Chapter Text
Log 1
Written by Jawbreaker
Greetings.
I am Jawbreaker, as named by Saviour Grace for my color composition. Mostly whites and yellows, with some bright blues and reds and darker hues mixed in. Grace says these are wavelengths of light radiation he can sense much like how Eridians hear our surroundings. Fascinating. Unfathomable. All I know is that I am a dotted and striped texture, so this information is practically useless to me.
Apparently I look like a strange artificial agate called Fordite. You would think Grace would name me something more appropriate to the etymology, like Detroit or Ford. Human naming culture confuses me.
Still, it is nice to know that Savior Grace thinks I’m pretty.
Anyway, I am 156.372 earth years. Carapace diameter is one 1.51 earth feet, or 0.46 earth meters. Carapace height 2.01 feet, or 0.613 meters. Average limb length is 4.02 ft, 1.226 m. I do not understand why humans have multiple units for measuring dimension. Approximate carapace shape: warped dodecahedron.
I am Grace’s Eridian doctor/dentist. (In training)
Up until this point, our senior Xenobiologists have been handling Grace’s caloric and vitamin intake, and closely monitoring his overall health. It has recently been noticed that the interior bones of his mouth- teeth, that’s the word- are pitted. Increased movement of tongue has also been recorded.
I have been researching human biology on knowledge device as part of my Xenobiology degree. Hypothesis is that Grace is in pain due to a cavity. Glucose intake has been somewhat high to mask flavor of required vitamins and minerals. Sugar feeds natural bacteria which produce plaque and materials that eat away at human teeth mineral: enamel.
He is not allowed receptor blocking agents to mask pain- unless completely necessary- so this must be remedied at once before it can get worse. This task is being delegated to me because Grace’s care robot was never equipped for such long-term ailments, and I have “shown promise” in the dexterity tests of equipment made for Grace’s checkups.
In other words, I have small dainty hands.
I am not looking forward to the work ahead of me, but at the very least I have a suit to keep human fluids off of me.
END OF LOG
~ Sanitization Complete ~
The dome-side of the sanitizing chamber whirs open, revealing the fine sand of Grace’s external habitat. Water laps lazily at the artificial shoreline, hardly touching the many trailing footsteps left by Grace and Rocky. In the distance, his teaching cave is unoccupied and silent. Good, I won’t have to interrupt pebble class.
Jawbreaker marches quickly to the xenonite house at the middle point of the beach. Or at least, tries to. Carrying a bag and walking with three stick legs in soft sand is exactly as hard as it sounds. They chirp in annoyance and place the bag on top of their carapace, balancing it carefully as they trudge onward to Grace’s abode.
They shake off the sand with a quick carapace bump on the porch and a low frequency hum.
Grace doesn’t come to the door. Did he not hear them? They tap on the door gently.
“One sec!” Grace yells. The sound reverberates inside, allowing Jawbreaker to sense exactly where he is; jogging to the door while popping something small into his mouth. They stifle a shudder of disgust.
Eating in front of others is normal for humans. Normal for Grace. Be professional.
The door swings open to reveal Grace in fine clarity. “Hey, I remember you!” He bares his teeth in a slight upward curve as he talks, somehow still chewing. “It’s uh… Jawbreaker, right?”
Even with the translator singing to them within their suit, they can very clearly read his uncertainty. “Yes.” Jawbreaker tilts their carapace. “How are you not sure? You gave me that name. Is Grace sleeping enough?”
“Yes, for the last time,” he puffs. “Human brains aren’t crystal, I don’t have the kind of busted memory you do. That’s a compliment, by the way.” He swipes his tongue over his back teeth. “Did you need something?”
“Apologies,” Jawbreaker says sheepishly. “Am here for Grace’s- your check up.”
Grace’s head bobs backward. “Now?”
Jawbreaker’s carapace hiccups. “Is… Is it not the eighth hour of your earth day?”
Grace motions suddenly with his hand, making a strange expression they don’t remember reading about. “Eight P.M.” he says gently. “It’s the eighth hour of the afternoon. There’s also military time, which would make it hour 20. Night time.”
Jawbreaker stomps a foot, chiding themselves in a frequency Grace can’t hear. PM! Of all the things to mess up, it had to be earth time?! Stupid! They take their bag off their carapace, clicking apologetically. “Noted. Will come at a more convenient time at the next instance. Is it still acceptable to conduct your appointment now?”
