Chapter Text
This was either the universe’s idea of a very sick joke, or an incredibly veiled blessing. It seemed that -nonetheless- like many things in Ryland’s life, it wasn’t going to make the mission any easier. While Mary was blaring her alarm signals with measured urgency, he and Rocky made arduous work of dragging Blip E, which had just slammed through and destroyed a significant portion of their primary storage hull, away from the crash site, which was beginning to leak oxygen at an alarming rate.
Once he, the Eridian, and the foreign object were safely within the airlock and no longer fighting the exerting forces of the space vacuum, Grace got his first proper chance to examine the vessel. It was certainly nothing Eridian, if the material and its condition were anything to go by; what amateur and rough-house engineering he could see seemed to resemble a submarine, or what Ryland knew of submarines on Earth, at the very least. Even to describe it as rudimentary would be an understatement. From what was visible under a grossly thick coat of a partially congealed liquid, the facade had no doors, hatches, or even visible windows for that matter. All in all, the offending projectile could only be described as an oversized tin can.
Twisting off his helmet with a deep sigh, Grace made quick work of shedding his suit as he weighed up their options. Eventually he landed on the industrial thermal cutter he distantly remembers finding a few days (or was it weeks) ago in the back stores of the lab, which was presumably granted to him by Eva to amputate Mary in case of major cabin failure in any given part of the ship.
Waving along the short creature who was frantically rolling around in his own bout of professional curiosity, Ryland beckoned, “Come on, Rock. Looks like we have some serious work to do.”
“Nothing more serious than save stars. Statement." Rocky retorted, rather unimpressed, as he overtook the man in their trip down to the tool storage.
“Yeah, buddy, I know… I know.” Grace affirmed, largely to himself though he had no doubt the Eridian’s hearing would pick up his voice.
Returning with the oxy-fuel cutter and a welding mask, Ryland knelt beside the submersible, prepared to crack it open with almost no hesitation. Having any semblance of personal space on your own ship be invaded by an alien and surviving partial ammonia burns really did make one more careless when engaging with the unpredictable and the unknown.
“Grace rush. Grace not think!” Rocky chided from a few metres away as he tapped his claws on the xenonite ball to grab his crewmate’s attention “Not know what inside object. Object foreign. Could contain elements dangerous for Grace atmosphere and Rocky xenonite suit.”
“Right- that's fair.” Ryland concedes, momentarily placing the cutter on the floor and fetching a plastic tarp. Tucking it loosely under the vessel as best as he could, he resumes “There, at least now if it has anything liquid or solid inside, we can catch the spill.”
The Eridian, though clearly not fully satisfied by the crude precaution, doesn’t protest further as sparks of burning metal fly out from the hull, with Grace beginning his layman attempt at splitting this thing. Thirty minutes trickle by as he makes a fairly successful pass with the tool around the circumference of the ship’s body. With a good shove, the front falls away with a jarring clatter.
What hits him first is the smell. Comparable only perhaps to visiting a butcher shop with his father on a particularly sweltering summer day in his youth, the contents reeked of sweat, metal, and end-stage decay. Tossing up his safety mask in a hurry, Ryland pressed the back of his hand to his nose as he swallowed down a gag, examining the fluid that had begun spreading across the sheet and pooling towards his legs. Blood, it had to be blood. He’s attended enough mandatory bio lab sessions in his college years to know what a dissection specimen smells like after a few days in an unfortunately underperforming fridge. What concerned the doctor more was the promise of biomass that the blood carried with it. It was fair enough that -based on very recent anecdotal evidence- not all alien species bled, or even had a need for any form of internal liquid; but Grace had a feeling he didn’t want to discover one that could, in fact, produce such monumental amounts of sanguine.
Soon enough, the seeping blood gently guided an obscured form out of the ship’s carcass. Ryland was ready for any amalgamation of features: animal or alien, familiar or foreign. What he was most certainly unequipped for was recognising a face, a male human face, albeit the disfigurement. With sudden clarity, the tableau before him began evoking a perverse similarity to Millais’s Ophelia, or an even more deplorable image of birth.
“Holly f-” the teacher had managed to stop himself before entirely betraying the promise he made himself when he got into the profession long ago - never swear in polite company. “Mother of God…”
“Human. Human like Grace. Same species.” Rocky had helpfully provided as he scattered away from the spill, which had now far surpassed the modest area provided by the tarp.
