Raptor's Corner!

But now, he gets so tired whenever Ilya is around. His eyelids start to droop and, even though he's spent days or weeks looking forward to reuniting with his boyfriend, all he wants to do is fall asleep in Ilya's arms.

He decides to go to the doctor for some labs, checking for conditions that would make him fatigued. Words like leukemia and lupus came up on his Google searches, so he braces for the worst.

"Everything is perfect, Shane," his doctor tells him over the phone a week later. "But, you know, if you're worried about it, you could talk to a psychiatrist."

He makes an appointment for the next day with the first psychiatrist he finds. He explains the issue again: extreme sleepiness, maybe even narcolepsy, if Web MD is right. After more prompting, he specifies that this happens specifically around his partner.

The psychiatrist smiles at him. "Do you know much about nervous system regulation?" she asks gently. When he shakes his head, she explains further. "There are some people or settings that cause our nervous systems to feel calmer, and, especially for people who spend a lot of their lives in a state of fight or flight, those soothing feelings can make us tired and sleepy. Maybe your body finally feels safe and able to rest."

More studies of Dr. Ryland Grace from Project Hail Mary, ft Rocky, aka the two bestest of friends ever from the best movie and also book ever oh my god

That's an interesting take!! :0

Originally, for this idea, I was going to have Grace's mind de-age along with his body because I wanted it to serve as a character study of sorts:

To Rocky, the only Grace he knows is... well, Grace: a former teacher at Grover Cleveland Middle School, who has a PhD in Molecular Biology. He’s tall, brave, brilliant, and, of course, the savior of the stars.

But he doesn't know Ryland. The boy who, while open-minded and eager to learn about everything and anything, is rather small for his age, reserved, afraid of the dark, and has trouble making friends.

So, it'll be interesting to see how Rocky tries to regain Ryland's trust. Comforting a little boy who's light-years away from home while simultaneously racing to develop an antidote.

But! If Grace were to keep his adult mind intact-OH! how it would STING.

Sure, it can be played for laughs with how ridiculous his voice sounds now and how he can't reach practically anything, but the absolute TOLL it'd take on his brain and emotional regulation.

A child's brain simply isn't built to hold over forty years' worth of memories, experiences, and knowledge. It's like trying to pour more water into a glass that's already overflowing. Eventually, it stops fitting, and everything starts spilling over.

His memories are going to become more scrambled and jumbled than anything. He's going to get mad at himself for not remembering simple equations. He's going to find himself throwing tantrums and crying more regularly over things he'd normally brush off.