Chapter Text
He thanked God every day that Ryland Grace was as easy to read as an open book.
The man was Carl's only job at the moment and, luckily, he demanded very little energy compared to previous assignments. Where Wolfe had been Hell to drag around a military complex, and Patrowski was a bastard that Carl wished would've gotten shot, Grace? Well, Grace was simple.
Unlike those dozens of other assignments, it had only taken Carl a week to crack what he ate (and what he neglected to eat). He'd quickly learned Grace's sleeping habits (or lack thereof, and there was a massive amount of lacking).
Grace's quirks? Obvious, awkward, and impossible to hide no matter how much the man tried.
Grace's hobbies? Practically non-existent.
Grace's movements? Simplicity incarnate, going to work and back, and that was it.
So, upon following him onto the behemoth carrier stuck in the middle of the ocean, Carl had settled in quickly. He'd found that Doctor Ryland Grace rarely strayed from his bunk or the labs, only slipping into the dining halls to gather meager meals that Carl's ten-year-old son would've preferred to snack on. Mostly starch. Barely any protein. And where the other scientists clustered at a table to chat and crack jokes, Grace would often sit alone, his notebook open and pen scrawling before he even took a bite of his food.
But Grace loved to chew on things, that much was obvious.
Rather than eating his goddamn food like a grown man, Grace would nibble on the tip of his fork. Instead of finding something that would sustain his body, he'd go for his Twizzlers or Skittles or Nerds Gummy Clusters. How had Stratt even gotten those on the ship? Anything to make her lead astrophage scientist happy and productive, he supposed.
The hardest variable to control about Grace was, simply put, the man himself. Now, Carl had two boys at home and, sometimes, Grace wasn't too far off from behaving like them. All three got grouchy when they were hungry, hyper when they were tired, and couldn't carry a casual conversation for the life of them. So, Carl trusted his ability to get Grace to behave or, at the very least, keep him alive. Even with a gun strapped to his hip and a decade of government training, he couldn't bring anything but parenting into the picture when it came to good old fashioned discipline.
Discipline that he'd soon enact, too, if Grace's slouched form was anything to go by.
With his hair sticking up more than usual and a grey tint to his cheeks, Grace slumped over one of the lab tables, breaths gone staccato. From across the room, Carl could see Grace's shoulders shaking, his hands trembling as if he'd been electrocuted. He tried and failed, again and again and again to guide his little pipette into a tiny plastic tube. Blinking hard, Grace gritted his teeth and adjusted his positioning.
That wouldn't help if he was just as feverish as Carl suspected.
After all, who the Hell wore a hoodie and a sweater underneath a hefty lab coat in the middle of a sweltering room?
Carl frowned. He balanced his dollar store novella on his thighs as he stared at Grace beyond his kicked-up feet. The desk under him rattled with the force of his fidgeting.
When was a good time to intervene?
On one hand, he didn't want to fuck up the Project’s trajectory by stopping Grace's little experiment. Stratt would decapitate him for that, he was sure. But on the other hand, if Grace collapsed and, say, cracked his head open on a metal table, the boss lady would just rip his balls off instead–
Sucking his teeth, Carl sighed.
He glanced around the room for the right answer. Unfortunately, it wasn't plastered on the walls like he'd hoped.
This seemed like a lose-lose situation and, damn, he hated losing.
Grace braining himself on a table seemed worse, though, so Carl slapped his book shut and stood. He stretched, settling his hands on his hips as he casually closed the distance between them. As he saddled up to Grace's side, he sighed at the sight of Grace’s pipette tip glancing off the lip of the offending tube.
Again.
And again.
And again and, while huffing out a groan, Grace tacked on, “Hey, Carl.”
Jesus, that was some bad congestion.
Draping his arm along the back of Grace's chair, he asked, “So, want to tell me what you're up to?”
“It's a, uh, growth assay,” Grace said, clearing his throat. He scrubbed the wrist of his gloved hand against his forehead. “Uh, we're…we're exposing the astrophage to various environmental pressures that they may encounter aboard the ship.”
“Like what?” Carl asked.
Admittedly, he didn't give a damn about Grace's response. Not that his work wasn't important. No, this guy was likely going to save the world. Rather, the question stoked Grace into chatting - and, boy, did he love to run his mouth - which allowed Carl time to check him over.
This close, he could feel the heat kicking off of the man. Hovering mere inches away, Carl could see his sick-limp bangs, his chapped lips, his fast blinking as he stumbled over his explanation.
