one more time

The artificial Sun has barely touched the horizon and they're just... there. A group of little ones from his youngest class chirp at him in their bio-dome suits, the less coordinated of them rocking back and forth in little xenonite hamster balls.

The teacher just stares and listens to the chorus of little clicks and stomps (read: angry taps, the heaviest of them is 20 lbs in the dome) for a second. He has to be dreaming—a messed up nightmare where someone abandoned five entire children on his doorstep before he's even had a cup of coffee.

Rubbing his eyes and pinching his arm doesn't make the little guys go away. Any other day he'd go grab Adrian or Rocky from the bedroom, but the pair are off at a science conference a few cities over and won't be back until that night at the earliest.

"Parent said give this to Mr Teacher Grace," the largest of them, Orange, bonks his right calf with a tablet.

Grace takes it and squints, tracing his fingers over the writing. It's fluent, true Eridiani written with elegant penmanship—not the pidgin he's fluent in. There's an attempt to break apart certain words, but most of it is incomprehensible.

♮! Grace-Doctor-Savior-Captain-Teacher-AdrianRocky-Mated𝄐 ... ♮. Parent back by λV̶.V̶V ... ♯ ? Erid teacher ... Dome ... Already fed ... ♮ !Thank you𝄐

Like Grace has been doing since he met his first Eridian at Tau Ceti, he shrugs, says, "what the heck, sure," and goes with it.

Orange, Marble, Burrata, Turnip, and Plum are great students. Some one-on-one time would be good for everyone. It's an honor to be trusted like this, really.

He can handle 5 free-roaming pebbles for 24 hours.

"Please, come on in," he smiles and bows with the confidence of a man who has only ever done this through the auditorium's thick barrier.

Grace thinks this might have been easier if more than one of them could form actual sentences. Orange happily points and says a few words, but the others just stomp and chirp nonsense that kind of translates as emotion in the human's mind.

By the time the marine layer fogs the windows, he's sure his baseboards are never going to be the same. The biggest in their xenonite suit has clipped the hallway corner enough times that there's a chip taken out of it. There's a reason Orange is still in his youngest group—they're incredibly bright and creative, but they're still working on the locomotor skills needed to execute those ideas.

His ankles are bruised from the balls hitting them. Not stepping on them becomes a challenge. It's like bumper cars, but Grace is a giant in the middle of the track that was once his kitchen.

Grace gets a moment of peace from placing them into the nest in the bedroom. The stair platforms Rocky and Adrian take turns sitting on surround the mattress the human lays on, creating a little fenced in nook. It works great for watching each other sleep, but it's purpose now becomes pebble jail. Four of them settle down and starfish easily, snuggling down with happy little chirps that squeeze his heart. Burrata gets their little legs tangled in a blanket and the resulting struggle is like watching someone try to pick up noodles with chopsticks for the first time. Grace feels so bad that he lets them all back out.

It isn't until the sun is fully in the sky that he decides to integrate them into his day and go about as normal.

The kids get beckoned into one of the sleds for transporting his teaching equipment to the amphitheater. It takes at least ten minutes to get them all down to the garden—he ends up putting marble in his pocket—without them falling out.

They're all eager to help and soon he's on his knees in the dirt, surrounded by an excited thrum.

"I don't know what the word for this is," Grace pats the bundle of what he can only describe as a zucchini-carrot cross hanging off a large stem, "but it doesn't kill me, so."

"♮?♫♪♩𝄐" Orange's claw points and there's an agreement from the rest of the group.

"Yeah, that sounds about right."

Plum points at Grace, back to the vegetable, and then back to the human. They punctuate a rumble with two little stomps of a back leg.

Grace knows that one. He takes out the small notebook he keeps in his back pocket and unclips the heavy charcoal pencil on the cover.

"On Earth it's kind of like a zucchini. It's more," Grace gestures towards his mouth with the pencil, "sharp to my mouth. Which is fine, that makes it taste different than other things. Humans need variety."

"Sharp," Marble echoes. They jazz two hands clumsily and Grace tries to keep a straight face, but it's a little like watching a meatball become animated for the first time.

He coughs and starts digging the charcoal into the paper, "Now, I'm by no means an artist..."

Gardening turns into making pickles. Grace is a little jealous that the pebbles learn anaerobic respiration faster as kindergartners than he did as a freshman in undergrad. They parrot back the Eridani words for some of the concepts, but they're honestly more excited about the bubbles than they are learning about heterofermentative processes and decarboxylation.

Making pickles turns into watching Grace cook, which becomes it's own chemistry lesson. Orange sits on the counter and Plum, Marble, and Burrata go in the fruit bowl. Turnip bravely conquers fire and Grace helps them use a spatula to flip a piece of bread in the pan.

Once they're knowledgeable about the wonders of sandwich creation, they politely banish Grace to the soundproof bedroom while he eats. Normally he eats over a lesson plan or movie on his laptop, but listening out for any pebble xenonite-ball accidents keeps him entertained.

He's expecting a three Eridian pile up, but it never comes.

Grace finishes eating and goes out to check on his houseguests to find them all tuckered out around the coffee table. He plucks them up one by one and puts them back into totally-not-pebble-jail for safe keeping during quiet time. It's a task done in a few quick trips—Grace has dumbbells heavier than Orange. Marble and Plum can both fit in his arms.

There's protest when he goes to put Turnip down, so he settles down with them on his side. It takes a little work to find a position in the bed that doesn't crush anybody, but soon all five pebbles scoot up against their teacher. Grace takes the quilt from over the closest platform and covers the lot of them. Burrata scoots up to below his chin to avoid another incident, and the warm xenonite against his skin has Grace's breathing growing heavy.

Quietly, the front door shuts and two pentads of claws click across hard floor. The taller of the pair starts to sing Grace's name, but is quickly interrupted with an angry stomp.

"Adrian will sleep on couch if wake mate-Grace," Rocky trills and pokes his partner's arm through the xenonite suit. "Rocky put things away, mates stasis together."

The taller Eridian scuttles off to the far side of the bungalow, quietly rumbling as they take in the uncharacteristic mess of the place.

Rocky sets down a heavy bag of trinkets from their travels on the table and hums quietly at the thought of Grace opening them tomorrow morning. They'd been bickering over a "backsplash" for the human's food preparing station for awhile, and he had found a beautiful cut of intricately patterned xenonite at the market that Grace should love.

A high pitched whistle from Adrian has Rocky scrambling out of his thoughts.

"Song, come quiet."

Blunt claws slide across the smooth floor as the shorter Eridian shoots over, frantic clicks bouncing off the soundproof wall their human insisted on in their own home. It's not quiet, but it's urgent.

"Mate-Grace okay, question?"

He slides into Adrian's with a hollow thunk. Rocky stomps worriedly, rumbling and pausing when the sleeping body of their mate bounces back with five little shapes.

"There's pebbles in our nest, song."

They rumble and click together in the doorway for a moment. Rocky's hum picks up, gently thrumming against their mate. The connection buzzes with life—adoration, pride, want. The mates' contentedness echos across the space, kept a piano symphony to not wake their sleeping third.

"Grace very good with them," Rocky chimes with a low whistle and steadies himself against Adrian. "Mates very lucky."

Adrian hums with interest, tapping two claws together in thought. They still the movement and bring their hand up to their mate's carapace, gently petting the scarred surface through the thin layer of xenonite.