Chapter Text
1. Conduction
When the engines cut off, when the alarm sounds, when gravity abandons the Hail Mary, you aren’t prepared for it. You aren’t strapped down, you’re in the laboratory, cataloguing equipment, and it happens quickly.
A yelp involuntarily escapes your lips as your feet leave the ground. “Oh my God!” You screech, as you begin floating. “Holy shit!” From the other room, you can hear Dr. Grace’s own scream, clearer now that the constant buzz of the engine is silent. “Dr. Grace!” You call. “Are we in orbit?” No response, other than another squeal. Sigh.
You let go of the table that you’ve got a dead grip on, and slowly push your way through the laboratory, towards the control room. It’s like swimming, except no laws of gravity apply. Duh, you think to yourself. You gradually pull-push yourself into the control room, where Dr. Grace is scrabbling with the panels and simultaneously the straps on his chair. “Dr. Grace!” He’s focused on a singular panel – the one that shows the Petrovascope’s sightings.
“Look – look. That’s their Petrova Line.” He says, each word a sharp exhale. You try your best, but you keep floating away. Eventually, you tire of the physical exertion, and you grab his – oddly muscular? – arm. “Pull me in. I can’t see from here.” His arm stiffens – in fact, his whole body stiffens, but he complies, carefully pulling you in, allowing you to grab hold of the screen in front of him.
“Thank God…” You whisper, feasting your eyes on the dark red arch on Tau Ceti. They had a Petrova Line. This mission, your sacrifice, wasn’t going to be for nothing. There was a reason that Tau Ceti wasn’t impacted.
You turn back to Dr. Grace, whose face is filled with the same relief, and smile. However, the moment you let go of the screen, you begin to float off again. “Shit!” You squeak, quickly grabbing hold of whatever you could – which, in this case, was Dr. Grace’s shoulders. Which were, again, oddly muscular. Dr. Grace physically jitters below your touch, his face shifting into an indescribable emotion. “Sorry, sorry.” You sigh, using him as a sort of jumping pad to slowly manoeuvre your way back down, and into the chair next to him.
As you buckle yourself into a chair, Dr. Grace finally relaxes, shrugging his shoulders minutely.
Later, after the chaos, and events, and first contact (oh my God. First contact!), you lay in your pod, staring up at the joints in the Hail Mary ceiling. Why had Dr. Grace reacted like that? Surely, he wasn’t that sensitive to touch?
2. Convection
The moment you lay eyes on Grace, you know he’s sick. Fresh from your fitful stint at sleep, you stumble into the laboratory, sipping from your coffee cup, and stop short. Grace is hunched over the table, typing furiously into his laptop. Paper is strewn across the floor, and he’s muttering. “Tank Three was an utter failure. Tank Two had barely any survivors…”
The breeding tanks are scattered in a mandala around him, and he looks like an absolute mess. His blonde hair sticks in every which direction, there are huge bags under his eyes, and his face is flushed. Almost rose, you think to yourself.
Approaching him, you bump into another breeding tank, which alerts Grace to your presence. He jerks, before composing himself and looking up from his laptop. “Oh. Hey. You sleep well?” He yawns, running an absent hand through his already-mussed locks.
“Yes – it’s your turn. I’ll watch Rocky, and the breeding tanks. Go to sleep, you look like you need it.” You say worriedly, catching the roughness in his voice and the slowness of his movement. “Right. Yeah. I’ll finish this up, and…” He yawns again. “And then go to sleep. Thanks.” You nod, and begin picking up the papers and the breeding tanks from the floor.
You work in comfortable silence for a few beats, you shuffling the laboratory back into a semblance of order, while Grace completes his experiment report. Rocky is, as he has been for the past week, prone on the bottom of his xenonite enclosure. God, you think, a painful twist in your chest, please let him wake up.
Eventually, you hear a light sigh from Grace, and the quiet creak of his old Dell laptop closing. “Right, I’ll be off to bed now.” You turn to see him padding back to the dormitory capsule. “Goodnight. Sleep tight.” You call after him, and he waves a lethargic hand in acknowledgment.
You exhale, a short huff from your nose. He had overworked himself again. It had gotten so much worse since Rocky…well.
Both of you had been concussed, and unconscious, during the Adrian manoeuvre. Rocky had had to break out of his xenonite bubble to rescue you both, or you’d all be dead. You pray inwardly, to whatever god was willing to listen, that Rocky was not dead, just sleeping.
Your gaze flickers back to Rocky, who looks, for all meaning of the word, very dead. You exhale again.
You spend the time refilling the breeding tanks, adjusting the nitrogen levels back to the lower ranges, and resetting the experiment. It was taking a long time to breed Taumoeba resistant to both Venus’ and Threeworld’s atmosphere. They had hit a plateau at 1%, and it was taking all of your patience to slowly coax the Taumoeba into accepting more nitrogen.
Eventually, there was nothing left to do but wait. The tanks were all re-equipped, the Taumoeba (hopefully!) becoming more resistant to nitrogen, and the lab was still again. You stand up, twisting your back till it cracks, and, after casting a last glance at Rocky, head to the dormitory to get a drink of water.
The dormitory is quiet, the lights dimmed for Grace’s benefit, and you whisper your command, “Water” to Armando, who quickly acquiesces, a robotic arm dipping down to hand you a pouch of water. As you sip on it, you look down at Grace, who is curled up in his pod-bed. Something’s not quite right. He’s panting, slightly, and his face has become even more flushed, verging on scarlet. His hair is matted with sweat, and is sticking to the back of his neck. He’s not okay.
