Seraph

close up of our dear borrower friend, Dove Clover

please tell me how I did or find me on art fight under the username Forgottenfroggie! I'm hoping to do some more g/t this year, and Dove's twin Lark is awful lonely hehe

Simon doesn’t even lift his head to give a shrill whistle through his teeth. He’s not calling out to someone who might have a hard time hearing him several rooms away. He’s calling to an alien who can see through walls with how impeccable their hearing is.

Sure enough, a whistle is sung back to him as an immediate response. One that has a distinct lack of warbled notes from pain or panic.

Yep, he’s allowed to be pissed. Time to take his anger out on who caused it.

Simon doesn’t even bother to turn off the tablet he was reading from. He simply pushes himself to a stand, boots thumping harshly against the floor as he makes his way down the hall. His eyes scan each room his passes, lingering on the pilot’s chair in case someone was up there needing to check and correct their current course. As he continuously comes up empty handed of a target, he’s encouraged by soft whistling just loud enough to guide him toward the lab that at least one of them is waiting for him there.

Rocky sits curled up inside his metal ball in the middle of the lab’s walkway. Despite the fact the Butcher is currently in a mood all of the Hail Mary crew are now well aware of the signs and consequences of, one thing the rock spider has never done and that’s run away like a coward. Simon can’t help but respect him for it, though the same can’t be said for Grace who seems to have already found a corner to hide away in.

“What did Grace Rocky do, question?” Rocky stomps. Always willing to get straight to the point, another thing Simon respects.

“It’s quiet,” is huffed in response. A little too casually considering he just promised a death sentence.

But rather than immediately spring up to go on the offensive to defend himself against Simon, Rocky stays curled up in what he claims to be a comfortable position, three limbs continuing to work on his newest project instead of quickly tucking everything away. “Apologies, Grace small. Quiet better for small Grace.”

Simon has realized the ‘human thinking machine’ is rather limited when it comes to translating Rocky’s songs. It gets the general point across, but much like how the grammar is never perfect, it also lacks certain words for fully proper translations. And don’t think he hasn’t noticed the distinct lack of swear words even though the melodic equivalent of shit is desperately trying to be communicated.

That being said, he can’t think of a single reason why the word small is being used to describe Grace’s current status. “Grace is small?”

“Grace is small, statement,” Rocky confirms, knowing what’s really being asked, that being if the wrong word had been translated. But it wasn’t, small was deliberate.

Simon’s scowl morphs into frustrated confusion as his eyes dart around the lab in the hopes he can locate the ‘small’ Grace. “How small?”

“Can fit inside message container,” Rocky replies as a fourth limb lifts to point to a grey cylinder sitting on top of one of the lab’s tables. A cylinder identical to one Simon had been told to try and crush in his fist to test his strength.

The Butcher stares at it, half expecting the apparently minuscule doctor they’ve been talking about to jump out from behind the container to shout some obscene exclamation similar to the one his shirt quoted regarding an element of surprise.

Nothing happens. What does happen is a very concerning amount of dread beginning to crawl its way through his veins as he imagines Grace small enough to fit inside the container he’s boring holes into. To be that small would make it effortless to hold him inside a fist. To end up getting crushed by a boot if its owner wasn’t watching where they stepped. To fall off one of the counters that might as well be a cliff with nothing but the unforgiving ground waiting to catch him.

Grace is small enough to make Simon into a giant. A circumstance that is being treated with the casualty of being told he fell asleep while working in the lab again. Yet no one thought to tell the newest crew member about it.

Now Simon’s extra pissed off.

“Where is he?”

As the words echo through the ship, Grace makes frantic motions with his arms to create a giant X as he desperately tries to tell Rocky no don’t reveal his hiding spot he’s fine no need to tell Simon-!

“Grace in thinking room.”

Rocky you pinky promised!

Despite the betrayal of his best friend not adhering to an agreement that’s supposed to go both ways, Grace becomes frozen where he stands out of direct line of sight between the wall and the small ledge that separates the thinking room. Because from his position, he has a clear view of the behemoth that is Simon currently looming several feet away. Or should he say miles due to his current size?

