Chapter Text
My hands are shaking too hard to manage the next update. We've gotten up to cadmium in our periodic table back-and-fourth. It took me three tries to get silver typed in right. We're on attempt five for cadmium and the keys aren't cooperating with my tremmoring fingers. I almost wish we were back in micro grav - at least then I could blame the EVA suit for my failing dexterity.
It's coming close to eleven hours solid we've been working, sans requisite breaks for food and maintenance. I'm starting to seriously miss the late-afternoon nap I'd steal in my classroom before cycling home for the day.
Rocky has watched me sleep for over a week now, and he's only konked out once in that time. Eridians are upsettingly resilient buggers. I'd be jealous of him if I had the energy to be anything other than tired.
On my eighth attempt at entering cadmium into our translation dictionary, I manage cadmiUN. Close enough. I hit enter and don't slam the laptop closed in frustration, because I'm better than that. Instead I let out a groan that is, yup, is definitely more of a whine.
Yes, okay, fine. We're going to have to have the conversation.
"Rocky," I start, my mouth suddenly, startlingly dry, "I need to tell you more about human classifications."
Rocky humms and mrrs. I glance at the laptop, and have to give my prefrontal cortex a solid thump to get the words to compute.
/Grace slow now on atoms. Sleep again question? I observe/
I snort. Of course he's noticed me flagging - I'm not very subtle and he's not very thick.
"Yes, I sleep again," I parrot back, wincing at the pidgin that mayyyy not have been fully intended, "But I need to talk first. And ask you a favour."
/Yes yes yes/ the computer translates Rocky's chirrups /Rocky help Grace. Help Grace how question?/
I sigh. It wobbles on the end. Aw, rats. I mean... I mean... fuck.
Welp, time to get the rock rolling.
"Humans have male and female classifications, remember?" I start, tamping down the nerves already climbing in my throat.
/Grace memory bad, Rocky not./ Rocky responds, and I swear his chirrups sound somehow smug. /Remember, statement./
"We've got some others too," I continue. "Uhh, not reproduction related - for social bonding purpose."
Rocky makes a noise that the computer doesn't translate, but I've started to guess means something along the lines of /an affirmative hum./
I've thought a lot of how to explain this. For the odd health class I'd covered, there'd been specific wording and definitions to follow, which I'd played around with a bit where I could, but modifying too much would have been a liiiiittle too revealing. However, this is an alien creature I'm speaking to. I don't know anything about their maturation, or at least not much beyond the bare bones (...bones? Do they even- focus, Ry!). I don't know if 'feeling and acting younger' will mean anything at all to Rocky.
Besides, it’s refreshing to begin explaining things from a point that isn’t weighed down by the inherent immaturity regressors are known for on Earth.
"About one tenth of humans are something called littles," I start. "They're like regular humans but their brains have two neuronal firing patterns, instead of one. Littles have to spend some time in their secondary firing pattern to be able to rest their primary."
I binarised sex when I explained it to Rocky. Mayaswell binarise regression while I'm at it. There'll be room for nuance at some future point, when we've gotten past the basics of atomic structure.
/Grace talk vague on purpose question?/
Dang Rocky's good.
"N-no!" I stutter, "Yes, no, I... not on purpose. It's culture - it's a private thing. I'm not practiced at talking about it."
Rocky continues to get to the point far quicker than I'm comfortable with.
/Grace is male human. Grace is little human also statement. Grace need change brain function question? Rocky assist how question?/
There's a lump forming in my throat. I cough it back down.
"...yes, I, yes. Regressing is private, but usually there is someone else there because it can be dangerous-"
/Danger question?/ Rocky warbles, cutting me off, /Grace in danger question? Explain Rocky fix Grace safe./
"No, no, it's safe," I rush to reassure him. "I'm not... I usually did... I usually... Okay, I- pause." I take a shuddering breath, and try to centre myself. "Terminology. Explanations. Need more words first. Okay?"
