❥you & bakugo won’t say you’re dating, but there will be signs
BAKUSQUAD CASE FILES — CASE STUDY #1.
observed by — mina ashido
“y/n says she and bakugo aren’t dating. but i swear i caught them playing footsies during study hall.”
⟡
mina assumes it’s a trick of the light.
sero’s stalking hot moms on facebook. denki & kiri are trying to start a fire with a comically large magnifying glass. & when mina sees bakugo tickle your ankle with the toe of his sock, mina’s quick to assume the sight’s caused by the refractive index of light through the magnifying glass or whatever mumbo-jumbo they learned during last tuesday’s physics class.
but it happens again.
and this time you giggle.
and so mina has no choice but to accept magnifying glasses cannot bend sound.
mina puts on sero’s eyeglasses. they’re purely decorative, but she feels more intuitive regardless. she buries her nose between CGP’s A-Level biology guide & pretends she isn’t observing the way your eyes glint anytime you manage to nick katsuki in the shins.
bakugo’s face is stone still.
to the untrained eye, he’s simply solving calculus questions a mile a minute. but then he grunts.
mina doesn’t miss the way he grins when he nabs you in the thigh.
BAKUSQUAD CASE FILES — CASE STUDY #2.
observed by — sero hanta
‘bakugo swears y/n isn’t anyone special to him. so why the hell does he have her contact saved as ‘mine?’
⟡
the first time sero hanta ever decides to show up early, he’s stuck waiting at a theatre with an angry bakugo at his side.
not to say the fiery blond isn’t usually angry. but this time said anger comes with heat: he’s grinding straw between his molars so hard plastic cracks between his teeth. his feet tap like it’ll make time go by sooner. it doesn’t.
“i’m gonna kill that damn shitty hair.”
“we’re the ones who’re thirty minutes early.”
“shut the fuck up.”
dumb dog sero hanta does as he’s told. katsuki stews a little longer, neck rash red, phone clicking locked & unlocked till he decides he’s had enough—or till the anger reaches his bladder. “‘m going to the bathroom, watch my shit.”
katsuki doesn’t bother waiting for a reply. his hands shove in his pockets as he makes his way to the bathroom, phone tucked firm between sero’s palms. sero hanta knows better than to hold it with anything less than an iron grip. but then it buzzes—& almost cartoonishly, the phone hops & skips before settling between his fingers
sero sees the notification before he can pretend otherwise.
mine🫀: mina and i are otw
mine🫀 : hope we’ll make it. this girl can NOT drive.
sero muffles a snort. the text holds truth, mina cannot, in fact drive. he recalls the time she picked him up to go to the beach and—wait.
is that text from y/n?
he’s quick to take a picture, send it to the ‘inBESTigators 🕵️🔍’ GC. before he can even close his phone & resume playing saint, kiri’s response comes in.
ripped riot 🔥: could be a typo
ripped riot 🔥: like ‘mine’ could be short for miner
pikachu ⚡️[replying to ripped riot 🔥] : are we deadass
sero’s about to type a response of his own before the familiar heavy steps of steve maddens sag at his ears. katsuki’s back, jaw tight & angrier than ever.
further investigation will have to wait.
BAKUSQUAD CASE FILES — CASE STUDY #3.
observed by — denki kaminari
‘when the fuck did bakugo get funny?’
⟡
autumn break means thanksgiving shopping & black friday sales that make twelve dollar products drop to eleven ninety-nine. denki’s shopping for snacks, kiri needs energy drinks & you’re here for produce. katsuki is here because you all need his membership to get into costco.
something isn’t right.
& denki’s not talking about how the price of cheetos have somehow gone up. he’s talking about the fact that katsuki stands firm behind you, hands in pockets as you show him fruit. that’s fine—bakugo’s always been able to tell which apples are good & which aren’t.
but no apple evaluation requires katsuki to lean in that close.
and denki’s pretty sure there’s nothing funny about granny smiths either.
so why the fuck are you giggling ?
kaminari’s eyes flit to katsuki’s. if he was any other classmate, he’d say katsuki was bored. lips tight, eyes neutral, jaw slack. but denki’s no other classmate. he recognizes that twitch in his brow. the bob in his jugular.
katsuki is pleased. at least, denki thinks—no, swears he is. but just to be safe, he chooses to call in an actual katsuki expert. kirishima’s fatass is trying yet another free sample. for the sake of peace, denki chooses not to comment & instead goes straight to business.
“yo, kiri—i’m not seeing stuff, right? is bakugo not smirking and making y/n laugh??”
kirishima, in true fatass fashion, responds with a mouth filled with mini tacos. “I down’t see ‘t”
“bro. chew.”
“I don’t see it,” kiri gulps. “don’t you think we should respect their privacy?”
“we’re at a costco??”
but kaminari drops it. if the katsuki expert himself says there’s nothing, there’s obviously nothing.
right ?
BAKUSQUAD CASE FILES — CASE STUDY #4.
observed by — literally everyone
‘katsuki and y/n are definitely dating. oh, and kiri’s getting kicked from the group chat.’
⟡
mina ashido is not playing around.
the rest of the gang isn’t either. kaminari’s flipping through a scrapbook titled ‘PHOTOGRAPHICAL EVIDENCE.’ sero’s screenshotting group chat messages that sound too fond to not be affectionate. kirishima’s got his laptop open, looking over ‘evidence spreadsheets’ he swears aren’t empty.
but they are. and mina, rivaled only by sherlock himself, notices.
“kirishima, cell B-4. what’s written in there ?”
“I—uh, cell? what do you—“
“aha—” mina shuts her book. she’s towering over eijiro now, hands on her hips & glare so sharp it melts kiri like—well, acid.
“you’re not really doing anything.”
sero lifts a brow. kaminari gives the stink-eye.
“matter of fact…” mina continues, “you haven’t done anything. compiling evidence. listening in on on their convos. you haven’t done anything we’ve asked you to.”
“yeah,” sero quips. his phone’s in his lap now. “matter of fact, you always had some excuse about why you couldn’t.”
“matter of fact,” denki joins, “you’re always trying to deny evidence. talking about us ‘being delusional’.”
oh, kirishima’s in trouble now. blood in his jugular. tar in his throat. “I—“
mina can’t make up what happens next.
The door opens. It’s katsuki—not surprising—they’re literally all seated in a circle on the mat in his dorm. plans to hang out & just chill today—the usual. kiri is bakugo’s roommate. getting in isn’t a fuss.
but you’re right beside bakugo.
and your finger’s in his belt loop.
mina blinks. you haven’t noticed them yet. you look all calm and pretty, lashes low, eyes glued to your phone screen. your finger’s looped around the belt-hole like you’ve done it a thousand times before, and—
is that katsuki’s hoodie?
“what the fuck are you losers doing here?”
kiri’s already scrambling to defend the situation—something about she & the others showing up an hour early, he didn’t know, don’t blast us all—but mina’s not listening. she’s wondering if the refractive index of light is so strong it somehow made it look like katsuki gave your hand a light squeeze before tapping your hand off his jeans.
you’re still quiet behind him. hair all cute, jam-pink cheeks, fawn freckled & doe-eyed. kiri and katsuki are going back and forth. sero’s joined in. kaminari’s farted because he thinks no one will notice.
“y/n, is that bakugo’s hoodie?”
you can hear a pin drop. and another fart from kaminari.
“no, it’s—“
“it’s mine.” katsuki steps forward, hands in pockets & posture lazy like he didn’t say something scandalous. “got a problem, pinkie pie?”
“i could never.”
katsuki hums. he tugs you gently by the palm, door clicking shut behind him with the kick of his shin. he trudges toward the group, right hand in his pocket, left in yours—and he murmurs a quiet sit in your ear before doing a once-over.
“what’s all this?”
“evidence.”
“homework.”
“not evidence.”
tongue click. “evidence of ?”
“the refractive index of light.”
“you and y/n dating.”
“not you and y/n dating.”
“uh-huh,” katsuki picks up a photograph. he recognizes the scene: you’re tucked in his side, showing him something on your phone while he leans too close to be considered casual. you’re giggling here. cute.
he pockets it. “you guys are a bunch of fuckin’ idiots. and you—“ he turns to kirishima,
“no, no bro listen,” kirishima’s palm rests on his neck, an apologetic glance in your direction before he answers, “I did try to get them to leave you guys alone. they wouldn’t listen!”
“aha! so you were a traitor!”
bakugo glares. mina shrinks.
a muffled giggle pierces the silence. then a snort. & now you’re full on laughing—
“oh my god,” you sniffle, “you guys know we were literally gonna tell you, right?”
“tell us when?” sero speaks up, long moved away from kaminari. “it seems kiri here already knew about it.”
bakugo grunts. “why do you idiots think you’re here?”
oh.
bakugo takes a seat beside you. sero’s avoiding eye contact. kaminari’s avoiding the cheetos. mina bites her lip. you’re leaning over katsuki’s thigh now, photo evidence flip-book in your hands. you’re pointing out familiar photos while laughing & shaking your head, and bakugo’s looking back with a gaze so soft that mina doesn’t know how she didn’t see it sooner.
“i think we owe you two an apology.”
katsuki’s got his fingers twisting your knuckle. “y’think?”
sero, mina, and denki all look towards each other.
“we’re sorry.”
“for what?”
“for stalking you guys.”
“and not trusting that you’d tell us.”
“and being idiots.”
katsuki hums, satisfied. but he’s not done yet. he leans back on his palms before gently poking your hip. “should we forgive ‘em?”
“maybe. if they can send some of these photos.”
bakugo nods, turns to mina. “you heard the missus.”
“girl, take the whole book. like—seriously. omg.”
you hug it towards your chest, and mina can tell bakugo’s fighting a smile.
“right. and since you guys know now, you can all leave.”
the three protest. kiri interrupts. “i think it’s for the best. it’s been a long day.”
“that includes you, shitty hair.”
“huh—what?! this is my room too!”
“don’t care,” katsuki tugs you up with him, grip gentle, palm flat against your back as he steers you towards his bed.
“and didn’t ask,” he glances over his shoulder, “all of you, out.”
Clingy!Denki sits outside the bathroom door while you use the toilet (because you kicked him out), knees pulled to his chest, talking to you through the door and asking how much longer you’ll be.
Clingy!Denki can be dead asleep, snoring softly, but the moment you shift away he unconsciously reaches out, fingers twitching until he finds your arm, waist, or hand.
Clingy!Denki cannot sit next to you on the couch without pulling your legs into his lap, absentmindedly tracing shapes on your skin while watching whatever’s on TV.
Clingy!Denki begs you to watch him play video games just to have you close, constantly explaining what he’s doing or trying to convince you to sit in his lap. (The view is better from there of course).
Clingy!Denki loves wearing oversized T-shirts because one time you slid under his shirt to hug him, and now every time he wears one he lifts the hem expectantly, waiting for you to crawl in.
Clingy!Denki gets mildly offended if you don’t hold his hand while walking, dramatically hooking his pinky with yours and whining until you lace your fingers together properly.
Clingy!Denki has absolutely no shame when it comes to PDA, even in front of his friends. He’s always got an arm slung around your shoulders, fingers laced with yours, or leaning in to press quick kisses to your cheek.
“Way to make us feel single,” Sero huffs, watching Denki tug you closer just to rest his chin on your head.
“Oh, stop it! They’re in love,” Mina says defensively, grinning as Denki only tightens his hold on you in response, completely unbothered by the attention.
Dividers: @diviniyae (these vday dividers are the cutest)
SUMMARY: Your title was different on the Taskforce; you'd gone from Lieutenant Commander to Eva Stratt's most reliable runner — made to look after new recruit, Dr. Ryland Grace. Fly him where he needs to go, keep him fed, keep him supplied, keep him out of trouble.
But when intelligence reports of Stratt's enemies targeting her key personnel arise, the mission changes. Your orders are clear: protect Grace at all costs.
# # TAGS: Semi-Canon-Adjacent, NavalPilot!Reader, Bodyguard x Charge Dynamic, Gender Neutral Reader, Aura Gap Relationship, Grace's Students are Mentioned, Slow-ish Burn, Longform, Part 1 of ??
# # WARNINGS: Canon-Typical Stakes, Non-Canon-typical Diplomatic Issues, Mentions of Character Death (Off-page), Brief Mention of Motion Sickness, Mild Threat of Violence
NOTE / DISCLAIMER: Decided to make this one gender-neutral! Realized that there wasn't really a plot-significant reason to specify reader's gender. Don't worry, still no use of Y/N. I don't think I mention they/them, either. I've also given you a callsign that will only be mentioned a few times (in case you don't like it.) 5.7k words.
We’re not in Kansas anymore, thought Ryland Grace, staring out the window of his assigned room in the Petrova Headquarters. The sun had set at least two hours prior, and there was only black as far as the eye could see. Already he missed the dusty rectangular windows of his lonely apartment. Those foggy mornings, trashy streets, the promise of an average day. Now, on the floating plane hangar the UN used as a base, looking out the window meant staring into a deep lifeless abyss. Hardly his first night here and he already felt like he was suffocating.
The room itself was sparse but functional. He had a narrow bed, a desk, a small bathroom, and the viewport that looked like a prison window. There was a cabinet for him to keep his clothes in; which would have been nice, if he had any clothes at all. But as he wasn’t expecting to be forced to stay within government lines over the course of one meeting, he only had a few things. Eva Stratt promised they’d sort the matter of his new living situation the following morning.
It was ridiculously easy to feel like he didn’t belong. Grace felt like a sock in a glove drawer. Though he was certain his exhaustion was mostly due to the afternoon he spent speaking to the most powerful people of the world. There was a lot of work to do. He'd had a very long day. He rubbed his face with both hands and let out a long, tired breath.
“Fudge,” Grace muttered. “What am I doing here?”
A soft knock at the door made him flinch.
He turned, heart already kicking up. “Wh– Yeah?”
The door slid open with a quiet hydraulic hiss. He heard a voice before he saw the person it belonged to. “Dr. Grace,” it said. Familiar. He'd heard that before. The door remained ajar, but his visitor didn't step in.
Grace clumsily stumbled on some empty boxes as he crossed the room. He was a ball of anxious energy, as eager as he was reluctant to be useful to the team. Did they need him working on something this early? He caught himself on the entryway with a huff.
“Yes?” He said. “Dr. Grace, that's — that's me.”
The familiar voice was accompanied by an unfamiliar face. Grace's eyes met a stranger's. They blinked at each other for a while, saying nothing in the time it took for Grace to place where he might have seen them before. He didn't have much luck.
You stood at his door, dressed in a dark flight suit with a helmet tucked under your arm. A jet pilot. But Grace had seen plenty of jet pilots around; there were quite a lot of them there. The makeshift base for the Taskforce was, after all, a naval plane hangar. This was a jet pilot's natural habitat.
“Good evening,” you said, when the silence stretched on too long.
Grace flinched out of his thoughts. “Hello.”
You shifted your grip on your helmet a little. “I wanted to check if you needed anything before lights out.”
“Um.” Grace wasn't aware that there would be a ‘lights out’, or that him needing anything was a matter of importance. “I don't really…” He trailed off, squinting his eyes at your face, still trying to place you in the myriad of people he'd seen that day. “Sorry, have we met?”
Your head tilted a little. “We have. This morning. I flew you.”
Flew him? Oh. OH! It hit him like a slap.
When Stratt informed him that he would be picked up via jet, Grace’s mind conjured up the image of a private jet. The fancy ones with champagne bottles and shrimp cocktails. It would have been nice, and was greatly preferred. Instead, there was you, and the wildest ride of his meager life.
