Chapter Text
Alcohol
How things got to this point, Grace wasn’t sure.
He liked to work on some of his notes and ideas in the rec room that the upper members of the Project used. It was quieter than the bigger rec rooms, generally, while still having enough people to give him the background noise he needed to really focus.
Today, however, was not the case.
It seemed like the Russians had taken it over. At least the ones that were allowed here. Dimitri and his top people, Olesya and Zaytsev from the Hail Mary crew, and a few others who were scattered through the other science departments.
Grace glanced over and realized that it appeared that Dimitri and Olesya were competing with shots. Okay, that was probably going to be hilarious. He set his pen down, watching with curiosity. Though it seemed like that caught Dimitri’s attention. “Ah! Grace! Join us!”
He was so loud and cheerful that Grace hesitated just long enough for some of the others to catch him and pulled him in to sit at the table with the pair. There were teasing calls for the American to show them what he could do.
They had all been working together long enough that being called ‘The American’ had morphed from a mocking title to a friendly one.
“Guys, no, come on,” Grace resisted, though he was pretty sure it was futile. They were all very exuberant, and it had been a long week. Letting loose a bit sounded good, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to get into a drinking game with a group of Russians. Especially because he had seen the pair in front of him drink.
Still, he was presented with three shots, matching the empty ones already in front of the other two.
Man, it was like college again.
Sighing, he gave up as gracefully as he could, giving the playful backslaps and hair ruffles. The noise of the crowd grew as he emptied the glasses with smooth actions, muscle memory from a time in his life where this was not an uncommon situation kicking in.
Dimitri was a literal rocket scientist. He must remember what college was like.
He smiled, already feeling the burn of the alcohol in his belly. Grace already knew tomorrow was going to be less than fun. But he had nothing planned. If Stratt changed that, she could deal with hungover Grace. Right now, he was happy enough to relax.
“Did not know you had it in you,” Olesya teased as all three took another shot. “You are always very quiet about having fun.”
Grace grinned slightly. “College was a wild time,” he chuckled.
“Tell me,” Dimitri boomed, looking pretty happy. But they were drinking. It was his second favorite hobby, as far as Grace could tell. Right after explosions. “Did your college have vodka? Is only drink worthy of games such as this.”
Grace threw back the next shot and laughed. “Nah. No vodka for us. No tequila either. We drank stuff like Everclear.” He wrinkled his nose and took the next shot, though he laughed at the noises of disgust from the Russians around him.
“Sorry, guys. It was cheap and we did a lot of experimenting with it. That lasted till we made our own still.”
Olesya looked at him with delight. “-You- made a still?” she asked, intrigued. Grace rolled his eyes at her and took the next round he was handed.
“We were a dorm full of science majors. We -all- knew how to make stills. That, or super-caffeine.” Grace grinned at their expressions. “So, yeah, stills were all over the place.” He snorted at Dimitri’s ‘busted’ look. “Please, there are at least a half dozen of them on the ship. I make sure none of the ones near the labs will blow up and ignore them.”
He contemplated it for a moment. “Man, thinking back on it, I have -no- idea how I survived college.” Between the fact they were making moonshine from very dubious things and some of the parties he ended up at, Grace really was amazed.
Thankfully none of his kids ever found out. They’d never let him live it down.
Given the looks around him, he wasn’t sure if the Russians would either. Well, he’d lump that into Future-Grace’s problem as well.
Right now, he had a drinking contest to try to win.
Brother
Oh, man, past Grace was a jerk. Why had he let himself get pulled into a drinking game?
Sitting very, very quietly, he ate his breakfast burrito very slowly with his eyes closed. It was just better that way, honestly. The lights were evil, between the glow and the faint humming that dug into his ears like nails on a board. Thankfully, Grace already felt better than when he first woke up. There had been no post it notes on his forehead, so plans had not changed and he would have the day to recover.
After polishing off all the water in his room, he had been forced to leave it to find more water and something to eat.
Luckily, this was a bit of an off hour, so the room was fairly quiet. Which was just as well. If there was too much noise, Grace was sure that his brain would crawl out of his skull and throw itself overboard.
