Work Text:
Grace rubbed at his temples again. He was working on the calculations for astrophage breeding. He was trying to figure out the easiest way of speeding the process up. They just didn’t have time to wait for it to breed at the speeds they currently had.
Grace removed his hand from his face and looked at his calculations. He blinked a couple of times, but his vision just wouldn’t clear. Even with his glasses on, he couldn’t read his own handwriting. He blinked again in the hopes it would go away, but instead he ended up with flashing lights in his vision. He knew exactly what that meant. He had maybe ten minutes before he was completely useless, if he was lucky. Which, typically, he was not.
“Oh god…” He threw his pen down and left everything where it was in the lab. He’d timed himself from the lab to his dorm before when bored. It took him about seven minutes to get there. He had to move fast if he wanted to get there before he ended up on the floor.
He could explain to Stratt later what happened. Right now though, he needed to lie down in the silent blanket of the pitch black in his dorm.
As he headed from the laboratories section of the ship, he had to go through the engineering section. The engineering section that was currently building the Hail Mary.
Grace tried to cover his ears as he went past. It didn’t do a lot, but it was better than nothing. He kept his head down as he passed the windows. The sun was perfectly coming through the windows to blind him. His eyes ached from the light and his ears were ringing from noise.
As he made his way down the corridor, he bumped shoulders with someone. He didn’t see them coming. How didn’t he see them coming? He looked around and realised that he had blind spots in his vision now. He uttered an apology and kept moving.
He walked past the cafeteria where a lot of people were having their lunch. And talking. So much talking. Grace’s head pounded more and more as he walked past, he screwed his eyes shut, which was a mistake.
Grace shrieked as he tripped on his shoelaces. Despite his name, he had very grace when it came to his body. His arms flapped about in the air as he fell to his knees before landing on all four.
The nausea crept up his throat as the pain got worse. He was practically deaf as his ears were ringing endlessly. For a moment, he thought he was at a rave given the amount of flashing lights he was seeing behind his eyelids.
“Grace-?” He heard his voice but couldn’t respond. His head was just in too much pain to respond. A hand on his shoulder made him flinch and whimper.
Ilyukhina retracted her hand at the sound of the whimper from the man. He was curled up in the fetal position on all fours. His hands were yanking at his hair over and over again. She glanced at Yao but he shrugged. Grace was still in his lab coat, his glasses had been thrown from his face when he had fallen.
Ilyukhina crouched down beside him and spoke in barely a whisper.
“Grace, it’s your head, no?” Grace tried to speak, but his voice just wouldn’t work. His brain in general wasn’t working right now due to the pain. Instead, the man let out the tiniest whimper and nodded. Even that sent more throbbing pain up his neck to his temples.
Yao tapped Ilyukhina on the shoulder and whispered:
“I have an idea.” The man then disappeared down the hall as Ilyukhina tried to figure out what to do with Grace. She glazed around the cafeteria. She saw the man that was always with Stratt and Grace. Carl, wasn’t it? He was on his way out of the cafeteria toward Ilyukhina. She waved the man down and he came over.
He went to open his mouth but Ilyukhina quickly shushed with a finger to her lips. Carl looked down to see Grace on the floor. Ilyukhina silently points to her head to signal what was wrong with him.
Carl nodded. He had remembered something Stratt had said about Grace having issues with migraines previously.
Yao rejoined the trio with ear defenders in hand. He crouched down next to the man as Ilyukhina gently pried his hands away from his head. Grace didn’t fight them, he was just too exhausted and in pain to do anything but the pain significantly subsided when nearly all the surrounding noise was blocked out.
He opened his eyes and looked up slightly, grimacing at the bright white lights above them. His hands felt around his head to identify the ear defenders. He breathed a sigh of relief.
A pair of sunglasses entered his vision, he glanced up at the arm that was holding them and realised it was Carl handing them to him. He took with a grateful nod and put them on. It didn’t block out all the light, but it would work for now.
Carl kept his hand out and Grace took it, Carl helped him to stand, even as his legs wobbled under him. Carl pulled his arm around his shoulder and Yao did the same on the other side.
With Ilyukhina leading the way, the trio helped Grace get back to his dorm. Ilyukhina went ahead and made sure it was dark and quiet for him. As the trio of men got closer to his dorm, Grace felt for his own glasses, which Yao produced from his own pocket.
Grace smiled at him in thanks as they entered his dorm. Without taking the glasses or ear defenders off, Grace flopped onto the bed with a groan.
The trio left him to rest, Carl thanked them both for helping Grace as they all went their separate ways.