Chapter Text
Ryland Grace was determined to figure out how to get a decent cup of coffee on board the aircraft carrier. He was grateful to have coffee at all, especially since the impending ice age was probably going to wipe out most of the world coffee bean supply, but in the meantime would it be that hard for Stratt, holder of all the power in the world, to get some decent quality coffee grounds in this ship?
This morning, Ryland found himself sleepily trudging towards the drip coffee machine in the science quarters of the ship. He went through the motion of making up a new pot, pouring in probably double what he should for grounds but it had been a long night of observing how astrophage would react to different infrared light levels to make breeding more efficient and Ryland needed a strong cup of coffee before going into today’s meeting.
Today, Stratt asked Ryland and the other department heads to go over the final candidates to be a part of the crew on the Hail Mary. A part of Ryland thought of adding whiskey to his coffee for the meeting where they would decide who would be on the killing-themselves-for-humanity A-team and who would be their backups, but really this required a clear head. So bitter, over strong drip coffee would have to suffice.
There was a distinct chill through the passageways of the ship as Ryland made his way to the main conference room. Part of it was the fact that it was nearing wintertime in the Southern Hemisphere and the ship hadn’t made it to warmer waters yet. But the chill also felt appropriate given the horrible decision Ryland was going to participate in today.
Ryland attempted to distract himself from this awful meeting by reviewing the latest readings from his infrared experiments on his tablet as he walked. For all that they were confined in this ship, it was still a rather long vessel and walking clear from the science office to the conference room near the top of the ship took some time. Ryland found himself so absorbed in the readouts, that he would have breezed clear past the conference room if it wasn’t for the broad-shouldered man that he ran face first into right in front of the door.
Ryland clumsily saved his tablet but dropped his, thankfully now empty, paper coffee cup to the floor. He quickly bent down to grab it, “Sorry, I was not paying attention to where I was going and-” Ryland cut himself off mid sentence as he looked up at the guy he had just run into.
Guy was the wrong word. This was a man. And this man looked good. Ryland felt his face grow hot with embarrassment. “Sorry again. I was just trying to read through results of an experiment I’m running before this meeting.” Ryland fully stood up and reached out his hand “I’m Dr. Ryland Grace, are you also in this meeting?”
The stranger smiled warmly and it sent a flutter through Ryland’s chest. He was sure his face was tomato red right now, and he tried to will his nerves down. The stranger then shook Ryland’s hand and holy christmas the man’s hands were so soft but his handshake was just the right amount of firm.
“My name’s Simon. And no, I was just walking up here with Dmitri to talk about the spindrives before he got sucked into another Stratt meeting".
Ryland felt weirdly gooey inside, and internally berated himself for acting like he was fifteen seeing his crush take off his shirt for gym class again. “Oh cool! Well, I’d better get inside. Stratt hates it if I’m late for meetings” Ryland stammered before quickly ducking into the conference room.
He settled himself in the seat to Stratt’s right. Stratt didn’t acknowledge his arrival, instead focusing on reading whatever was on her tablet. A quick look around the room and the somber look on everyone’s face reminded Ryland that he was here to decide who the sacrificial lambs would be and all the embarrassment of slamming face first into a hot guy went right out the window.
A minute after Ryland arrived, Stratt set down her tablet and all eyes turned to her. For a moment, there was a heavy silence. Usually someone would jump up to start talking about their part of the project but today nobody wanted to be the first to speak.
“As you all are aware, today’s meeting will be to review the final candidates for the crew and determine who will be on the primary crew and who will be the backup.” Stratt said, voice unwavering. “I will then be designating training times for the heads of the relevant departments to teach the crew about the mission areas relevant to their subject expertise”.
It was a grueling meeting. There was a bit of debate over the captain before Stratt made an executive decision on putting a man named Yao in charge of the primary crew. There was less debate when it came to the science officer, Dubois was a well qualified man who would do very well in the role.
