Do you, per chance, have any hcs of caregiver Rocky and how he could take care of Little Grace?
Caregiver!Rocky and Little!Ryland Grace Headcanons | Sfw Agere 🌋
CWs: “impure”/stress-induced age regression, angst, dissociation. grace struggles to take care of himself. || ty for the ask!
☆ i think rocky has no issues with adapting to grace’s regression because humans are just Weird. yeah grace needs to act like a hatchling sometimes to cope, but rocky has to hear all of grace’s metabolism functions so there’s weirder things about his species.
☆ the first time it happens, rocky just treats him gently. he doesn’t really understand why grace is acting like an eridian hatchling. humans cry to show distress, and regression of fine motor skills & speech can be a sign of a medical emergency. he thinks something is very wrong. rocky tells him stories and sings an eridian lullaby until grace falls asleep. upon waking up, grace is mortified and explains his… “thing.”
☆ rocky does research on age regression and human hatchlings! he figures out that a lot of grace’s grumpy attitude has just been him teetering on the edge of regression. it was only a matter of time before the poor thing dropped :(
☆ rocky is very nervous he’s going to upset grace at first. tiny grace is almost always leaking and rocky doesn’t want to be the cause of it :( he remembers every single trigger his hatchling has and makes a note to avoid it. unfortunately, some of these things are unavoidable (like medicine) and rocky apologizes while grace cries. he doesn’t know where all the tears come from, rocky swears he isn’t giving grace that much water.
☆ once grace gets settled into their dynamic, regression becomes part of their night routine. they know it’s time to pack up and get cozy when grace starts dropping things. slowly, he stops fighting it and even looks forward to it. he just had to make peace with the small part of him instead of treating it like something to cut out.
☆ he’s very good at noticing the signs grace is regressing. he can hear how his hands shake and how his heartbeat is racing from anxiety. not to mention rocky being able to tell grace has something Not For Pebbles™ in his mouth from across the ship.
☆ he makes the xenonite suit on the way to erid so he can be closer to grace. it takes awhile, but the delight on ryland’s face when rocky properly holds him is worth the wait. plus it’s easier to herd his human around the ship when you don’t have to push a massive ball.
☆ rocky has to make sure his friend is taking care of himself, and it leads to a lot of tiny arguments that end with tears and apologies. the eridian doesn’t like watching his friend hurt himself, even if it isn’t physical pain. rocky knows firsthand that those wounds can be just as bad if not worse.
“grace been working on same culture for twenty minutes. time for break,” rocky stomps three times in his ball.
“gimme ten more minutes,” the human grumbles and turns back to the table. he hasn’t really gotten anything done in the previous twenty. his brain feels slippery and his eyes feel numb. grace knows he needs a break, but he’s gotta get this done.
“grace hatchling time, statement.”
grace makes an offended little noise. he wasn’t small and even if he was, he hid it well! (read: he doesn’t hide it well at all.)
“‘m not small,” grace whispers and stares down the astrophage in his petri dish. “working on important stuff.”
rocky rolls his ball away and—hey! this wasn’t how this was supposed to go! grace thought rocky was gonna argue with him. his brain gets fuzzier when the satisfaction of fighting care is taken from him.
“rocky?” grace calls out and stands on wobbly legs. “where are you goin’?”
“rocky in don’t-go-crazy room. going to watch food weather movie, but grace too big to join.”
grace’s eyes look between the astrophage and the corridor over and over. he doesn’t want to do experiments, he wants to be comfy!
grace toddles into the screening room and is met with rocky standing smugly, grace’s regression gear already laid out on the platform.
cloudy with a chance of meatballs is his favorite movie and the quilt sounds much better than the cold lab… maybe he can stay for a little while.
“sorry,” grace whispers and plops down on the quilt.
“ryland have nothing to be sorry for.”
“i was mean and lied—tha’s bad,” the human’s lip wobbles and he picks at the pocket of his cargo pants. “didn’t want to be bad.”
“ryland was scared and make bad choice,” rocky pushes the ball forward so they’re touching. “ryland was in bad situation that lead to bad choices. that doesn’t make him bad.”
he doesn’t want to accept it as an answer—that there’s a reason he does this. it’s all buried in decades of dissociation and stratt’s amnesia drugs. he doesn’t want to dig when he could just forget, even if the pain comes out anyway.
“dunno why i do it, wasn’t big at all,” his voice is as small and pathetic as he feels. he’s so hyperaware that this reaction isn’t normal, that he should be communicating like an adult instead of whatever this is. the shame is red and hot and he wants to hide. “it’s stupid.”
rocky makes an offended chirp at the comment. his human wasn’t stupid, he was the smartest human rocky has ever met!
“ryland scared and fight anyway,” rocky drums his claws together. “that makes ryland very brave.”
a little sob comes out of the blond’s throat as he breaks and rocky gets as close as he can. he can’t touch them with his bare hands, but rocky swears to invent a way to put the pieces of ryland grace back together again.