Grace’s brows raise. “Yeah, I’m not doing anything important.” He steps aside, leaving the door open for Jawbreaker to scuttle inside. They quickly shuffle their hands and feet on the coarse floor mat, cringing at the awful scraping noise against the Xenonite suit. Even though a few Eridians had warned them about it, they didn’t think it would be as awful as it is.
“Okay. Clean. Where do you sit for check up?” They follow Grace as he wanders inside, keeping a distance of at least two meters. Personal space was something they really wanted to get right.
Studying all the inexplicable senses humans possessed was one of Jawbreakers favorite units in class. But now wasn’t the time to nerd out about human quirks, even though they really wanted to ask what being watched felt like. Was being watched with sonar the same?
“The kitchen, I guess. It’ll be easier to clean if you’re taking samples.” He turns into a small room with lots of flat surfaces and walks up to a table with a single chair beside it. It was a bit of a marvel to Jawbreaker- and Eridians in general.
A whole room dedicated to eating with other beings? Often with no doors and a bit of a natural reverb chamber- so that any Eridian could see Grace stuffing his face with clone-burgers at every possible angle.
What a nightmare.
Jawbreaker sets their bag on the floor, unclasping the hooks holding it shut. “Might take samples. What did you eat before answering the door?”
Grace stops, holding the back of the chair. “Uh… My vitamin tablet.”
“Grace is supposed to take them with other food,” they reply, removing a folded Xenonite stepladder from their bag and assembling it with a quick flick.
“Y-Yeah, well… I did,” he starts, rubbing the back of his neck. Jawbreaker can’t help but notice that his heart rate has risen slightly. “That was a second one.”
“Why would you do that?” Jawbreaker squeaks indignantly, climbing the ladder and walking onto the table. “Isn’t excessive vitamin intake harmful?”
Grace doesn’t answer for 4.37 seconds, despite his mouth being open for most of that. “Look, they taste really good, okay?”
Jawbreaker groans internally as they retrieve their bag from the floor. “How many vitamins has Grace taken in excess, question?”
He drums his fingers against the chair’s backing. “Maybe one extra a day for the last… I dunno, few months?” After a couple more seconds, he adds, “Okay, make that like three or four extra.”
Jawbreaker’s vocals slip into the flutey tones of frustration. “You are destroying your teeth! Your last set of teeth!” They gather themselves with a rumble before gesturing to the chair with one hand, and pulling out cleaning equipment with the other. “Sit. I check teeth. I clean.”
Grace’s lips tug to one side. Discomfort, they diagnose.
“My teeth are fine,” he says, plopping down into the chair and scooting closer to the table.
“Elevated heart rate. You lie. Are you brushing teeth regularly with cleaning paste?”
Grace takes a deep breath, watching them take up metal instruments with precise form-fitting grips. Heart rate still high. “I forget once in blue moon, but I brush well. It’s not like I want to get cavities. Sometimes they just happen.”
“Abnormalities in PH of saliva?” They ask, turning to Grace with the tools. He shrugs. Sweat starts to bead on his forehead. Thumpthump-Thumpthump-Thumpthump.
Weird. Why is he so stressed?
“Is Grace okay? Your functions are behaving abnormally.”
“M’fine.” He says, very unconvincingly. “Lets get this over with, ‘kay?”
“Agreed.” They wait awkwardly while Grace tilts his head back and opens his mouth. Strangely, he also closes his eyes. Jawbreaker doesn’t think too hard about it. Maybe its some courtesy with that being watched sense.
They proceed to take cursory glances inside his mouth with sonar, checking the integrity of each tooth with fine precision. The second molar on his left side indeed has a cavity, though it’s not as bad as Jawbreaker thought. The rest of his teeth are mostly fine. A little chalky due to the vitamin he ate, but fine.
“You have one cavity. I clean teeth, then I fix.” They say.
Grace startles when metal clinks against their Xenonite suit. “I don’t wanna know. Just do what you gotta do.”
Finally it clicks.
It was something that was briefly mentioned in some of the material they read for this role. Keeping patients calm was a big part of the experience. Sometimes the use of laughing gas or numbing agents were necessary to complete procedures on people with phobias.
“I am gentle. Fast. Promise promise promise.” Jawbreaker quickly sets to work, resting their carapace on the table so they can operate tools with three hands. Pick, rinser, and suction. Grace is tense the entire time. His shoulders and eyebrows couldn’t be much more constricted. And even though the work is pretty satisfying, they can’t help the discomfort radiating through their carapace.