/Grace safe Rocky help./ Rocky insists. /Grace leak again. Still safe question?/
There's really no need for tears here. Darn, I am way too close to a drop for anybody's comfort. Well, not that there's really anybody else to be uncomfor- nooooo, that's not helping with the tears, abort, abort.
"Yes, I'm sorry, slow down please, sorry, let me explain," I manage. "You can help, just, let me explain."
Rocky makes that same affirmative noise. He's hovering close to the clear xenonite wall, his energy palpable. I'm still yonks away from being able to read alien social cues, but I think I could guess this to be 'agitation.'
I take another deep breath and blink my eyes furiously so I can soldier bravely on.
"Drop. Definition, using secondary neural circuits. I have to do this, uh, probably once a week minimum? To keep my primary circuit functioning correctly. If I don't I get repression sickness. Definition, primary circuit stops functioning properly. Causes shaking, emotional, uh, bad emotions. Eventually repression sickness is resolved by a forced drop. Definition, secondary neural circuits overtake primary for a while until the brain is rebalanced. Um, yes. Any questions?"
/...A lot questions./ Rocky answers, rocking on his front legs, /But at future time. Grace shake and leak. Grace sick now question? Need secondary circuit question?/
I wish there was more hesitation, but there's nothing left in me. The need is burning under my skin. I'm nauseous with it.
"Yes," tumbles out of my mouth on a choke of a gasp, "I- can you watch me? Please? I'm sorry I don't usually... I've been regressing, uh, dropping alone in the ship and on Earth I know I dropped on my own a lot but it's... I get really... Rocky, I'm scared and I don't wanna be scared and alone again."
Rocky makes another noise I haven't translated yet. It's slower than the vague affirmation, lower. Soothing, maybe. Or maybe I'm just imprinting on the singular, theoretically-able caregiving entity my hindbrain can locate.
/Yes yes yes Rocky observe. Secondary circuit what is different question? What Rocky do question?/
"I, it's... On Earth, people like me are called littles because, when we drop, it's like we are younger. Like child humans. I, um, my speech gets messed up and my coordination is worse and I, uh, yeah I cry more."
/Want know purpose but ask later. Humans very inefficient species. Last how long question?/
I'm glad the 'purpose' minefield can be neatly skipped over for now. At least his next question is easy. I'm too run down to stay conscious much longer, regardless of headspace.
"I want to go to sleep pretty quick," I reply, "so it shouldn't be long, like, half an hour maybe? And I'll be big again when I wake up." Wait, drat, I haven't defined big as opposite to little in this case as well as in their standard use. "I mean I'll be, uh, back to big, the primary one, like how..."
/Is okay Rocky understand context./ Rocky cuts in, ending my increasingly dislocated phrasing. /Okay, with little Grace, I am safe and quiet like with Eridian young, question?/
A weight lifts off my chest. I feel almost dizzy with the wash of relief. I've only been able to communicate with Rocky for ten days, and yet I'm thoroughly convinced that he's a really nice guy.
"I... Maybe?" I try to answer, but stringing words together is getting harder by the minute. "I don't know. I'm sorry, Rock, I should have explained this all earlier, it's... It's culture and then I'm me and I was kinda hoping it'd just work itself out if I ignored it but it's not like that strategy ever works out for me and now we're here and-"
/Grace talk talk talk./ Rocky cuts in again, /Is okay./ He makes that same hushing, soothing sound he made before. /Grace down, I watch./
I haven't entered in any new definitions since we started this. Rocky's not using any of the newly defined lingo, because he knows I haven't typed it up. He's so smart, and he's kind. I think he's kind. It's only been ten days of us trying to translate each other, but I'm so sure of it, to my core, and regression is dragging me towards rather than away from him.
If my instincts are broken, so be it.