And he still had yet to shove that damn pipette in the tube.
As Grace's voice petered off, Carl hummed, “You're pretty sick, you know that?”
Grace twisted in his chair as if Carl had insulted his mother. Glancing up past his glasses, those big blue eyes were cloudy and unfocused. He licked his lips. “What?” Scoffing, he smiled sourly. “I'm fine, really. It's just a cold. And I–” His smile slipped. “I had a joke lined up but it's just…” He mimicked a popping balloon next to his head. “It's gone. Kaput. I hate it when that happens. Don't you hate it when that happens–?”
“You're deflecting,” Carl interrupted as gently as he could. When the line of Grace's shoulders went rigid, he added, “Look, man, you need to take a break. You're seriously not well. That's not going to help the mission.” Clapping a hand to Grace's back, he winced at how hot he was. “Trust me, Stratt runs a tight ship and if you don't take a break now, you'll get booted out when you mess up.” When he gave Grace a little shake, he smiled, “Come on.”
Grace shook his head.
“When… When I'm done with this, I'll go…I don't know, find some meds? Or something? But I can't leave right now.” He turned back to the assay-thing. “Just give me a bit.”
Nah.
That wasn't going to happen.
Carl glanced around, catching stray stares of the other scientists in the room. Some milled about, clearly intrigued but keeping themselves busy. Lokken, however, looked directly at him. Her gaze slid down to Grace, then back to Carl, a silent plea tightening her features when she mouthed, please.
He asked, “So why can't you leave now?”
Grace barked a laugh. “Because I'm busy. I'm literally right in the middle of something. Like, right here–” Flapping his hands over the experiment splayed across the tabletop, his body coiled up like a spring. “It's not like I can just set this down and pick it up again later. I need to finish this.”
“Lokken can't do it?” At the sound of her name, she nodded to Carl. “Because I bet she's pretty capable.”
“Mn,” Grace hummed noncommittally, leaning closer to his pipette to glare at its shaking tip. As if it wasn't his fault the thing was shaking, right? “I just have a cold or something. I'm fine.” He shrugged, his sentence dying out as he slotted the tip into the tube at last. Clicking the dial at the top, he drew up a miniscule amount of clear, viscous material. “Okay, cool, cool,” Grace murmured to himself. “Cool.”
That in itself should've earned a little round of applause, Carl supposed.
Instead, he propped his hands on his hips and said, “You have thirty seconds.”
Grace turned around with a slack-jawed stare. “What?”
Carl continued, “Because you need to be resting and I know you're not going to leave on your own terms. So, you've got thirty seconds.” Checking his watch, he added, “Twenty-six seconds, actually.”
A wounded sound left Grace's lips. “I’m–”
“Twenty-five,” Carl said.
“I said I will in a bit,” Grace countered, grinning again as if there was a punchline somewhere. The poor bastard looked hysterical in his pain. “Like, I need maybe an hour–?”
“I wasn't asking,” Carl said. “You have twenty seconds. Take a break or I'll make you take one.”
He could practically hear the second hand moving, time slipping by as Grace contemplated with his shaking hands and his hard breaths and his sticky, exhausted thoughts. Carl knew what it was like to be seriously ill; the man couldn't be feeling well enough to do anything, he'd bet.
Grace pouted.
Carl straightened his back, “Fifteen.”
When Grace sagged and began rearranging his experiment, relief washed through Carl. The last thing he wanted to do was humiliate the man and drag him out but, if it had come to it, he would've.
See?
Discipline.
“Look,” Grace began, “You can't just–”
Carl said, “I can, and I will.” How much did Grace weigh? One-sixty? One-sixty five? He'd bench that on a bad day. “Five seconds. Get up, Doctor Grace.” In his periphery, he watched as Lokken stepped forward, taking up a spot close by with her hands folded in front of her.
Grace opened his mouth to probably argue back.
Stepping forward, Carl jammed his hands under Grace's legs and hoisted him up into the air.
The squeal that came from the man's mouth had Carl smiling wide. He hooked Grace over his shoulder, bracketing an arm across the backs of his thighs to hold him in place. “Doctor Lokken,” he began, turning around. Grace babbled something. Carl ignored it as he said, “Thank you for finishing Doctor Grace's experiment.”
She chanced a glance over to Grace, grinning. “No problem whatsoever.”
Turning out of the lab, Carl marched down the hallway. Grace pushed at his back and shoulders, hefting himself up as he shouted, “Wait! Wait, okay, I'm sorry! Hey! Carl, wait–!”