“I think so, Rock.” Ryland agreed hesitantly as he fully removed his mask and set down the thermal cutter “Is he alive?” the question came out as barely a whisper. The Eridian had a knack for determining not only the presence but frequency of a heartbeat with his supersonic hearing and other fine-tuned senses Grace had all but given up hope of fully understanding, and he himself really didn’t feel like trudging through a meter of biohazard in his only Converse to check the pulse.
“Is breathing.” the alien supplied “Vitals low. Incredibly low. Bad, bad, bad.” he trilled with worry.
“Okay, okay. We’ll fetch Armando.” Ryland stated with a twinge of panic tainting his voice as he himself took a step away from the mess, trying to tame and compartmentalise a slew of emotions almost as complex as he’d been unlucky enough to face when he first woke up aboard the Hail Mary.
Excitement, that’s definitely one of them; be it for selfish reasons or not, the prospect of having any kindling of a chance at interacting with another human awoke a genuine kind of joy in Grace he hasn’t felt in a long time. It was a near statistical impossibility that he’d encounter any ship in open space, let alone two, one of which contains an alive and breathing man. Sometimes he really didn’t know what to make of the hands he kept being dealt. Given his track record, he couldn’t quite make out if he was in cahoots with the dealer or if he owed the house money.
Disappointment came next - or, perhaps it was better labelled as disillusionment. Beggars can’t be choosers, Grace knew that, knew that better than anyone; yet he still permitted himself to feel a pang of melancholy at the thought that this really didn’t seem like an easily winnable situation. Even if their collective efforts and the limited medical supplies aboard the ship could amount to nursing the man to health, there was no telling who would wait for them on the other side. They’d have welcomed a stranger into their home, a stranger Grace knew he’d never muster enough courage to evict. He was placing quite a lot of trust into a very volatile factor, and very little trust in himself. Recognising that never got any more pleasant with age, and it certainly didn’t get easier.
Trepidation arrived last. Another mouth to feed, another body to clothe, another mind to coddle. Ryland was barely managing his own needs; the mental fortitude it took to not succumb to sure insanity even with Rocky’s company was far from small, and he wasn’t so sure he could bear to have to guide another person through it, let alone be there for them when they inevitably struggled. He’d never admit it, but thoughts of doing away with his life have come to him often, embarrassingly enough even after he recalled the lives of millions rested on his feeble cowardly shoulders. At least as far as responsibility goes, food rationing posed little problem - what with Mary carrying enough to feed three adults for at least 6 years after the arrival at Tau-Ceti. This was a small comfort.
“Right, let’s ugh- let’s get him some urgent help and disinfect this hull at least three times. Actually, five - five would do better.” Grace eventually commanded, gesturing vaguely at the patch of gore that was now staining the majority of the floor as the nanny-robot glided towards him across the rail network.
After a few hours, Armando and Mary’s collaborative work was able to get the new arrival cleaned, bandaged, stitched, hydrated via an IV, and lord knows what else. Grace gave up on reading the list of ailments and injuries when he realised he had to refresh the medical display screen 3 times already, and the end seemed to be nowhere in sight. It was decided to induce a shallow coma for at least 24 hours to allow the man’s body to make a fair attempt at recovery before he was inevitably startled by a new environment. Another shock to the system was definitely the last thing he needed. Ryland himself made the executive decision to retire to bed once the dull ache from the strain of dragging both the vessel and the man around the ship had fully embedded itself in his muscles. Rocky agreed to watch over him with enthusiasm; he always did.
“Grace wake up. Few minutes left. Sedation terminates soon.” the Eridian chirped gently as he rolled up to the foot of Grace’s bunk. The man fought off the remnants of his slumber fairly quickly with a good yawn and an even better stretch before throwing on a pair of shoes to descend into the medical bay.
The patient looked… better, that’s for sure. Besides the somewhat expected smattering of scar tissue over what appeared to be at least 30% of his body, he was also -glaringly- missing an arm. What was left of the appendage reached only a few inches short of where his elbow would be, and was dressed immaculately in two layers of bandages and compression tape. Other than that, the man looked surprisingly healthy; his eyes weren’t sunken, his skin had regained a healthy enough glow, and his body appeared far from emaciated. In fact, the stranger could boast a muscular frame far more impressive than Grace’s own. It was a brief relief that the man needn’t be on life support much longer at all, after he was brought out of the coma, which was due to be no less than a minute.
