Work Text:
Grace sticks his head through the doorway, wearing a nervous smile that you return when you look up from your work. You beckon him in. When he steps through the door, you notice he's holding two cups of instant ramen. "Dinner," he says, smiling sheepishly as he hands you your portion, fork already provided.
"My favorite!" you say lightly, and he laughs.
You take a big bite of noodles while he comes up in front of you and bends at the waist to look at your work, somehow seeming unbothered by having to read upside down while also carefully dangling his cup of noodles so they don't spill.
You think of the last time he tried to make noodles—it was when you weren't running the centrifuge, and he was on about 20 minutes of sleep. You remember watching the contents of the cups simply float upwards, then later chasing broth packets through the halls of the Hail Mary. They looked almost majestic in zero-g, but just about everything does.
"What do you think?" You ask through a mouthful, making him glance up at you with a small smile.
"Looks good! Your handwriting is so much more readable than mine…m-maybe you should fill out the reports too from now on," he jokes.
You roll your eyes, scooting to the side and patting the spot next to you. "Sit down. You'll give yourself a migraine reading like that."
Grace concedes and flops down next to you, somehow saving his ramen from a tragic spill. He sits cross-legged and leans forward—his posture is shit. You laugh to yourself and think of all the times he complains to you about his back hurting.
You shovel noodles into your mouth and watch him go through your notes, examining the papers with one hand and eating with the other. You know better than to talk to him when he's like this. It's not that he's ignoring you, he's just so concentrated that he won't process anything you say to him.
You glance to your other side, where Rocky is asleep in his bubble, pressed up against the wall of it. You agreed to watch him when he asked you, and he tucked himself in the corner near your bunk. You feel a little bad for eating in the same room as him, but from what you've learned, he's fully unconscious and has no chance of noticing.
Grace leans back, nodding with satisfaction and taking a big bite of noodles. "Great work!" When he moves, his knee brushes against yours and it makes your heart jump.
He's wearing another stupid t-shirt, this one says: "you matter/unless you multiply yourself by the speed of light squared/then you energy," in big text, and it has a graphic of an atomic structure. His fashion sense is something that kicks up a warmth in your heart, one you're having trouble finding the meaning of. You can't deny your reaction to Grace—his every mannerism makes you feel something you can only describe as the warm and fuzzies.
He's simply cute, something that's reinforced in your mind when he props his glasses on one ear to stop them fogging from the steam of his noodles, and immediately gets broth on the lenses instead.
Grace glances at you to see if you noticed, cheeks flushing pink when he sees that you did. "Wasn't thinking…" he mumbles sheepishly.
"Clearly!"
You purse your lips to hold in your laugh, and he actually pouts as he uses the hem of his t-shirt to clean his glasses. As he replaces them, he glances at you again and his composure breaks in a self-deprecating chuckle.
You finish up the last bite of your noodles and lean back against the side of your bunk with a yawn and a stretch. Grace collects and disposes of your cup, stifling a yawn of his own.
You crawl into your bunk. "I think I'll head to bed. Thanks again for dinner," you tell Grace. He glances at you over his shoulder where he's checking out the window.
"Don't let the bed bugs bite," he says cheerfully, then visibly shudders at the thought of a bed bug outbreak on the Mary. He dims the lights, and you can hear him trying to be a little quieter when he's walking around.
You toss and turn for a long time, unable to get comfortable. Your body is aching, and you can feel the heaviness in your limbs, but sleep just won't come. You shiver under your meager blankets, unable to get warm.
The Hail Mary is cold at "night," at least in your parts of it, since you and Grace have agreed not to run the environmental controls as much to conserve energy. Rocky has carefully perfected the temperature within his bubbles, and sometimes you set up your sleeping bag nearby to soak up some of the warmth, but sleeping on the floor destroys your back.
You sigh, resigning yourself to a cold, sleepless night.
About twenty minutes later, you hear Grace sneak back in. He's doing his best to be quiet, but your overactive brain picks up every sound. You roll over and wave at him tiredly, and he gives you an awkward little wave back. He comes up close to your bunk, grabbing onto one of the bars near the top and leaning in towards you to talk.
"Can't sleep?" He asks, brows raised.
