Work Text:
The low humming of the ship’s electronics lulled Grace into a relaxed, almost floaty sleepiness despite the harsh electric light illuminating the room. His eyes would close for a second too long when he blinked and as time went by, it seemed harder to keep them open and focused on the screen in front of him. Whenever the man gets his eyes to focus on the text, they would burn deeply and he would feel the urge to press his hands against his lids. So, for a second, the man let his gaze soften as his head lolled forwards and..
“IS GRACE TIRED QUESTION?”
…snapped back up at the sudden loud voice piercing his right ear drum, heart squeezing violently in his chest.
“Huh?” mumbled Grace as the world snapped back into focus around him. His eyes darted over to Rocky who had snuck up on the floor next to the man’s workstation. It stared up at him, managing to look unimpressed despite its featureless face. When did it get to the lab, wasn’t supposed to be working on the engines for the day…?
“ROCKY HEARD GRACE BREATH SLOW. CAME TO WATCH”
Oh, so he had been muttering aloud, great. Totally not embarrassing Grace concluded as he rubbed his hands across his face in hopes of waking himself fully.
“Yeah, no worries rock, I’m awake. I was just finishing up…” he glanced back to the laptop in front of him. The scientist had a hard time deciphering what he himself had been typing down, just seconds ago. The words jumbled and came together in awkward sentences barely holding any coherence. As Grace looked over the page, he couldn’t help but notice the blurriness of the letters. Had they always been like that? Maybe his sight had deteriorated…
“FINISHING WHAT, QUESTION? GRACE NOT EVEN KNOW. TOO TIRED,” concluded Rocky in his passive-aggressive tone, interrupting his train of thoughts.
The man pulled his glasses down and rubbed his hand over his eyes, sighing. Next to him, Rocky shifted his weight side to side in its xenonite shell, producing a soft clicking sound. So maybe Grace been half asleep the whole time he was working, sue him. It’s not like they had an actual schedule to oblige by; they could afford delays.
“Yeah okay, I’ll go to bed now, I hadn’t realised it was getting late,” said Grace as he unbuckled himself and rose unsteadily from the chair.
“NOT LATE. ONLY BEEN 3 EARTH HOURS SINCE GRACE WAKE UP”. Grace froze where he stood as he glanced at his friend. His hands tightened their grips on the handles of the desk, keeping him from drifting away in the micro gravity.
“That can’t be Rock, I’ve been working on this for…” Grace didn’t finish his sentence as he glanced at the workshop’s clock. It was ticking slowly towards the 11-hour-mark. Accounting for the time the man took getting ready and setting up his workplace, it really could not have been more than two hours since he first started working. The disbelief on his face must have been apparent to his alien companion as it continued its interrogation.
“IS GRACE ALRIGHT, QUESTION?”
Was he? As he turned to face Rocky, he simply smiled softly, eyes tired, and nodded.
“I’ll just head back to bed and rest, okay?” the doctor stated, “I’ll be back to myself in no time”.
As a few days of drowsiness turned into weeks, it became clear to the pair that Grace wasn’t improving. On some days, he’d a barely get out of bed, either too lethargic to fully wake, or too afflicted by a bone-deep soreness that seemed to get worse with every passing day. Rocky would monitor at his bedside, anxiously counting each night the hours its human companion slept and spent the rest of his time diving deeper into human biology. Every human health resource it consulted seemed to indicate that 8 human hours was enough to replenish energy levels in the average adult. Now Grace was sleeping for almost 12 hours, without accounting for naps or time spent laying in bed resting.
When the human felt good enough to make his across the ship, the slightest contact with the plush walls made bruises appear on his skin. Once an even tone, it was now littered with purples, blues and greenish yellows where the healing process had begun. After Grace had complained of a suspiciously xenonite shaped hematoma across his sternum one morning, Rocky stopped laying over the human to watch him during sleep. It hadn’t wanted to upset Grace further by complaining, but whenever the man’s heart skipped a beat in the dark of the night or took a second too long to inhale again, Rocky ached to be closer.