“Ready to make a good first impression, Rock?” Ryland asked jokingly as he threw a brief smile towards the alien, crossing his arms.
“Rocky always ready. Make great first impression on Grace. Statement.” the other replied as he scrambled further up his xenonite tube network to better observe the soon-to-be-waking foreigner.
“Indeed you did.” Grace affirmed before being interrupted by the light-hearted beep of the pentobarbital drip signaling it’s shut-off.
The patient’s eyes darted briefly below his eyelids before his lashes fluttered open, squinting in the face of the harsh white overhead lighting of the bay. Both Ryland and Rocky observed the stranger as his limbs and muscles gained their bearings, adjusted to gravity, and recognised the surface of the bed below them. In an attempt not to startle the man, neither moved and neither spoke. Letting him come to awareness of the surroundings by himself seemed like the most sensible idea at the moment.
However, the calm stillness and curiosity-imbued silence hardly lasted. As soon as the man’s gaze landed on the Eridian in his enclosure, it was almost like some distinctly primal switch flipped in his mind. He rose with shocking speed, and ripping out his IV cable, grabbed a nearby fire extinguisher. Grace could hardly process the action before the man lunged at the xenonite glass with frightening strength, causing cracks to spread across the surface upon impact. With a horrified shriek, Rocky scuttled away from the breach and towards his ball as fast as he could; sealing himself safely within the life-preserving atmosphere before emitting more distressed cries the translator couldn’t feasibly keep up with.
“Hey!” Grace yelled, his voice more rough and guttural than he ever remembered it sounding “I need you to stop. I need you to calm down.” he commanded as he made purposeful strides towards the attacker. Ryland wasn’t an idiot; if the brute could smash through xenonite with one very dedicated swing and a flimsy extinguisher, he could assuredly knock Grace out with less than half the effort.
Thinking briskly on his feet, the scientist grabbed a tiletamine syringe which was pre-prepped on a cart in the event Armando had to administer an emergency surgical procedure, and jabbed it haphazardly into the other man’s neck. The stranger turned around, swatting at the injection site a little too late. For a brief moment their eyes met; Ryland stared into the impossibly deep brown irises of the patient in front of him, darkened further by the building rage and confusion the stranger was undergoing. It didn’t feel like looking into the eyes of a man; it felt like coming face to face with a rabid animal. The next moment saw Grace being violently surged forward as the extinguisher fell with a harsh metal thud and the foreigner’s hand fisted itself into the front of the scientist’s shirt. Prepared for a surge of violence and a bruise of some sort, Grace shut his eyes, turning his face away from the confrontation. Before any damage could be dealt, the perpetrator collapsed.
Once the threat was neutralised, Ryland tossed the syringe aside and darted immediately towards Rocky. “Hey, hey… buddy,” he cooed as he knelt to the alien's level “it’s alright. It’s okay. He’s sedated, yeah? It’s all okay. Are you hurt?”
Rocky emitted an enraged high-frequency chirp and stomped one of his appendages before responding. “New human bad. Angry. Unstable. New human endanger ship. Endanger Rocky and Grace.”
“Yeah,” Ryland agreed with a heavy sigh as he ruffled the hair at the back of his head “the adjustment period might take a while. This is all so much more complicated than I thought.”
Next time the two men came face to face, Grace finally learned what carelessness can cost him, and so the medical bay now stood separated by a wall of structurally reinforced clear xenonite panels that Rocky had tirelessly worked to adapt to withstand pressure, assault, and even fire. Additionally -against the Eridian’s will, but per Ryland’s insistence- the stranger was engineered a prosthetic; the modular arm was functionally indistinguishable from that of a healthy human; it really was a miracle what a few hours of collaborative inter-species science could achieve. The limb's finish was akin to copper; the facets of the textured alien element glistened in the overhead lights.
The man had been awake for a few hours; Grace was acutely aware of this because he could hardly do anything but incessantly stare at the camera feed on his secondary laptop screen ever since the patient had wrestled out of his sedation and begun roaming the enclosure like a caged tiger. The doctor observed how he adjusted to the new arm, watched him take out his rage on Mary’s walls, saw him yell out astringently upon realising there was indeed no way out. Eventually, when Rocky had finally retired into one of his rare but prolonged hybernations, Ryland decided it was time to pay the guy a visit.