From what I remember, it typically takes me a while to regress in front of others - like trying to tie your laces one-handed while someone else stares daggers at your efforts. All my memories so far have been either regressing alone or struggling to regress with a witness.
With Rocky I drop, both ironically and genuinely, like a stone.
It takes a moment for me to register what's happened. I think I've been half dropped for a lot longer than I’d noticed. My breaths are still shaky in my chest, but my hands are stable - heavy and rubber where before they were tremmoring. I bring them into my chest, get them clumsily clasped, and get some pressure on my sternum, trying to push the stutter-gasps into a more solid shape.
It's when I look up at Rocky that everything unravels. A wave of panic hits me, nauseating, utterly overwhelming as emotions so often are when I'm small. I lurch backwards, but with my coordination shot, all I manage to do is land on my butt with a mighty thwump. It jars all the way up through my teeth, and I can't help the high-pitched, reedy sound that seeps out of me.
I feel my breaths pick up, and I try to stop it, I really really do, but the panic is too visceral, aching in my teeth and burrowing into every cell in my body.
I wrap my arms around myself, at least, and try to close my eyes, but that makes it worse - I'm alone alone alone alone and there's a creature I don't know too well and I'm so scared it makes me want to throw up.
I'm glad I'd already put on a sleep garment - my continence is shot to heck.
I manage to kick my feet out and jerkily shuffle-scuffle sideways and backwards until my back hits the curved wall of...of...of the stuff. The alien stuff. The alien stuff. Help, oh no, help, help.
I open my mouth, but I can't form the words, only strangled noises. I can hear my high-pitched, whimpered sounds echoing in the hallway, and I try to tune them out, but there's something else...
Someone is singing.
I latch my focus onto it as best I can, shoving a fist up against my mouth to try and muffle myself.
I know the tune. I'd sung it to him. To the space rock. To Rocky. Big me had sung it. Only the first part of it. Rocky is singing it on a loop, without words cuz he can't make those I think.
Hey Jude. Don't make it bad. Take a sad song, and make it better. Remember to let her into your heart, then you can start to make it better.
I think I'd been trying to show Earth music. I'd sung it to him. Now he's singing it back.
I don't want to look up at him again. He's scary. He's big. He's an alien. He's so so so scary. But he's singing the song I showed him, for me.
I take two big gulps of air, then two more. I try to wipe some of the snot and saliva and tears off my face with my hand, and then try to get that off on my shirt. My face still feels bad, but there's no point keeping wiping it with my hands cuz more tears are still coming. I manage to grab at my shirt instead and bring it up to my face, and wipe at it that way.
The song loops, again and again.
The air is easier when I heave it this time. I grip my shirt tight in my fist and look up.
The terror washes through me again and I whimper with it, but I breathe out hard and keep looking. He's blurry without my glasses, but he's... smaller?
He's crouched down small like a pebble not a rock and his spider legs are all curled up - underneath him I think. He's really still - the times I've seen him before he's moved lots.
He stops the song for just a moment and makes a chirping sound at me like a baby bird. Then he keeps going with the song but it's quieter now.
I still can't breathe proper. I push my fist against my chest but it's still not right. The panic is still fizzling in my fingers and I sob against it a few times before I can stop them again and try to keep my breathing better.
Rocky stops the singing again and he's making these noises that start up high and go down.
I'm hit with a wall of memory sensation. Curled up in my mamie's lap as she soothes me, a hand patting my back, her voice all soft and going down like Rocky's does, the runners of her rocking chair creaking on the hardwood floor, her patchwork quilt smushed against my face.
I miss her in an ache so blinding it whites out the panic.
I can't get my feet under me - I'm too wobbly - but I manage to catapult myself forwards onto my hands and knees. There's no stopping the sobs now - they keep coming more and more and more and it makes me shake but I still get my hands and knees moving over and over.
The window hurts when I fall against it but I don't care. I push against it really hard. I can't see Rocky clearly because my eyes are all blurry from the tears and from not having glasses and also my face feels fuzzy and shaky like it does when I cry really really bad.
