer somewhere—not that it was guaranteed to be accurate. Their deaths would remain a mystery but for the fact that Grace knew they were coma-related. And that was enough.
“The coma sleep, question?” Rocky’s chords were an octave lower than his usual song. The word he had created in his language for ‘coma’, when translated, meant drug-hibernation. He had pulled the word hibernation from the forced-repair sleep process Eridians sometimes underwent when very hurt. Like Rocky had been after his sojourn in Grace’s atmosphere. It was, unfortunately, a word that had seen a good deal of frequency in their translation program.
“Yeah,” Grace grunted, voice gravelly. “Last time I needed it—after Adrian—well. I wasn’t able to spend time worrying about it.”
“Bad bad bad. Understand.” Rocky seemed to ponder this a moment, hand tightening on Grace’s shoulder. Others tapped at the metal flooring, emitting a soft tink-ing sound that drew Grace’s scattered focus.
Tink-tink. Tink-tink. Tink-tink.
Rocky didn’t need to say aloud what they were both thinking: the other humans—Grace’s crew, Grace’s friends—had died because of the coma.
Tink-tink. Tink-tink. Tink-tink.
Grace idly wondered if he would have a trifurcated bruise on his deltoid come tomorrow. He wouldn’t mind.
ARMando’s digits twitched, rotating.
At last, Rocky began, “Could do no sedation. Dangerous… more risk.” Grace hummed in response, prompting Rocky along. His eyes roved over the glint of the xenonite in the harsh medical lighting. “What would help Grace feel better about sedation sleep?”
Oh. Well… Grace’s gaze flicked across ARMando’s ‘body’ before he could stop himself.
Rocky, of course, noticed. Whip-smart, he put it together immediately.
“ARMando scares Grace. What if Rocky only let ARMando near for necessary part?”
There was a sort of buzzing in Grace’s ears. He heard himself huff, “Isn’t that all of it?”
“No, no, no. Rocky will use ARMando’s screen image with light-sensor, but ARMando other ability can be disabled for involve in medical tasks.”
“You mean you can make it be on standby until you turn it back on?” Grace kicked himself for not poring over the extensive documentation that had launched with the Hail Mary like Rocky had. Then again, to him, it wasn’t exactly exciting alien technology. Nor was he their resident engineer.
“Yes, was in ship book.”
Thank fudge for Rocky’s crystalline brain and its ability to memorize anything. Reading English was just another of his amazing skills now; he only came to Grace with the occasional question, and, even then, Grace realized he was only humoring him or requesting a discussion about semantic or contextual nuances. He had all of Wikipedia—at least as a snapshot—at his clawtips now, after all.
“Grace heart slower.” Rocky sounded almost smug.
“I’m lucky you’re so smart, Rock,” Grace mustered. The relief coursing through him felt like a drug on its own.
“Yes, very lucky!” Rocky trilled, bobbing his carapace a little in self-satisfied amusement. Grace rolled his eyes, but smiled anyway. Then Rocky grew still, almost somber. Another hand came up to rest on Grace’s head, claws timidly carding through his hair. Rocky still wasn’t the best at getting the pressure right, and Grace politely ignored any sharp tugs on his scalp. “Grace no need worry. Rocky will take care of it.”
Grace let himself close his eyes at last, pressing into Rocky’s warm and heavy touch. He sighed, wondering if “it” meant Grace himself, the situation, or ARMando… it didn’t really matter, and it was all similarly reassuring.
Nevertheless, Grace privately hoped—at least this time—that “it” meant Grace.
The plan was this: Grace was to be sedated with propofol, lying on his side, and Rocky would perform the endoscopy via ARMando’s screen. One limb to hold his light-to-texture device to read ARMando’s screen displaying the scope’s camera, two limbs to thread and maneuver the scope itself, and two limbs for balance on the floor of their makeshift surgical bay. Because there would be no incisions, the concern over medical sanitation was not as high in Grace’s mind as it otherwise would have been.
While Mary did not come outfitted with the necessary accoutrements for an endoscopy in particular, Rocky, after doing thorough research online, was able to construct what they needed from xenonite. Grace was really not looking forward to having the bite blocker that Rocky made to keep his jaw open and protect the scope from his teeth in his mouth. He was sure it was going to have the signature ammonia smell of cat pee. And having that on his tongue… Well, thankfully, it was the least of his worries.
His mind, instead, managed to gloss over tasting cat pee and the fact that an alien—a literal alien—was going to perform minor surgery on him. No, instead, all focus was on the sedation required for the procedure.