“Grace. Grace.” You call, sweeping his hair away from his eyes. His forehead is clammy, and more importantly – burning hot. “Grace, wake up.” You say, louder, more insistently. He groans, murmurs something unintelligible, and buries his head back into his pillow.
“Brighten the lights!” You command, and the capsule obeys you. As the lights turn on, you focus on Grace, whose condition is evidently…bad. You work your gaze down his body, and zero in on his arm. The bandages have come loose, and below you see what you can only describe as infection. In his science-driven haze, he must have forgotten to change the bandages on his burn. Good lord.
“Grace, I swear to God, wake up.” You hiss, quickly pressing your hand to his forehead. He’s so hot. And not in the attractive way. His eyes open blearily, fluttering and droopy. “What…let me sleep…” He mutters, not registering how close you are to him. “Grace, you need antibiotics. Like, right now.” You urgently pull him into a sitting position, and direct Lamai’s medical robot over.
You watch as the robot finally registers that something is wrong, and begins a flurry of activity. An IV drip is jabbed into his arm, his bandages are redone, and antibiotics are pushed down his throat.
By the time the robotic arms retreat, Grace is, once again, unconscious. You return to his side, and pull his hand into yours. “Don’t do this to me.” You whisper, acidic anxiety bubbling, rising in your throat and suffocating your words. “You know I can’t do this alone.”
Somehow, you drift off in that position, cradling his hand in both of yours.
When you come to, Grace is staring bemusedly at you. “Hey…Did something happen?” He says, smiling awkwardly. You stare at him for a beat, before a rush of emotion overwhelms you, and you throw both of your arms around his neck.
“Oh! Woah…okay…” He mutters, as his arms slowly, slowly, make their way around you. “You scared me.” You whisper, tears staining his neck – which is now, thankfully, normal temperature. “I’m…sorry? What happened?” He asks, as his hands gently, though they are trembling, settle on your back.
“You dumb…fuck! You forgot to change your bandages, and your burns got infected!” You choke out through your sobs, nails digging painfully into your arms. You can feel the slow rise and fall of his chest as he breathes, in and out. “Oh.” He dumbly says, and the vibration of his vocal chords runs through you, settling you, reminding you that he’s alive. “I’m really sorry.”
You frown, and pull away from him. Still, as you do, it feels reluctant. As though the two of you had been coated in molasses. Or Taumoeba goo. Okay. Maybe a bad example. Regardless, there’s a lingering in the air between you two.
“Good,” you sniff, “Don’t do that again.”
Grace stares at you. His eyes are blue, like an ocean at rest. “I won’t. I promise.”
3. Radiation
You’re sleeping, head against Rocky’s xenonite enclosure, when a light ‘tap-tap-tap’ wakes you up. As you blink, eyes adjusting to the dim light, you notice Rocky peering at you, or at least the Eridians’ version of peering, through the xenonite wall.
You rub your eyes, and sit up. “What is it, Rocky?” You grumble. The Eridian had never woken you up from your slumber before, he respected it too much. Or maybe he had seen Ryland’s incompetence while exhausted one too many times. Anyways, this was an anomaly.
Rocky chirps, “Grace not sleep well. He is moving. Leaking.” Even through your limited understanding of Eridian vocabulary, you can understand the gist of Rocky’s concern. You look over at Ryland who is, as Rocky said, tossing and turning in his bed. “Huh.” You exhale, yawning, before padding over to Ryland.
He’s crying, you dimly register, the tears slowly crawling from his eye to his jaw, leaving sleek, shiny slivers behind. Your hand reaches out, slowly rubbing away each trail, almost subconsciously. His face is cold. Much colder than usual. Your hands, normally frigid, are warm in comparison.
“Don’t. No.” He murmurs. Shifts a little more. “I don’t wanna die. Don’t make me…” Your heart winces, twisting into little tiny fragments. “Oh, Ryland…” You whisper, before lightly shaking him.
“Don’t– don’t do it– Please–” He jerks awake, his eyes wide and wild, sitting up frantically. He looks cornered. He looks pathetic. Your heart contorts more. “Ryland.” His gaze shoots up to you, and another tear spills from his eye.
“You had a nightmare. You’re okay.” You soothe, hands running over his. Normally, his hands are warm, heaters you cling on to after stints in the EVA suit, when the chill of space wriggles a little too deep into your bones. Today, they are cold. They leach the warmth from your hands, and you’re more than willing to give.
You pull him into a loose hug, one that he can easily extricate himself from, but he melts into it. Into you.
“Sorry. I must’ve woken you up.” His voice is ragged from sleep, and emotion. You shake your head, the motion evident to him, pressed into your shoulder. “No. Don’t be. I get them too.” Of explosions, of dead friends, of the vast emptiness waiting for you… You spent many nights in similar predicaments.
You stay like that for a while, long enough that you hear Rocky slowly ease back into his tinkering, the light scraping a soothing background noise.
“Alright. I’ll head back to my bed now.” You say, slowly pulling away. “Wait.” Ryland's grip tightens on your waist. “Stay. Stay with me. Please?” His voice is low, wanting, desperate. How could you say no to that? Your resolve, your inhibitions, crumble into the finest of space dust.
“Okay.” You hum. He scoots over, and you settle into his bed. It’s tiny, a tight squeeze for the both of you, but you make it work. Your arm settles over his chest, his arm wraps around you, and your legs slowly intertwine under the covers. You’re tucked into the crook of his shoulder, and every breath you take ripples across his neck.
As your breath slows, and steadies, so does his. “Thank you.” Ryland murmurs. You don’t respond, already having succumbed to sleep. You miss his gentle gaze, the way he cards his fingers through your hair, and the soft kiss he presses to your temple.
You're both warm, under the covers. Thermal equilibrium.