With every day that passed by, the human Rocky had grown to love the company of seemed to fade. Gone were the lessons on human pop culture, the scientific rants and the deeply focused reviews of the ship itinerary. When the man would spark conversation, it was brief and detached. Grace seemed like a shell of his former self, deep bags under his eyes and bony joints sticking out from under his clothes. Whenever Rocky tried questioning the man, he would avoid the question or claim he was too tired to respond. So, the list of possible ailments grew in the alien’s mind with no true symptoms to narrow it down to.
Rocky wished Grace would look at him long enough to notice the subtle tremble of its limbs. It wished the man would understand it needed help. It wanted its friend to give it a human word for being scared for a loved one’s health.
On a morning like the other, Grace had woken up to the sight of Rocky curled up at the feet of his bed. He should have smiled, but instead he just slipped from the restrain keeping him secured on the bed. The thought of engaging a conversation was far too dauting, he could feel the exhaustion that would result from it already. So instead, he fled the room, floating down the corridors. The man tried not to feel too guilty going against Rocky’s wish to be woken up to supervise him. He sighed deeply, dragging a hand over his face, as he settled into the kitchen area to make his breakfast.
He was a grown man; he didn’t need a babysitter for god’s sake.
He winced as soon as the thought made his way into his mind. Just what was it with him and his mood swings? Grace was way too old to be acting like a whiny teenager. Of course, his friend would be worried about him, dear lord why was he like this? The rehydrated meal tasted stale in his mouth as he mulled over his temper, exasperated. The distinctive taste of iron flowed in his mouth, seemingly overpowering the meal-
Wait, iron?
With difficulty Grace chewed up the rest of his bite and looked closer at the, anything but iron rich, cinnamon oatmeal in front of him. In his mouth, the taste intensified and seemed to be pooling. Suddenly nauseous, the man reached for the cold-water pouch to try and clear the awful taste from his mouth. As it contacted his teeth, he felt his entire nervous system sparking in disagreement. To busy fighting against the dry heaves that overtook him, he didn’t hear Rocky make its way into the kitchen.
“WHY DID GRACE NOT WAKE ROCKY. IS GRACE HURT -”
“Goddamn- I feel like a million buck pal, no need to worry” he rasped. As he got up from the chair, dots swirled in his vision, and he could hear distant ringing progressively getting louder.
“GRACE NOT OKAY, STUMBLING AND HEART TOO FAST” it quickly chimed in, making his way
“ROCKY! For God’s sake would just, just-”
Pulling his hand away from his mouth just a second, Grace couldn’t help the reddish drool that pooled and formed floating droplets around him. As he turned to face Rocky, his teeth were reddened with bright freshly oxygenated blood. His heart squeezed tightly at the gruesome sight.
“I just- I” the man said as he pulled himself towards the ground, face whitening, “Oh dear, oh lord” his vision nearly gave out as he curled himself across the padded floor.
“I’m not good with blood give me a minute…”
He heard Rocky trotting over to him through the ringing. The voice barely made its way through his mind but soon he found himself being uncurled and his legs getting elevated. His eyes felt heavy, the sharp sound of Rocky’s synthetized voice made him squint them open.
“CAN GRACE HEAR, QUESTION? NEED TO SQUEEZE MUSCLES HARD” it stated.
Through the haze clouding his thoughts, Grace managed to contract his arms, then his legs. He gradually felt his head clear and the pressure on his heart lessen. The man kept his legs elevated as he softly spoke.
“Thanks, Rock, I just-”
“-HAD VASOVAGAL PRESYNCOPE. COMMON RESPONSE WHEN HUMAN SEE BLOOD” Rocky responded softly.
Grace braced himself up on his forearms just enough to make out Rocky in its xenonite shell.
“You’ve been reading on human biology, huh?” more blood pooled out of his mouth and the man let out a soft “oh god” before laying back down and closing his eyes.