His anxiety, of course, did not help Rocky’s nerves. Rocky would not admit that he was nervous (probably also for Grace’s sake, actually), but Grace could tell through the nervous drumming of his claws.
They had done some research together, by necessity. Rocky had many questions about human biology, questions that only seemed to grow in both scope and complexity the more he consumed medical texts and videos. In particular, he was fascinated with anesthesia. Which just happened to be the portion Grace wanted to discuss the very least. Still, he had had to brief Rocky on what to expect. After all, as Rocky had shown him, medical texts emphasized again and again that everyone is unique, and reactions to anesthesia varied.
Of course, when Rocky had asked for Grace’s medical history, they encountered a new problem.
“How do you react to sleep medicine? In you past?” Three taps.
Grace had inhaled, ready to dredge up memories for his friend, and… there was nothing. He remembered that last fight, the needle in his neck, dirt in his nails, knees on his back, his desperation—but, in general? He could not recall anything.
“I… I don’t remember, bud,” Grace had admitted at last, throat dry.
Rocky had made a whistling noise Grace had long ago entered into their translation program as “Hmmm.”
“I’m sorry. I know that’s not helpful, but… that’s amnesia for you. I guess.” His voice had creaked, also resistant to admit again what had been done to him.
Rocky had rallied quickly. “Will be okay without data. Helpful to have, but not necessary.”
“I know, but I wish I could tell you. I don’t want to make this harder on you.” Grace resisted the urge to reach out and touch Rocky’s carapace, nails biting half-moons into his sweaty palms.
“Happy to help Grace,” Rocky had sung, low and serious.
“Rocky—” Grace had started, throat thick with emotion.
“And not hard, because Rocky ‘just that good’.”
“Wow, okay. I really should never have taught you that,” Grace had laughed, blindsided.
He could see Rocky’s bellows pumping. It seemed cocky, somehow. Grace hadn’t been able to stop the grin that crept across his face.
Now, that grin felt like it had been worn on someone else’s face. Now, Grace’s teeth chattered with misplaced adrenaline, fear smothering him like a cloud of dry ice.
“On you side, now, Grace,” Rocky coaxed, reaching out to steady Grace’s trembling.
Grace rolled onto his right side, facing Rocky. They had briefly discussed which arm his IV would be placed in; Rocky was dismayed to learn about handedness when the medical sites recommended using the patient’s non-dominant arm for comfort. (“What you mean, one limb function better than the other?! And is normal?!”) Grace was much less dismayed to realize that he no longer had the choice of using his left arm, given the swathes of scar tissue on his left side, but still disliked the idea of encumbering his dominant side. (Then again, Grace did not like anything about the IV.)
And, so, he found himself on his right side, knees crooked in a loose fetal position. He was acutely aware of ARMando leering at them—they were facing one another, too, like this. The robot arm was eerily placid. Grace quickly looked away.
Rocky came to take Grace’s glasses, and looking away became slightly easier with his senses dulled.
“Careful with those,” Grace called out, watching the slightly-fuzzy form of Rocky place them gently to the side.
“Always careful,” Rocky groused over a lower chord that Grace knew meant that Rocky was chastising him for nagging. It was rich, coming from him, really.
“Okay, Grace. Time for IV,” Rocky announced, one limb still petting at Grace’s marbled left arm.
Grace nodded in a quick jerk, desperately trying to curb the leap of his heart.
“ARMando, insert IV into Grace,” Rocky commanded. The robot whirred to life, coming to grasp at Grace’s proffered right arm. It rotated it, exposing the inner elbow. Grace breathed hard through his nose, both desperately wishing to look away and feeling unable to tear his eyes from the sight of it happening again—no. No, Rocky was here, humming, draping two limbs over his side and patting at him gently, like some sort of mobile weighted, heated blanket. Grace reached out with his left hand, wrapping his own arm over the top of Rocky’s, curling his wrist so that his hand could grip at the xenonite suit.
“Inserting intravenous cannula in median cubital vein,” the Hail Mary brightly announced. He could feel ARMando deftly tying a tourniquet just above his elbow, servos whirring faintly.
“Is okay, Grace,” Rocky vocalised above his humming.
Grace could only bury his face against Rocky and heave a forceful sigh in response. ARMando’s digits prodded him. He felt the cold swipe of an alcohol pad in the crook of his elbow. The smell alone made his shoulders tense further.
