Shouting Into The Void

Depression can’t hit a moving target but anxiety sure can!

[booksandladybugs]

Part 18 of the Mark Watney x Ryland Grace College/University AU

Links to all other parts here

When Colt wakes up in the hospital, he is alone. The beeping echoes in the otherwise bare hospital room.

Where are his brothers? The few times he has woken up in similar positions, his brothers are always there.

A nurse comes in to unhook the medical equipment. They remove whatever is down his throat and say things to him but their words float away.

They leave him shortly after.

Jody comes in hours later, just before the end of visiting hours. She looks like she walked off a set, probably did now that he thinks about it.

She looks grim as she sits in the chair by his bed.

“Where is Ryland?” Is the first thing he asks. Her face falls even more.

No. No no no no. Something is wrong. His brothers, his twin, should be here.

If he’s not, then…

“He has been missing for months. Your brother can’t even find him.”

Ryland, his brother, the sweet school teacher, was missing. Gone. Something in his soul knew it. That bone deep feeling that screamed at him.

Twin telepathy or whatever. He never really believed in it but somehow through everything, they always did know when the other was in trouble.

Ryland knew when Colt was hurt before he got the call from the studio. Every. Single. Time. Colt knew something was wrong even before he got the call from NASA about Mark. It’s like he felt his own brothers heart shattering from cities away.

“Mark isn’t dead.” Are the next words that leave Jody’s mouth.

Rylands screaming cries ring in his ears. The way he had to pry his brother’s hands away from his own face and neck and the tracks of red his nails had already left there.

The way he didn’t leave him for days, fearing exactly what his twin would do if he left his side for even a second. The phantom pressure of his and Courts combined effort to keep their brother upright during the funeral.

The whole world tilts on its axis and Colt is left scrambling for purchase.

[booksandladybugs]

I finally have more than 5 minutes of free time so I will try to write at least 2 more parts of the Ryland and Mark AU this week.

I need to play around with the timing and points of view a bit but there is another part coming, I swear!

[booksandladybugs]

Part 17 of the Mark Watney x Ryland Grace College/University AU

links to all other parts here

Ryland wakes up alone.

His mind is fuzzy, hell he doesn't even fully remember his own name. Distant echoes of words float past his ears but nothing sticks. On his neck, there is a chain with a wedding band on in. "to the furthest star" is engraved on the inside.

Ok. He was married. Or someone important to him gave him this ring. He slips it on his ring finger and it fits. He was definitely married.

Next step, figure out where he is. But his legs don't work.

It takes him too long to find his way down and to a line of neatly labeled bags. He opens two bags full of the personal items of two people much smaller than he appears to be, though everything is slightly blurry and hard to make out unless he really focusses.

He opens the third bag. Binders full of scientific looking papers end up stacked beside him before he moves on to the stack of t-shirts that have bad puns on them. Under the clothes, there is a glasses case, which he sets aside.

One of the inside pockets contains a thick stack of laminated photos.

One of two men, twins at a graduation, high school by how young they look. The next is of the same two in a dorm room surrounded by boxes. The next has three, the original twins and another man who looks like he could be their triplet if not for the deeper wrinkles on his forehead and between his brows.

Brief flashes of memories come back. Laughter over music in a crowded bar, the burn of alcohol going down. Another memory, this time of hands on his hips as he sways, the same hands reaching up to fixing his glasses.

Glasses. Maybe...

He slips the frames on from the case and everything comes into blinding focus.

He moves onto the next photo. It's of the twin with the glasses, him, laying on top of a man who is flipping off the camera in a dark room. The man has one hand carding through his hair and a smile on his face.

Mark. That is the mans name. It floats up along with his own, though that one fades before he can grasp at it.

The next photo is of another graduation but this time with a large group of college aged kids, Mark and the twins included.

He's married to Mark. There is photographic evidence to prove it. They are wearing matching suits and Mark is kissing him on the cheek while they show their matching rings to the camera.

His hand moves to grip the ring. Why isn't he with Mark right now?