It’s…been a while since he’s been small around another fellow human. Rocky’s one thing, that being a force to be reckon with even when Grace is at his normal height and the equivalent of several moving buildings when he’s shrunk, but a human being is completely different. They have hands that tend to be a bit grabby. Familiar expressions now the size of a billboard. A reminder of what it looks and feels like whenever he shifts in the opposite direction and grows rather than shrinks.

And they stomp. Oh how much they stomp, especially middle schoolers who are much too curious about their shrunken teacher and therefore will hold off getting Ms. Bell from next door and instead request he continues the lesson while being passed around like any other show-and-tell item he brought to the classroom.

But even though it’s been a while since he’s been small around someone, the most valuable thing he learned is to always stay still. Because as long as he doesn’t move, then he won’t be-

“On floor. By wall.”

What the flippity flip, Rocky?!

The feeling of being watched settles over Grace’s shoulders like a blanket. And as his eyes trail up the boots with rubber thicker than he is tall, up legs stretching taller than skyscrapers, past the usually hilarious ‘I had potential’ physics joke that doesn’t even make him crack a smile this time around, all the way up to the carefully emotionless stare of Simon.

Neither of them look away as their eyes meet, the significantly smaller feeling pinned down by the stare alone as the significantly larger takes a moment to comprehend what exactly he’s looking at.

Once his fellow human realizes it is, in fact, a small Grace posed as though he was just caught trying to steal snacks out of his own desk’s drawer, Simon’s brow furrows into what can only be described as confuzzled anger before a catastrophic boot big enough to flatten him like a bug shifts ever so slightly.

Logically, he knows it’s Simon. Knows this is someone who, despite being a bit on the grumpier side, has spoken through his actions he is a kind person who just wants to help others. For every time he’s kicked Rocky’s ball to send the Eridian flying across the Hail Mary and roughly manhandled Grace whenever his boundaries are pushed, there’s been the times he’s helped Rocky get unstuck when he’s rolled into a tight corner and when he’s pinned Grace down to force him to get some sleep after staying awake for 48 hours straight.

And yet despite knowing that, the only thing Grace can think about is the fact someone is coming for him. So before the giant even has the chance to take a single step to initiate the chase, he turns on his heal and books it.

Grace sprints for the nearest cover, that being the servos locked on rolling tracks. He’ll have to worry about keeping track of where each one might be moved in the attempt to catch him out in the open, but at least the space underneath is too small for a hand to properly reach under to grab him.

The only issue? Even as he runs as fast as he possibly can, he can already feel the ground quaking beneath his converse with a foreboding thump as those boots follow after him. Gain up on him, the ground shaking steadily turning into devastating earthquakes at an alarming rate as an ominous shadow creeps over him.

But he can’t stop. He has to get away, has to-!

“This isn’t up for debate, Ryland.”

He couldn’t help flinching at his first name being all but spat like a curse word. Stared across the table at Stratt watching him with something akin to apathy.

“I can’t go,” he murmured, struggled to keep his voice even. “My kids-“

“-will die because of you,” she snapped. He flinched as he lost an inch in height. “You want to keep your students safe? Then you won’t act like a coward and run away.”

Grace shook his head. Swallowed as his throat threatened to close. “I’m not-“

“Yes you are,” made him lose yet another inch in height. “You’re a coward. You’re weak.” Another four inches as he started to shrink rapidly with every barb she sent straight into his heart. “The only way you can ensure everyone who has sacrificed their lives for this mission didn’t do it in vein is get on that ship.”

He couldn’t stop himself anymore. Even as he fought to try and grow just a few feet, he shrunk too quickly to stop it. In the end he found himself standing on the floor at only two inches tall, frozen as he struggled to breathe as he stared at Stratt’s boots from where she still sat. As if she wasn’t cutting him down both figuratively and literally.

And then she stood up. And Grace was faced with the fact he was a coward as he watched in horror as those boots started coming for him.

Once Stratt rounded the table, she stood towering above him with a look of destain. Like he was an uninvited bug that she wanted to do nothing more than squash.

“Have you made your final decision?”

His answer was to turn in the opposite direction and run, on legs that trembled as he desperately ran for his life, only to stumble and trip-

A yelp escapes Grace as he falls out of the memory he wishes to never visit again, only to scream as a wall of rubber lands directly in front of him. “Holy-!”

