It Means Summer Roses

@forestglade YOU'RE A GENIUS YOU KNOW THAT RIGHT

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On the third day of Grace studying Astrophage, he woke up with a sore throat. And coughing. And congestion. He had been told in no uncertain terms that he was to report absolutely anything indicative of illness to the medical lead in the facility, so he did. It went something like “Hey, no big deal, but I think I’m coming down with a cold.” 

The second he said this, things went on total lockdown. 

Like, complete, total lockdown. Nobody was going in or out of the facility. Anybody who had directly interacted with Grace in the past week was quarantined. Grace, most of all, was extremely quarantined. He was stuck in a tiny triple-plastic-lined, airtight tent, observable from all sides. Medical professionals interacted with him through thick blue positive-pressure hazmat suits—the most secure possible equipment, reserved only for dangerous infectious diseases that have no available treatment. Or, in this case, for when you had no idea what you were up against. 

And get this: Stratt was mega-quarantined too, right next to him. She didn’t have a choice. She felt normal, but she had spent an inordinate amount of time near Grace in the past few days while he had been working on the first discoveries humanity would make about Astrophage. She couldn’t risk anything. 

She was working on commanding the situation from within her little tent. She had her laptop and an intercom system, plus a radio that connected to who knows what. Grace had an intercom system, too—it routed directly to a room of infectious disease specialists, and could also access Stratt’s tent. 

Grace clicked the intercom button on to Stratt. “So,” he said. 

“Unless you have some really useful information to communicate to me, I don’t want to hear it,” Stratt said. 

“Oh I’ve got useful information, alright.” 

“Uh-huh?” 

“This is ridiculous.” 

She made a show of pushing the intercom away. She turned back to her laptop. Grace plowed right ahead. 

“I’m telling you,” he said. “It’s just not possible. Microbes are specialized. These would never have a single way to infect a human being. And if the Astrophage is hurting me somehow, it wouldn’t be contagious. It would be from some byproduct they off-gas, or—” 

—This ramble probably would’ve sounded more convincing if it wasn’t cut short by uncontrollable coughing. Stratt just watched him impassively through the plastic. She waited for him to stop. 

“I don’t want to be doing this any more than you do,” she said. “There would be world-ending consequences if you’re wrong.” 

“I’m not,” he huffed. 

“You could certainly be.” 

“You sound like you’ve watched too many horror movies. This is absurd. I have the sniffles.” 

She did not reply to this. Grace could vaguely see through the plastic sheeting that she shook her head. Then she looked back towards him, and pressed the button again. 

“Don’t look now,” she said. 

Grace knitted his brows together and glanced around. Then he swung his head to look behind him. 

Ah. Three of those blue hazmat suit personnel were walking right up to his tent. 

They entered extremely carefully. Swabbed his nose. Double-bagged that. Swabbed his throat. Same deal. Sat him down on a gurney and took far too many blood samples from him, like six vials. He tried not to look. He had to lay back on the gurney to wait for the queasiness to fade afterwards, which was fine, because the hazmat people were done with him for the time being. 

A few minutes of silence passed before Grace’s intercom crackled to life again, coming in hot from Stratt’s tent. 

“No more choice words for me?” She asked. 

Grace waved his hand dismissively at her from the bed without looking up. 

Silence from the both of them followed, and Grace stayed laying down like this for about twenty minutes. Then he got extremely bored. He went straight for poor Stratt’s intercom the moment he got bored. 

“You’re gonna owe me a beer when I’m right about this,” he prodded. 

She finished typing something. Then she pressed her button. “No.” 

He knew darn well she meant that. 

He did other things to occupy himself for a while. Started counting ceiling tiles, you know. 

A standard blood test and swab only took a handful of minutes to run, but whatever they were doing, they were being extremely thorough with it. Hours passed, and it only felt longer for the illness. He was shivering from the ambient chilled air in the tent and wiping gross lines of snot onto his sleeves, because he had no tissues in there. 

Eventually, after what felt like ages, his intercom sparked to life again. Stratt. 

“Rhinovirus. Specifically strain RV-B35, if you’re curious. You have the sniffles.” 

“Oh, really?” he said. 

“Cut the melodrama,” she said, without any heat to it. 

“Can I be let out of here now, please? I just want my bed and some medicine.” 

Stratt spoke quietly, quickly, into a radio. 

74 hours before:

Rocky: Grace use scraping tool on face bones, sound so disgust

Grace: well its this or my teeth falling out, buddy

Rocky: human body so disgust! Grace bother Rocky with bone scraping sound!

Grace: it sure wouldn't bother you if you gave a bit of privacy for taking care of normal bodily functions!

Rocky: Rocky cannot control, see everything on ship! Grace just stupid and mean!

Mary: conflict detected, initiate reconciliation protocol

*Grace proceeds to spend all week pissing Rocky off by loudly brushing his teeth at random intervals of the day *

[260206] Fansign Yunho

A Hotteok gifted yunho a notebook “10 things i like about yunho”

He varies intensely but he’s still the same ol Eridian!!