#smallbirdwrites

Thank you @decafdino for the tag!

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he sighed. He squinted. Ryland was standing over him, silhouetted by the sun above in a warm halo that reflected off his glasses and outlined his hair. He sat down beside Colt, still holding the paper in his hand.

“I’m sorry,” Ryland whispered, “I know it’s hard.”

He shut his eyes, unable to look at him anymore. Why his brother always felt the need to apologize for things that weren’t his fault, Colt had never understood. He was about to tell him to shove it, when he heard something in Ryland’s posture shift.

“We don’t have to come here anymore, if you don’t want.”

Colt peeled an eye open, expecting to see tears falling, but his brother’s face was completely dry. “Are you sure?”

He nodded. “I am.”

“But you like doing this.”

“I like doing this with you, Colt. And if it’s not helping or just making it worse, then I don’t want to do it anymore.”

Colt sat up, feeling just a touch lighter. He slung an arm around his brother. “Thanks, Ry.”

Ryland smiled, leaning his head onto Colt’s shoulder. They sat in comfortable silence for a long time.

“Colt?”

“Yeah, bub.”

“If…if it’s me before you…” he sighed. “If I’m first, I don’t want it to hurt this much for you. Don’t feel like you need to do this for me.”

“Ryland,” Colt said with the utmost seriousness, “you don’t gotta worry about that. We’re both gonna die in eighty years at the exact same time, together, in our sleep. I’ve got it all planned out.”

"I, uh– I hurt people, Carl. Important people. Told myself it was fine as long as I fulfilled my purpose. But…look where it got me.”

He’s studying me again, searching me for…something. “Do you regret it?”

“You know, I do, but if I had to go back I wouldn’t change any of it. Those kids, man, they’re just…” I huff from my nose, trying not to get emotional. This is about Carl, not me. “They’re the best thing that ever happened to me. They’re why I’m here. And as soon as that rocket goes up into the sky, I’m going right back to ‘em. The world is gonna need more teachers that care. And if you ask me, I’d say that’s you all over.”

Something unreadable flashes across his face, then it’s gone. “You think so?”

I grin. “I know so. And if you ever need a reference, you can put me down. Hey, maybe I could hook you up with a job at Grover Cleveland! We could be neighbors. Grace-and-Carl: the dynamic duo.”

I wait for him to tell me something to the effect of ‘that’s a little too much Grace for me.’ Instead, he says, “Stevens.”

“Sorry?”

“My last name. It’s Stevens. And I think—”

I wake up disoriented.

Tagging my bud @decafdino and also anyone who feels like it!

“Claire—”

“Oh, so now you want to talk? Fuck you. Fuck all of this. I fucking hate you.”

He checks his mirrors. No one is following them. He knew that.

“I don’t—” his voice catches. A chunk of that dam collapses. He swallows. Breathes. “I can’t let you get hurt.”

She finally turns to look at him, and it is with a rage he hadn’t known she was capable of expressing. “I am hurt, you bastard! You hurt me! You hurt me all the time, and it’s like you don’t give two shits about anything I have to say! You’re never there, you don’t care about me, you don’t fucking tell me what the hell’s going on or where you’ve been—”

“That’s not true, Claire!” He doesn’t mean to scream so loud, but he finds his reserve of self-control has run dry.

“Yes, it is!” she raises the ceiling of volume even more, “Because despite everything I’ve been through, all the shit I’ve had to go through because of you, you still don’t trust me!! Why?! Why don’t you trust me, Court?!!”

“Because I can’t lose you too, Colt!!”

Silence.

“Claire– I meant—”

“I know what you meant,” she growls, “it’s not what you said.”

“Clai—”

“Just stop.” She’s crying. “Why don’t we play the fucking quiet game.”

Chapters: 7/? Fandom: Project Hail Mary (2026), Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Ryland Grace & Rocky, Adrian/Rocky (Project Hail Mary) Characters: Ryland Grace, Rocky (Project Hail Mary), Adrian (Project Hail Mary), Original Eridian Characters (Project Hail Mary) Additional Tags: Journey to Erid (Project Hail Mary), Starving Ryland Grace, Ryland Grace Needs a Hug, Ryland Grace & Rocky are Best Friends, Ryland Grace Is Not Graceful, Ryland Grace is a Leaky Space Blob, POV Alternating, Sick Ryland Grace, Rocky Loves Ryland Grace, Ryland Grace Loves Rocky, Whump, Sickfic, eventually, Panic Attacks, Flashbacks, Author is not a doctor, Author is not a scientist, Definite medical and scientific inaccuracies, It's ok just go with it trust, Angst, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, heavy hurt, Heavy Comfort, Blended book and movie canon, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Missing Scene, Self-Harm (scratching)

Here's an excerpt from a later chapter of How Sweet The Sound since I forgor to post on Wednesday.