The thump of someone sitting next to him made him open one eye. There was Olesya, looking perfectly cheerful. He sort of hated her for a moment.
“You are honorary Russian,” she said with a grin. “We all agreed.”
“Joy,” Grace said drily. “What caused that decision to happen?”
She laughed, making his head hurt. But he could live with that. It was nice, interacting with someone who was so happy.
“Last time Yao joined us, he did not get far.” She paused, considering. “Or maybe chose not to really compete. But you did. And tied with us.” The tone of her voice was very impressed. Grace tried not to preen mentally, but he couldn’t help it. An astronaut thought he did something that could maybe be considered cool. “Did not expect that. You were in very cool company, and managed to keep up.” She sipped at whatever was in her bowl. “Figured you would be like DuBois and only pretend to drink.”
“The fact you managed to get him to agree at all is pretty amazing,” Grace told her, given how serious he knew DuBois was. “And you should know by now I am very petty at times. I know you guys thought it would be funny to watch me try and fail to keep up.” He nibbled at his burrito some more. “I feel like I should regret it, but I really don’t.”
Olesya laughed. “You are excellent honorary Russian. Petty is why we do many things. You are now my brother.”
That got a laugh from Grace. “Really now?” He wasn’t sure how he felt about being adopted like that, but he wasn’t opposed. He did lift his bottle of water at her in a mock toast. “So, anything I should know about being your brother?”
She nodded firmly. “Yes. You are younger brother and must tell others to fuck off if they try to claim you are their sibling.”
“I’m older than you,” Grace protested. “I should be the older sibling.”
“No, baby Russian. So baby brother.”
The rest of breakfast was spent debating ages, who was the oldest sibling, and arguing reasons about it. In the end, Grace just accepted that he was going to be an older baby brother and stopped debating it.
Besides, Stratt came in and he and Olesya both fled the face she was making at them. Grace guessed she had heard about the previous night. He wasn’t sure if she had come to get some food or to glare at them. Either way, he and Olesya had shared and look and booked it.
Running away in mock terror was an excellent sibling bonding experience.
Cold
The ship was steamy. Grace hated it.
He lived in California, which some might consider a warm state. But he lived near enough to the ocean that there was always a breeze, and he loved it.
Right now, the Vat was in waters that were warm and humid, and made everything sticky. Especially when one was in the labs all day.
Right now, he was debating heading up to the deck, just to feel the wind. He felt sticky, even with just a teeshirt on. Gone were the layers from the colder seas, and he rather missed them. But it was easier to reach some of the on shore locations that Stratt wanted to check in on, so here they were.
Where those locations actually were? Grace had no idea, but he found he sort of hated it.
Sipping at his drink, hoping it would help cool him down, he pinched his nose and generally felt miserable. He knew he wasn’t the only one, but he felt too sweaty to want to interact with others. That would mean being near them. Which was the main reason he was still here and not already outside. The halls were tight and even warmer than the room he was in now. Who knew how many people he’d bump into.
Grace’s thoughts were cut short when someone cursed behind him, and something wet and gloriously cold splashed against his back. He yelped the sudden icy sensation, soaking right through the thin material of his tee shirt. Honestly, it would have been nice, but then the sticky feeling got worse and he realized whatever just got splashed on him was probably had syrup of some sort. The idea of being -more- sticky made his skin crawl and Grace didn’t even hesitate. He pulled his shirt off, because nope. He was sticky enough from sweat, he didn’t need another else.
The person behind him, who was apologizing, choked. Grace twisted some to see who it was, and took a moment to place the guy as one of people who were working on the astrophage storage project working with Redell on the astrophage breeding project. He looked rather flustered, eyes not meeting Grace’s. The poor guy looked extremely embarrassed, face red as he kept his eyes down. It took a long moment for Grace to realize that the guy was staring, though he wasn’t sure why.
“Okay, enough. You apologize, go.”
Suddenly, Olesya was there, shooing off the guy and then plopping herself down next to Grace.
“Did not realize you were hiding all that under your fluffy sweater,” she said, waving at his torso. Grace looked down, then back at her, looking slightly confused. She rolled her eyes at him. “Do not tell me you are unaware you are appealing.”