The mere memory made him feel as though his guts were bubbling again. He got here on a high-speed jet; not to be confused with the boat they used to cross the River of Styx. Grace spent the first 20 minutes of that flight white-knuckling the straps and wondering if he'd left the stove on. Some of the pills they'd given him never made it to his mouth. The roar of the engine had been so loud he thought he blew an eardrum. Then, he passed out. At least, he was sure he passed out — for there was a sizable gap in his memory between being in the flight and being half-dragged out of the cockpit on shaky legs, knees buckling the second his shoes hit the tarmac.
He didn't recognize you because of the helmet, and because he'd been too busy rekindling his relationship with God to have noticed who was driving him to his doom.
“You!” exclaimed Grace, brows now raised in recognition.
“Me.” You nodded your head. “Now that I'm here, I also wanted to apologize for the intensity of our flight. The Madame Director wanted you on the base by 9 AM and I received the assignment 8 AM, so.” You offered him a forced but apologetic smile. “I had quite a deadline.”
Grace was grinning at you then, somewhat giddy to see your face. “It's fine. Not the worst ride I've been taken on.” He laughed, loud and awkward. “Sorry. Uh, you said you came to see if I needed anything?”
You nodded again. “Yes, sir. I’ve been assigned as your personal attaché for the duration of the mission. My quarters are two doors down if you need anything.”
Woah. Okay, lotta’ interesting words there.
“What?” Grace pushed his glasses up his nose. “Sorry, what does that mean? Attaché? Like the briefcase?”
“No. It means I work for you. Officially. Whatever you need — transportation, resources, security clearance — I can make it happen. Ms. Stratt put me under your direct command. My priority is keeping you effective and on schedule.”
Grace blinked slowly, as if the words were yet to compute. “You work for me?” He let out a short, incredulous laugh. “That can’t be right.”
You shrugged.
“I'm a middle school science teacher,” Grace insisted. “You’re a naval jet pilot who shoots down planes. And you’re telling me I’m your boss?”
You had an unfazed, casual air about you. It was an odd thing to see alongside your intimidating stature. Your uniform was a damn good fit and it made you look like you should be telling Grace what to do.
“If I might correct you,” you said, leaning in. “You’re not a middle school teacher here. You’re one of the valued scientists that’ll figure out how to keep the sun from dying. A guy like that deserves a bit of privilege, don’t you think?”
Grace opened his mouth only to close it again. He ran a hand through his messy hair. “I mean, surely they've got more important things for you to do.”
“Yes, plenty.” You nodded. “We’re in the middle of the Pacific, hundreds of miles from the nearest port. If anyone needs something from the mainland, I’m usually the fastest way to get it here. Supplies, equipment, medical samples. This and that.”
Grace's brows climbed higher with every word. “So you're like, the base's Uber,” he said with a snort.
You didn't like that. Grace's smile fell upon seeing your jaw flex. He cleared his throat, weakly mumbling an apology.
“Yes,” you agreed anyway. You sighed a breath out your nose. “If there's a way to do something without the paperwork, Stratt will take it. Most days that means I’m running errands for the whole facility. But for the duration of this mission,” you steadily met his eyes, “my primary responsibility is you.”
Grace gulped. “Why?”
Your shoulders hiked up in an innocent manner. “In case you bolt.”
He laughed again, nervous. “I don't see how I'd be able to do that.”
“You seem creative enough. I'd be wrong to underestimate you.”
There was a brief silence between the two of you. Grace didn't need to strain his ears to hear the soft creaking of the hull. The slow movement of the hangar was barely noticeable, but with nothing left to say, it was all he could feel.
“Which reminds me —” You reached into one of the pockets of your flight suit and pulled out a compact military-grade radio. A walkie-talkie. It had a sleek design, reminding Grace of the ones he’d seen in movies. There was a single red marker already set. You held it out to him. “I might not always be available. Channel nine is direct to me. If you need anything — day or night — you use this. I’ll answer.”
Grace held his fingers out at the device like it might bite him. After hesitating for a moment, he took it in his hand and gave it a closer look. His thumb brushed the smooth plastic as his eyes flicked upwards to glance at you. He tentatively clicked the protruding button on the side, and a matching radio from your utility belt crackled to life.
Without breaking his gaze, you took your radio and brought it up to your lips. “Read you loud and clear, sir.”
Grace smiled and felt the tips of his ears turn warm.
The overhead lights stuttered. One by one, each bulb down the corridor flickered shut, until the only illumination left was the soft blue emergency strip lighting along the floor and the faint glow from Grace’s viewport-slash-prison window.
Grace startled, glancing up at the darkened ceiling. “Power failure?” he asked, already tense.
“Lights out,” you replied calmly. “As I’d mentioned. Facility-wide curfew. The seabase runs on strict power conservation protocols after 2100. Non-essential lighting is killed to save the generators for critical systems.”
Grace looked around the suddenly dim hallway, then back at you, the emergency lights casting long shadows across his face.“So we just sit in the dark now?”
The corner of your mouth twitched. “Either you go to bed, or you head to the east wing. Most of the energy we’re conserving is for the labs. Is there anything else you need, sir?”
“I don’t think you have to call me ‘sir’.” Grace fidgeted with his radio. There was that nervous laugh again.
You seemed mildly endeared by it. “Two doors down,” you reminded. “Channel nine. Good night, Dr. Grace.”
He nodded his head, looking a little dumbfounded. He watched you leave his doorstep and walk further down the hallway — only a mere two doors, as you had promised. Grace was about to return to his own room when he flinched upon realizing that he didn’t even know your name. He clumsily grabbed at his walkie-talkie, but it leapt from his hands like it was a live fish. He caught it before it could hit the ground.
“Wait!” he said, squeezing the button.
His voice echoed down the corridor and bounced off your device. You hadn’t been far enough for him to have needed the radio. You were standing right there. Grace felt like an idiot.
You stopped, your back to him. You didn’t turn. You raised your radio to your lips and spoke. “Sir?”
“I-I didn’t get your name,” Grace whispered into the feed.
You told him your name, and your rank. Lieutenant Commander.
“Sounds fancy,” Grace chuckled.
“It’s alright.”
“Do you have a callsign? Like in Topgun?”
“I was waiting for you to bring up Topgun.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“You seemed like the type.” Grace watched your shoulders drop as you sighed. From down the hallway, you turned to look at him. You raised the helmet you’d been holding between your arm and your hip. A name was stencilled in bold white letters.
Grace was smiling like an idiot. “Booker,” he read.
“At your service.”
“Why Booker?”
“I read a lot. Anything else, Dr. Grace?”
He shook his head, biting his lower lip. “That’s it for tonight, Booker. Will I see you tomorrow?”
“Actually, yes. We have an early-morning flight. We’ll be retrieving the rest of your things from your apartment.”
Grace felt his heart skip. He could go back to the city! And here he thought he was trapped here for the rest of his days. He gave you a firm nod and a small salute. He pulled himself back into his room and pushed the heavy hydraulic door shut.
“Okay,” he said into the radio. “Uh, good night.”
He didn't think he'd get another reply. There was silence on the other line. He was about to put the walkie away when he heard it fizzle. There was a soft beep.
“Good night, sir.”
Flying was better the second time around. Rather, when there was no desperate need to sprint from point A to point B. Stratt had given Grace the entire day to sort his things — he'd return to the city to pack for an undetermined amount of time. He'd file an official leave from his teaching at Grover Middle. He'd say his goodbyes. He wasn’t expected to return to the base until evening, therefore the deadline wasn't as tight. You were gentler with the plane, still hair-raisingly fast, but not as abrupt. At least now Grace had a moment (and the cognitive ability) to look out at the view.
Grace realized that he didn’t actually hate flying. Turns out, it can be pretty cool when you're not fading in and out of consciousness. He spent most of the trip pressed to the canopy, eyes wide behind his borrowed visor, soft “whoa”s and quiet exclamations crackling over the intercom for every time the clouds parted, or the coastline slid into view below. You could hear the boyish wonder in his voice.
“Hey,” he called. “How long have you been flying this thing?”
You adjusted your grip on the stick. You figured he'd like a look at the ocean. The jet eased into a gentle bank, tilting towards the glittering water. As you'd expected, Grace went, “Woaahh.”
“Twelve years,” you replied. “Got my wings as a lieutenant junior grade.”
Grace made a low whistle. “Twelve years. Do you ever get tired of this view?”
You looked out over the endless blue stretching beneath you. The water seemed as though it was scattered with diamonds, shining under the early morning sun. There was a thin white line of surf tracing the distant shore, clouds casting slow-moving shadows across the Pacific. It was the same view you’d seen a thousand times, yet it never failed to pull something from your chest.
“It's like the first time every time,” you said softly. You looked over your shoulder. “World looks small from up here, doesn't it, sir?”
Grace laughed his giddy agreement.
Later, the jet touched down on a quiet auxiliary runway at Oakland International. The civilian side of the airport was mostly empty. You’d arranged clearance in advance as one of the privileges and responsibilities that came with your role. You landed smooth and received a small sound of approval from your passenger.
“You're really good at your job,” said Grace, struggling to remove his helmet.
You chuckled under your breath. “Don't start clapping.”
When the canopy finally opened, the ground crew rolled the ladder over. Grace climbed down on shaky legs, resembling a newborn deer. His adrenaline had no use for him on land, other than to make his knees feel like jelly. You stepped out after him, his unbothered counterpart. You held his arm to ease him off the jet.
“Could we do a barrel roll next time?” Grace beamed at you.
You gave his back a solid clap, half-distracted by the TSA agent asking you questions. “If you promise not to throw up.”
Grace didn’t hear your conversation over the loud whirring of the planes. He only managed to make the movement of your mouth. He figured it must have been something important.
“Let’s go,” you called, ushering him off the runway to walk to a dimly-lit hall. It led to a parking space occupied by only one car; an unsuspecting white Honda with heavily tinted windows sat waiting for you both.
Grace had no intention of getting in your way and followed whichever direction you nudged him towards. The agents who’d been speaking to you dissipated somewhere back in the airport. By the time he made it to the car, the both of you were alone. You opened the passenger door for him. Grace hurried to get in. You murmured something into your radio before you took your place on the driver’s side.
“Seatbelts,” you told him.
Grace nodded, buckling himself in. “Boy, you people mean business.”
The car started with a soft hum. “Where to?”
Grace sucked a breath into his teeth. He thought about it for a moment. He had the whole day, but a lot needed to be done. He figured he could leave his apartment last and deal with the faculty first.
“Grover Cleveland Middle.” It seemed to drain him as he said it. He had to file his indefinite leave. Grace leaned his head against the cool glass. “Just, uh, go ahead and drive. I’ll tell you where it is.”
The car glided from the airfield.
The process itself would be easy. He knew that. A formal request to the principal, a quick meeting with HR, some paperwork citing personal reasons or, better yet, a damn letter from the president. It wasn’t complicated, and Grace knew his request wouldn’t be met with resistance. But the thought of actually doing it made his chest ache. He'd already been on leave — but that was of the temporary kind. The implications of the word ‘indefinite’ meant that there was a very real chance that he might never get to be a teacher again. There was no telling when his work on the base would end. It was a race against time, but the execution of the project itself could very well take decades.
Grace went noticeably quiet, watching the San Francisco skyline unfold beyond the windshield. He’d do it for them, he thought. For those bright-eyed kids. For their future. He’d work for as long as necessary. But, god, would he miss them. He would miss the sound of a room full of twelve-year-olds groaning at an awful science pun; the spark of understanding in their eyes when they finally grasp something they’d been struggling with for weeks.
Grace tried not to think about it. You didn’t say anything to interrupt his moment. Your eyes were on the road.
After five minutes of nothing but the soft whirr of tires on asphalt, Grace sighed a very loud sigh and seemed to have taken you from some quiet thoughts of your own. “You ever been to the Bay Area?” he asked.
You nodded. “Passed by it a few times, stayed twice or thrice. I'm not entirely familiar with San Francisco.”
His head lolled from the headrest, tilting to look at you with a defeated sort of languidness. “Where are you from?”
You smiled a little. “Not San Francisco.”
“Mysterious,” Grace grumbled. “Is it like, top secret information? Where you’re from? Is that something the government can’t share?”
“No, I just don’t feel like saying it.” You glanced at him. “Sir.”
Grace turned to face the window, pretending to take interest in the bridge, and definitely not so he could hide the dumb grin on his face. Maybe he didn’t entirely mind that you called him ‘sir’.
The Honda pulled into the mostly empty parking lot of Grover Cleveland Middle School. Morning light filtered softly over the wide, one-story building, its brick facade still familiar and ordinary. A few kids were already milling about near the entrance, laughing and shoving each other like the world wasn’t actively ending. Life went on where life didn’t stop.
Grace pushed air out of his puffed cheeks. He didn’t move for a while, even with the car parked. You didn’t say anything, watching to see what he’d do; if he’d change his mind.
“Okay.” He turned to look at you. “Okay. I’m gonna go.” He opened his door, then raised his brows upon seeing that you opened yours too. You stepped out at the same time. “Oh, uh, I’m going alone,” he said over the roof of the car. “You wait here. It’s just a bunch of teachers in there. I’ll have a quick word with the principal.”
You nodded your head. “Copy. I’ll wait.”
Both of Grace's hands raised in an awkward double-thumbs up. He didn't know why he did it, but it was all he had managed. He felt weird and slightly flustered by the idea of having something of a security detail following him around. And the flight suit didn't help. Dark olive green, BOOKER on the name tape, Lieutenant Commander bars at the collar. Combined with your tight posture, you looked every bit the intimidating government operative you were. Against the gray, domestic background of a middle school parking lot, you stuck out like a sore thumb.
“Okay. Good. I’ll see – I’ll see you in a sec.” He had to get out of there as fast as he could. Grace made a beeline for the entrance. The doors swung shut behind him, and the parking lot went quiet.
Hardly five seconds later, a kid sped past you. He'd been trailing behind Grace at a distance that suggested he was trying to look like he wasn't following him. His sneakers scuffed against the concrete as he ran towards the stairs. He made it to the top of the front steps before something made him stop. The boy turned around.
You were leaning against the car, arms loosely crossed.
He stared.
Your jaw tightened a little. You watched as he walked back to approach you.
“Are you a pilot?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He thought about that. He gave your flight suit a closer look. “My uncle’s in the Air Force.”
“How interesting,” you replied, anything but interested. “I’m in the Navy.”
His eyes went to the squadron patch on your shoulder, then to the name tape. He pointed at it. “Which one’s your name, which one’s your callsign?”
You quirked a brow. “That’s classified.”
He grinned and revealed a chipped tooth. “Cool.” He took another step closer. “Whose car is that?”
“Government vehicle.”
“Are you the government?”
“I work for the government.”
“Is Mr. Grace in trouble?”
“No.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I’m keeping him out of trouble.”
The boy shifted his weight. He looked at the school doors, then back at you. There was a contemplative expression on his face. It was fleeting, but you caught it. “Is he coming back?” he asked. “Mr. Grace. To school.”
Something in the question was heavier than the boy intended it to be. You felt your shoulders tense. Your expression (you hoped) shifted into something softer. “I’m not sure.”
The boy nodded solemnly.
In the distance, a school bus pulled over.
The paperwork was faster than Grace expected. The whole ordeal was relatively straightforward. Indefinite leave of absence. Effective immediately. Reason: federal appointment, classified. All he had to do was tick some boxes then sign his name around seven times. He figured Stratt had informed his higher-ups beforehand. It was like her to be as impatient as she was efficient.
His colleagues found him in the hallway afterward. They caught him outside his empty classroom, staring longingly at the seats. Some of them had been surprised to see him and were expecting to have him back. He had to break the news and tell them that he was merely extending his leave. They shook his hand and gave him pats on the shoulder. They wished him luck, for they knew he’d be needing a whole lot of it.
His substitute was a younger man named Peter, twenty-seven, fresh from his credential program. Grace found him in the faculty anxiously going through the curriculum binder. He greeted him, sat with him, then told him which students to look out for. Despite his nervousness, Peter had a bright look in his eyes. That eager, go-to fire that assured Grace his kids would be in good hands. When it was time to go, he gave his palm a firm shake. Grace walked back down the corridor without looking at his classroom again.