Ryland halfheartedly listened to the discussion around the engineer. He didn’t have too much input for this role and either candidate would be good in the role from what he read of their backgrounds. It wasn’t until it was decide that Ilyukhina and a man with the last name Fischer would be the primary engineer that Ryland even looked up at the pictures on the projector.
Next to Ilyukhina’s picture, a photo of Simon stared back at Ryland. Fischer was the hot guy that Ryland ran into.
At the end of the meeting, Ryland stood to leave but Stratt stopped him. “Dr. Grace, before you go I want you to know that starting tomorrow you will be overseeing crew preparation. I want them all to have an in depth knowledge of astrophage before launch date as a precaution.”
Ryland looked back to the picture of Simon on the screen and felt the flush creeping back up into his cheeks. He was so screwed.
About one week after the meeting where the crew was decided, Ryland was going back to teaching for the first time since he had fully signed onto Project Hail Mary. Just this time instead of seventh graders it was highly accomplished astronauts, scientists, and engineers which happened to include one very good looking guy that Ryland had been having very-not-professional thoughts about.
The first day mostly consisted of review of the cellular makeup of astrophage, how it was similar and different to earth cells and the basics of the breeding process. For the most part, Ryland felt that it went very well and he arranged additional sessions to go more in-depth with the designated science officers.
However, throughout the whole lesson Ryland swore that he could feel Simon’s eyes burned into his back whenever Ryland turned around to draw on the whiteboard. Even when Ryland was facing the class teaching, Simon kept an even eye contact that made Ryland feel a little weak in the knees.
After class, Ryland stopped in the bathroom to splash his face with cold water before going back to work. He hated what this stupid crush was doing to him. For goodness sakes Ryland didn’t even know if Simon was attracted to men and here Ryland was perving out over the guy.
He returned to his office space in the science quarters and began reading through the reports on the various experiments his science team was running that day. Everything was looking good on their end to have enough astrophage to use as fuel before the trip and the studies on IR light levels and other manageable conditions meant that the engines were only getting more efficient as time went on.
However, in the brief moments when a report wasn’t fully keeping Ryland’s attention he found his mind slipping to unwanted places. He found himself thinking about how rock solid Simon’s body was when they crashed into each other, how perfectly firm Simon’s hands were and the intensity of Simon’s gaze during the class.
Ryland physically shook his shoulders to get himself off that train of thought. He figured that it had been a long time since he had been on a date and with limited time and opportunity on this aircraft carrier that he was just experiencing pent up energy.
Ryland resolved to go to the gym on the ship to go and exercise these thoughts out so he could return to his usual levels of focus on the mission. After he got there, Ryland set a text to speech app to read out the last report he had tried to read through while he ran on the treadmill. It made for a good way to review these reports and Ryland enjoyed that he was only able to have one report going at a time. The pace of the audio reader also gave him time to think about each word.
This seemed like a perfect way for Ryland to do these reports from here on. He got some exercise, the reports were reviewed and Ryland was feeling more clearheaded than he had all week without the distraction of Simon.
That moment of joyful clarity lasted all of two seconds until a clattering of weights returning to the bench press drew Rylands attention. He glanced over at the noise and found himself staring at Simon in a clinging tank top sitting up after his set.
Simon’s face was flushed and his skin glistened with sweat. Ryland felt the butterflies in his stomach start back up again, which was only made worse when Simon made eye contact with Ryland and waved.
Ryland quickly aborted his workout and attempted to keep his flushed face out of Simon’s view as he hurried from the gym to the showers. Ryland let cold water run over his body as he tried to get the picture of Simon out of his head again.
At least in one week they would be at Baikanour, which was a vastly larger campus than this aircraft carrier and would hopefully mean less chances of running into Simon all the time. If Ryland has to spend one more day trapped on this ship with Simon lurking around every corner then he may have to preemptively report himself to HR.