"No…I'm freezing," you complain.
He laughs slightly. "Me too, honestly. You know, we could—" he cuts himself off, eyes suddenly widening as he pushes his glasses up his nose. "never mind."
"What?" You laugh.
"Nothing!" He insists, straightening up so you can't see his face anymore. "Goodnight."
"Were you going to say we could sit together?" You ask, and his silence tells you that you're right. "That's fine."
He bends back down. "What?"
"We're both cold, so we'll sit together until we're warm. It's fine, I trust you."
"Well…we can't be sure we have all our memories back yet, w-what if I'm a weirdo and we don't remember?" He asks.
"The fact that you're concerned about it to begin with is enough to prove your innocence." You roll your eyes and scoot to the side, flipping the blankets so he can sit next to you.
Grace hesitates for a moment, but he eventually concedes, climbing into the bunk next to you and pulling the blankets up over his lap. He glances at you sideways and you pretend you don't notice it. The bunk is small, and the two of you are pressed up against each other shoulder-to-shoulder. For a nerdy type, his shoulders and arms are surprisingly well-shaped. You hurry to stop your train of thought there, not needing to think about his body while the two of you are huddling for warmth.
"You gonna take off your glasses?" You joke.
He stiffens and nearly rips them off, setting them down carefully on the shelf beside the bunk. He laughs nervously. "I forgot."
You roll your eyes, adjusting your position and leaning against Grace's shoulder. Slowly, hesitantly, he stretches his arm out behind you, supporting your weight.
You snuggle in closer, enjoying your shared body heat and feeling a strange sort of clinginess settle over you. Your chest twinges again.
Neither of you have been held since before you were sent on this mission. Your longing for the touch of another person became so constant that you got used to it—all the way up until this moment. You think of all the times your hand brushed Grace's, or you bumped him in the hall. Those little moments felt like something so much more significant, so much more tangible.
"What if—" he starts, clearly possessed by another strange idea.
"It doesn't matter," you say in a gentle tone. "Wouldn't you rather think about who you are right now?"
He opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again, then swallows. He looks away from you, brows knitted in thought.
He stays like this for a few minutes, with you dozing on his shoulder. Grace eventually lets out a breath, adjusting so he's actually laying down. "Maybe I should."
You lay your head on the pillow next to him, meeting his starry blue gaze in the dim light. "Goodnight," you murmur.
He echoes the sentiment absentmindedly, and you let your eyes slip closed.
When you wake up in the "morning," Grace isn't in bed with you, but you're tucked in up to your chin and the bed is still warm. You hear Rocky singing to himself while he works. He's still in the same room, watching your back while you sleep.
You stretch out the stiffness from your body, taking a moment to freshen up before the day's work. This was the first good night of sleep you'd gotten in a long time. You appreciate the result, but you don't know how to explain to Grace that you sleep better cuddling him like he's a stuffed animal.
"Thanks for watching me, Rocky," you say with a grin, walking up to where he's diligently weaving Xenonite. you put your fist up against one of the panes of his wall.
"Rocky always watch!" he says, eagerly tapping his claw against the bubble. You laugh.
He's getting better at fist bumps and high-fives. It seems like Eridians have similar concepts and gestures—Rocky's favorite so far has been the chest bump, but you banned Grace from doing them after he threw himself against Rocky's bubble too hard and got the wind knocked out of him.
Rocky gets back to his weaving, so you leave him in peace.
Grace is in the lab as usual, and he's absorbed in his research. There's a speaker set up on one of the tables, and you can hear instrumental music. Neither you nor Grace prefer music sans vocals, but Rocky has a hard time parsing your speech when another human is singing in the background. For everyone's convenience, you decided to only listen to instrumentals. You're not as well-versed as Grace is—sometimes you wonder if anyone is—but you're pretty sure he's listening to the Beatles.
You lean against the doorway until he pulls away from the microscope. You open your mouth to greet him but he looks up and startles before you can speak.
"Oh!" He says, hand to his chest in fright. "It's—it's just you." He laughs.
You smile. "As always. Sorry I scared you."