The shrunken man doesn’t have enough time to stop his momentum before colliding with the awfully familiar boot. He does manage to lift his arms up to protect his face, but it does nothing to stop him from painfully bouncing off before falling onto his butt.

“Ow.”

“Lose any teeth?”

Grace freezes at the words rumbling like thunder directly overhead, staring at the ground after curling up as he held his head waiting for the world to stop spinning. Slowly, as if not to startle the living storm cloud, he lifts his head as his eyes lock onto the objects in his immediate proximity. To his right, the boot doesn’t so much as shift, the proven formidable barrier not leaving anytime soon. To his left, a hand with fingers longer than he is tall attempting to look unassuming from where it rests a few feet away.

Gulping, Grace eyes focus directly above him, every muscle tensing as he sees Simon kneeling in front of him, so close the giant casts an inescapable shadow over the infinitesimal figure. And his expression leans more toward the side of frustration than anything else.

They stare at each other for a few moments. Huh, he would’ve thought he’d be grabbed by now.

“Uh,” Grace begins, a little uncertain what to do after he, you know, ran from a fellow crew member. “Wh-What was the question again?”

It’s impossible to miss the way Simon leans in closer with just how big he is, the sight making Grace want to run again at the thought of the towering being falling on him. “You ran into my boot like a dumbass. Knock out any teeth?”

Grace winces before shaking his head, only to immediately regret it as he sucks in a sharp breath from the pain it causes. But the good news is it’s not a concussion and he is not missing any teeth. “Nope! All good! Just got some sense knocked into me.”

His attempt at a cheesy smile falls as Simon full on scowls at him, he’s not supposed to run anymore he should not start running. “Was it enough sense to tell me why you’re small enough to get crushed under my thumb?”

And wow Grace absolutely hates that imagery if his body shivering involuntarily has anything to say about it. He thinks he would’ve preferred being compared to a bug.

“Well,” he begins, coughing into his fist as he straightens up, crossing his legs as he carefully uncurls from his protective ball. He tries to meet Simon’s eyes to have an earnest conversation, but one second against the intense look and he turns his head away as he rubs the back of his neck self-consciously. “I, uh, reflexively shrunk when one of my experiments kind of exploded, and it’s taking a little longer than usual to grow.”

Grace glances over to watch Simon’s reaction, freezing when the scowl only gets deeper. “You shrunk, or your experiment shrunk you?”

Oh snap, he forgot to tell Simon about his status as a sizeshifter.

Well, actually, that’s a fib. He didn’t forget, more-so couldn’t find the right way to explain it to someone who has a hard time trusting everything he and Rocky say and do. If Simon needed an entire month just to accept the fact they don’t want to harm him after being told a little bit more of how he ended up on the Hail Mary, Grace didn’t think it would be wise to throw in the fact one of his newest crew members can shrink and grow at will.

Grace should’ve taken into account how this might look. Simon stumbling upon someone small enough to, as mentioned, crush under his thumb, and assuming they either don’t trust him, or there’s something malicious going on. Or, if they’re hiding this, then what else can they be hiding.

And that’s how Grace finds himself hunching in on himself, shoulders hiked up to his ears, thoroughly reprimanded. “I shrunk. I’m a sizeshifter, so I can shrink whenever I want, and sometimes when I don’t because something startled me.”

Or when emotions overwhelm him.

“You don’t just grow?”

“Huh?” Grace asks as he looks up to meet Simon’s raised eyebrow. “You, you know I can grow?”

“You grew the first time we met,” the towering man replies with a hint of exasperation. “You got big enough to pin me with one hand, and yet you decided to not to use the advantage like an idiot.”

He did grow when they first met? It wasn’t too long ago when Simon first appeared, but there had been a lot going on. Did he really use his size to scare someone? Had wanted to do something like that?

The giant sighs through his nose. “You were protecting Rocky while he slept.”

Grace’s face begins to burn when the memory surges forward. Of him hearing Mary announce there was an intruder and immediately grabbing the handheld XRF spectrometer to help defend his best friend before growing several feet. He wasn’t thinking of using his size, though, just to deter who or what ever was on the ship to not come near them.

But from Simon’s perspective, apparently he thought an honest to goodness giant was going to forcibly restrain him against his will.