He focused on getting air in through his nose. His legs were briefly unsupported before being set on the chair slightly higher. Rocky made its way next to Grace’s face as it looked to his friends pale scrunched face.
“ROCKY HAS BEEN VERY WORRIED,” it began, “GRACE NOT ACTING LIKE HIMSELF”.
“I know,” Grace conceded, “and I shouldn’t have snapped at you”.
He took a deep steading breath opening his eyes to look at his friend. It hunched on itself, xenonite-shell glinting in the soft light of the room. For the first time in a while the man truly looked at his friend, seeing beyond its appearance. Rocky looked awful, and it was his fault for neglecting it.
“Rocky, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have pushed you to the side like that”, he breathed in “I’m tired, and exhausted, and I can’t seem to think right for the life of me”.
Warmth bloomed through its body as he took in the sight of the man of the floor. Grace smile flashed a bloody yet toothy grin. Seeping from his gums in gruesome sight, blood bubbles floated around them. That’s when it clicked in the alien’s mind.
“GRACE NEED VITAMINS” it exclaimed abruptly. Pulling his hand from where it fiddled with his glasses, Grace looked at Rocky dumbfounded.
“Uh?”
Rocky was already running wildly around the room, digging through cupboards of prepackaged drinks.
“ROCKY NOT MAKE CONNECTION BEFORE BUT NOW IS CLEAR” it rolled over to another cabinet before rummaging through it too, “WHERE IS JUICE” it grumbled as it unceremoniously dumped beverage box after beverage box on the floor.
“Rocky what are you on about, we ran out about few months back, why does it matter now”
It stopped in its attempt to empty the storage units and stared back at Grace. The man sat carefully across the floor, holding himself down with handles, mouth slightly agape with his head tilted. A light frown creased across his forehead.
“GRACE HAS VITAMIN C DEFICIENCY. CAUSES SORENESS, BRUISING AND BLOODY GUMS,” Rocky stated, “GRACE NEED TO CONSUME VITAMIN RICH JUICE TO REPLENISH RESSOURCES”.
Oh.
Oh.
“You mean I have the old timey pirates’ disease?” the man huffed in disbelief.
“WHAT IS PIRATE QUESTION?”
Grace only giggled while hunching over himself.
As weeks went on, Rocky worked hard in the ship’s lab, synthesizing a vitamin C supplement strong enough to reverse the effects the scurvy had on Graces body. Although the man was nowhere near top shape, he did assist in the handling of the smaller vials where Rocky’s hands were unfortunately too blunt from behind the xenonite. Even though Grace was specialized in molecular biology and not chemistry, he did know his way around a lab.
Rocky had been on edge the entire time it took a blood sample from Grace, watching for the telling sign of a fainting episode. Although the human was slightly weak after, he handled it much better.
The process of turning the blood sugars from Graces’s sample implied turning it l-sorbose, then to diacetone-l-sorbose and more molecules which Grace was more preoccupated with producing than remembering. They carefully hydrogenated, oxidised and even gamma lactonized the solutions, producing ascorbic acid repeatedly until one reached purity standards good enough to proceed. Afterwards, it was a matter of turning the ascorbic acid into a serum by diluting it.
When Grace took the first swig of his vitamin-c drink, it took everything in his power not to spit it back out.
“IS SUPPLEMENT NOT GOOD?” Rocky asked. It had been hovering near Grace and now looked about ready to jump and rip the packet out of his hands. Eyes squinting and saliva overflowing, Grace had to explain what “sour” felt like and why they needed to get back on working on the formula. In the meanwhile, though, he downed the drink pushing through his cheeks contracting violently against the wave of sour fluid.
With a little finetuning, and lots of added sugars, they ended up with a syrup more resembling a fresh lemonade than a pile of citric acid. And as the days turned into weeks, the bruises faded and the bloody gums turned a healthy pink. It wasn’t all a smooth sailing, but after a while, Grace even felt good enough to be walking around by himself on the ship for longer periods of times, the bone-deep muscle pain waves finally receding.
For the first time in a while, Grace was back to feeling like himself.