Then I can feel his heat against the glass. He's pushing into it too. I close my fist over one of his sparkly green rocks and try to push harder into him.
I can't stop the crying. I want to and I don't want to at the same time, because the crying has been in me so bad since I woke up in a scary trapped bed with wires and my head wouldn't work and it still won't work and all I've had is being alone alone alone but Rocky's humming and he's soothing with his noises and the lights in the corridor are glimmering off his green rocks and I can feel him being warm and I cry and cry and cry cuz I don't have my mamie or my anyone at all and I can't even remember who I had and I've been alone alone alone but I'm not alone Rocky's here and he's singing for me and he's leaning in to help me he's here and I'm not alone. I'm not alone. I'm not alone.
I stay like that for a while with my cheek on the hot glass and my lungs hurting because they're rattling so much with all my crying. Rocky keeps singing to me. He stops singing hey Jude at some point and is instead doing notes that sound nice but that I haven't heard before. I focus on them and it helps my crying slow down. I open my fists up so they're a palm on the glass instead and then Rocky puts his hand there too.
His hands are really cool looking. Three fingers. When they're all open it looks like one of those games at the arcade shop with the claws that get toys. I try to trace where his fingers are, but my hands are still too clumsy, so I give up and go back to letting my hand just rest there.
I'm still sniffling and now I've got the hiccoughs too, but the sobs that hurt and make my whole body shake have got less and less. Rocky is warm through the glass but the tunnel is cool and I'm starting to shiver.
Rocky sorts me out. He makes a bird noise that goes up rather than down like his ones before. I wipe at my eyes and try and blink them a few times to follow where he’s pointing. It's at my sleeping bag, where I sleep so he can watch.
I'm tired and my head is heavy and my body is too, but I still don't want to sleep. I don't know why. Maybe it's just I'm really scared still and sleeping feels really scary even though I don't know why. But Rocky is making nice noises at me and he's pointing and I don't want to be a bad b- I don't want to be bad. I whine at him because I can't really help it, but I push myself back from the glass a bit and start shuffling over to the sleeping bag even though I'm scared to.
I manage eventually, getting the sleeping bag around my shoulders and tucking myself back into the hole that's like a cot that I can sleep in, but I don't lie down. I want to stay curled up and tight and awake.
Rocky has kept making noises for me, but he has moved and is gone up to the part when he's stayed on top of me like the other times I was asleep in here. Or, big me was asleep in here. It's scarier now than it was before. I hold the blanket really tight and wish I'd brought Spot with me when I got changed for bed before. I don't know why I didn't bring him and didn't bring him all the other times I slept out here. I usually sleep with him even when big.
The tears are coming back and I push the sleeping bag at my eyes. I'm tired and I'm thirsty but I'm too scared to go get water so I don't want to cry anymore because then I'll just need even more water that I won't want to get.
Rocky taps on the ceiling panel and it startles me so much that I feel the night garment get wet again. Oh no I hope Rocky can't see that with his bat eyes. I look up at him. He's got two of his metal people in his hands. Well, one metal people one metal Rocky. But their sizes are funny. The person one is smaller than the Rocky one. I can't even try and begin to work out when he made it.
Rocky makes more bird noises not the singing ones. He bounces the person one up and down a few times, and then he uses a third arm to point to me. It's me! It's puppet me!
I giggle a little, then hide my mouth in the blanket because I didn't expect to make the sound. Then Rocky wiggles the Rocky one and points at himself but I'd worked that out all on my own.
Rocky takes the two puppets for a walk, and he does the bird chirps for it too. I follow them going on a walk, and then they are dancing, and then one is chasing the other, and then my thumb is in my mouth, and then Rocky's got a ball in a third hand and the two puppets are throwing it back and forth, and then I'm lying down, and then the puppets are up close next to each other sitting in space, and then... I'm...