He doesn't have to wonder for long. As he shifts to a more comfortable position one of the photos at the bottom of the stack fall out.

It is of a grave covered in flowers with a framed photo positioned off to the right.

The name etched into the stone read

Mark Grace-Watney

Beloved Husband, Son, and Friend

Until we meet again as stars in the night sky

Ryland drops the rest of the photos like they have burned him. A guttural sob leaves his chest as he clutches at the ring around his neck.

Quick flashes of peopled dressed in black flick across his mind. Sunshine through curtains in a bright kitchen as a hand rubs his back. The same kitchen cabinets viewed from the floor as someone, no, Ryland, curls in on himself.

Mark is dead. And he is alone mourning someone he can barely remember.

[booksandladybugs]

Part 16 of the Mark Watney x Ryland Grace College/University AU

links to all other parts here

Mark pushes himself on Mars. He is fighting. Fighting to not die alone on a planet with no other life on it. Fighting to get home. To see Ryland again. He'll never do anything his husband doesn't want ever again.

He should have listened to him when he listed off the non-exhaustive list of everything that could go wrong on a mission to space.

He lives like this. Back and forth, eventually making contact with NASA. The first thing he asks about it Ryland. Then Colt and the Ares crew.

NASA tries to contact the family. Mark's parents are easy, the friend too. It's not like a comatose man can go very far. But the husband... he has been MIA for a while. Shortly after Mark "died".

(in this there is a bit more time between Mark being presumed dead and them figuring out that he isn't. And Ryland was pulled for PHM fairly on in the Ares mission, but not full clearance until a bit later.)

Eva uses the excuse that he is deep in work for PHM and cannot be pulled for any reason. No distractions. He can find out when Mark comes home. At least that is what she tells NASA, and no one has the clearance or time to check.

The ship already launched. The Ares crew watched it fly by their ship, carrying three brave souls out into the cosmos never to be seen again. For the sake of humanity.

They have less time to plan for the Mark retrieval mission. The Ares crew takes it upon themselves to force their hand. They are getting their friend and crew mate back.

The whole world for one man.

Mark makes the journey to the MAV. The countless nights alone driving are full of his thoughts of Ryland. He has his apology speech planned out ten different ways depending on how his husband responds.

He flies through space like iron man.

He makes it back. He sees his crew. Everything is going to be okay. The trip home is full of slowly reintroducing foods into his diet and Mark arguing with NASA to let him talk to Ryland. Surely someone has clearance to get a message to him.

When he finds out that Ryland was never even told he was alive, he loses it a little. Well, more than a little.

When he gets back to Earth, he is going to find Ryland himself.

[booksandladybugs]

Ok so…

There is that sound about Loch Lomond. The two Scottish soldiers one put to death and one freed.

Mark and Ryland are the Scottish soldiers made captive.

They are both the captives of space, one to return to Earth, the other not.

Mark returns to earth before his husband, but he will not return home until he meets Ryland again.

And while Ryland may never return to Earth, he makes some semblance of a home, with one key piece missing.

[booksandladybugs]

Watching PHM and I have some ideas specifically about parallels with Rocky and Grace.

Also how Ryland is going to remember Mark and his brothers.

AND contrast of the world working so hard to save Mark while Ryland has been doomed by those same world leaders. Maybe saving Mark is penance for Rylands fate.

Doomed space husbands

[booksandladybugs]

Part 15 of the Mark Watney x Ryland Grace College/University AU

links to all other parts here

The funeral is nice. NASA makes a big show of one for the public, but Mark's friends and family have their own. Two men dressed in crisp black suits bracket their crying brother, holding him up as he breaks.

Ryland hates the crowds. The cameras being shoved in his face and the reporters calling to get his story. He throws himself into working on PHM. He has to make it work, if not for a better world for him and Mark, for his kids.

He couldn't save his husband, maybe he can help save the rest of the world.

Colt's accident happens just weeks after Mark's death. He goes into a coma from the injuries.

Oh.