Pushing through the door that led back to the parking lot, the first thing Grace heard was laughter; familiar little voices occupying the otherwise lifeless space. He stopped at the top of the steps.
You were still leaning against the car, arms crossed, brows slightly furrowed. Except now, ten students had gathered into a loose semi-circle around you. Some of them had their backpacks on the ground with no plans of leaving you alone any time soon. You were answering a question, which Grace couldn’t hear. But whatever you had said elicited another chorus of laughter.
You looked up. You found him in front of the door. “Ah.” Your voice carried across the parking lot without effort. “Now you’re in trouble.” You nodded towards the kids’ science teacher. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Grace?”
Ten heads turned around simultaneously.
The sound that followed was difficult to categorize. It was somewhere between a gasp and a shriek in a vocal frequency that middle schoolers — who had just seen something they were not prepared for — were experts in. Several of them were already moving, backpacks abandoned, laces untied. The semicircle dissolved as they surged toward the steps with brand new energy.
“Mr. Grace!”
“Where have you been?!”
“Mr. Peter is so boring!”
“Is it true they got you working on the serious science stuff?!”
Each voice was eager to be heard, and the questions, even more so. Grace came down the steps and into the middle of their commotion. “Hey, hey.” He raised both of his hands. He laughed at their liveliness. “One at a time, guys.”
And, to their credit, they did speak one at a time. Only they did so in a lightning round and didn’t give Grace a second to answer. “Where are you going?” Marcus’ question was the one he caught. He’d pushed to the front of the group. Grace noticed that his arms were crossed in a manner that was similar to yours. “Like, where actually.”
He shook his head, smiling tightly. “I can’t tell you. They’re keeping it quiet for now.”
“Is it dangerous?” Bright-eyed Olivia.
Grace felt himself hesitate. “Well, it’s — we’re just being precautious.”
More chatter. They sounded like a council drawing a conclusion.
“Your friend is super cool,” said Jeff, distracting the group.
At this, Grace looked up to see you still standing by the car. You shrugged your shoulders at him.
He spent the next few minutes in the middle of their questions and their noise and their natter, answering what he could and deflecting what he couldn't. Eventually, inevitably, the school bell rang. Grace had half a mind to drop everything and walk into the classroom with them, but he knew he couldn’t do it. Their conversation wound down as the dimming sun inched higher. His students left in ones and twos, backpacks reclaimed, shoelaces tied. Some of them even ran back to give you high fives. Nobody wanted to say goodbye. See you, Mr. Grace. Good luck. Come back soon.
Olivia shook your hand before she left. “Please look after him,” she said. “He’s a really good teacher.”
You gave her a smile so warm, you didn’t realize you were capable of it.
Marcus was the last one to leave, standing at the bottom of the steps with his hands in his pockets. He had been a difficult kid. He’d been kicked out of his last school and didn’t get his act together until he ended up in Grace’s class. He turned out to be really good at chemistry.
“You’re gonna do great,” he said. “You’re really smart.”
Grace nodded. "Thanks, Marcus."
He watched him go, and continued to do so until he disappeared into the hallway, entering his room. Without the kids, the parking lot felt entirely empty.
Grace walked back to the car.
-
The drive to Grace’s apartment was quiet. The radio played half-heartedly in the background, filling in for the silence with crackling showtunes and distant commercials. For a long while, the only audible sound was the hum of the engine and the steady monotone of tires against a concrete road. Grace had his head against the window, one foot tapping an idle beat. He'd sigh every once in a while, and you'd glance at him without saying anything.
The car slowed before pulling up to a stoplight. You took the chance to check your phone for updates. Your brows furrowed at the sight of 4 unread messages.
“You know, Marcus used to fail every test I gave him,” said Grace. The words left him like he'd been thinking about it for a while. “He didn't like being in school.”
You turned your head and gave him a nod. “He was very concerned about you.”
Grace chuckled. “Was he? He's a good kid. He was all over the place during the first semester, but boy is he smart. He just needed a nudge, you know? Most kids do. I try to be the teacher I would've wanted when I was a student.”
You weren't listening anymore. Something on your phone had taken the last of your attention. Your eyes flickered in all the directions of your screen. You were reading a memo. That can't be right.
Grace didn't notice at first, continuing to talk about the rest of his class. Olivia was his top student. Abby was the second; she was a snappy one, but she was smart as a whip. Larry played guitar, and Jeff was on the football team, Regina liked to crochet. He would have told you about Eli's insane Mario Kart skills had he not realized that you were entirely preoccupied by your phone. The look on your face told him that something was wrong.
“Everything okay?” asked Grace, tilting his head.
You were about to answer him when a car horn blared from behind and startled you both. The light had turned green, and the SUV behind you had places to be. Tossing your phone on the dashboard, you grabbed the wheel and drove a small distance until you could pull over somewhere out of the way.
Grace was still steadying his heart from the horn. “What's going on?”
You shifted the gear into park.
“There’s been a development,” you said, taking your phone again. “On the Taskforce.”
Grace didn’t need to be an expert on reading people to know that you didn’t mean a good sort of development. He watched you scroll through messages and switch from one chatbox to another. The urgency in your movements made him anxious. “What happened?” he asked again.
“Dr. Yusuf Adeyemi: the taskforce's lead atmospheric chemist. They found him this morning in his hotel room in Oslo.”
Grace’s brows raised. “Found him? Found him, what? Dead?”
“Killed.”
He felt his stomach sink. “What do you mean killed?”
“I mean they’re investigating it now and figuring he was killed.” Your brows furrowed as you typed.
“So what does this mean?” Grace insisted. You’d just told him a man on the mission (in a similar position to his) had been murdered. “A-Are the scientists in danger? Why would anyone be targeting someone who’s actively working on keeping the sun from dying? That’s frickin’ stupid!”
“Politics, Dr. Grace.” You weren’t looking at him. You were sending reports and updates to the according people. “Men love power and they don’t like sharing it. Eva Stratt has her enemies. Right now there’s talks of the Russian government forming their own Taskforce and opting to start another cold war; a race to see who solves the Petrova Problem first. The project that does gets a lot of credit.” You shook your head. “It’s chatter, but we’re taking it seriously.”
Grace paled in his seat. “You’re kidding me. This is the fate of the world we’re talking about and people are still concerned over who’s better than who.”
You shrugged your shoulders in a distracted manner. “Men have started wars for dumber reasons.”
Your phone rang. Grace flinched so hard he might as well have been shot. The screen lit up and showed Stratt’s name in bold letters. You picked up without thought.
“Booker,” you said into the line. “Yes, ma’am. I saw it.”
Grace watched you, straining his ears to hear the other end.
“Understood.” You paused. “How confident is the assessment?” Another pause, longer that time. Your eyes cut briefly to him, then away. “Yes, ma’am. He’s with me now.”
Grace gulped.
The call went on for a minute longer. It was mostly just you nodding and confirming that you understood. When it was done, you dropped your phone to your lap and held the wheel. Cars whirred past the rental. You were parked on the freeway. Grace felt like panicking, but as you weren’t panicking, he figured he shouldn’t either.
“Am I in trouble?” he asked, hesitance in his voice.
You contemplatively chewed on your lower lip. “Since yesterday, you were dubbed as the leading scientist in Astrophage biology.” You nodded. “I’d say you’re pretty important.”
Grace held his head in his hands.
“My directives have been updated,” you continued. “Effective immediately, I now double as your dedicated protection detail.”
He blinked at you. “My what.”
You sighed a breath out your nose. “We’re short-staffed. Every critical member on the Taskforce gets one assigned. They’re working through the specifics right now.”
Grace wished he hadn’t filed his leave. These sort of things didn’t happen to middle school teachers. “What do we do?”
“That’s up to you, sir.” Your hand idly ran through the wheel. “Stratt suggests we return to the base immediately, but I understand that we still need to go to your apartment.”
He couldn’t bring his thoughts together. His heart was racing in his chest. “W-What do you suggest?”
You took a moment to reply. You looked out the window and up at the clouds. Your leg bounced in the time it took for you to start speaking again. “I’ll be with you,” you said. “I’ll keep a close eye out. I’ll make sure nothing happens — that’s my job. If you want to go to your apartment, then we can go. But you take everything you need, and we don’t linger. Stratt is right: the sooner we’re back on the base, the better.”
Grace digested your words. You didn’t wait for him to agree. You restarted the car, and before he knew it, you were driving down the road again.
summary: during your period, eridians, Rocky, and his mate, Adrian, fuss over you! eridians purr. and rocky getting mad ragebaited at the idea of human 'engineering' (part of da 'saturday cuddles' universe!)
yaps!: thank you so much @saturnhas274moons for recommending this idea to me!! mhwamhwa, hope u like this..hehe..ook enough of angst (for now), for my next fic, what would u guys want?? more fluff or ANGST..lmk! listened to "Saturn" by Sleeping At Last, and "And The Winner is" while making this!
You are curled into a tight ball on the "bed"—that massive, reinforced platform layered with every soft textile and scrap of insulating foam salvaged from the Hail Mary. Every few minutes, a sharp, white-hot wave of pain rolls through your abdomen, a familiar monthly visitor that feels particularly cruel when you’re light-years away from a pharmacy.
Under your shirt, the jagged line of your "Rocky Scar"—the mark left behind when your Eridian friend saved your life—pulses in sympathy-like with the cramps. It’s a reminder of survival, but right now, you just feel like a mess of malfunctioning nerves and a waste of carbon.
A heavy, metallic thump-clack echoes across the floor. You don't have to look up to know it’s Rocky. His five-legged structure is as familiar to you as your own mind. Beside him, the lighter, more melodic tapping of Adrian’s claws follows.
"Question?" Rocky’s synthesizer voice rings out from the nightstand, clear and inquisitive. "Why is Human Y/N still in the insulation pile? The 'sun' has cycled twice. Teaching time is soon. Grace confused. I also confused."
You groan into your pillow, a sound that translates to the Eridians as a low-frequency distress signal. Adrian moves closer, her form rotating with concern. She reaches out a warm, stone-like limb, hovering it just inches from your back.
“Temperature is high,” Adrian’s whistles and clicks are translated by the small device clipped to her harness. “You are leaking heat. Is there a hull breach in your biology? Is human dying!? Please do not die! It would be very inconvenient and sad.”
"I'm not dying, Adrian," you wheeze out, squeezing your eyes shut as another cramp ripples through you. "It’s just... a human thing. My body is resetting. It hurts. A lot."
Ryland wanders in then, looking disheveled, holding a mug of chamomile tea the Eridians replicated. He sees the three of you huddled together and immediately softens. He knows the look in your eyes; he’s seen you power through lab accidents and alien microbes, but he knows this particular brand of misery is one that requires total surrender.
"They're worried about you," Ryland says softly, sitting on the edge of the platform and placing a hand on your shoulder. "Rocky thinks you’re melting because your core temp jumped a degree. I tried to explain human reproductive cycles to him, but he just got offended that your body 'destroys its own systems' once a month. He thinks it’s bad engineering."
“It IS bad engineering!” Rocky interjects, his claws clicking rapidly against the floor. “Why break the internal walls? Just keep the walls! If I built a ship that melted its floor every thirty days, Grace yell at me!”
"He's not wrong," you mutter, pressing your face into Ryland's thigh. "Ryland, tell them I'm okay. I just need to be a potato for about four days."
Adrian tilts her head, her eye focusing on where you are clutching your stomach. “You are in pain. Pain is for when predators bite. There are no predators in the dome. Except maybe the vacuum, but the dome is strong. If you are in pain, we must fix.”
"You can't fix it, Adrian," Ryland says, stroking your hair. "It just has to happen. Heat helps, though."
The word heat seems to trigger something in the Eridian pair. On a planet where the surface temperature could melt lead, "heat" is their specialty. They are technically biological furnaces, their carapaces radiating a steady, dry warmth that far exceeds any electric heating pad.
Rocky steps up onto the platform. The bed groans under his weight, but it’s sturdy. “I am heat, statement.” he declares with a flourish of his limbs. “I very good at being hot. I am the best heater on Erid. Adrian is also a good heater. We will insulate the problem.”
Before you can protest, Rocky moves with surprising gentleness. He doesn't crowd you; instead, he maneuvers his heavy, five-sided body so that he is braced against your back, his warm carapace pressing firmly against your spine. The heat is immediate and intense, sinking through your shirt and into your aching muscles. It’s a dry, deep warmth that seems to vibrate.
Adrian doesn't want to be left out. She climbs onto the other side, tucking her limbs in and resting her front-side near your abdomen, being careful not to put her full weight on you. She feels like a living stone warmed by a desert sun.
Ryland watches them with a look of pure, unadulterated affection, full of care. "I think you've been secured by the Eridian Heating Company," he jokes. He crawls into the middle of the pile, slotting himself behind Rocky so he can still reach over and hold your hand.
"This is... actually amazing," you whisper. The crushing weight of the Eridians combined with their radiating heat acts like a full-body pressure therapy. The sharp stabs in your stomach begin to dull into a heavy, manageable ache.
Then, the sound starts.
It begins as a low-frequency hum, so deep you feel it in your teeth before you hear it. It’s a rhythmic, pulsing vibration coming from both Rocky and Adrian. It isn't the musical whistling of their speech; it’s more primal, a steady thrum-thrum-thrum that echoes the beat of your own heart.
"Are they... purring?" you ask, your eyes fluttering shut as the tension finally drains from your shoulders.
"Yeah," Ryland whispers, his voice thick with sleepiness. "Rocky told me about this once. When they have 'pebbles'—their young—they communal-sleep. They produce a resonance in their carapaces. It’s meant to stabilize the heart rates of the young and keep them calm while they grow. It’s a biological lullaby."
“You are small,” Rocky’s translator chirps, though his voice is lower now, hushed. “You are un-harmonic. You are pebble today. We vibrate buzz pain away. Sleep now, statement. Grace, sleep. You are noisy when worry.”
Ryland chuckles, his fingers interlacing with yours. "Copy that, Rock'. Sleeping now."
The dome is silent save for that incredible, ancient purring. It’s a sound that has existed on Erid for millions of years, a song of protection and kinship. Nestled between the two aliens and the man who traveled across the stars with you, the pain in your body feels insignificant.
You feel the scar on your side—the one that matches the one on Ryland's arm. It feels warm, almost glowing against the heat of Rocky's shell. You aren't just a human in a dome anymore; you are part of their kin, a family that doesn't care about biology or species, only about the fact that one of their own is hurting.
The lavender and apricot light of the artificial sunset fades into a deep, restful indigo. As the Eridian purring synchronizes, your breathing slows. Ryland’s head drops onto your shoulder, his breath hitching in a soft, rhythmic snore. Adrian shifts her weight, her claws making a tiny, comforting tink against the bed frame.
The last thing you feel before falling into a deep, dreamless sleep is the overwhelming sensation of being loved—not just by a man, but by a planet. You are tucked into the safest place in the universe: a cuddle pile at the edge of the galaxy, guarded by two biological furnaces who think you’re a very poorly engineered, but very dear, friend.