Carl wasn't paying attention.
With every jostle, Grace dug a bony elbow or well-placed kick that had him wanting to drop the man. Instead, he focused on moving as quickly as he could past the other ogling scientists and snickering guard personnel. “Put me down, please, come on!”
Halfway down the hall, Grace went slack.
His arms swayed with every step as his stomach heaved for breaths against Carl's shoulder. “You still with me?” he asked, glancing at Grace's dangling, untied shoelaces. “Or did you pass out? Because if you passed out, I'm taking your ass straight to medical–”
“I'm awake,” Grace wheezed. A groan escaped him. “Just…regretting every decision that's led up to this.” He shifted. “I mean, come on, people are staring.”
Shrugging, Carl said, “You should've gotten up when I said to.”
Grace quieted down.
The break room was only a couple of doors away. Carl made quick work of closing the distance. Balancing Grace on his shoulder wasn't as hard as he'd expected it to be. He'd braced himself for a heavy lift of Grace's big frame but, now, opening the door with one hand and barely using any strength to keep the man propped up–
Was he still not eating enough?
Probably not.
Inside the break room, it was dark and quaint. Sofas and chairs lined the wall, and a vending machine bathed the room in a soft blue. Hooked into the back corner was a bathroom stocked with a decontamination shower, too. The rooms were empty and they muffled the bustle of the ship around them.
Good.
This would be the perfect place for Grace to catch some shut-eye.
As Carl made for the sofa, he knelt a knee onto one of the cushions and shifted forward. If his hand hadn't been braced across Grace's back, the man would've flopped backwards. Carl eased Grace back, his heart kicking up into his throat at the man's loose limbs and silence. “You still here?” Carl asked. “Hey–”
Fuck, he hoped he didn't kill their lead scientist.
“Shh,” Grace whispered. Settling him flat on the sofa, his lips quirked up when Grace pressed a still-gloved finger to his lips. “I'm sleeping, remember? That's what you wanted, right?” He cracked an eye open.
Carl snorted.
This cheeky little shit.
Plucking the man's glasses off, Carl folded the metal arms back and set them next to Grace's head. “Yeah,” he hummed, watching as Grace fumbled to rip the clingy nitrile off his hands. “Yeah, you keep sleeping. I like you better that way.”
“Less annoying?” Grace offered.
“Less reckless,” Carl corrected.
Smiling softly, Grace shifted into the sofa, his eyes slipping shut. “I guess…a nap wouldn't hurt.”
“Definitely not,” Carl agreed.
At those words, the man deflated, his breaths smoothing out despite being so congested. Catching sight of a mighty comfortable-looking recliner, Carl plopped down with a sigh. He fished his phone free and pulled up Stratt's contact.
It was better to let her know her lead astrophage scientist was sick, right?
“What're you doing?” Grace mumbled.
Without looking up, he said, “Texting the boss. She'll need to know what's up with you.”
“I mean,” A wheeze trailed after Grace's words. “What're you doing here? Sitting here? Don't you have, I don't know–some big bad bodyguard work to do or…something?”
“My only job is you,” Carl said. When he finally glanced up at Grace, he found something gentle smoothing out his expression. Maybe it was awe? Fondness? Carl couldn't tell. He asked, “Does that surprise you?”
“A bit,” Grace said. A yawn interrupted him. “I'm not used to being so–” Flapping his hands in the air, he grunted as he searched for his word. “Important.”
That wasn't surprising to Carl.
From what he'd researched about Doctor Grace, the man was spirited and opinionated and filled with fire. Though, that had mainly been when he was younger, unpolished and intense. Now, Carl saw someone who was equal parts tired as he was hungry for more that life had to offer. Desperate to be relevant but also fearing the exposure. To be important must've felt like being one of his cells under his microscope, vulnerable and seen in every capacity…
Or something like that. He wasn't a fucking poet.
Finishing his text to Stratt, Carl kicked the footrest up on his recliner and leaned as far back as he could. His eyelids dropped. “Then you can think of me like a babysitter,” he said softly.
Grace's breath hitched.
Carl jerked upright, his eyes wide.
But Grace was asleep. Soft, whistling snores punctuated the silence as Grace mumbled something and twitched. Disarming his anxiety, Carl exhaled hard as he sank into his chair.
The poor bastard really was sick, wasn't he?
Allowing himself to relax, Carl closed his eyes. He listened to Grace's hard breaths, replaying the sounds against his thrumming pulse.
Grace would be fine. He was fine.