“I’m a teacher…” Grace started hesitantly as he approached the partition, his hands anxiously balled into fists in the pockets of his jumpsuit trousers. It didn’t take him long to realise that not only was that introduction incredibly vague, but also not strictly true. He was a teacher, sure - and proud of it too. But it was almost certainly the case that he would never teach again, and it would do him good to accept it. “And a doctor… of science. Molecular biology.” he added.
"Where is the sky?" the stranger asked as he stopped amid his pacing, not facing Ryland directly.
It didn’t escape Grace how strange a question that was to ask, and it was even stranger to try to answer. "There is no sky. Well, as you might know it.” he did realise the assumption that the other man was from Earth or even familiar with the concept of a stratosphere was a pretty massive longshot, but nonetheless the answer wasn’t any less true because of it. "We are in deep space.” Ryland clarified.
The two stood in silence for a while. It clearly took the man a moment to process the fact that although he may have escaped certain death, he hadn’t come any closer to touching down in a stable environment.
“You tried to hurt my friend.” Grace supplied weakly as he gestured towards the clear wall between them. It seemed he at least owed the other some kind of explanation for the makeshift imprisonment.
"Friend?” the stranger all but spat, finally turning to face Ryland. “You're trapped in the dark with a monster, Doc. I know what monsters look like."
The unfamiliar nickname kicked Grace into realising he hadn’t actually given the man any name to call him by. “My name is Ryland Grace.” the scientist provided. Deciding to shelve the guy’s attitudes to non-human life forms and the depths of open space for a later date, he added, "You're safe, that’s all that matters."
"Safe? You’ve got me trapped in a zoo enclosure in the middle of nowhere. Don't lie to me, teacher." the foreigner retorted as he began taking threateningly determined steps towards the partition.
"You're unstable. I can't risk my ship." Ryland stated firmly, mustering some semblance of courage. Being unaware of Grace’s name clearly wasn’t the problem; the other just seemed to like throwing occupational rank around with the venom of an insult.
"It's not your ship. It's a coffin with thrusters." the other supplied with a decided finality, declaring an end to the conversation.
Progress came slowly, if at all - depending on one’s definition of progress. The first few day-cycles on Mary passed in awkward silence and trepidation. Grace would come by thrice a day with a food ration for the man, a generous one to his credit. He would accept them all, but on the first day he wouldn’t eat a single one. On the second, he began eating only once Ryland had left the medical bay, and even then he’d sample the available dish with calculated caution. On the third, the scientist decided distrustful starvation would kill the stranger much quicker than the eventual depletion of Mary’s food bank ever could, and thus decided that the third time must be the charm, and tried his hand again at conversation.
“It’s protein paste mixed with instant noodles.” Ryland starts as he places the plastic bowl accompanied by a wooden fork in the tray and pushes the hatch over. He sighs lightly and sits down on the floor a few inches away from the partition, cross-legged. “Chicken soup flavoured… allegedly.” he adds with a light chuckle as he offers the man a small smile.
“Is this what you do?” the other retorts in an accusatory tone as he reaches into the hatch to fetch his ration, all the while maintaining eye contact with Grace “Feed the unknown specimen through the slot, look at your little cameras, note how many times I pace the floor?”
Ryland’s expression falters as he shifts slightly; although he didn’t expect the man to be entirely blind to the surveillance network connected to his computer -which was set up a few weeks ago to keep track of Rocky across his tunnels- being called out to his face about its unorthodox use admittedly cast a veil of something akin to shame over Grace. Or was it just embarrassment at being caught?
“You could tell me your name, and then we wouldn’t be strangers?” he suggests instead as he removes his glasses and makes a weak attempt at cleaning them with the hem of his shirt “You know who I am. If you tell me a few things about yourself, you won’t be ‘unknown’ any longer, will you.” he prompts gently, making quick use of the skills acquired after over a decade spent in various public middle school classrooms.
The man on the other side of the divide scoffs before retreating to a far corner of the segmented enclosure, seemingly trying to avoid Mary’s harsh lights. “Simon.” he eventually says as he himself sits down on the cold panelled flooring and begins winding the noodles onto the fork.