Outside, the Eridian winds howl and bash against the glass, but inside, there is only the warmth, the purring, and the steady, unbreakable bond of home.
yippee, WHAT DO WE THINK GAIS.....once again, many thanks to @/saturnhas274moons and friends for proof-reading/inspiration! much love, Aντίο, atsisveikink, paalam, and adiós! thanks 4 reading!1! 💚🤞 next fic might be ry n u meeting rocky and adrians pebbles EHEHEHEHE....👀
˖ִ⊹˖ִ ˚ want RYLAND GRACE so bad its got me writing again...
picturing him and an ART TEACHER!READER, walk with me
ryland’s been keeping a silent eye on you since you were first hired at grover cleveland middle a year ago, your classroom was two doors down from his, and you both coincidentally taught the same grade. even being an art teacher, there had been the occasional time one of his students mentioned a familiar concept you taught in class. the fibonacci sequence, golden ratio, color theory, sound waves, light spectrum, etc.
he was surprised by how quick you settled in, the students loved you and his colleagues enjoyed making joint projects with your class. he wanted to do the same, badly. he knew there could be an opportunity there to approach you, talk with you, get to know you. but his mouth stayed shut, sticking to his usual lesson plan and definitely not searching up any direction correlations for a science and art class.
thankfully for him, you had bumped into him at the teacher’s lounge before winter break and proposed an adjacent project. apparently, you had noticed the decorations scattered around his classroom — when did you see that? — and explained to him how you were going to introduce chesley bonestell as well as techniques including lightings, shadows, and scale. he would have said yes either way, but the shared interest in cosmos only had him thinking about you more. What else did he have in common with you? Was that finally his opening to be able to approach you more?
if it was, he (un)surprisingly did not take advantage of it. the days he had spent brainstorming the project were only filled with him trying to distract himself from your proximity and trying to get back to the safety of his solidarity the moment it had been over. he never regretted something more.
and that’s why he was here. new year. new classrooms. new students. it had been a little early in the year, school just began three months ago, your project wouldn’t happen again until second semester, but he wanted to get ahead of it, share some new ideas with you, and maybe… finally be able to talk to you. outside of the classroom.
ryland has paced the entirety of the hallway for the fifth time now. his hands were clammy, he was fidgety. constantly rearranging his tie, fixing the way his glasses sat on his nose, or adjusting his hair in the reflection of the small window on his classroom door. it was a silly thing to be stressed about, you. what was he expecting, for you to bite off his head and tell him to leave? his worry was irrational, you weren’t that type of person… he hopes you weren’t.
he told himself this was the day he was going into your classroom to ask you about it. he had tried earlier today during his free period, but he got jittery halfway through and sped past your classroom door to make his way to the bathroom. he tried again a few minutes later, only to do the same thing and head towards the teacher’s lounge instead.
but now, the eight graders were at recess and the second floor was silent, for once. he completed his sixth walk down the hallway now, eyes fleeting towards his watch for the umpteenth time. recess was over in ten minutes, the conversation would last at most five minutes. he swallowed, rubbing his hands over his face before finally making his way to your classroom. “you’re a teacher,” he muttered to himself. “you talk for a living. this is the same thing.”
he stopped at the door, hand hesitant as it moved between wrapping itself around the doorknob and falling back to his side. “…this is not the same thing.” still, he finally decided to let out a breath and open your door with a soft knock. he stepped in and saw how your head perked up at the sound, a small smile on your face as you greeted him. Oh God, you looked like moonlight. Why did you have to look so nice today? Right now?
“hey,” he said sheepishly as he hovered near your desk, unsure what to do with himself. “i, uh..” he cleared his throat, looking at your expecting eyes. did you think he was making a fool of himself? “i was just wondering about the project, y’know, the… thing.”
he mentally berated himself. the thing? seriously? “i wanted to know if you ever wanted to meet up some time, outside of school… just— to talk about the project! nothing else.”
…if you didn’t think he was a fool then, you definitely did now.
if you did, you definitely didn’t show it. you just gave him a small smile and nodded, telling him a “that would be great.” he’s sure he accidentally scheduled a time to meet with you during one of his grading times, but he doesn’t know how he was expected to focus when your eyes glimmered under the schools lights.
you settled on a coffee shop two blocks away from the school after work on friday, and he had to stop himself from grinning until his cheeks hurt. he bid you a small goodbye before walking out your classroom, closing your door with a soft click before punching his fist in the air, practically skipping back to his classroom.
he was more animated during his lectures for the rest of the day, his students had noticed it, and he brushed off their questions, simply telling them that it was a beautiful day while the rain pattered on the windows. whatever, none of it mattered to him as long as he got to see the way your eyes light up with ideas on friday.
˖ִ⊹˖ִ ˚ want RYLAND GRACE so bad its got me writing again...
picturing him and an ART TEACHER!READER, walk with me
ryland’s been keeping a silent eye on you since you were first hired at grover cleveland middle a year ago, your classroom was two doors down from his, and you both coincidentally taught the same grade. even being an art teacher, there had been the occasional time one of his students mentioned a familiar concept you taught in class. the fibonacci sequence, golden ratio, color theory, sound waves, light spectrum, etc.
he was surprised by how quick you settled in, the students loved you and his colleagues enjoyed making joint projects with your class. he wanted to do the same, badly. he knew there could be an opportunity there to approach you, talk with you, get to know you. but his mouth stayed shut, sticking to his usual lesson plan and definitely not searching up any direction correlations for a science and art class.
thankfully for him, you had bumped into him at the teacher’s lounge before winter break and proposed an adjacent project. apparently, you had noticed the decorations scattered around his classroom — when did you see that? — and explained to him how you were going to introduce chesley bonestell as well as techniques including lightings, shadows, and scale. he would have said yes either way, but the shared interest in cosmos only had him thinking about you more. What else did he have in common with you? Was that finally his opening to be able to approach you more?
if it was, he (un)surprisingly did not take advantage of it. the days he had spent brainstorming the project were only filled with him trying to distract himself from your proximity and trying to get back to the safety of his solidarity the moment it had been over. he never regretted something more.
and that’s why he was here. new year. new classrooms. new students. it had been a little early in the year, school just began three months ago, your project wouldn’t happen again until second semester, but he wanted to get ahead of it, share some new ideas with you, and maybe… finally be able to talk to you. outside of the classroom.
ryland has paced the entirety of the hallway for the fifth time now. his hands were clammy, he was fidgety. constantly rearranging his tie, fixing the way his glasses sat on his nose, or adjusting his hair in the reflection of the small window on his classroom door. it was a silly thing to be stressed about, you. what was he expecting, for you to bite off his head and tell him to leave? his worry was irrational, you weren’t that type of person… he hopes you weren’t.
he told himself this was the day he was going into your classroom to ask you about it. he had tried earlier today during his free period, but he got jittery halfway through and sped past your classroom door to make his way to the bathroom. he tried again a few minutes later, only to do the same thing and head towards the teacher’s lounge instead.
but now, the eight graders were at recess and the second floor was silent, for once. he completed his sixth walk down the hallway now, eyes fleeting towards his watch for the umpteenth time. recess was over in ten minutes, the conversation would last at most five minutes. he swallowed, rubbing his hands over his face before finally making his way to your classroom. “you’re a teacher,” he muttered to himself. “you talk for a living. this is the same thing.”
he stopped at the door, hand hesitant as it moved between wrapping itself around the doorknob and falling back to his side. “…this is not the same thing.” still, he finally decided to let out a breath and open your door with a soft knock. he stepped in and saw how your head perked up at the sound, a small smile on your face as you greeted him. Oh God, you looked like moonlight. Why did you have to look so nice today? Right now?
“hey,” he said sheepishly as he hovered near your desk, unsure what to do with himself. “i, uh..” he cleared his throat, looking at your expecting eyes. did you think he was making a fool of himself? “i was just wondering about the project, y’know, the… thing.”
he mentally berated himself. the thing? seriously? “i wanted to know if you ever wanted to meet up some time, outside of school… just— to talk about the project! nothing else.”
…if you didn’t think he was a fool then, you definitely did now.
if you did, you definitely didn’t show it. you just gave him a small smile and nodded, telling him a “that would be great.” he’s sure he accidentally scheduled a time to meet with you during one of his grading times, but he doesn’t know how he was expected to focus when your eyes glimmered under the schools lights.
you settled on a coffee shop two blocks away from the school after work on friday, and he had to stop himself from grinning until his cheeks hurt. he bid you a small goodbye before walking out your classroom, closing your door with a soft click before punching his fist in the air, practically skipping back to his classroom.
he was more animated during his lectures for the rest of the day, his students had noticed it, and he brushed off their questions, simply telling them that it was a beautiful day while the rain pattered on the windows. whatever, none of it mattered to him as long as he got to see the way your eyes light up with ideas on friday.
Ryland Grace, who always had to end every phone call with you by saying 'I Love You', staying on the line long enough to hear you say it back before he felt comfortable enough to hang up.
Ryland Grace, who didn't know that your phone conversation you had with him during his lunch hour was going to be the last time he ever hears you say it. He's recruited by Stratt that afternoon. The mission is Top Secret and he vanishes into almost thin air.
Ryland Grace, who wakes up on the Hail Mary alone, those three words seared into his tongue but he can't remember who they're for or why they're at the forefront of his mind.
Ryland Grace, who discovers how he ended up on the mission and realizes that those three words were meant for you, back on Earth, with no idea what happened to him. He remembered them so clearly because it was the last thing he thought of saying before he was drugged and forced to go, hoping somehow, someway you'd hear him.
Ryland Grace, who sends back the Beetles and his last transmission, after pleading with Stratt before hand to make sure you see the video, was him apologizing for what happened and that he hopes that you had a great, fulfilling life and it ends with him physically saying, "I love you' for the last time, hopeful that you hear it.
Ryland Grace, who has to go the rest of his life never hearing you say it back to him though he thinks it quite frequently on Erid, especially when one of the Eridian's does something or says something that reminds him of you. He dreams about it a lot though, waking up to the sound of your voice like you were right next to him.
Ryland Grace, who is talking to Rocky and Adrian one night when Adrian wants to know more about his life before the Hail Mary. He gets quiet for a few moments, looking out at the waves with a fond smile, now aged and into his 50's. He wonders what the beach looked like back on Earth, the one where he told you 'I Love You' for the first time as he starts talking about you.
Pairing: Colt Seavers x gn!Reader; Ryland Grace x gn!Reader
Summary: you find out your close friend and coteacher has a stuntman twin.
Words: 1.4k
Warnings: flirty Colt, jealous Ryland, brother banters, they/them pronouns used for reader, just a silly 1.4k worded blurb!
A/N: this idea was birthed from multiple tiktoks that suggest an au wherein colt and ryland are (sometimes estranged) twins. from the moment i saw the fall guy i have definitely been thinking of how he and ryland look so similar!! of course, credit for the au concept goes to the rightful owner, that of whom i do not actually know of but absolutely commend for this absolute masterpiece of an idea.
p.s. if anyone wants to be added to the taglist for any and all ryan gosling fics, just leave a comment and pls pls make sure your mentions are on😭
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“Ryland, have you turned in your re…port…?”
You enter Ryland’s classroom without a knock or a second thought, holding in your arms a copy of your monthly report. Your feet halt and your brows furrow curiously at the figure stood in front of the teacher’s desk. He was toying with “lava” when you caught him.
The figure turns to face you, startled at your sudden arrival. It’s Ryland, yet somehow, it isn’t? Something about him felt uncanny—unfamiliar.
Ryland wore a white tank top under a leather jacket with “Miami Vice Stunt Team” written on the back of it. With it, he wore light wash jeans, leather shoes, and a pair of sunglasses sat on his head instead of his usual metal rimmed prescription glasses.
Everything he wore screamed that either Ryland was going through an identity crisis, had a doppelganger, or was possessed. Even his usual stubble looked fuller, and darker, than usual, and his hair looked dyed rather than a natural blond—you scolded yourself for noticing even the tiniest discrepancies about your colleague.
“Ry…land?” You call again, uncertain if you should panic. He opened his mouth to respond when you hear another set of footsteps approach the classroom.
You instinctively turn, only to find Ryland. Your eyes widen while he calls your name, his hands resting on his hips. “Hey. Sorry, I was in the bathroom. What’s up?”
He seems to not notice the other presence in the room yet. That, or he’s okay with having a doppelganger. Ryland’s brows knit when he notices your gaze looking between him and the front of the room.
“Wh…?” He begins before following your eyes. His face falls just as his hands do. He begins walking with haste towards fake Ryland, who places “lava” back down and begins waving with a grin.
“What are you doing here?” He asks in a hushed tone between gritted teeth, though you can still hear him.
“You said I could come by anytime!” The fake Ryland exclaimed, still with a grin, and open arms.
“Not while I’m at work!”
“Come on, at least hug your brother. Don’t you miss me?” He places his hands on Ryland’s shoulders, then pauses. “Did you wash your hands?”
Ryland couldn’t help but scoff out a laugh, a smile appearing on his lips. “Stop it.”
He stretches out his arms to embrace his brother(…?), who taps his back twice in return before pulling away.
You hug the folder of your report to your chest as you slowly approach them. “What is going on?”
Ryland turns to you and rests his hands on his waist again, remembering that you have no clue of what is happening. He begins, “Right—”
“I’m so sorry. Where are my manners?” The other Ryland starts before the original can continue, holding out his hand as he approaches. “Colt Seavers, pleased to meet you.”
You take your report in one hand to shake his hand and absentmindedly introduce yourself as well.
“He’s my twin,” Ryland points at Colt before his hand returns to his waist. Your brows furrow again.
“How…?”
“The last names?” Colt voices out your thoughts; it was probably something often questioned. “We were sort of “Parent Trapped.” Difference is, our parents just separated and decided their pride was more important than us having the same last name.”
“Okaaay,” You respond and nod slowly, then turn to Ryland with a pointed finger. “How come I didn’t know you had a twin?”
“We don’t really get together often, he’s always off in other countries with…what’s his name?”
“Tom Ryder.” Your eyes widen.
“The Tom Ryder?” He nods, gesturing towards himself.
“I’m his stuntman.”
“I thought he did his own stunts? I heard he’s a dick,” your thoughts spill out of your mouth before you can stop yourself.
“I…legally, I cannot comment on that,” Colt remarks while nodding his head with a snort. You can’t help but chuckle at his ‘subtle’ agreement.
Ryland forces a chuckle while glancing between the two of you before his gaze settles on his twin. “Go home, Colt.”
“Home is in LA,” he retorts. “We’re shooting in town, I got a day off since Tom won’t be doing stunts today. Decided since I have nothing else to do, I was gonna visit my little brother!”
Colt reaches for Ryland to ruffle his hair which the latter quickly evades.
“Well, unlike you, I have work to do.” Ryland fixes his hair before motioning towards the stacks of paper on his desk. “So, you can wait for me at the apartment or…go somewhere else.”
He grabs his bag and fishes around for his keys, tossing them to Colt.
“You sure you don’t want me to wait for you?” Colt twirled the key ring around his index finger before grasping the keys in his fist. “The thought of you cycling home makes me sad.”
Ryland flashed a brief, fake smile. “Thanks for the concern, but I’ll be fine.”
“Which…I forgot—” He takes the keys back to get the keys for his bicycle.
“No, I wasn’t concerned,” He corrects Ryland as he is given back the keys.
“I actually feel sad for you that you only have a bicycle.” Ryland’s mouth falls before he rolls his eyes and turns away.
Colt cocks his head towards you while pocketing the keys, “What about you, gorgeous?”
Ryland faces his twin again and closes his eyes as his palms come together, the tips of his fingers pointing towards him. “Please don’t flirt with my colleagues.”
“I’m good.” You nod with a smile as you absentmindedly respond to Ryland. You snap out of it, drop the dazed smile, and shake your head before turning to Colt. “I mean, I’m good, Mr Seavers. I have a car.”
He motions towards you and whips his head towards Ryland. “See how they have a car? Just let me buy you one, Ry.”
Ryland shakes his head profusely while Colt returns his attention to you. “And please, call me Colt. In fact—!”
He walks towards Ryland’s desk to grab a pen.
“What are you doing?” Ryland follows him as he grabs one of the pieces of paper from the desk. “No—Stop, that’s my lesson plan.”
Ryland scratches his head as Colt pauses from his writing, looking at his twin with a guilty look on his face before continuing to write. He folds the paper to only show what he wrote, placing down the pen before giving it to you.