But he needed sleep and, so, with that, Carl resolved that he would be waiting for a while.
He woke to a strangled cry.
Carl jerked upright, breaths hitching. When had he fallen asleep? Shit, shit. Scrambling upright, he rushed across the room and leaned over Grace in time to nearly catch a rampant wrist flying towards him.
Grace's arm was burning up and, below, Carl found his expression wrenched up in fear. The veins of his neck strained as he wrenched his head sideways with another aborted scream.
A nightmare?
Kneeling down, Carl said gingerly, “Hey, Grace.”
Grace keened. Tears rolled down into his hairline.
“Doctor Grace, wake up,” Carl tried again, louder and more insistent. Grace wheezed. He threw another hand out. Carl snatched it midair and dragged both fighting wrists to his chest. Leaning over the man, he shouted, “Ryland!”
Grace startled.
Flinging back to consciousness with a choking gasp, he breathed hard enough to rattle his frame. His gasps fizzled out into low whines as he blinked fast, more tears springing free. Carl whispered, “You're okay, man. Can you hear me?” As he pinned Grace's hands to his front, he settled an open palm to his sweaty forehead.
Too hot.
Shit.
Maybe dangerously hot, even. But he wasn't a doctor and, right now, that's what Grace needed. “I have to get you to medical,” Carl said. “Can you stand up?”
Grace gawked at him, his eyes looking through his chest.
“Grace,” Carl hissed.
Those fever-bright eyes flicked up to catch his gaze, completely unfocused. Grace's eyebrows knit together. “What's happ’n’n…?”
“Fuck,” Carl scowled as he, for the second time that day, hoisted Grace over his shoulder and stood.
Oh, how he craved that bitching and whining and flailing from earlier. Now, Grace flopped against him. His fever burned between their points of contact. Sweat beaded over Carl's back and forehead.
He said, “Stay with me, Grace.” Then, wrenching around, he ran into the bathroom, set Grace on the ground, and cranked the decontamination shower on high. Yanking his walkie free, he flipped to channel one and said, “Stratt, this is Carl! We need a medevac to the break room outside of Hangar C labs!”
What time was it?
Was she even awake?
Swallowing around a knob in his throat, Carl tossed the walkie aside and shoved his hands beneath the spray, moving to cup Grace's cheeks. Grace hadn't flinched under the water, he hadn't stirred once. The shower was lukewarm at best but that was good, right? If Grace ended up shivering, it would only make him hotter.
Right?
Damnit, he needed a doctor–
“They're on their way,” Stratt's voice crackled through the walkie. “Don't move.”
“Like Hell,” he mumbled to himself, his focus fixed on Grace. When he moved his hands away, Grace's chin dropped to his chest. “Hey,” Carl hissed. “Come on, man, wake up.”
He didn't.
The seconds slipped by.
Carl began to shake but the water wasn't cold enough for that. “Come on, come on," he muttered under his breath. “Come on, don't die. Don't do this. Don’t–”
“In here!”
Whipping around, relief ripped through him like a bullet as he saw EMS rush into the break room and point at him. “Hey, guys,” he choked out, backing away as the two men stooped down to Grace's level. He slid back until he was flush against the wall. One of the paramedics snapped the water off as another began to rattle off numbers while attaching different instruments to Grace.
His temperature was unclear thanks to the water.
Carl curled in on himself.
Did he make it worse? Fuck, he hoped he didn't. Stickiness curdled in his gut. Pushing himself out of the cramped bathroom, he sucked in a breath as he stared down at his wet palms and soaked suit shirt.
What had he done wrong?
Never, in his decades of work, had he experienced this level of fear. His mind raced, shoving pictures of Grace, either dead or dying, into the front of his thoughts. Carl scowled. He grit his teeth, wringing his hands together.
Fuck.
“Hey.”
Carl flipped around.
One of the paramedics smiled curtly at him. Between the two of the men, Grace was sprawled on a stretcher, his eyes open half-liddedly. “We’ll take it from here. He'll be okay.”
They began to walk by.
Grace grabbed Carl's hand.
Everyone stopped. Carl's breath caught in his throat. “Grace–”
“Take a break,” Grace wheezed. A lopsided grin pulled at his lips as he caught Carl's gaze. “You look…like you need it…” He released Carl's hand with a gentle squeeze, his arm retreating to his side once again.
As they filed out of the room, Carl sank back into an exhausted slouch. The silence returned to the room, heavier than before. It was almost suffocating. He frowned.
A break, huh?