Ah, that was what she was referring to. He shrugged. “I know,” he admitted. “You would not believe the amount of parents who hit on me regularly.” Grace had to deal with his friends at the school taking bets. He was aware that, generally, he was considered attractive, but it had never really mattered to him. His coworkers found it hilarious and there were betting pools about how many parents would hit on him every year.
“Bet many students have crush,” his friend teased him. Grace rested his head against the table.
“Stop,” he muttered. Because it was unfortunately true. Kids suddenly got that they had strange feelings and then aimed those feelings at people who were safe. Grace had dealt with many kids having crushes and trying to figure it out. Those sorts of things always had to be handled delicately.
There was an amused noise from Olesya, and she poked him in the bicep. “Where did these come from?” she asked, and Grace realized that she had never seen him without having a few layers on. Though that wasn’t his fault. They had been in colder waters.
“I like to rock climb,” he told her. “Sort of miss it.” He ran regularly, many people did. There was even a gym that he hit regularly, needing to move and exercise. “Miss a lot of things. We’re sort of limited on how we can burn energy here.”
He lifted his head when Olesya hummed. “What are you plotting?” he asked.
“First, get you a new shirt before we all drown in the drooling you are causing,” she said, pushing him to stand. Grace felt himself go red. If she brought it up, he’d think about it, and he didn’t want to think about it. “Because if they stare any harder, older sister will have to start punching people.”
That last part was said louder, and Grace glanced around to see people hurriedly looking away. Well, this was going to be in his nightmares later. “Then, need to check thing out. May have a good surprise.”
Grace just hoped he didn’t explode from blushing before this surprise.
Dangle
Turned out that his self proclaimed older sister had an excellent surprise.
“Recalled someone mentioning it,” Olesya said proudly as she showed Grace the climbing wall that was buried further into the ship than he had ever gone. It was pretty quiet here, with only a few others either using the wall or relaxing in the area. Grace looked around, impressed. It was well done, not something that was slapped together. He looked at Olesya, and gave her a small smile.
It had been a while since someone had done something so nice for him.
“Now, we climb,” she said, then paused. “You climb,” she corrected after considering it. Grace felt his brows arched, and she grinned. “I have done this some, but not big hobby for me. Want to see you do some climbing.”
The place wasn’t super tall, and Grace was grateful. He was also glad Olesya had made him change into more relaxed clothes and not his jeans. He looked around, then to his friend. “What’s my end goal?” he asked her, grinning at her startled blink. She seemed to see it as a challenge and pointed at one spot.
He studied the possible routes, and got one that looked fairly easy. He needed to build back up to anything too strenuous, but that was okay. There was only one spot where he’d have to do a move that might send him tumbling. A good path for warming up back into one of his favorite hobbies.
Doing a few stretches, he started up his path.
It was…nice.
He hadn't gotten a chance to really stretch like this in a while. He did his best, but there were some moves that were near impossible to replicate in a gym. Feeling those muscles stretch and burn made Grace grin.
Then he got to the point where he was going to have to make a jump. Olesya seemed to realize that he was about to do something risky. “Grace, what are you planning?” She frowned. “Not allowed to hurt yourself.”
He flashed her a grin, then launched himself. He heard her sharp yell of shock before he caught the next handhold. His whole body swung by one hand for a moment before he caught another and finished his climb towards the goal that Olesya had picked out.
Once he was there, he hung for a long moment, then made his way down.
Immediately, she was there to punch him in the arm. He whined, trying to fend her off. “Stop,” he grumbled. “You told me where to go,” Grace grumbled. “Don’t be mad that I got there.”
“I was mad I was going to have to explain to Stratt you broke your neck,” Olesya muttered, giving him another small punch.
Grace rolled his eyes. “I know what I’m doing,” he told her. “Gonna be happy to get back into proper shape to do more complicated routes.”
She mimed another punch, but didn’t follow through. “You really like this?” she said quietly, looking pleased with herself. “Good surprise?”
“Yeah,” Grace said, smiling down at her. “Excellent surprise.”