Comfort mild hurt, Rocky being overprotective of his pet human, Rocky being a heating pad, discussion of medical issues and diets/rationing food for survival
“No understand. Need word.”
“Not a word, Rock. Just a noise.” I held my pillow over my head. Mary’s lights felt so bright. Why did my head hurt? Well I drank through Olesya’s vodka ages ago, so it wasn’t a hangover, and I know I hadn’t touched her heroin.
“Why Grace make noise, question?” Rocky punctuated with his customary leg tap. He was still sitting above me on his half of the xenonite barrier.
“Because I’m not feeling good.”
“Grace not feel good? Grace sick?? Grace sick and die, question????”
Rocky stood up, moving frantically as he chanted “bad bad bad!!!”. I held the pillow over my head tighter, the tapping on the xenonite making my head pulse.
“Not dying, bud. Just a headache. Light and noise make it worse.”
He calmed back down, settling back into his spot to watch me rest.
“Ah, is regular human ailment. Grace take medicine, question?”
“Lie lie lie. Rocky watch Grace sleep, Grace no take medicine from Armando. Grace think Rocky stupid, question?”
I groan, retreating into my blanket and pillow fortress of solitude.
“Grace need medicine to feel better. Grace also need water, statement. Leaky human, must replace lost fluid from inefficient design.”
“It’s not like I designed the human body myself.” I grumble, but ask Armando for the water and a half dose of ibuprofen.
“What causes headache, question?”
I know the probable reason. I’ve been trying really hard not to think about it. Cons of being a scientist, there was always a brewing hypothesis.
“All sorts of things can cause headaches. They’re a fairly common symptom for humans.”
“Not what Rocky mean. What cause Grace headache, question?”
“…I’m not sure, bud. It’s hard to be certain.”
“Grace lie. Heartbeat increase.”
The water is room temperature, but soothing nonetheless. I’ve mostly grown used to it by now. If I really wanted cold water I’m sure Rocky would help engineer a system to cool it, but I didn’t care that much.
Rocky’s vents huffed out hot air, his body swaying back and forth in annoyance as I avoided answering him. Air of my own escaped in a sigh.
“It’s probably because of the food rationing. It’s not a big deal, really.” It wasn’t a lie. Of all the possible symptoms of malnutrition, a moderate headache was practically perfect health. A small part of me wouldn’t stop running through all the possible consequences of my forced diet.
Unlike that part of me, Rocky grew silent as he thought.
“Still three years to Erid.”
“Not enough food for Grace.”
I’d been putting off transitioning to the coma slurry. I still had enough real food to last me for another month or two. Ideally, I would have started transitioning to the coma slurry to have some real food once a week to break up the paste diet, but I was resisting. The coma slurry really wasn’t appetizing. Even still, I didn’t have enough to make it to Erid. We were working on making enough taumoeba to test as a food source, but our experiment wasn’t ready to run yet. I’d already tried to remove the toxic metals from one of rocky’s food packs, but to no avail.
A shiver ran through me. I’d lost a not insignificant amount of weight already, and the room temperature of the ship felt colder than it had in the early days of our trip.
I heard him scrambling off to do who knows what. The quiet was nice, my body relaxing into the bed with another shiver.
A few moments later, a warm ball bumped into me.
“Huh? Rocky, what’re you-“
“Grace cold. Rocky temperature warm warm warm. Rocky keep Grace warm too, statement.”
“Better for watching Grace sleep also. Many benefits. Grace sleep now, let body heal.”
I curled around the xenonite ball. He was indeed nice and warm. My eyes started to flutter closed again against my will.
“Rocky watch Grace sleep, statement.”