“Robot arm stupid, just doing job. Rocky is in control, and Rocky keep you safe.”
“Y-yeah?” Grace’s breath stuttered in his chest. This was too much for him—
“Yes.” The limb resting on him that he was not currently wrapped around moved to grasp at his back, and Grace felt Rocky’s three claws splay there.
Grace gasped as he felt the slight, stabbing pinch of ARMando inserting the needle.
“I take care of you,” Rocky cooed, still humming. Claws plucked at his back in an approximation of rubbing. Rocky was no doubt doing his best to copy what he had seen watching movies with Grace. Tears threatened to prick at Grace’s eyes.
“Don’t leak, Grace,” Rocky hummed, misinterpreting his tears. “Almost done, almost done. Safe, safe, safe.”
Grace felt a bizarre desire to writhe, to plaster himself to Rocky, to cry out and declare that Rocky was the reason he was on the verge of weeping. But he controlled himself, nose pressed into the xenonite suit’s radiating heat, still but for his slight trembling and chattering teeth.
Soon, after more deft motions that Grace did not care to witness, ARMando withdrew a little, and Grace knew the IV line was placed successfully.
“Grace, IV is placed. Now we set up scope.”
“Okay, sounds good, Rock,” Grace murmured, trying not to whine as Rocky disentangled their limbs and withdrew his warmth.
For the next few minutes, Grace focused on his breathing: in through his nose—hold—out through his mouth—again—remembering the pattern a counselor had shown him in grad school. But, mostly, he stared at Rocky, watching his claws maneuver the equipment into place. He felt that, if he were to look away, he would become unmoored.
So, he lay there, curled on his side with his right arm still reaching out, hand up, and watched Rocky as if his life and his sanity depended on it. Grace felt like they both did.
Rocky placed a pillow behind Grace’s knees, and a small block of xenonite behind the pillow so that it would not shift. He draped blankets over Grace’s frame, and Grace tried not to blush. He wove a thin cannula around his torso, placing it beneath his nostrils to provide supplemental oxygen. He only made a single quip about Grace’s “crazy, flammable atmosphere” this time. Grace had managed a small chuckle. Then, Rocky approached more slowly, the bite blocker in his grasp.
He asked if Grace was ready to put it on, and Grace knew why. With it in place, he would be unable to speak.
“Yeah, Rock. Go for it. I trust you,” Grace said, voice soft and tattered at the edges with stress.
Rocky tilted his carapace, releasing a happy trill, before resuming his soothing hum. He leaned over Grace, and began to arrange the bite blocker against Grace’s face. Grace shot up his left hand to help guide it into his mouth, reminding himself constantly that this was Rocky, he was not being forcefully restrained, and that he was safe in Rocky’s care. Still, his mind unhelpfully supplied the idea that he was quite literally being muzzled by an alien.
Maybe scarier was the idea that Grace did not mind at all, because that alien was Rocky. He just desperately needed his body to realize that, anxiety aside, this was not at all like last time—
Just as quickly, that reassuring line of thought vanished as ARMando cocked its lens at them, digits twitching.
Grace couldn’t suppress his flinch in time. Rocky heard it, and trilled reassuringly.
“ARMando will turn off soon, Grace. Next, we need to administer sleep medicine. Then it disabled until need to wake Grace. Grace still okay, question?” A limb on the floor tapped thrice.
There was no way he was backing out now. He stared at Rocky, remembering his chant of safe, safe, safe. He trusted Rocky to perform surgery on him. He trusted Rocky to shut off ARMando’s assistance. He trusted Rocky to get him through this. He trusted Rocky with his life. Grace gave Rocky a shaky thumbs-down with his left hand. Rocky returned the gesture.
“Time go. ARMando, administer propofol solution in Grace peripheral IV line.”
Grace tried not to actually bite down on the bite blocker. The faint smell of ammonia hit him with every breath he tried to stabilize, despite the supplemental oxygen tickling his nose. Thankfully, his fears of tasting it were unfounded. He tried to keep up with his grounding breathing, but it was difficult with the robotic arm approaching and his jaw wrenched open. ARMando began to fiddle with the IV.
Rocky made one last pass of checking the heart monitor pads they’d placed on his chest earlier. He then moved on to the O2 saturation monitor on his finger, pointing his light-to-texture device at it to read the display. With another limb, he began to pat at Grace’s left shoulder again. Grace realized, with no small jolt of hysteria, that Rocky was petting him. Oh, that was hilarious, actually. He leaned into it as much as he could, savoring the touch.