“Help? Help me?! What are you gonna do, Rocky? Please, illuminate the matter for me with your massive intellect. You’re gonna feed me more slop that I can’t even keep down? You’re gonna wipe my ass? Breathe for me when my heart stops?” He clenched his fists in anger, venom spitting out with each word. “I’m still starving, buddy, while you have all the food you can eat!”

I’d never said, but I knew he was aware just how grating the guilt of our unequal food situations had been for me. That if I could give him any of my supply, I would give him all. As much as it cut me to hear the words, it hurt more to see him in such pain. He would never speak to me thusly if he were in his right mind, but damnit, I could have strangled him right there. 

“Space,” I muttered.

“What?!” he screamed, still fuming.

“Space! I need space from you, from all of this!” I could not bear another insult from his lips. I inhaled a steadying breath through my vents. “I am going to the cockpit so that I might calm myself. You can do whatever you please, but leave me alone.”

Once again tagging my pal @decafdino !

Jody digs around in her purse for the thick parcel she’d carefully bundled together with string. She unties it, and takes the first paper from the top of the stack.

“Dear Mr. Grace,” she reads, a picture of a heart with a plaster drawn in coloured pencil on the front of the card, “I’m sorry you’re out sick right now. The sub is nice, but she keeps the room too cold and her jokes aren’t as funny as yours. Please come back soon so she leaves.” Jody has to bury a snort into her palm at that; kids will be kids. “Also, Amelia and I made you a new poster for the wall, and everybody signed it. Also, please write back and explain what an ion is. I meant to ask you before but I forgot because I wanted to be first in line for Pizza Day. Feel better soon, Claudia.”

The rest of the cards read similar, with varying degrees of legibility. Jody reads him every single one, because it matters and because it’s what Ryland would do if he could. Some of them make no sense at all. Some of them make her tear up. There are drawings of planets and beakers and red crosses and brains and a bunch of other doodles that she can’t identify. When she finally finishes (it takes a while; there are about forty of them, and she’s been told more are on the way), she sets them down with care on the table beside him.

aw thank you! next chapter will be out soon, but here's a little sneak peek to tide you over (and bc i forgor to do seven sentence sunday this week lmao)

“The name’s Arnold Gallagher. Never worked with him before—friend of a friend, as it were—but I gather he’s one of Carmichael’s buddies. External. Alone, as far as I can tell. I don’t think he was actively communicating with them, but I need to be sure. I need you to make it look like he had a reason for disappearing. Can you do that?”

“Are you seriously underestimating me right now? Of course I can fucking do that.” He could hear the sound of a pencil on paper. “I’ll try and make it seem like he was hemorrhaging funds, put Denny in some hot water with the supers.”

“Good,” he breathed. Some of the tension wormed its way out of his chest. “I need to know who and how, and I need the twins’ information to be scrubbed. I want them wiped off the map completely, you hear me?” His voice was close to cracking again. He couldn’t let himself think about the state Ryland was in when the doctors wheeled him away, or the look on Colt’s face just before he collapsed.

“Heard.” She sounded much more stable than he did. “I’ll tag those names in the system. Anybody goes looking for them, I’ll be the first to know, and you’ll be the second. This won’t happen again, Six.”

Jody takes his hand once more, thumb brushing over his knuckles. “They all need you to come back, Ryland. You have so much more to teach them, once you’re up to it. And Colt and I–” She pauses. The hormones have been really getting to her recently. “We have some news we’d like to share, and I think you’ll be properly pleased by it.

“But…you have to wake up, my love. You just– you have to. I know it’s unfair of me to ask for that. But sweetheart, it won’t– it’ll break him. It just will. And I can’t stand seeing him like that. All we need is one little sign that you’re in there, just one. That’s all. We’ll take care of the rest.”