“Just call me.” He winks before patting Ryland on the shoulder. You can tell how heavy his hand was by how Ryland winced. “I’ll see you at home, Grace-y!”
Colt walks past you to leave the classroom while your hand remains raised, holding the folded piece of paper with Colt’s number on it. Your gaze trails his movements until he is out of sight.
Ryland sighs, looking at the paper in your hands while you turn back to him. “Now I’m gonna have to reprint that.”
“Cute,” you mutter while Ryland walks towards the other side of his desk, arranging his papers. His head immediately tilts up to look at you.
“Our mom says I'm definitely cuter,” he says like a child seeking validation from an adult.
“Oh, for sure.” You can’t help the surprised upturn of your lips; you were talking about the nickname, but you didn’t have the heart to tell him.
“You don't have to call him, by the way. He's just like that sometimes,” he mutters as if unsure of what he was saying.
You shrug, ready to tease, slowly walking towards his desk while looking at the piece of paper.
“I don't know. I might, after I submit our reports,” you ponder before looking at him. “Which, speaking of, you've done, l assume?”
He begins to shake his head before he’s even thought about it. “No, I'm not done. I need to revise mine, could probably take a while. I also need to reprint that page.”
You follow his gaze and look at the paper in your hands before you slide it into your pocket.
“Okay.” You raise a brow and hide your bemused smile behind your folder. “I'll just submit mine first, then.”
You turn on your heel to leave the room.
“Sure. Could I, uh, borrow your phone?” You pivot to face him again at the odd request. “My phone's dead and I just need to make a call or...block a number.”
You pretend not to hear his last words as he mutter them under his breath. Your eyebrows raise as you bend slightly at the waist to get closer. “What was that?”
He waves a dismissive hand and turns back to his paper as if the matter meant little to him. “Nevermind. I'll just borrow Colt's. Block you on his cell.”
You purse your lips to hold back a chuckle as you turn to leave again, pretending not to hear him once again.
summary: The five times Ryland wants to kiss you but doesn't, and the one time he finally does.
word count: 3.6k
champagne supernova masterlist
1: The Library
The first time Ryland wants to kiss you is when he barely knows you. You're a friend of a friend, some barely tangible connection that's nothing in the grand scheme of a person's life, and he thinks he has one or two classes with you but he barely even knows your name. You study geology, he knows that much. You always wear a pendant with some kind of gemstone on it, he's not sure of the significance of it or what it actually is. You seem nice enough from your limited interactions. Now you're all in grad school, things are starting to get serious for you academically and there's a plethora of study groups for this class or that subject that the professors all encourage them to join.
He joins quite a few of them. It might be more to stop him getting lonely than needing to bounce ideas off people. He doesn't tell people that.
His calculus study group always meets in the main library, claiming one of the big tables so everyone has room to spread out. They meet that frequently that everyone now has unofficial seats. Or they usually do. He gets there a little bit later than usual one day only to find out his usual seat, the one right at the end of the table where he can mainly just observe, has been taken by a newcomer. Someone shouts his name, gesturing to a seat closer to the middle of the table. You're sat across from it. He almost leaves right then and there.
He doesn't. He sits down, praying he won't make a fool of himself.
God has never answered his prayers before but he figures it's worth a shot.
He tries his best not to stare at you. It's easy enough when there's a hush in the group, everyone caught up in their own work. It's harder when people are trying to pull him into debates. He's listening to someone's very passionate argument about grass not qualifying as a being a plant (what does that have to do with calculus?) when you catch his eye.
The way the light hits you from the window takes his breath away. You're not even doing anything special, just making notes about whatever scientific journal you have splayed open in front of you but you just look so incredible he's glad he's already sitting down. He's never been particularly forthcoming about dating so the sudden knowledge that he wants to kiss you almost floors him. He hasn't had a crush on someone in years, he'd almost forgotten what it's like.
Someone further down the table asks if he's okay because he's suddenly gone very red. You look up then, catching his eye with a concerned expression. He almost chokes on the sip of water he'd just taken and that gets him even more attention.
He tells them he accidentally swallowed his chewing gum.
No one presses him any further but he catches the small smile on your face as you go back to whatever you were working on.
Oh no.
He's screwed.
He can't even look in your direction for the rest of the hour. When people give their first signs of needing to leave, his bag is already packed and he's out the door without a word to any of you. He can't avoid you forever, he doesn't want to; he just needs to get somewhere where his heart rate can finally start to slow down.
2: The House Party
The second time he wants to kiss you feels like something straight from a movie. People keep insisting to him that the social side of college is just as important as the academic side but Ryland isn't convinced. He was roped into going to a frat party by his freshman roommate and he's still called 'Vominator' in some of the social circles he frequents.
He almost says no to the house party on the spot on reflex. It's another study group, this time in a coffee shop on campus when someone mentions a friend of a friend is hosting a house party and everyone is invited. They go through the group and he's barely paying attention to anyone's answers until it's your turn.
"Sounds fun." Your smile is soft but genuine and your friends all echo similar sentiments. Then all the attention falls on him.
"What about you Ryland?" Rejection is on the tip of his tongue when he makes the mistake of looking in your direction. He dares to think the expression on your face is one of hope.
"Sure, why not."
So now he's stood in a stranger's kitchen with a red solo cup filled with…something alcoholic. He's not sure what's actually in it and he doesn't think anyone else does but no one seems to care much. People certainly keep returning back to the kitchen for more of it. He spotted you early into the night, surrounded by friends and dancing to the beat like it's second nature.
He's toying with the idea of sneaking out and climbing over the back fence when he realises he hasn't seen you for a while. He stretches to try and spot you then drops back down when he realises you're walking straight towards him. You give a little wave, settling near him.
"Hey Ryland."
"Hey." He leans back trying to look casual but then grimaces when his back makes contact with a cup of mystery punch and knocks it over. He bolts up with a yelp.
He hopes you can't see him blushing because of how dim it is.
"Are you having a good time?" He shrugs then realises that's rude. You came over to talk to him, he should at least try and make conversation.
"This isn't really my scene." You nod.
"Me neither."
"Really?" He wants to believe you but doesn't. You looked totally at ease in the centre of the room dancing with friends and strangers alike. He wishes you would dance with him.
"With the right people it's okay. The punch certainly helps." He takes a sip of his cup then winces as the burn hits his throat. You laugh at him, more teasing than malicious, then lean closer to him. "Do you want to dance?"
He can't dance.
"Sure." You take him by the hand, drinks forgotten on the counter top, and weave through the thrum of people until you're almost in the centre of the room. As if sensing his apprehension, you take it slow; keeping your hands entwined as you encourage him into a series of easy moves.
It bugs him that he starts having fun.
When the music changes to something softer his heart stops. You don't let go of his hand, moving closer to him as you lead him into swaying gently to the music. The way his heart is hammering in his chest he's surprised you can't hear it.
He could just lean forward and kiss you. It would be so easy. Just like in the movies.
He doesn't.
The moment is broken by a cacophony of people shouting your name. One of your friends pulls you away and you throw him an apology he can barely hear as the music changes to something much louder and you're pulled away from him.
He leaves not long after.
Coward.
3: His Apartment
The third time he wants to kiss you in when he knows he's in too deep. Study sessions at the flat become a semi-frequent diary filler for the two of you after the house party. You're now friends rather than just acquaintances and small talk turns into something more. The two of you are on similar wavelengths most of the time, conversation flows easier with every extra minute you spend together.
You'd come over under the guise of needing help with your earth systems paper but when you'd arrived you'd pulled a Star Wars box set out from behind your back, insisting the two of you had been working so hard lately you deserved a night off. That's how you end up on the couch, movie paused in the background as you discuss the skewed politics of the Republic. You go silent for a few moments.
"It's late, I should get going." You shift slightly, joints popping quietly from the movement. A glance at his watch shows that it's nearly 1am. When did it get so late?
"You can stay, if you want. Like you said it's late, I'd feel bad making you go home alone at this time." The words slip out before he even thinks about it. His mind fills instantly with domestic thoughts of you in his apartment and he knows they'll never leave his head again. You mull it over for a few moments.
"I don't know."
"No pressure! Just that you're already here." He wants to dig himself a hole in the ground and have someone bury him. He's coming on too strong.
"If it's not too much trouble." Or maybe he's not.
"You know it's not." You blink slowly at him, a sleepy smile blossoming on your face as you stretch your arms.
"Can I borrow some clothes?" His brain short circuits.
"Sure." He jumps up before he can think about it too much, dashing into his room and grabbing an assortment of clothes so you have a few options. He hands them over to you with a soft smile which you reciprocate as you get up to get changed.
You come out of the bathroom wearing one of his science pun shirts and he thinks he's going to die on the spot.
He insists you take his bed, he'd feel terrible having a guest sleep on his lumpy sofa whilst he got to enjoy sleeping on a real bed. You try to protest but you're clearly tired and you give in after a few more pushes, throwing another thank you and a good night over your shoulder before closing the door behind you.
He lies on the couch and tries to sleep. His brain doesn't go quiet until nearly 5am.
You emerge from his room in the morning, rubbing sleep out of your eyes, muttering a sleepy good morning in his direction. He says it back, stretching the sleep out of his muscles and shifting so there's room for you on the couch.
"Coffee?"
"I can make it." He's halfway up when you shake your head at him.
"Ryland, you already let me stay over, please let me make you a coffee." So he does. You know just how he likes it without even asking. It's a small thing but it matters.
You sit down next to him, coffees in hand, and it hits him all at once that this could be his life. He could just lean over, kiss you, and maybe you'd stay forever. He'd wake up to you like this every day for the rest of his life if he could.
He doesn't move. Just watches you as you take the first sips of your coffee.
4: The Cinema
The fourth time he wants to kiss you is when it starts to get annoying. He's such a coward, he could just lean over and do it. It almost feels like it would be easier to do it here, under the cover of darkness where it's basically impossible to have a conversation about it because people would complain that you're ruining the movie.
You bought him tickets to watch Star Trek (the original one!) at the local independent cinema as a surprise. He's a little bit ashamed to say that he cried. It's a film that means a lot to him. He mentioned it to you once right at the beginning of your friendship and it means so much that you remembered such a tiny detail. There isn't even an occasion, you just saw it was on and arranged it.
The theatre is full of fellow nerds, some are even dressed in costume, and the energy in the room is electric. It's inspiring seeing so many couples milling around as well. That could be you and him some day!
You picked good seats, right in the centre of the room, so he has a perfect view of the screen. It's too bad that he's spent an embarrassing percentage of the film watching you out of the corner of his eye instead.
Your hand is resting on the arm chair, occasionally dipping into the box of popcorn the two of you are sharing. Occasionally your elbow brushes against his and it hits him all at once how close the two of you are. There's so many opportunities for him to make a move, any move, that the situation allows for. He could leave his hand in the popcorn a little bit too long in the hopes that he can entwine it with yours, he could rest his arm next to yours in the hopes you'll shift against him, he could lean his head towards you to rest it closer to your headrest. Endless possibilities and he's not indulging any of them.
You lean over to him, waiting for him to turn and face you, then make a funny comment. He snorts with laughter, leaning back against his headrest a little bit too quickly. His glasses catch on one side of his head and the force knocks them forward slightly, leaving them askew on his face. You're both laughing quietly now, even if Ryland's is more embarrassed than anything. He moves to shift them back to their proper place but you beat him to it.
"Let me." You catch his hand with yours, waiting for him to return it to his lap.
You adjust his glasses, smiling as he scrunches his face to make sure they're sitting at the right point on his nose. You're so close to his face that he can hear you breathing. That makes him sound like a creep. You breath nicely.
That's probably an even creepier thought. He casts it aside.
"Excuse me, sorry!" A voice from over his shoulder pulls him away from you. It's just someone wanting to squeeze past to go to the bathroom but it unsettles him as he leans away from you, adjusting so the person can get past without accidentally kicking one of you. When he finally dares to look back at you, your attention is back on the movie. Even when the person comes back, Ryland can't settle. The moment doesn't feel right anymore.
He'll just have to keep waiting.
5: The Restaurant
The fifth time he wants to kiss you feels slightly less pathetic since it happens when he's on a date with you. It definitely feels like this is a socially acceptable situation to want to kiss you.
It at least means that maybe you want to kiss him back.
Hopefully.
It'd be pretty bad going on a date with someone you don't want to kiss. You're not like that.
Dinner is going well. It doesn't feel weird which he worried it would (because of him, not because of you) and it's been fun. You'd picked a nice, mid-range restaurant so neither of you have to pretend to be something that you're not or spend too much money on it. You share a starter, get an alcoholic drink, and talk.
It feels like it could be the beginning of everything.
He hasn't felt this way about anyone for a long time, and he was so much younger the first time that it doesn't feel right to compare. He thinks about you all the time; wondering what you're doing, who you're with, if you're ever thinking about him.
It's already gotten to the point that he's been writing love letters. That's how the two of you ended up here in the first place. It felt safer to word vomit all over some paper rather than to your face then he went and left them somewhere you could see them. A good thing came of it but next time he's definitely going to burn the pages once he's done with them.
Hypothesis: his brain stops functioning rationally (or maybe at all) when you're involved.
It's a theory he thinks is worth rigorous testing, no matter how mortifying it gets.
There's a gentle lull somewhere after your mains but before you've ordered your desserts. The drinks have warmed up both up and Ryland really wants to kiss you. Again. It feels like the whole night has been building up to it and he's ready. More than ready. He's wanted this for weeks, months at this point. He can't go more than three sentences without looking at your lips, it would be so easy to just lean forward and kiss you. There's no way you haven't noticed, he's never been very good at being subtle with regards to anything.
You place your hand down on the table and he dares himself to be brave for once as he reaches over to place his on top of yours. When you touch it's like electricity runs through him as all his nerve ending are alight.
This is it, this is the moment when you become more then friends.
Then, then, the waiter comes over, asking if you want another refill of your drinks or a dessert or something, Ryland can't even say what the poor man is there for. The moment is broken and the haze settling between you dissipates. He pulls his hand away and you retract yours slowly, take another sip of your drink. You finish up dinner and, whilst nothing has changed, the tension between the two of you has gone. The drive back to his apartment isn't tense, but there's no spark in the air like there was in the taxi on the way there. It's yet another opportunity that he's let pass him by.
Damn it.
+1: The Club
Ryland doesn't get jealous. He doesn't. If it looks like he does, it's just because a trick of the light, or maybe he's having a bad day. Of course, it's never a bad day before someone interacts with you in a way that sets his teeth on edge because he's been with you. It's always completely unrelated even it never happens when he's with other people.
So no, he doesn't get jealous.
You're still in the 'will they, won't they' phase much to his chagrin and he's once again forced against his will to partake in the social interaction college is supposedly all about. The house party was one thing. A club is a huge step up from that, in the worst way possible. He's pretty sure the music they're playing doesn't contain a single lyric, it's just a sequence of heavy bass and noises that make his head feel weird.
You can tell he's not comfortable and keep saying it's okay if he wants to leave but he wants to do this, wants to be here, for you. He can almost convincingly grin and bear it. It's something of a mercy when you both finish your drinks and he has an excuse to get off the dance floor. Your friends are all around you so he's sure you'll be fine for the five minutes he's gone to fetch another round.
The bar is impossibly busy, and he tries his best to keep an eye on where you are whilst he's waiting to be served. Everything seems like it's going fine until someone he doesn't recognise approaches you.
He can barely make out the stranger's face but he can make out yours. Your expression starts off polite but it falls away pretty quickly.
He's walking back over to you before he's even ordered the drinks.
Screw it.
You spot him walking towards you and smile at him but it doesn't slow his pace. He moves through the people like a man on a mission and doesn't even hesitate to capture your lips in a kiss as soon as he's close enough to you. To your credit, you don't even seem surprised; tangling your fingers in the hem of his t-shirt and pulling him closer. The stranger makes a comment, something neither of you hear clearly, before he skulks away, disappearing into the crowd.