So he's alone now. Like actually truly alone.

When the explosion happens and Eva pulls him for the mission, he isn't even shocked. He doesn't have anyone. All that he has now is a house full of photos of people that are either dead or dying. His husband is lying dead on another planet, body slowly being covered by sand, and his brother is probably never going to wake up again.

He is the only choice that makes sense. But still he fights it. Because Colt might wake up. Because Court is out there on some mission. Because he has to be here when they bring Mark's body back on the next Ares mission. He still hasn't buried his husband.

Ryland runs and he fights. Fights for the people he still has left, the few of them there are. It doesn't make a difference in the end.

It's just days after they launch PHM that they discover Mark isn't dead.

[booksandladybugs]

Part 14 of the Mark Watney x Ryland Grace College/University AU

links to all other parts here

They go on like that for months. Videos from Ryland make it to Mark and he tries not to regret his choice. He will complete the mission and make it home to Ryland. In a couple of years. The next time he sees his husband, he is going to be older, deeper smiles lines and maybe some gray hairs.

The Astrophage problem arises shortly after the Ares crew launches. They are kept in the dark, though Mark knows Ryland was pulled to consult on it.

They touchdown of Mars during summer. Ryland is visiting with Colt between brief bouts at home and working on PHM.

Then it happens. The storm. The rest of the Ares crew make it back to the ship, Mark doesn't.

One of the first things the crew realizes is someone is going to tell Mark's family. Someone is going to call his husband, the blond schoolteacher with glasses who was far too intelligent for his teacher's salary. Mark joked that he was too smart to be married to him, that Ryland could do much better but Mark got lucky that day by the vending machines.

Ryland and Marks parents were listed as emergency contacts. Colt gets a call from the latter in the middle of the night, what must be early morning for them on the east coast.

Mark is gone.

In a different city, Ryland collapses in the kitchen. He was up late reworking equations for Eva when his phone rings and he picks up.

He wishes he had't picked up.

Colt calls him at over a dozen times on his frantic drive to get to his brother. He calls Court. His brother has already heard the news, whispers of it in channels that he shouldn't be keeping tabs on but is anyway.

Ryland is curled up on the kitchen floor, broken mug pieces and spilled coffee at his feet, his phone smashed on the floor a few feet away.

All his fears, every bout of late night anxiety, every single thing Mark assured him wouldn't happen, happened. And now Mark is gone.

He won't even have a body to bury.

[booksandladybugs]

Rewatching the Martian just gave me the most sinister idea for part 15 and 16

I found a way to make the angst even worse!!!!!

[booksandladybugs]

Currently watching the Martian and seeing all the possible places my AU fits in

I’ll do the same thing with Project Hail Mary later this week

[booksandladybugs]

Part 13 of the Mark Watney x Ryland Grace College/University AU

links to the rest of the parts here

The months long journey to Mars is brutal. Every night, Mark stares at the pictures in his bunk. Their undergrad gang in their grad caps and gowns. His wedding. A random picture of a sunset off the coast that Ryland must have packed.

The photo Colt took in their apartment after they got together. Ryland asleep on his chest while Mark flipped off the camera.

His wedding ring sits on a chain around his neck. Before launch, Ryland stole his ring only to return it to him a couple of days later. On the inside of both their rings the words "to the furthest star" are engraved.

Every night he goes to sleep gazing at the photos of everyones he loves, clutching the ring over his heart.

Back on Earth, Ryland goes to work, teaches a class full of some of the brightest kids in the world. He loves his life.

Well, almost all of it. He doesn't love the cold side of the bed in the morning or the empty chair across from him during meals. The way the coffee cups sit in the sink too long because he forgets to wash them and there isn't another person there to remember.

The first week isn't that bad for either of them. The new routine is still sinking in and everything is too fresh to really start hurting yet.

But it gets worse.

Colt's phone rings almost every night, and he has to talk down his brother from the anxiety spiral he has himself in about Mark and space and all the different ways he could die up there. Every fear from the very beginning of this NASA journey has come back full force.