^^^
Grace’s teeth are uncanny. They’re basically exposed bones. Bones that kinda look like little pebbles. Bones that are a lot like the carapace cracking teeth of the predators on Erid. Jawbreaker almost shrieked when they saw what the roots looked like.
And that wasn’t even mentioning the other horrible thing taking up most of his mouth. A tongue. Squishy. Dirty. Prehensile in a way that should not be possible. It was a muscle, and yet it somehow also allowed humans to taste with little organs called taste buds. And what a problem that was. Not only does this make the tongue a breeding ground for bacteria, it also tempted humans to eat things they definitely shouldn’t.
There was also the tonsils- which Grace didn’t seem to have- and the little fleshy thing dangling from his palette that they needed to avoid like the plague.
^^^
Horrible, all of it.
Finally, they get to the bad part. (For Grace) They don’t say anything. They just pretend they’re still cleaning another innocuous part of Grace’s mouth. In actuality, they’re sneakily delving into their bag and procuring the tools needed to numb the area.
They’re mid-poke when Grace suddenly decides to attempt speaking.
“Ai Ee Un Ea?” He says, in a sloppy panicked singing tone that roughly translates to; are you done yet, in the worst accent they’ve ever heard. The fact that Jawbreaker could understand him at all was a miracle on its own.
“Not done. Open wider.” They say sternly, retracting the numbing agent and going in with the more- barbaric tools.
The earth renditions of enamel drills weren’t awful in function, but loud. Shockingly loud. Jawbreaker tried using a replica they built in the engineering labs for one of their classes- and almost threw the damn thing. They had to Erid-ify the design so it was silent. Otherwise it would be like trying to operate blind.
It was no wonder humans could be so afraid of dental procedures. Loud. Painful. Uncomfortable. Possibly expensive, if they had done all their research right. Oh, and smelly. Whatever that meant.
“Grace doesn’t have to pay for this.” They say softly, which earns the tiniest laugh. “Would give prize when done, but have nothing to give.” They very carefully withdraw the drill and clean out the area.
“That’s okay,” Grace replies in Eridian, a little clearer this time. “Cavity now?”
“Oh, done with cavity.” Jawbreaker hums cheekily. Grace shoots them a shocked look, mouth still agape. “Yes yes yes. I fill now. No pain, promise!”
Grace groans in relief and slumps back into the chair. They trill happily, waggling their carapace as they retrieve the two-part mix and setting light. This had gone as well as they could have hoped. Minus the excessive vitamin consumption. Jawbreaker would have to tell Grace’s nutritionist to decrease the amount of sugar in the vitamins. But then he might eat more of them to get his fix.
Eh. That was a problem for someone else. Grace had to be smart enough to know how many vitamins were safe enough. He wasn’t dead. Yet.
“Okay, done, statement!” They tuck away their tools into the contaminated section of their bag, which also happens to house the container of spit water, tooth dust, plaque, and human microbes. Half of this bag would be going in an incinerator.
Grace closes his mouth at last, clicking his teeth and making weird faces. “I didn’ even feel you numb me.” He slurs, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve.
Jawbreaker lifts themselves higher. “Am sneaky! I knew you were scared, so I help.”
Grace smiles sheepishly. “You help’d a lot. Tha was the best dentist appointment I ever had.”
Joy wells in them, erupting out in a warbling song. “Really?! Savior Grace is serious?!”
“Heck yeah.” He puts out his hand, fingers balled toward his palm. Jawbreaker squeals in delight, bumping his fist with two hands. “I wish I could pay you, cuz you deserve it.”
“No, Grace happiness payment enough. Plus, I get good credit for degree on this!” They climb back to the floor and fold up their stepladder, tucking it away before resealing the bag. Grace follows them to the door, still futzing with his tongue. “Grace’s mouth okay now, question?”
“Yeah, jus’ feels weird,” he says, opening the door for them.
“Expected, statement. Don’t eat any more vitamins. Brush teeth after eating. Keep flossing.” Even while they’re giving these instructions, their tone is soaring.
Grace gives them an Eridian thumbs up. ”I will. Thanks, Jawbreaker.”
Jawbreaker nods their carapace forward, placing their bag on their head. “Yes yes. One question, statement. Why my name Jawbreaker?”
“Cuz’ you look like one.” Grace perks up when they chirp in confusion. “Oh, right— a jaw breaker is a giant layered ball of sugar. They come covered in little splashes of color. You look exactly like the inside of one.”
“… I am named after something that causes cavities?”
~~~
Log 2
Written by Jawbreaker
Savior Grace is ridiculous.