Now that he's actually kissing you, Ryland doesn't want to stop. If he didn't need oxygen to survive he wouldn't stop. But he does, and so do you, so it comes to an end. You rest your forehead against him. He's quite proud of the fact you seem out of breath.
"Sorry." You pull back as you process his word. Confusion and hurt flash through your eyes. Your chest fills with panic.
"Why're you sorry?"
"Cause now I've messed things up between us."
"Ry, how have you messed things up?" You take his hand in yours, squeezing tightly to ground him.
"Cause I acted all impulsively and I had no right to do that and I didn't even ask you!" He's panicking and the word vomit is happening without him being able to stop it. He might actually vomit soon as well. He really doesn’t need to remind people of his nickname.
"Ry, you don't have to ask me if you want to kiss me."
"You're okay with it?!" You laugh in his face but your face is too full of joy for him to think you're mocking him.
"Ry, I've wanted you to do that for weeks. I thought I was misreading some signals after you didn't at the restaurant."
"Oh thank god." He pulls your close, laughter bubbling in his chest. “Can I do it again?”
“Ry, you can do it whenever you want to.” So he does.
warnings : dangerous amounts of awkward, nerdy ryland? terrible writing, not edited
summary : ryland has a crush on the kindergarten teacher that his class visits once a month
w/c : 4.3k
a/n : the chokehold this man has on me is INSANE
It was the last Friday of the month, Ryland’s favorite day. Once a month, he got to walk his homeroom class ten minutes down the street to the local elementary school. Once a month, his students got to hang out with their kindergarten buddies. Once a month, he got paid to sit around and be with her.
Y/n was the kindergarten teacher he was partnered up with. Last year he had been stuck with Mrs. Wilson. Her classroom always smelled of microwaved fish and sweaty fourth graders. She also had a bad habit of leaving the classroom without telling him, leaving him alone with nearly sixty children. Y/n was very different. Her classroom always smelled of lavender and citrus, and the only time he had ever been alone in her classroom was when she dropped the students off at lunch and went to the restroom.
Ryland was very grateful that he was visiting her classroom and that she wasn’t visiting his. Her room was a stark contrast to his. He had planets hanging from the ceiling, his desk was cluttered and trashed, and things fell down regularly. Here, there were paper lanterns hanging down, but that was all. They were evenly spaced and gave the room a cozy feel, not a trapped in low budget space feel. Everything had a place. Her desk was cleared, at least the top was. He had no clue if the drawers were in the same condition. The classroom was organized from the row of backpacks hanging on the wall to the cabinet filled with toys. It was structured, warm.
However, nice as the classroom was, that was not the best part of this arrangement the two schools set up. Working with Y/n was the highlight of his school year. There was just something about her. Maybe it was the fact that she always had a tupperware filled with baked goods for him when he brought his class to visit. Maybe it was the fact that she always smelled like vanilla and jasmine. And maybe, just maybe, it was the way she taught her students. The way that she could help one student understand a concept using props and hand motions and then turn around and help another by turning it into a game. She had a passion for helping them get from where they were, to where they were going. It was written all over her face.
This was what Ryland thought about as he walked his eighth grade homeroom over to the elementary school. The morning fog was still thick and a slight breeze sent a chill down his spine. The buzzing chatter of his students was making the grey sky seem a little lighter. He loved that they were just as excited as the kindergarteners were.
They made it inside the elementary building and the warmth immediately seeped into his bones, welcoming him like the embrace of an old friend. He navigated his class through the now familiar hallways and stopped outside a door that had been decorated with small laminated ducks, each one bearing the name of a kindergartener in the classroom. He turned to his gaggle of students.
“Remember, go in quietly and sit on the floor near your kid.” He said, making eye contact with the students who loved to go in squealing and hug their kindergarten partner.
“Yes, Mr. Grace,” the class echoed.
Ryland knocked on the door. He suddenly felt nervous. This had become the new normal since the first time Y/n opened the door. He tried to swallow the lump in his throat to no avail. He wiped one sweaty palm on his jeans and ran the other one, shakily, through his tousled hair. His stomach knotted, he felt like an idiot.
The door opened, and there was Y/n. She was wearing dress pants and an oversized sweater. Her hair was falling naturally. The smell of her perfume was wrapping him up like he just stepped inside after being out in the cold too long, which technically he did. His breath hitched quietly and he hoped she didn’t hear it. He felt the small smile creeping onto his face and there was no point in trying to fight it.
He didn’t get to bask in the feeling as long as he wished to, the overly excited five year olds started babbling behind her. She smiled at him. What kindergarteners?
“Hey,” she said, her voice low, like she was whispering a secret for his ears only.
The small smile broke into a full blown grin. “Hey,” he whispered back. Y/n opened the door fully so Ryland and his class could enter. The two teachers stepped aside while the students entered the space and situated themselves. As he entered the room, his eyes settled on her desk, finding a tupperware sitting on it, a pink sticky note on top with his name on it. He could feel the tips of his ears match the color of the sticky note.
“My kids have been excited all week. We had to make a countdown paper chain on Monday,” She said, beaming up at him.
Ryland let out a small chuckle. “Mine too. They try to play it off and act cool, but they’ve asked me once a week when we’re coming back.” Y/n laughed and both teachers got back to what they were actually supposed to be doing.
The schedule was simple enough. First was penmanship. The eighth graders had to help the kinders write a three sentence story. Y/n stood in front of the whiteboard, pink marker in hand.
“So if Mr. Grace is my partner,” She said, looking at the group of fifty or so kids crammed into the room. “Then he and I are going to come up with the story together! It can be about anything!” She looked over at him. “For example, I might write, ‘Mr. Grace is a good teacher.’” She wrote the sentence on the board. Her lettering was smooth and elegant, only in the way that teachers can have. She glanced over at Ryland expectantly.
“And I might want her to write, ‘Miss Y/n is a great teacher.’” He hoped that it wasn’t obvious that he was trying to elevate her. The smile and roll of her eyes told him he was unsuccessful. She wrote it anyway. He moved to stand next to her.
“After that, we might say, ‘They make a great team.’” She said, and the smile she gave him went right to his stomach. He had to snap his eyes anywhere else or he feared he would forget himself and make a really dumb move in front of the students. He felt his neck heat up and he was sure he was beet red. Y/n noticed. Her gaze drifted back to the students. “Are there any questions?” She asked.
A hand shot up instantly. Y/n nodded for the student to ask his question. “But, Miss Y/n! Our papers have a big square on top of our writing lines!” Y/n smiled at the urgency of the question.
“They do! Good job, Jeffrey, I almost forgot! At the top of your paper you have a blank space. You and your buddy are going to color a picture that goes with your story.”
Another hand went up. “Miss Y/n, you didn’t draw a picture.”
The middle schoolers chuckled, noticing the way their teacher was avoiding looking at Miss Y/n. One of them raised their hand. “Yeah, Mr. Grace, you have to help Miss Y/n color a picture of the two of you!”
He wanted to die. He hated how bad he was at being subtle. He was rescued when Y/n let out a laugh. “You guys are right. Tell you what, while you guys write, Mr. Grace and I will draw a picture on the board.”
The students got to work as Ryland uncapped a black marker. He started drawing a stick figure. It was lopsided, and the eyes weren’t evenly spaced out, but Y/n assumed it was his best efforts based on the way his brows knit together and his tongue poked out slightly from between his lips.
He looked over to where Y/n was finishing her drawing. It was very obviously him. From the glasses to the cardigan he was wearing, the dry erase drawing was very evidently Ryland. He was even giving a thumbs up. He glanced back at his drawing. Not terrible. Not great. He picked up the pink marker she had been using earlier. He drew a flower in the stick woman’s hand. He took a step back and admired his work. Y/n did the same.
“We really do make a great team,” she said, turning to look up at him.
His brain short circuited. She didn’t even compliment him. Why was his brain offline? Think of something! Say something! Say anything! She’s looking right at you! Say something! Say something now!
“Like ribosomes and protein synthesis.” Not that! Idiot.
But the panic subsided as Y/n let out a huff of laughter and her body involuntarily leaned into his. It was brief, a slight graze of her shoulder against his. Yet it was all he could focus on. He stilled as it happened, trying to memorize the feeling instantly. He spent the next ten minutes trying to figure out if his arm tingled from the force of impact or if his brain was experiencing a minor chemical imbalance. His internal debate subsided as Y/n instructed the students to turn in their work.
The rest of the morning passed by in a flurry of raised hands and tiny confused sighs as math worksheets were handed out and completed. There was a breath of relief when Y/n announced it was time for recess. He shrugged his cardigan off and onto the chair as he pulled his blazer back on. Y/n led the group down the hall and outside as Ryland manned the end of the line, ensuring no wandering or straggling.
This time, the fresh air felt less inviting, like it was stripping the atmosphere of all the warmth and depth that Y/n’s classroom supplied. It smelled Earthy and sharp. Normally it would be one of his favorite things in the world. In this moment, he wanted nothing more than to be inhaling her scent. Her classroom scent, that is, or so he told himself. His inner lament was silenced when a soccer ball went flying into his left foot.
“Mr. Grace!” A chorus of students yelled his name and ran over to him. A tiny boy with a mop of dark curly hair peered up at him through thick eyelashes. His hands were clasped near his chest as he started to speak. “Mr. Grace, will you play with us?”
Ryland felt something profound tug at his heart strings as the boy looked up at him expectantly.
“Sure, but only if we beat these middle schoolers, deal?” He stuck out his hand, the soccer ball now pinned under his foot.
The boy, Miles, shook his hand and giggled out, ‘deal’.
“Kinder versus middle school!” was all Ryland shouted before kicking the ball towards a five year old and running towards the goal, guarded by one of his own students.
Y/n watched from the sidelines as Ryland weaved, not so elegantly, between the students. He was constantly stumbling over his own feet, and his glasses kept sliding down his face. However, Y/n also saw the way he passed the ball to her students every time. The way he would steal the ball from an eighth grader, pass it to a little kid, only to have the ball stolen by a middle schooler again. She noticed the way he fell backwards and landed on his back in order to avoid lightly bumping one of her students. She watched him pause the game to help a girl tie her shoe. He had never looked so attractive. He was squatting down, her yellow shoe resting atop his knee. His glasses hung around his chin and his hair was tousled and sweaty from running. The way he smiled, watching as the girl ran back to the game once her shoe was properly tied again. She noticed the way that the water ran down his hair to his cheek to his neck, disappearing under the collar of his shirt. Wait, water?
Y/n’s train of thought was cut off by a splash of rain hitting her forehead. Oh great. Before she knew it, five year olds all around her were losing their minds. She pulled her sweater tighter around herself as the rain picked up. Ryland was by her side in an instant, shrugging his blazer off and, awkwardly, draping it over Y/n’s head, an attempt to shield her from the rain. Y/n smiled despite herself as she watched him concentrate. A whistle blew and all the kids quickly got in line as Y/n led them towards the classroom. Ryland, soaked to the bone, stood at the end of the line, waiting for one kindergartener to catch up after he ran back into the playground for his water bottle.
The group was buzzing as they re-entered the classroom. Y/n gave instructions for the kids to hang up their coats and find a seat on the rug. Ryland stood next to Y/n, who was finally pulling the blazer from her head. “You didn’t have to do that,” She whispered, a faint smile tugging at her lips.
“Yes I did,” he breathed out. Y/n tried to hand him the blazer, but it was quickly draped around her again, this time, over her shoulders. She smiled as he rubbed the fabric up and down her arms. There was a faint smell of clean linen and stale coffee. It was uniquely Ryland, like the scent only existed for him. She had been mostly protected from the rain, and she didn’t really need dried off, but she let him do it.
His glasses had little drops of water on them, sliding down the lens and onto the floor. His hair was completely soaked, dripping down his face steadily onto his clothes, which had been thoroughly drenched. Yet here he was, drying her off. The whole world seemed to narrow down to just the two of them as Ryland pulled the blazer off of her and wrapped his knit sweater around her. The sleeves were too long for her, but she pushed them back slightly, freeing her hands. The soft fabric brushed his arm as he tucked a stray hair behind her ear. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, Y/n waited with baited breath.
“Miss Y/n?” A tiny hand pulled on the sweater and Y/n reluctantly pulled her eyes away from Ryland’s.
Ryland felt his mouth shut quickly, suddenly very aware of where he was. He looked over at his students, who were smirking and looking away. Because that's what he needed, a class of middle schoolers noticing his awkward crush on the nicest woman in the world.
He tried looking anywhere else. The pattern of the floors was suddenly riveting. His gaze snapped back to Y/n as she turned on a movie and told the class to watch quietly and eat their lunches. He turned the lights off and made his way to the back of the classroom, sitting on a tiny table. Y/n sat next to him, tupperware in hand, pink sticky note still on top. She handed it to him wordlessly, the air around them full and comforting. He opened the container as Y/n started eating her lunch next to him.
“Banana bread?” He whispered excitedly. “You didn’t!”
Y/n smiled, and she was overjoyed that the lights were off and he wouldn’t be able to see the way that her cheeks flushed. “Of course I did. You said it was your favorite.” Ryland leaned back in the chair slightly and started eating quietly, eyes trained on the students in front of him.
He let his hand settle on the table beneath him, slowly letting it drift closer to Y/n’s until his hand was ghosting hers. Y/n didn’t look away from the kids as she carefully shifted so her hand was pressed against his, trying to get him to just take a hint already.
He let his fingers delicately trace over her knuckles before hooking his pinky under her hand and flipping it gently so it rested in his. It was slow, and a little clumsy, but it was also warm. Solid.
Ryland could feel the quickening thump of his heart against his chest. His throat was dry and he was suddenly very nervous that his hand was going to start sweating.
The thoughts were subdued when Y/n brushed her thumb over his knuckles, trying to memorize every ridge, every valley. He looked down where they were joined together. A small smile graced his features and he went back to watching the kids.
Lunch was over too soon in his humble opinion. In reality, they had actually gone fifteen minutes over because Y/n didn’t want to let go of Ryland’s hand. Only two more hours before he had to leave, and he tried to push the thought away, like not thinking about it delayed the inevitable. He took his place at the front of the room as Y/n settled her students into their seats.
“Alright you guys! Who’s excited to learn about space?” Every little hand shot into the air.
He uncapped an expo marker and started asking questions. “Who knows what is in the middle of the solar system?” A middle schooler started whispering into her kindergartener’s ear. The five year old jumped up frantically, waving her hand in the air.
“I know! I know!”
“Tell me, Amaya!”
“The sun!”
“Good job! Yes! The Sun is in the middle of our solar system! Everything goes in circles around it.” He drew a sun on the whiteboard. “Alright, Amaya, I need your help now.”
Amaya looked over at Y/n for reassurance. After receiving a nod of approval, Amaya walked to the tall teacher.
“Okay. Amaya, you are the sun. You’re gonna stand right here.” He gave her a high five as she stood where she was told to.
“Who knows what planet is closest to the Sun?”
There was more whispering. Then more voices shouting out ‘I know’ and ‘Me! Me!’.
“What is it, Jack?”
“Mercury!”
“Good job! Come on up!” Ryland added another circle to the board. “Okay, Jack. You're gonna go in a circle around Amaya, and you’re the fastest planet in the solar system! So go! Faster! Faster!” The class erupted into giggles.
“What comes after Mercury?” He didn’t have to wait this time. “Which planet is it, Claire?”
“Uh, Venus?”
“Venus is right!” Claire didn’t wait for permission before walking to the front. “Okay Claire, you have to walk in a circle too, but you’re very slow,” He said, dragging out the last part of the sentence. Claire started marching in slow motion around Jack. Laughter again.