The one bright spot is the videos Ryland makes for Mark to send to the Ares ship. They are mundane things, like the projects his students are working on or a new recipe he is trying.

It keeps them both sane.

[booksandladybugs]

Part 12 of the Mark Watney x Ryland Grace College/University AU

links to all other parts here

Colt and Court do laps around town as Ryland and Mark talk in their kitchen.

The conversation lasts hours. They go back and forth and eventually it isn't even about the Ares mission anymore. It is about fears and insecurities. Ryland has his laundry list of things that could go wrong on the mission, things that would take Mark away from him forever. Mark understands these fear, but all the previous Ares mission have been fine, why would this one be any different.

In the end, it's Marks choice to go. And he does. He accepts the offer, and Ryland is happy for him. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity, going to space.

The first few months of Marks training, Ryland is on summer break. They spend it in Florida, balancing Mark's meeting with fancy dinners and day trips.

There is a dinner with all the astronauts and their families. Ryland smiles and makes small talk. Numbers are exchanged so they can all keep in touch over the course of the mission. He doesn't stop spinning his ring around his finger the whole night.

They take enough photos to fill rooms of their house. But in the end, it is time for Ryland to return to work in the fall and it's the last final bits of Marks training.

Ryland goes to Florida for the launch. He can't fathom saying goodbye in some airport. Colt is there with him. The people he met months before are there as well.

They have their teary goodbyes and final kiss that is far too short for either of their likings and then Mark is getting pulled from the conference room and he is gone. Ryland is alone, a feeling he will have to get used to in the coming months.

Maybe he should get a dog.

All the families watch the launch on a large screen in a conference room. Colt and Ryland grip each others hands so tightly they might have bruises later.

For a split second, it crosses Rylands mind that his husband might die, that couple of minutes spent clinging to each other being the last they would ever have.

He shakes his head to banish the thought.

The Ares crew makes it to space. They didn't burn up in orbit and none of the million things that could have gone wrong happened.

Mark is safe and in space and a million miles away from the person he loves most in the entire universe.

[booksandladybugs]

Part 11 of the Mark Watney x Ryland Grace College/University AU

links to all other parts here

They live like that for years. When the pair are 32, Mark is approached to be on the upcoming Ares mission. He brings it up at dinner one Friday night.

It's the first time the pair really fight. Mark argues what it would do for his career and how much new information could be gained. Ryland lists of all the ways the mission could fail and how he could lose him.

It doesn't end well. Ryland grabs his wallet and keys and leaves. Mark stares at the wall behind where his husband is supposed to be eating dinner for too long, barely moving or breathing.

He tries Ryland's number and it goes straight to voicemail. He calls Colt but he also hasn't heard from him. Mark drives around there side of town in circles, knocking on the doors of neighbors and businesses they frequent. He even goes to the school looking.

Ryland isn't in any of these places.

Mark breaks down sobbing on the sidewalk after the last bar they go to turns up nothing. He's ruined everything. years of a relationship down the drain, everything that they have gone through since they were 18 years old. Gone. He ruined it all for nothing.

Ryland actually caught a bus to LA to stay with Colt and his phone died because he forgot to charge it. He bangs on Colts door at close to three in the morning.

His twin is about to throttle him right there. Colt was this close to calling the police. He already sent one of their undergrad friends over to look after Mark.

Hell, he called Court. That was truly a last case scenario type of move.

Safe to say, Colt gives Ryland the scolding of his life. He is never allowed to go radio silent on them ever again, no matter what happens. Never ever.

Colt confiscates his phone. He promises to let Mark know he is alive but that is it. They will spend time apart and then come back and have another go at the conversation.

Ryland stays with Colt for a week. The fight fell at the right moment, the beginning of spring break for Ryland.

Court sends someone to stay with Mark. It surprises Colt, even if his brother says it's for Ryland, he hears the way his older brothers voice wavers slightly.

Colt drives Ryland back the following Saturday.

[booksandladybugs]

Me drafting part 13 and 14 of the Ryland x Mark story.