“Okay, Simon, it’s nice to meet you.” Ryland responds, trying to introduce a speck of normalcy into these incredibly aberrant circumstances “I’m sorry about all of this, really. But I need to guarantee the safety of my friend… and this ship. It’s important.”
“Important,” Simon mutters, parroting as he eats the first forkful of food since crash-landing on the ship “Everybody’s mission is important. Important for who? You got people back at home?” he asks with an unmistakable twinge of sarcasm tainting what would otherwise be -in Grace’s understanding- a fairly reasonable question.
“Yeah, in a way.” the scientist answers hesitantly, unable to shake the feeling that he’s stepping directly into some form of trap “People on Earth are dying; my students are some of those people. So I suppose I do have someone waiting at home.” he reasons, for the first time fully examining the personal weight of this mission. Absurdly enough, despite regaining what he hoped was the majority of his memory, it has never dawned on Grace that the importance of the project was never some abstract stake of losing all human life on Earth; it is the very tangible opportunity to do what he’s always done best, protect those he cares about - even if that list contains very few romantic partners or family members, and instead boasts a hefty register of now likely grown up kids.
“Students. That’s sweet, Doc. Really.” the other man provides between bites, his tone unwavering in its condescension.
“The sun is dying, Simon.” Ryland asserts defensively as he returns his glasses to the bridge of his nose “An alien cell is starving the solar system. In the 11 years I’ve been away the damage-”
“You can estimate the damage all you want.” Simon interjects, setting the bowl aside and standing up “When did your ship launch? What year?” the questions came hard and fast and intimidating as the man began approaching the partition.
Ryland opens his mouth to answer; calculating the light-years, the travel time with accounting for relativity, any blind spots in his amnesia…
“Well, it really doesn’t matter.” the other cuts in, watching the sudden panic flicker across Grace’s eyes as he looks up at him from where he’s sat “Because wherever your timeline sits, mine’s already been. There is no Earth, no planets at all for that matter. All you’ll be coming home to is barren moons and an even emptier sky.”
A moment of heavy silence passes. Simon leans on the clear panels with his xenonite hand, glaring down at the man seated so close below him, yet still centuries away. “There are no kids left to teach, Ryland. So whatever you’re doing on this ship, with that creature… you’re doing it for gravestones, if those are still left standing.”
Grace rises, clenches and unclenches his fists, holds back several urges -none of which would aid in progressing Simon’s successful integration into Mary’s mission- and responds quietly, with a deceptively calm certitude: “I’ve seen a lot of things in space, Simon, and I know a lot of things about science. Very few things are as certain as you believe them to be.”
With that, the scientist walks away and prepares to do a hefty amount of complex calculation regarding wormholes and the dilation of time.
A week of containment passes, and Grace almost falls into a domestic rhythm of routine: check on Mary upon wake-up to ensure she’s functioning correctly, make something vaguely resembling breakfast, feed Simon, make some inadequate attempts at rationalising the other man’s experience of time with the laws of physics available to him, attempt at a lunch, feed Simon, and so on…
Eventually, during one of his prolonged sessions in the lab, Rocky rather unexpectedly brings up the topic Ryland has tried quite hard not to breach with the Eridian ever since the attack. “New human still not safe for ship. Question?” the alien asked offhandedly.
Grace is reminded then that he has neglected telling his crewmate the name of their captive “He’s called Simon.” he supplies, and allows Rocky to match the new word to an adequate combination of pitched noises before inputting the variable into the Eridian-to-speech programme. “And, uhh… he seems alright now, actually,” the scientist answers.
It’s a realisation that’s hard to accept. Grace throws a brief guilt-ridden glance towards the camera-feed monitor and recalls Simon’s first day in the enclosure. The suspicion, the anger, the volatility. He no longer sees it in the man sat diligently studying and trialling his prosthetic arm, testing the limits of function with a contained pragmatism. Perhaps Ryland needs to face that it’s him who can’t shake the stare of the predator that eyed him down all those weeks ago. It always did take him only one calamity to develop an ingrained fear of its repeat; and sometimes it didn’t even have to manifest in reality to condition Grace into a deep cycle of anxious premonition.