“Fudge, uh, I-I hope you know I would never use my size like that,” Grace begins. And then he realizes…they never talked about this before. And with Simon clearly remembering him growing, his fellow human has most likely been worried about the next time it could happen. Might’ve even been dreading bringing it up out of fear Grace would grow and finally decide to use such an ability against him.

Oh he fricked up. “Shoot I am so sorry, Simon. I didn’t know you knew! But I would never use my size against you! I might grow again at some point, I can’t really stop it sometimes, but I won’t hurt you! Or force you to do anything! Or-!”

“Are you saying this because you’re trying to reassure me?” Simon cuts in, easily overpowering Grace’s rambling. “Or are you saying this because you’re afraid of me taking advantage of your current size?”

Grace’s eyes go wide as he shoots a glance at the hand directly beside him. “Well, it was the former.”

Instead of becoming offended of the implication Grace is now a little worried about him being so small, Simon smirks. “Glad there’s a bit of self-preservation in you.”

His question of if Simon thought there hadn’t been before this gets lost as the hand finally moves, and suddenly Grace is greeted with the all too familiar sight of a massive palm moving toward him, curled fingers aiming to scoop him up.

“Simon, wait!” the shrunken man yells as he attempts to stumble back.

Of course it’s futile. His foot gets caught by a finger, forcing a worried ‘frick!’ as he trips and falls directly onto something moving and alive. And before he can so much as blink, a pinky pins his right leg, followed by a middle finger nudging him into the center of a curling fist, with a thumb hovering just above where he’s firmly pinned down with nothing but his head visible and only one arm free.

“Simon careful with Grace, statement.”

Grace holds his breath as Simon rolls his eyes as the fist holding him tightens ever so slightly. “I’m being careful.”

Which, in the defense of someone who’s a giant for the first time, he is being careful. Grace would much rather not be grabbed and pinned by someone who’s never interacted with a sizeshifter before, but he hasn’t been hurt. He just can’t keep his heart from trying to escape with how thoroughly confined he is.

“Grace in fist.”

“And what would you have me do?” Simon demands.

To answer, Grace opens his mouth to offer some advice, only to have a silent scream escape as the first time giant stands up without any warning, making if impossible to catch his breath as the air displacement sends his hair flying, leaving him gasping once Simon stops moving.

“I only have one hand,” Simon continues as he glares, assumably, at Rocky. “Would you rather I chance having him go tumbling and not be able to catch him?”

“Simon dumb, dumb, dumb,” the Eridian responds. “Grace small before. Knows how to be small. No need fist.”

“Guys-“

Grace is cut off again not by the two continuing to argue, but by Simon suddenly walking. As a jolt jars him to his very core, the shrunken man is faced with that fact he’s more out of practice than he thought. He distinctly remembers being a pro at continuing on conversations even when his students dangled him upside down by his leg, and all the times he confidently sat on someone’s shoulder even as they ran down a hallway, yet he can only seem to focus on the sound of a xenonite ball thumping against the metal floor. His arm instinctively wraps around the finger wrapped around him as genuine fear of falling from a fatal height grips him tightly. His eyes shut tightly as the feeling of vertigo makes his stomach flip.

And then the warmth and safety of Simon’s hand disappears as the fingers pull away, leaving Grace shouting in surprise as he stumbles onto flat ground.

Before he can face plant, a finger wraps around his chest to keep him upright. “Has Rocky used ‘ungraceful’ as an insult yet.”

“No understand.”

“Do not explain it to him,” Grace pleads breathlessly as he uses the finger to steady himself, carefully balancing on wobbly legs that did not enjoy the impromptu grab.

It takes a moment, but he’s able to step away without tripping on his own feet again. Thankfully, despite being a little grabby before, Simon sets his hand down on the edge of the…counter. He’s on a counter?

Turning around, Grace comes face to face with the rest of the lab with Rocky still in his hamster ball as he rolls over to where the shrunken man stands, and Simon hovering close by after seeming to have found a chair so he’s only the size of a three story building rather than a ten.

“See? He was fine in a fist,” Simon grouses before focusing back on Grace. “How long does it normally take you to get back to your usual height?”

“Well, it depends. Sometimes a few minutes, sometimes a few hours.”

Simon gives a flat look. “How long this time around?”

“…I’m thinking a few hours,” Grace admits sheepishly.