"N-no, I'm just jumpy, I guess. It's annoying," he says sheepishly, hand wandering to the back of his neck. "Seems like I always have been. Jumpy, I mean—not annoying…but I guess that's more subjective. Have you ever met someone who's objectively annoying? If you were about to say me, then…yeah."
"When did I ever say anything like that?" You say with a frown. At this very moment, in fact, you're fighting off the urge to pounce on him and squeeze him until he squeaks like a dog toy. He's wearing another graphic shirt, this one has an illustration of two little cartoon atoms with speech bubbles. The first one says: "I think I lost an electron!" and the second says: "are you positive?"
You feel a tug in your chest. You never thought you'd be so endeared by dad joke t-shirts that it causes you a physical reaction, but then again you also never thought you'd end up on a suicide mission in space. "You're not annoying, Grace," you add with a smile.
He glances down at his shoes, blushing like a schoolgirl. "Well—" he stops himself. "…I appreciate it."
You push off the doorframe and come up beside him. "What are you working on?"
"Same as usual," Grace laments. He takes off his glasses, perching them on one ear, and rubs his eyes.
"Tired?" You ask, feeling a twinge of guilt about last night.
"Yeah," he says sheepishly. After a moment, something dawns on him and he waves his hands. "N-not that I lost sleep because of you—I mean, I'm tired of work."
"Then take a break," you say with a shrug.
He blinks, replacing his glasses to better stare at you. "And do what?"
"I don't know," you laugh. The song coming from the CD player changes, a light and happy melody. "Dance?" You offer your hand to him.
Grace absentmindedly accepts your hand before he fully processes what you're saying. His eyes go wide. "Dance?!"
"Why not?" You easily settle into the rhythm, moving your body to the music. You've never known Grace to be the type to pass up harmless fun, but something has him nervous. You grab his other hand, pushing his arms back and forth with yours.
He cracks a smile, starting to follow along with your moves. His palms are warm and soft against yours, his hair is tousled from sleep and stress-touching, and his eyes are bright with something you'd be tempted to describe as fondness.
With a wicked grin, you twirl him out under your arm and back, leading him into a quick dip.
You don't go all the way down, but he still yelps and fumbles to straighten his glasses once you set him back up. "Hey, my turn. It's only—it's only fair."
You can't help but laugh. "Sure, go for it."
Grace immediately takes the lead, spinning you twice. He's clearly proud of himself when he pulls you tight against his chest and leans the two of you into another dip, this one much lower. You keep forgetting how strong he is. Grace lingers with you in his arms for just a second longer than is normal, but he sets you back on your feet briskly and you return to your previous rhythm.
"Not bad!" You exclaim, fighting to regain your composure after being so close to him. You literally slept in the same bed as him last night, but your chest still flutters at something so simple. You keep seeing the stars in his eyes, the sun and moon in the lenses of his glasses.
He grins at your compliment, light blush dusting his cheeks. There are those stars again—you wonder if you could count constellations across his face. "Can I do it again?"
He barely waits for you to finish nodding before you're being twirled again, but he doesn't dip you this time, just spins you back the way you came. You laugh and move outwards until both of your arms are extended, orbiting both of you in a larger circle.
"I'm dizzy!" You yelp.
"Me too," Grace admits. Neither of you make a move to stop, instead dissolving into uncontrollable laughter.
You take advantage of his moment of weakness, spinning him again and committing to a full dip this time. He's caught by surprise and loses his stability in his planted foot, meaning you have to support all his weight all at once.
Both of you go down simultaneously, Grace falling first but accidentally pulling you down with him since he's holding onto your neck. You land on top of him and he wheezes, wind knocked out of his lungs.
You quickly get off him, rolling to lay on your back next to him. "Sorry. Bad idea," you mumble.
He's having a hard time recovering, scrubbing a hand down his face and under his glasses and cracking up in breathless chuckles. "What was the—what was the plan?"
"I don't know!" You lament, throwing your hands up.
The two of you look sideways at each other, fighting to maintain straight faces but dissolving into laughter. Grace's eyes are starry, his cheeks flushed pink and his glasses at a new angle previously undiscovered by science. All is right aboard the Hail Mary.
You're here to save Earth, yes, but sometimes you wonder if you might save each other, too.