The last few moments on Earth
*Fandom: Project Hail Mary (book)
*Rating: Teen and Up
*Relationships: Ryland Grace & Dimitri Komorov
*Characters: Ryland Grace, Dimitri Komorov
*Chapters: 1/1 (one shot)
*Wordcount: 800≃
*Additional tags: Friendship, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Drinking, Mentioned Eva Stratt, POV Ryland Grace
*Summary: After Stratt's visit into his cell, Grace is having some trouble trying to make his last few moments on Earth pleasant. An unexpected second visit will bring about some help for that.
*Notes: I know Stratt's visit was immediately before launch but shhh let's pretend it happened a few hours before so we can have this.
“Oh, I will, believe me. You three are going to Tau Ceti. The rest of us are going to hell. More accurately, hell is coming to us.”
It had been over an hour since Stratt had left me alone in my cell with those parting words, and I was still trying to come up with a snarky enough reply even though I'd never even get to deliver it.
So much for my last few moments on Earth being pleasant.
But it's not like I had anything better to do as the clock ticked away. The anger at least kept me away from the impending feeling of doom that— oh, there it was again. I had almost forgotten to be stressed about my inevitable demise for a moment there. Great.
I tried taking a nice, deep breath. Reset my vagus nerve. Force my body to calm down. But it didn’t work. My stupid heart rate insisted on going up rather than down. No breathing away the knowledge that I was hours away from dying, it would seem. Well, not dying dying, just launched into space in a suicide mission to save the world. And then dying.
The sound of the door being unlocked pulled me out of my thoughts. Just how long had I been stewing on my misery? I looked at the clock, but there were still a few hours left until launch for me to torture myself with.
“I am really not in the mood for another talk, Stratt,” I said, not bothering to look at the door. Why would I? She put me in isolation and was the only one with the authority to come in. Man, how I wished I had come up with that snarky reply.
“It’s no problem, we can drink silently,” a voice way more deep and way more Russian than Stratt’s came from behind me.
I whirled around. “Dimitri?!” The man himself was standing at the door with a bottle of vodka in one hand and two glasses in the other. “What— How— What are you doing here?”
He was sure enough not gonna bust me out, even if he was there without Stratt's knowledge —which was impossible— there was no way he’d risk the mission and his neck so close to launch. His neck, not mine. They needed my neck. That was kind of the whole point.
“I owed you a drink, yes?” He sat at the opposite end of my bed without asking. The two armed guards by the closed door watched us closely as he handed me a glass. “I know you chose beer last time, but I thought you might prefer something stronger today. I recommend good vodka.”
Was there a way for that visit to be a trap? But a trap for what? What could be worse than what they were already doing to me? Nothing. And even if there was, Stratt wouldn't need to sneak around it, she'd just barge in and demand the world bent to her will. And bend it would.
I took the glass from Dimitri. No real reason not to get drunk, was there? Being in a coma for four years would surely take care of the hangover before I had to start my next shift. “Pour it in.”
I had intended to stay mad through the visit, I really did. Show Stratt (because there was absolutely no way she wasn’t behind it) that it took more than a friendly visit and some vodka to soften me up. But the liquor was strong and Dimitri's sense of humour still agreed with me despite it all. Soon enough, I found myself smiling. A few more shots and I started crying and spilling my guts about everything going on. I decided to blame the alcohol for it.
Dimitri had been drinking too, but he seemed to be unfazed by it. With one hand on his glass and the other on my shoulder, he was a solid, comforting presence by my side. He let me get it all out of my system and silently refilled our glasses until the vodka bottle was empty.
By the end, I wasn't any more ready to face my death than I had been before. But Dimitri's visit had made the wait easier, and ensured I'd be too drunk to worry much about anything until the doctor and their syringe’s arrival. For that I was thankful.
Maybe ‘pleasant’ would be a stretch, but my last few moments on Earth were more bearable because of him. I would have said I'd cherish the memory… except I wouldn't, of course.
After all, I wouldn't remember a thing by the time I woke up.