He continued on until he had an entire solar system of kindergarteners running around the space. Y/n watched as he laughed with the kids and inevitably started to ramble about how technically Max, the Earth stand-in, was moving slightly too fast for this example to be realistic. She didn’t realize she was smiling until Ryland glanced over and shot her a grin.
He finally settles them down and returns everyone to their seats. Y/n watched him for a moment longer before remembering the coloring sheets in her hand.
They sat together at her desk once the kids started coloring together. “I don’t think they’ve ever had that much fun during science,” Y/n said, her voice sincere, with a hint of something more. God, Ryland hoped he wasn’t imagining it.
“I don’t know about that,” He said, his gaze flicking quickly to her lips and back up to her eyes. Y/n noticed. Her cheeks heated up and her eyes shifted to the ground, remembering quickly that they were still working.
Ryland wanted to die. He looked up at the ceiling and wished that it would fall on him. He was saved from the awkwardness when a voice called his name.
“Mr. Grace,” A teary eyed Amaya approached him with her coloring page in her grasp. He was moving before he realized it, crouching down so he was eye level with her.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” He held his palm out and let her grab it with her small hand. She sniffled and Y/n felt her breath get caught in her throat at the interaction. The way his eyes scanned Amaya for something wrong. The way he subconsciously made her feel seen. The way he knew to hold out his calloused hand. It all caused something to bubble under the surface.
“I messed up my drawing,” she mumbled, showing him the paper. Ryland looked at the page and then back at the small girl.
“Messed up? I don’t see anything wrong!” He said, embellishing his confusion slightly.
“Saturn isn’t supposed to be pink,” She sniffled again and let out a small, sad sigh that made Ryland want to tear up a little.
“Well you know what?” He asked, looking at the girl holding his hand.
“What?”
“I think pink is the best color anyway. I think that Saturn looks better in pink than any other color.”
Amaya cracked a small smile. “Pink is your favorite color?”
Ryland beamed back. “Well, I don’t know, orange is pretty cool, but pink is too.”
Amaya giggled and let go of Ryland’s hand, bouncing back to her seat. He stayed crouched on the ground, watching her go back to her seat for a while longer.
It was at this moment that Y/n subconsciously noticed how strong his shoulders looked through his still damp shirt, which clung to his muscles in all the right places. She shook her head as he stood up, like it would remove the thought from her brain.
“You’re really good with them, you know.” Her voice was quieter. It sent a warm tingle down Ryland’s spine. He opened his mouth to say something, but closed it quickly.
Y/n giggled and looked back at the students. He opened his mouth to try again.
“Well, statistically speaking, it’s easier to induce dopamine at that developmental stage.” He noticed the way her lips curved into a smirk and her eyes slightly narrowed in confusion. “Their baseline for excitement is much lower than in adults, so small achievements tend to produce disproportionally strong reactions. So like,” He took a breath, realizing he was still staring at her lips, and moved his eyes to meet hers. “High return on minimal input situation.”
Y/n rolled her eyes and laughed, lightly shoving his shoulder. “That was a lot of words to say that I was right.” He smiled and pressed his shoulder into hers.
They sat together until Y/n went up to give the next instructions. Her eyes kept wandering over to his frame, sitting in a tiny, blue chair meant for a five year old. The older kids helped their kindergarten partners put their things away and start their reading work.
Y/n started picking up markers that had fallen on the floor. Ryland followed suit. He stopped at Amaya’s seat, noticing how Saturn was bright pink with orange rings around it. He smiled softly and went to pick up the orange marker at the same time that Y/n did. Their fingers brushed, and at first Ryland pulled back, startled by her presence, letting out a quiet gasp.
Y/n let out a small giggle, and quickly clapped her hand over her mouth to muffle the sound. He rolled his eyes at her laughter, but smiled despite himself. They cleaned up quietly, enjoying the last moments together.
“Alright, kinders! Let’s say bye to our middle schoolers!” Y/n said as the eighth graders lined up with their bags.
“Bye!” The class shouted. The middle schoolers waved and filed out of the room, Ryland hesitated outside the door. Y/n stood in the doorway, wanting to see him as long as she could before closing the door.
He turned from Y/n to his class. “Start walking to the bus, I’ll meet you there. Gotta ask Miss Y/n what grade you guys should get.” The class groaned but started walking anyway.
He turned back to Y/n. “I uh,” what was he doing? This was a terrible idea. “I, well, you,”
Y/n smiled and he completely forgot whatever it was he was trying to spit out. In a moment of foolish bravery, his mouth moved faster than his brain.
“Would you want to go out with me?” He breathed out.
Y/n smiled, looking at the ground, tugging her bottom lip between her teeth. She looked back up at him, cheeks flushed. “I’d love to.”
He let out a sigh of relief. There was something about the way she looked at him. The way her eyes flitted down to his lips and then back to his eyes. He forgot himself for a moment. His lips went crashing into hers. It was a little clumsy, and a little rushed, but his lips were soft, and molded nicely with hers.
He pulled away, breathless, eyes a little wild. Y/n leaned against the door, not registering the students behind her talking and coloring.
“I‘ll see you later,” he mumbled as he walked backwards, eyes still trained on Y/n. He stumbled only twice before he turned around and walked towards the school bus waiting for him in the rain.
He was startled as he climbed on board and was greeted with applause.
“Yeah! Get it Mr. Grace!”
“Finally did it!”
“You wanted her so bad!”
“It was like an awkward nerdy soap opera!”
He rolled his eyes but smiled as soon as he sat down. Now he just had to survive the date.
Summary: The entire school knew how close you and Ryland Grace had become since you'd joined Grover Cleveland Middle's staff a year prior. That knowledge only fueled the rumor mill, that one that ran between the staff and students alike, on just how close the two of you were. It didn't help that you were definitely head over heels for the slightly awkward and endearing science teacher.
Warnings: pre-Project Hail Mary and should not include spoilers but caution anyways just in case, pre-movie storyline, tooth-rotting fluff, idiots in love, workplace romance, friends to lovers, slightly suggestive-ish comments but no smut, female reader but no characteristics described, definitely some incorrect science information but I am not a scientist so apologies, I am also not a teacher so I am sorry for any inaccuracies there lol, lightly edited so apologies for any mistakes
“Can anyone tell me why it was that Penelope asked her suitors to string Odysseus’s bow?”
The silence that followed was deafening. Your eyes shut for half a second, a tiny sigh escaping through your lips. Reopening your eyes, not a single one of your students had dared to raise their hands. No one except for Olivia, your star student, who waved her hand repeatedly in the air from the back of the classroom. A single glance to the clock told you all you needed to know.
11:55. These kids were already in lunch mode, and there was zero way you were getting them to listen to you.
With a sigh and a wave of your hand, you gave Olivia the okay to answer the question. She happily took your permission and ran with it, always the first to answer any questions you posed in class. If only the rest of these damn middle schoolers were as eager as she was.
“Penelope didn’t want to marry anyone else, so she gave them an impossible task,”
“Why does she always know everything?”
Marcus thought his comment was whispered just low enough that you wouldn’t hear him in the first row, but he was never quite that lucky. He quickly shut his mouth and looked anywhere but in your direction the second he caught sight of the disapproving look you were casting directly at him.
“You are exactly right, Olivia. Thank you for answering my question,” there were a few chuckles in the room at the obvious sarcasm laced through your words, as you hopped up onto your desk to relax and get a better look around the room full of kids. “Penelope knew the only person that could string her husband’s bow, was her husband himself. She needed to buy time, especially when these suitors only really wanted to be the ones to inherit Ithaca-”
There was a loud knocking on the door to your classroom that had been left open for the last 20 minutes of class, interrupting your words. You weren’t surprised in the slightest to meet the eyes of none other than Ryland Grace, the science teacher.
“Uh- sorry! Didn’t mean to interrupt important book talk stuff. Super important, you uh-you never know when Shakespeare will come up at your future desk job,” the cringe that Ryland physically did at his own comment was easy to see, even from across the room. He gave you a sheepish smile, his glasses barely hanging onto his face from their unconventional spot hanging off of one of his ears. The blonde held up the brown bag in his hand, and you could practically smell the food that rested inside. “I’m early, I’m sorry. Didn’t think you’d want to have a cold burger for lunch.”
“I told you!” Marcus still didn’t understand the concept of a whisper, leaning over to his best friend Jason at the desk beside him, slapping him on the arm. “They’re totally dating!”
“As if Mr. Grace could pull her,”
There was a chorus of snickers and laughter through the class, any semblance of order you might’ve had descending into chaos as every single one of your loveable, little shits just kept casting looks between you and Ryland, who still stood awkwardly in your classroom doorway with reddened cheeks.
Your face was surely no better, you were sure you could feel the heat that was emanating off of your skin, as you ran a hand down the burning skin of your face and wondered why you chose to teach these little menaces for the rest of your life. The world decided to be kind to the pair of you though, for once, letting the lunch bell save you from any further embarrassment from a group of 13 year olds.
“Please come to class prepared to actually answer questions tomorrow!” you called out over the hustle and bustle of the class as they grabbed their things, eager to scurry off to their lunch hour and finally eat. “Your unit test is at the end of next week, and I would prefer not to fail all of you.”
They weren’t listening, but by this point in the day you were hungry and didn’t have the energy to try and argue with them.
Any of that tiredness they brought to your bones? It disappeared the second you watched the way they all interacted with Ryland on their way out the door.
Big smiles, every single one of them excited to see the school’s favorite science teacher lingering in the doorway to their English class. You could just barely hear the tail end of one of Ryland’s terrible science puns, something about a hungry planet needing a ‘light snack’ that got a groan out of Marcus. All it did was bring a soft smile to your face, though, one that somehow softened even more at the quick, secret handshake Olivia shared with him before she was out the door.
Then, it was just the two of you, smiling like idiots as you locked eyes across the room again. And god, did you want that fluttering group of butterflies in your stomach to calm down for just a moment.
Having a crush on Dr. Ryland Grace, the former molecular biologist turned San Francisco middle school science teacher, was inevitable from the moment you turned up at the school for your first day over a year ago. Incredibly smart, amazing with kids, and so incredibly handsome you thought your heart stopped beating the first time you saw him–hell, Mrs. Doyle, the math teacher for over 5 years, said there were at least 4 other young teachers that absolutely had crushes on this man. You were far from the first.
He broke that perfect vision of himself you were building in your head within 5 minutes of meeting, tripping over his own two feet and knocking the stack of papers a mile high from the Principal’s hands, but you had only found it even more endearing.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” he apologized again, long legs striding across the room and reaching your desk in a matter of seconds. “I had a free period before this, a-and you mentioned this morning you forgot lunch so I grabbed some for both of us-”
“Sal’s?” you questioned, pointing to the bag of foot now sitting on your desk with the familiar logo. “They’re, like, 10 blocks away. Why’d you go that far?”
“Because I know they’re your favorite,”
The flare of heat in your cheeks was instant. Ryland Grace, who rode a damn bike to the school every day, used his free period to ride 10 blocks away and pick you up lunch from your favorite spot, all because you mentioned offhandedly at 7 a.m. about forgetting your lunch for the day.
Well, he certainly didn’t do that for the four fresh out of college teachers that had crushes on him. You’d mentally consider that a hefty win in your book.
“How sweet of you to remember,” Ryland simply waved you off, head turned away as he passed your wrapped burger into your hands, taking up space on your desk chair while you stayed comfortable on top of your desk. “You even remembered tomatoes this time!”
“I forgot them one time and I never hear the end of it,” laughter was shared between you both for a moment as Grace took a bite of his own burger. “I caught the tail end of that discussion. Olivia answering all your questions like a champ?”
“Isn’t she always,” you shot back with another laugh, turning slightly on your desk to better face him. “I swear she’s the only one that I can ever get to answer any of my questions. She might be the only one that does any of my assigned readings.”
“To be fair, can you blame her?” Ryland’s words were muffled slightly by the food in his mouth. You couldn’t even contain the slight smile that grew as he managed to just barely catch the ketchup dripping off his burger before it could smear itself on the stack of papers that needed graded at your desk. “Shakespeare was just…so interesting. Couldn’t get enough of his stuff. Don’t know why your kids don’t want to read it.”
There was silence for a moment, your eyebrow quirked in his direction. The blonde stopped mid bite of his burger, looking back at you quizzically, trying to figure out what he had said wrong.
“You know we’re currently learning The Odyssey, right?”
“Yes?”
“I’ll let you think about that for a second,”
He did, just slowly blinking in your direction. He glanced at the chalkboard behind you, covering in little notes you’d made throughout the class discussion, before they flickered to the copy of the book that sat on your desk. That was finally when you saw the light bulb flicker on above his head, Ryland’s eyes shutting as he let out a loud sigh.
“...that wasn’t written by Shakespeare, was it?”
The laughter that bubbled out of you practically had you throwing your head backward.
“No, but I’m sure Homer won’t be too offended,” feet landing on the ground as you hopped off your desk, you gave Ryland’s shoulder a quick squeeze as you moved past him. “The attempt was cute, though, it was a good try.”
Cute. Why in the world did you let that one slip? You were practically cursing yourself in your head for that one, taking another bite of your burger as you worked to erase the whiteboard to prepare it for your next class. You didn’t dare steal a glance over at Ryland, in fear that your little slip-up was going to ruin everything.
There was only quiet for a moment before the single moment of awkwardness was gone.
“I promise you I know Homer wrote that. I swear!”
The desperation to believe him drew another laugh out of you. Sparing a glance in his direction, Ryland was giving you his best, exaggerated puppy dog eyes, begging you to believe him, as a smile just barely squeaked its way onto his lips.
“Right, of course you did. My mistake. Whatever you say, Ryland-”
“I mean it!” It was his turn to laugh this time, a sound that had those butterflies rattling around once more. “I was just…distracted.”
“Uh-huh, distracted,” as if you were preparing to scold one of your students, you turned to face him fully with a hand on your hip, eyebrow raised expectantly. “By what, exactly?”
If a human being could buffer, Ryland Grace always seemed to be constantly buffering. Your eyebrow remained raised, waiting for him to piece together his response. All he could do was open and close his mouth like a fish, before looking away and taking another bite of his food.
“Nevermind that, just finish your food before it gets cold. I did bike, like, three miles to get that thing,”
With a roll of your eyes that held zero malice what-so-ever, you made sure the blonde could see your next bite of your food, a satisfied smile on his face.
“Back to the previous topic,” you steered the conversation in another direction, wiping off the last bits of chalk on the board and writing down your next period at the top so that you could start the discussion on the reading over again. “I don’t understand why it’s so hard to get some of these kids to just read the content. They all pay attention in your class!”
“I heard Jason make a comment yesterday during class that Marcus has a crush on Olivia. Maybe they’re too distracted to read,”
You shot him a skeptical look.
“Marcus, crushing on Olivia? He was just making fun of her before you came in the room,”
Ryland averted his eyes, suddenly very interested in his ID badge hanging around his neck from his school issues lanyard.
“W-well, maybe he just doesn’t…know how to express his feelings,” he spared a glance up at you, seeing you were still watching, as he tripped over his words again. “It can be hard for boys–and men–of all ages, to…tell someone how they feel.”
“Well, I don’t know where he’s learning from, but making fun of the girl you like isn’t the right way to go about things,” you shot back.
“Then teach them!” Ryland sounded absolutely ecstatic, that light bulb over his head going off again as he looked like he’d come up with the world’s greatest idea. “Classic literature, there’s plenty of great love stories in there. Get his interest by teaching them about that, so he can learn from them.”
“Alright, give me an example then, Mr. Suddenly an Expert in Classic Literature,”
“Romeo and Juliet,” he said like it was the easiest thing in the world, balling up the remnants of his finished food and tossing it in the bag it came in. “Greatest love story ever told, so great Taylor Swift wrote a song about them.”