Suddenly, he felt the propofol. It bit, and burned, and his veins hurt— he tried not to react, but he felt his eyes rip open wide, instinctually, with fear. But his body didn’t move with him. It lay there, heavier and heavier—and still he burned. His jugular felt as if it were on fire and frozen all at once. Grace wondered if Rocky knew that he felt like he was going to die, but he couldn’t look up, he couldn’t see anymore—still, he felt Rocky’s claws on him, rhythmic, and he focused on that one point in the universe as he burned. He burned. He couldn’t move. He focused on Rocky’s touch—
His eyes wouldn’t focus.
It was annoying. He wanted to see what on Earth that steady beeping was... Beeping, Grace had learned, was not his friend. No, beeping typically meant something wrong with the ship. And that meant something wrong with Grace and Rocky continuing to live, usually…
Rocky. Where was Rocky?
He could sense light, lots of it, coming from directly overhead. Making out details, however, seemed beyond him. He blinked, trying to cajole his eyes to stop rolling around, thank you very much, and was eventually able to make out a dark shape to his right.
He could hear music. Odd and staccato, but it was there. Grace tried to take a deep breath, and his chest hurt—oh, fudge, why couldn’t he breathe?!
He tried again, and again, air stuttering in his nose and mouth.
“I can’t—I can’t breathe,” he gasped out. “I can’t take—take a deep breath.” A small part of his mind told him that, hey, if he was talking, he was likely fine, actually. And that same, science-minded part was quickly drowned out in his panic.
More music, now, higher pitched. The adrenaline was helping him come to his senses, and his eyes and brain finally rallied enough to understand the shades of brown, the whirring limbs—Rocky! The fear weighing on his chest lessened immediately at the sight of his companion.
“Keep breathing deep, slow,” Rocky instructed. “Grace okay. Oxygen levels good.”
“Hi, Rocky,” Grace breathed out, almost sheepish. “I don’t even get a hello?” Grace laughed weakly despite the weight on his chest.
“Told you ‘hello’ six times now. You keep asking for more. Greedy human!”
“What—wait, really?! I d-don’t remember…” Grace felt his hands curl into fists. He kept breathing dutifully as deep as he could, but it was suddenly harder.
“Grace, is okay. Normal, normal. Only not remember while waking up. Is okay. Statement.”
“Okay… okay. I’m okay,” Grace murmured, grasping at any semblance of control.
“Yes, Grace okay. Safe! Is normal response to sleep medicine. Said in all medical texts, all patient experience. All humans have degree of reaction with brief forgetting period. Normal.”
“Normal. Okay,” Grace sighed. He didn’t want to be scared. He wanted to breathe, and trust Rocky, and feel in control of his own body again.
Rocky hummed in response, shifting closer to the cot. Grace kept breathing, breathing, breathing. The pressure lessened until he felt almost normal.
“Feel better?” Rocky asked, tapping at the ground.
“Yeah, I do.”
“Good, good, good.” Rocky shifted minutely, and Grace wondered why he looked almost nervous… “Can Rocky touch?” he asked, chord tremulous.
“Touch? Of course, Rock.” Grace barely stopped himself from saying ‘please’.
Rocky trilled happily, and began to stroke at Grace’s hair and right shoulder with a gentleness that made Grace’s heart clench.
“I tell you findings now, question?” Rocky seemed intent on making things as easy to understand as he could for Grace, indicating questions with speech tags rather than just tapping a limb. Grace must have been very out of it, indeed.
“Sure, Rocky,” Grace replied, much calmer now that the sensation in his chest was abating.
“Good news, Grace,” Rocky began. “All esophagus looks normal. All stomach and small intestine looks normal. Slight irritation in stomach. But nothing scary.” He stopped petting Grace’s hair to give him a short show of jazz hands.
Grace was relieved, and, then, almost immediately confused. “That’s great, Rock. But… but why did my stomach react like that to the Taumoeba then…?”
“Do not know. But good to know there is no wound or bad sickness inside Grace upper digestive system.”
Grace’s lips curled. “True,” he admitted. “That is good to know. Thank you, Rocky.”
Still, his science-driven mind tumbled along in the background with the persistent thought: so what is wrong, then?
Or, better yet, how do we fix it?
It may have been the drugs, or it may have been his ability to shy away from hard truths, but the one thing he did not let himself consider directly was the fact that, without the ability to digest taumoeba, Grace was going to starve.