“Then Grace work is inefficient.” The Eridian states as he continues pulling threads of pliable material in constructing another detailed model of the star systems surrounding Tau Ceti.
“Sorry?” Ryland turns in his chair to face the alien as he raises his brows slightly, in disbelief and offence.
“Grace waste energy filtering enclosure air. Grace waste time preparing rations. Grace waste attention observing human condition on screen.” Rocky elaborates, “If human safe, Grace need let Simon out. Simon need help on ship. Eridian custom not permit crew member not work. Not permit crew member waste resources.”
“Right, Rock, sure.” the man counters, agitated “Except humans tend to work slightly differently. He may be doing alright now, but it’s possible he can relapse. I wouldn’t be too surprised if he does given his history.”
“Then Grace need dismiss Simon.” the Eridian supplies finally, as if he was done explaining a particularly easy riddle to a rather unintelligent child.
“Dismiss?” Grace cocks his head in confusion.
“Grace take Simon off ship. Simon deplete resources, Grace and Rocky have less time to save stars. Stars more important than Simon. Grace dismiss Simon.” Rocky says with complete detachment, not fully comprehending that what he is demanding of Ryland is nothing short of murder.
Though Ryland does concede that the alien is correct. As much as he might miss human connection, even feel entitled to a fellow man on board, his fundamentally selfish wishes can not trample the sacrifices of a nation, the sacrifices of Eva, of Ilyukhina, of Yao. The man grits his teeth as he turns away from the Eridian to have a moment of ostensibly private consideration. If he wanted to keep the new arrival, he’d have to capitulate to freeing him despite his best intuitions. Sharing a cabin with a violent man was better than not sharing one with anybody at all - Grace judged eventually.
“You’re right, Rock.” he admitted as he stood up, shutting his laptop, “It’s time to let him out.” With that, the man headed back down into Mary’s medical hull.
The pneumatic seal integrated into the xenonite partition hissed as the pressure between the two sides of the bay equalised with a low metallic sigh. Keeping his hand hovering centimeters away from the emergency tiletamine injector in his pocket, Ryland straightened his posture as the exit slowly opened on the hinge. Simon was standing a few meters away from the threshold, flexing his prosthetic. The synthetic joints moved with a faint rhythmic click as the man’s fingers curled into a fist, testing the tension in his new wrist.
“Air pressure’s the same.” Grace stated, his voice cracking noticeably before he cleared his throat “Life-supporting systems are functional across the whole ship. You’re… free to move about the main deck.”
Simon stepped across the threshold, his eyes sweeping the bay and landing on the corridor which led to the laboratories and greenhouses. Ignoring Ryland, he walked towards the medical instrument store and ran his flesh-and-blood hand across the cabinet door, leaving smudged fingerprints on the clean glass.
“No mild animal tranquilliser?” Simon asked, tone submerged in dry amusement, “You’re getting brave, Doc.”
“I’m getting practical.” Grace corrected, shifting briefly on his feet before taking a measured step towards the other man. “Rocky pointed out that keeping you confined wastes power we can’t afford to lose. Also on this ship, everybody contributes.” he explained softly, afraid of triggering another bout of brutality.
“Contributes to what?” Simon turned to face Ryland, his eyes locking onto him with a cold, unsettling stillness “Tea-partying and thumb-twiddling while we wait for an extinction event?”
Rocky had managed to catch up to Grace and interjected from where he was perched in his suspended tubing “Simon will talk much, work little. Question?” the translator supplied.
The man’s gaze shifted up towards the Eridian, his jaw tightening. For a brief moment, the memory of the fire extinguisher lingered in the air collectively among all three of them. A bitter, faint smile pulled at Simon’s lips.
“Fine.” he nodded, holding both of his hands up briefly in surrender “Throw me a wrench, teacher.” Directing Ryland, he scoffed, “Let’s see how this tin can’s engineering holds up.”