The towering man gives a small hum in acknowledgement before abruptly standing up, sending Grace instinctively skittering back a few steps. He forgot how fast other humans are when he’s small.

“Make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid, Rocky.”

And with that, Simon stomps down the hallway, disappearing from sight before Grace even realizes what happened. Within seconds, he’s left completely stranded, unable to get down until he manages to shift again. Something that won’t be happening anytime soon.

His heart clenches at the thought he’s become a liability. And really he always has been. Growing every single time whenever his class went on field trips with him. Shrinking constantly when he was working with astrophage on Stratt’s Vat. Rocky needing to stay in a singular spot whenever he shrinks to ensure he doesn’t get crushed purely by accident.

Now Simon has to always be told whenever he shrinks to ensure he’s put somewhere high above the ground so he doesn’t end up under an unknowing boot.

Grace sighs as he plops down, legs folded so he can rest his arms on his knees. He stares across the vast distance between where he sits and the thinking room he was effortlessly picked up and carried from, the very spot he stood only minutes ago too blurry to properly see.

“What Grace study, question?” Rocky suddenly asks as the Eridian tumbles through the lab, most likely ecstatic with his newfound freedom now that a certain sizeshifter is out of harm’s way.

Grace shrugs. “Nothing big. Just looking at the blood Simon had on him.”

“Learn something new, question?”

“Other than it does not like astrophage?” the shrunken man replies. “Nope. Nothing useful.”

“Well now we know not to let it in the same room as the black goo.”

Grace jolts at Simon’s voice, yelping when the counter jumps as something is tossed onto its surface. He then stares as the man sits back down to pull what looks like the same tablet he claimed several weeks ago to slowly start going through every book, article, and scientific study known to man up until the Hail Mary was sent on her mission to save the stars.

Once Simon pulls up whatever he was reading before, he focuses back on Grace. “Need help starting on something you can do while tiny.”

“Uh,” is the only thing he can say as he attempts to process what’s being said, being offered. “No?”

“You get two more hours of research before we’re getting a minimum of 6 hours of sleep, tiny or not,” Simon announces as he turns to his tablet.

Grace stares up at the giant. Blinks a few times before rubbing his eyes to be sure he’s seeing currently. Yet Simon doesn’t disappear once.

“What Grace Rocky study now, question?” his best friend demands.

Grace’s brow furrows, stumped of a response before straightening up as an idea strikes him. “Oh! We should check on the telescope’s data!”

“Simon get telescope data!”

The man in question doesn’t hesitate to heed Rocky’s command, standing up and walking over to where both the Eridian and shrunken figure run toward to find the long sheet of data that has been slowly printing over the course of a month. Ripping it off the printer, Simon turns to the table in the middle of the lab completely void of an items littering the surface.

Grace huffs as he skids to a halt after running all this way to get to the data sheet. He’s about to ask Rocky for assistance getting across the chasm when a shadow falls over him.

At the sight of two pinching fingers reaching for him, he sprints, squawking when a thumb and first finger snag him almost immediately as his feet are lifted away from solid ground.

“Careful, careful, careful!” Rocky berates.

Simon huffs as he carefully frees Grace onto the middle table, the shrunken man only stumbling back a step before righting himself. “I think I can handle a few seconds of holding him without you thinking I’ll crush him.”

“Simon break xenonite. Simon can break Grace. Simon hurt Grace, Rocky break Simon.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

“Guys,” Grace quickly interrupts, glaring down at Rocky looking seconds away from rolling after Simon to start a physical altercation. One where they both know the human would win. “I only have 1 hour and 40 minutes left to research, focus.”

The Eridian plops down into a loaf to show his displeasure. “Focus.”

Grace jogs over to the start of the data, a string of numbers regarding the red and blue shifting light from the moon they’re getting further and further away from by the day in the hopes they can figure out if it’s staying in one place, getting left behind, or getting closer. Once Simon has sat back down and focused on his tablet, Grace begins to rattle off numbers as big as his forearm for Rocky to memorize for when they start doing the calculations.

He is really hoping he can grow before his time is up, not wanting to see how Simon intends to reinforce the minimum six hours of sleep while he’s shrunk. But he’s not dreading it. Nor is he dreading when he inevitably grows or shrinks again.