[booksandladybugs]

Part 10 of the Mark Watney x Ryland Grace College/University AU

links to all parts here

Their wedding is in early spring before they graduate with their masters degrees. It is a simple and small affair. Friends from college and some family, though both don't have much in that respect.

Court comes, if only to watch the ceremony and hug his little brothers. He also meets Mark for the first time. He sizes him up, finally meeting the man he watched his brother go from hating to loving.

He also threatens to make him vanish if he ever hurts his brother.

They dance and drinks and laugh well into the night, long after most of their guests have gone. They make plans to buy a house after they earn their doctorate's.

They graduate and move into their PhD programs. Everything is going so well. They wear their rings on chains around their necks as to not get in the way.

Ryland gets ousted from his field before they get to live together.

Ryland leaves his apartment and moves across the country to Mark's tiny studio. But it's just not enough space. They make it a few months before talks of moving again comes in.

Ryland takes a job as a teacher and Mark picks out a lovely house nearby to the school, close enough for his husband to bike everyday.

The house is shockingly like the one Mark had pictured all those years before while living with Ryland before their senior year of undergrad. The plants in the sun room, the office spce Ryland can use to grade his students work. The kitchen with the painted cabinets.

Colt drive up to help him decorate his classroom the week before school starts.

Ryland loves it. He loves teaching and his kids. He misses the lab work, the theories and atmosphere, but he doesn't miss his peers, the way they looked down on him and his ideas.

It turns out the classroom is the best fit for him.

Mark works at a lab in the city, about an hour commute from their home. Ryland bikes every day.

It's honestly pretty perfect. They have the house, the marriage, their dream jobs in their own ways.

[booksandladybugs]

Part 9 of the Mark Watney x Ryland Grace College/University AU

links to all parts here

Mark officially moves in for senior year. There was no discussion, it just happened.

The year passes just like the ones before, though this time their futures loom large over their heads. Colt announces he is going to try and peruse stunt work, much to his younger brothers dismay. Ryland and Mark get accepted to masters programs, but in different universities. Ryland is headed to coastal California, and Mark is going all the way to Massachusetts.

They party after graduation, but the tone is somber under the lights and booze. Ryland grips Mark's arm a bit tighter than usual, like he is going to slip away at the last moment, because he is.

The almost year they spent living together is coming to an end.

Mark packs up his things into a moving van and is off just days after the ceremony.

Ryland and Colt go out to the bars that night and they drink. Ryland says it's to celebrate his Masters program, but he spends the night downing shots, trying to ward off the feeling like his world was coming apart.

Their relationship doesn't end. They make it through the first year and by the end of it, they are both itching to see each other.

Over the course of the summer, both men go ring shopping. Mark goes to Colt for help picking out the ring for Ryland. Just days later during a casual phone call, Ryland mentions to his brother that he bought a ring.

Colt is the only person who knows they both plan on proposing. He doesn't want to suffer alone in this knowledge, so he gets in contact with Fitz to send a message to Court. If anyone else should know about it, it should be their big brother.

They both start their second year of their programs, none the wiser to what the other has planned.

They celebrate their two year anniversary with a long phone call and cupcakes eaten alone but together. By the time they make it to the winter holidays, the rings are heavy in their pockets. \

The pair have arranged to spend Christmas with family and New Year with their undergrad friends. After the ball drops, Mark drags Ryland away from the crowded bar floor and out onto the street where flurries have begun to fall.

There is a park near their old college bar, and they stroll hand in hand down the deserted street.

Mark gets down on his knee first. Ryland doesn't give him time to give a speech or even ask before he is pulling out his own ring box and laughing through tears.

They return to the bar a while later with matching rings, getting a thunderous round of applause from the drunk patrons.

[booksandladybugs]

The little evil voice in the back of my head wants to take my favorite characters and give them my chronic illnesses.

July is chronic illness awareness month. None of them are safe as long as I am in a flare up and feel like torturing fictional characters lest I actually go insane.