From there on out, daily life on the Mary adjusted to a new, more sensible pace: Simon took on the morning checks of the ship’s systems, which gave Grace more time to spend in the greenhouses to work on maximising the speed of their food replenishment, Rocky repurposed the enforced xenonite partition to construct more tunnels across the interior, as well as beginning work on a slimmer and more agile version of his hamster ball. Although Simon completed the work he was given with no pushback -even eventually dropping the snide retorts- the animosity between him and Ryland didn’t dwindle in the slightest. And the scientist could understand; striking up a warm and cosy dynamic with a man who had functionally imprisoned you for the primal crime of acting upon fear would be far from a logical self-preserving move, and something told him self-preservation was something Simon had to prioritise for a while. But it was painful to watch the hollow shell of a man prove his worth the only way he knew how - through work, leaving Grace not any less starved of connection and touch. Simon may as well have never crashed on the Mary.
However, a drastic change in behaviour struck the two men three days before their scheduled arrival at Tau Ceti - E.
Mary needed her thrusters recalibrated, which required Rocky to descend into the hull containing the primary mechanics, and left Ryland by the engineering panel to keep track of the engines' performance statistics to ensure that if a fuel leak occurred, they could at least spot it and prevent it before too much damage was dealt. With little warning, the routine task was interrupted by the roar of a high-decibel klaxon accompanied by blaring amber lights, which drowned the ship in a maroon hue so saturated, it was almost impossible to recognise any controls on the panel through it. A cooling line had sprung a leak, which while definitely a problem, was nowhere near the life-threatening fiasco Mary’s systems were currently making it out to be. Eva’s reasoning was sustained enough; on the first ship built to travel at the speed of light, any error could be costly - so the deafening alarms made sense to a degree.
As Grace's hands travelled blindly across the panel, feeling out the keyboard to input the override code, a strong grip seized his wrist, yanking him backwards off his feet. It took the scientist’s brain a moment to process that he had stumbled right into Simon’s chest. Before he could turn around and get a word in, the prosthetic arm snaked across his frame and set in place like an iron bar, locking him in flush against the other man. Ryland was then harshly dragged backwards away from the console, despite his fruitless flailing.
Throwing his arm back to paw at the assailant’s shoulder, Grace shouted, attempting to out-yell the klaxon “Simon, you have to let me go!” he protested, “I need to clear the console!”
“Shut up.” Simon snarled into Ryland’s ear, voice rugged and laced with adrenaline. He dragged the other down to the floor, wrapping his legs around the man’s lower body - trapping him entirely. “If a power line ruptures, the console blows first. Stay down!” he commanded as Grace squirmed against the restraint.
“Nothing’s blowing; it’s a cooling line failure…” Grace pleaded. His breath caught in his throat as soon as he felt Simon’s cheek press against his; the guy was burning up, panting heavily, practically drenched in sweat. His pulse was hammering violently and insistently against Ryland’s fingers, which had found the pulse in his neck. The scientist could feel the tremor running through Simon’s body against his own; the man was terrified, evidently relapsing if not having fully lost his bearings on reality in some form of trauma-induced flashback.
Grace stilled, letting his head fall back onto Simon’s shoulder. He left the pulse behind and reached down to place his palm over the other man’s hand sprawled against the rigid metal flooring. Simon stiffened at the touch, his grip on Ryland tightened to the point of pain - but neither pulled away. For a brief moment, Grace let himself relish the first human touch he’s felt in years, deriving perverse pleasure from the simple sensation of feeling the heat of skin against himself. He sighed shutting his eyes, attempting to tune out the noise and lights mixing in a cacophony above them.
The klaxons kept blaring until Rocky was able to aptly patch the cooling leak, causing the alarm system to gradually wind down. “Engines stabilised.” Mary declared in a jarringly chirpy demeanour.
Neither man talked about the incident, but the air aboard shifted. Shifted into something rather stifling and depraved, or perhaps it was just Grace who felt that particular brand of constraint. Euthanising a dog after tasting blood didn’t seem like an old wives’ superstition anymore. The feel of warmth, of sweat, of flesh that wasn’t his had also rather clearly impacted Simon. The line between desperate need and hostility blurs quickly, especially when treated with silence. The man began encroaching on Ryland’s personal space - not violently, but relentlessly; he’d stare wordlessly from the entryway as he’d watch him split rations, hovered uncomfortably as he’d observe Grace chewing through calculations on his laptop, let his eyes linger and trace the scientist’s every move as he would get ready to retire to bed. Ryland felt perpetually naked - bare and exposed in a way that had very little to do with the clothes he had on… or maybe it did. Maybe the final breaking of the physical boundary between them had awoken something more than need in Simon; it could have awoken lust.