“Except they don’t run off and get married and live happily ever after, Ryland. Romeo thinks she is dead and kills himself with poison, and when Juliet realizes he’s dead she stabs herself,”
Ryland’s excitement fell slightly, his mouth forming a little ‘o’ shape.
“...oh,”
“Don’t think that’s what I want to teach young, impressionable pre-teens about love-”
“Daisy and Gatsby, then! He loved her so much he stood on that dock staring at the-the bright yellow light of a stoplight for her,”
“It was a green light and it was the dock light, first of all. I’m not even sure how you could be that off. Secondly, Gatsby is murdered at the end of the book and Daisy doesn’t even attend the funeral, she and Tom move away and pretend it never happened,”
Ryland’s eyes are shut at this point, his fingers massaging his temples and those glasses just barely hanging on from their place around his neck.
“...does anyone not die in these old books?”
The sound of your laughter permeates the room and you sweep over, collecting his trash and combining it with yours. You never even spared him a glance, though you could feel his eyes on you, as you swept the trash away with you to the other side of the room, his voice echoing across to you.
“I’m going to get lucky on one of these guesses!”
What Ryland Grace was really lucky about was how adorable you found him, and how head over heels you were for him, because his lack of literary knowledge was astounding.
❤︎
“I’m sorry, you’re trying to tell me that aren’t currently fucking the eye candy that is the science teacher in room 305?”
“Evelyn!”
Evelyn Doyle was in her late thirties, married since she was 18, and already had three kids with her high school sweetheart. Since you had transferred into Grover Cleveland Middle, you’d become fast friends and she had become a great mentor.
She had, sadly, caught onto your pathetic crush on Ryland Grace before you had even fully realized it, and was now ‘vicariously living through you’ as she always said.
“There’s not a single child left in this entire school right now,” she shot back, gesturing around her empty classroom, as she finished cleaning up anything her students had left around at the end of the day. You rolled your eyes at her excuse, perched on the edge of her desk. “Please, I’m tenured, what are they going to do?”
“I’m more so yelling at you for butting into my love life, once again,” was your reply through laughter. “Ryland and I are good friends, that’s it.”
It was her turn to laugh, finishing up her cleanup around the room before she joined you at her desk, packing her things away into her shoulder bag.
“Oh please, you keep denying that little crush of yours-”
“I never said I was denying that,” you cut her off. “Lord, you realized I liked him before I even did. But he and I aren’t anything besides friends. I’m not lying.”
Your pleas fell on deaf ears, like they typically did when you were around Evelyn. She simply waved your statement off, tossing her bag over her shoulder as you followed her out of her room and down through the quiet of the school hallway. The quietest the hallway ever was, in the hours right after students were sent home for the day. You’d rather be anywhere else, preferably at home, but these mandatory once-a-month staff meetings were unavoidable.
“Whether you’re telling me the truth or not, you have to understand why everyone thinks so–teachers AND students. I think even some parents think so!” The only response she got was an eyeroll, her shoulder bumping into your’s playfully. “He brings you lunch at least once a week, meaning he rides that dingy bike to get whatever you’re craving that day.”
“It’s usually just something random-”
“Constantly in your classroom, or vice versa,” she cut you off, and you quickly realized you weren’t getting a single word into this conversation. “I’m pretty sure Principal Marshall has considered, somehow, moving your classroom closer to his just so he’ll stop being late to classes because he’s busy talking to you.”
Okay…yeah, you didn’t have a retort for that one. Your classroom was on the opposite end of the school building from Ryland’s own, and yet every time he had even a split second he was somehow always leaning in your doorway. Even if it only resulted in a conversation that lasted all of a minute.
Many times those ended with your students having to remind him that the bell rang and he definitely had students in his own class unattended, waiting on their teacher. More than once he’d slipped as he tried to sprint back to his classroom from yours. It didn’t matter how short those little conversations were, though, because every second around him was precious to you.
“Awe, look at you blushing about it-”
You slapped Evelyn’s hand away, throwing her a look of disdain that didn’t really hold any true malice to it.
“Look, all I’m saying is the ball is in his court,” was the response you finally settled on as Evelyn propped the door of the small auditorium open for you to enter. “Ryland is nothing but friendly to me, so if he’s interested then he’s got to show me.”
“You’re acting as if you’ve made your own feelings clear, honey,”
“No, but I clearly don’t do a good enough job of hiding them,”
Speak of the devil: there he was. Ryland’s head shot up the moment the pair of you walked into the auditorium. Those damn glasses hanging down from one side of his face, framing his stubbled jawline perfectly. A smile lighting up his face the second those blue eyes found yours, gesturing to the empty seat beside him.
A packed auditorium, as you and Evelyn were the last ones there. Every seat up practically filled, and yet Ryland Grace sat among a crowd of people, eyes trained on you and a single seat saved for you amidst it all.
All you could feel was the heat in your cheeks, and the touch of Evelyn patting your back as she laughed, voice low but loud enough to hear as she shifted past you to find a seat of her own.
“Doesn’t have interest in you my ass,”
Her words swam through your head with every apology you muttered to the other teachers as you snuck past them in the cramped rows, happily taking the empty seat beside Ryland.
“You didn’t have to save me a seat, you know,” your voice held a hint of teasing to it, but it was soft. Filled with an adoration that you knew you were terrible at hiding. Luckily, Ryland was terrible at picking up on it.
“Wanted to sit next to you,” he whispered back as Principal Marshall began to drone on about updates neither of you particularly cared about. He leaned in close, a hint of his breath wafting over the shell of your ear as he spoke. “You make these slightly less boring.”
Close proximity to this man was your worst nightmare, and the cramped auditorium wasn’t helping. That single touch of his breath against your skin was enough to send a simultaneous shiver down your spine and another round of heat to your cheeks. His suit jacket covered arm rested on the shared armrest between your seats, the edge of his bicep ghosting against the bare skin of your arm with every little shift he made, tapping incessantly against the armrest.
The slight action made you smile. He never could sit still in these meetings, always hated them.
“Did anything fun happen in class today?” you kept your voice low, eyes trained on the principal, as your head tilted slightly over to Ryland so he could better hear you.
“Uh, if you count Madison telling me that she thinks the sun orbits the earth, then sure,” you had to stifle your laugh at that, casting Ryland a side glance as he grinned at you, doing a terrible job of whispering back at you as usual.
“How could she possibly think that?”
“You’d be surprised,” Ryland leaned just a tad bit closer, the side of his arm pushed up fully against your own. You could almost hear the smile in his voice without even having to look over at him. “The National Science Foundation estimates that 26% of Americans still think the sun orbits the earth.”
“Jesus, that many?”
“Well, 100% of them are stupid, so,”
Nasty looks from other faculty were shot your way that second you choked on your own breath, slapping a hand over your mouth in an attempt to stop yourself from breaking out into uncontrollable laughter. You gave them the most sympathetic look you possibly could, learning how to breathe normally again before mouthing sorry at them all.
Ryland didn’t care in the slightest for the warning look you shot him, a bright smile on his face as his eyes seemed to trail over every inch of your face.
“If you keep doing this in every faculty meeting, they’re going to separate us, Ry,”
“I met Madison’s parents for the first time last month for parent-teacher conferences,” he continued, ignoring your plea. Instead, he leaned in even closer, eyes locked on yours, and god it was impossible to look away. “They are, 100%, undeniably, part of the Flat Earth Truthers Club.”
You shook your head, a smile creeping back up on your lips. Ryland’s gaze could still be felt on the side of your face as you turned back to face the front, eyes focused back on the principal again in an attempt to pay attention to the meeting.
“Flat earthers are ridiculous. They’re just scared of science,”
“Well, you know what they say…the only thing they have to fear is sphere itself,”
There simply wasn’t enough time to clap your hand over your mouth and conceal your laughter, a split second of it breaking through the quiet of the auditorium. And Ryland? His smile was somehow even brighter than it was before, still locked onto your face, never having strayed once.
“Dr. Grace, is there something you feel needs to be shared with the rest of your fellow faculty?”
Principal Marshall’s voice was enough to knock Ryland out of whatever trance he seemed to have put himself in. Eyes wide as if he’d just seen a ghost, hands barely able to catch his glasses as they almost fell right off of his ear where they dangled, a burst of red spread through his cheeks instantly as his deer-like eyes locked onto the unamused principal.
“I-I uh, no. No, nothing, Principal Marshall,” he scratched at the back of his head, ruffling up his already messy hair, a nervous tick you’d picked up since the moment you’d met him. You simply buried your head in your head, eyes trained on your shoes and Ryland out of the corner of your gaze, terrified to look up at your fellow faculty that you’d already apologized to once. “Just getting super jazzed about faculty updates. Hard to keep it in here. I’m like a mushroom, getting all…hyphae…”
A collective groan sounded through the auditorium at the terrible biology pun that rolled off of him with ease. All you could do was smile into the palm of your hand.
“Please just…pay attention to the meeting, Dr. Grace, before I separate you and your other half,”
Other half. That’s not how she meant it, but it was impossible not to let your mind wander to the idea.
Early mornings. Coffee, the smell of eggs and toast burning in the kitchen. Ryland and his hair that was surely even more unkempt that early in the day. The guarantee that he definitely had about 120 science puns ready to go at any moment.
Late nights. Curled up on a couch. A movie, a shared blanket, warm in the embrace of his arms. The quiet of just being with someone that made you happy in ways you’d never felt before. The promise of another day with them on the horizon.
It was becoming increasingly harder not to think about Ryland Grace like that every day, of what a life with the awkward, endearing science teacher could be.
And as Principal Marshall continued her meeting, and your eyes met the blue ones that were already looking at you: soft, kind, a hint of something you couldn’t understand in them, you could only dream he thought the same thoughts when he looked at you.
❤︎
“Alright, who can tell me the day of the first human space flight?”
Not a single middle schooler, packed into the building’s planetarium, raised their hands at first. Many of them started whispering to each other, confused looks on their faces, but Ryland just waited with a smile on his face. A brave soldier from Mr. Harkin’s class, Damien, finally raised his hand.
“Uh, Mr. Grace? Wouldn’t that…be today?”
“Excatly!” Grace’s clap echoed through the room as he pointed toward the young kid sitting in the front row of seats. “International Day of Human Space Flight, commemorating the first human space flight by Yuri Gagarin. It was a trick question, and you passed my tiny friend.”
Were you excited about losing a chunk of your day to escorting your class to the planetarium, along with other classes in the building, for a special science presentation? Absolutely not, especially not with how terribly your class did on their last The Odyssey assignment.
When you found out that Ryland was giving the presentation during your allotted time? Suddenly, The Odyssey meant nothing to you. Not when you could watch Ryland teach, something he did so effortlessly.
The way he captured every single child’s attention with ease. That glowing smile on his face every time they answered a question right, and simply the way he seemed to love what he taught. You were captivated every time you got the chance to see him teaching the thing he loved so much.
“Yuri Gagarin was a Soviet cosmonaut who became the first person in space in 1961 aboard the Vostok 1,” the planetarium was lit up with the night sky, little stars reflecting down. You could almost see them in the students eyes, in their bright smiles as they looked up into the vastness of space. Your eyes trailed to Ryland, already looking at you with a soft smile of his own, before he cleared his throat and moved throughout the room, focusing back on the kids. “Over the course of 89 minutes, his ship traveled to a maximum altitude of 187 miles, as it orbited the Earth.”
“Wait, so we weren’t the first people in space?” one of your students, Lydia, called out. Ryland laughed, pointing over at her.
“No, we kind of sucked,” you rolled your eyes with a grin at Ryland’s statement, though it drew a laugh from all of the kids. “No, America had actually scheduled its first space flight for May 1961, so this was a huge blow to us. It really heated up the space race.”
“He really is good with them, isn’t he?”
Glancing over, Mr. Harkin had saddled up beside you on the edge of the room, head tilted toward you and voice low so as to not disrupt the lesson the kids were being taught. Your gaze drifted back to Ryland as he continued his lesson, eliciting more laughter from the kids. It only brought another soft smile to rest on your lips.
“He is, in a way that I just don’t understand,”
Those blue eyes you’d become so fond of met yours for a moment across the room, face illuminated by the light projecting onto the planetarium’s dome walls. The little grin he wore seemed to drop just slightly, gaze still locked on you but flickering every moment over to Mr. Harkin as he spoke to the students. Harkin’s elbow dug lightly into your side.
“Careful, you’re giving him major ‘heart eyes’ across the room right now,”
You did your best to conceal your laughter, shooting Harkin a look, Ryland’s gaze still felt on the side of your face even as you looked away.
“Why do I feel like I’m about to find out that every teacher in this school has a secret betting ring going on when it comes to Ryland and I?”
“I mean, it’s not a secret. Principal Marshall runs the damn thing,”
“Mr. Grace?” one of the youngest girls in the grade, Aurora, called out, raising her hand up to get Ryland’s attention. “My mom told me the other day that there’s 8 planets in our solar system. What happened to Pluto?”
Ryland went to answer when Mr. Harkin beside you laughed, capturing the attention of everyone in the room, as he shook his head at his young student.
“No, honey, scientists a couple years ago decided that Pluto wasn’t a planet anymore,”
Your eyes flickered to Ryland, who was already staring at Harkin from across the room as he tossed his little crochet earth back and forth in his hand. His response was a bit of a forced laugh.
“Well, your teacher isn’t wrong. Scientists classified Pluto as a dwarf planet a couple years ago,” he explained to the kids, eyes trained on the little crochet sphere in his hands. “But there’s 8 other very important, even closer planets that we should focus on. I mean, who really cares about a tiny, slow planet that takes 248 years to orbit the sun–honestly, he should just accept that he’s slowly falling into obscurity and stop trying to steal the spotlight.”
The room got quiet. Your eyebrow raised slightly, head tilted, as everyone just seemed to stare at Ryland, who had yet to look up.
“Uh, Mr. Grace?” some student in the back called out. “Why did you call Pluto ‘he’? Are the planets boys and girls like us, too?”
Ryland’s head shot up, as if he suddenly remembered he was in a room full of students. His eyes shot to you, his mouth opening, then closing, before he quickly looked away.
“I–well…planets don’t really…I’m not trying to misgender the planets, you know? That’s not for me to decide, that’s for them to–you know what, does anyone else have any other questions that aren’t related to Pluto?”
You really didn’t want to laugh at Ryland, but only he would be able to accidentally turn a lesson about space and planets into almost a lesson on bodily autonomy. He caught your eye, his widening just slightly and you could almost see his cry for help written across his face, but it only made your laughter worse.
It was little Madison that raised her hand next, speaking before she’d even been called upon.
“Are you sure the Earth isn’t the center of the universe?”
Ryland hung his head in shame, the shaking of his head evident from across the room as a few of the kids around laughed at the young girl’s comment. You were quick to shoot them a warning look, not keen to hand out any detentions today.
By the time your gaze turned back to Ryland, he was already looking at you. His gaze flickered to Harkin, then back to you, and it was like a light bulb had just flickered on the way his eyes lit up.
“Yes, Madison, I’m sure the Earth isn’t the center of the universe. And I can show you,” his long legs crossed the room in seconds, his body sliding between you and Mr. Harkin as his hands landed on your shoulders with a tiny little squeeze that sent your heart leaping through your chest. “But to do that, I’m going to need this volunteer that I’m not quite giving a choice.”
“It’s not volunteering if you didn’t ask, Ry!”
You exasperatedly tried to whisper to Ryland as he steered you across the room to stand before all the kids. He only shook his head as a bunch of your own students started cheering for you around the room, only worsening the red that coated your cheeks the second his hands had landed on your body.
“I need you for this,” he shot back hastily, positioning you in the middle of the room, standing in front of you. His body blocked the students from your vision, blue eyes boring down into yours, hands gently squeezing at your upper arms as you begged the blush in your skin to not be too obvious. “You trust me?”
A ridiculous question, because the only answer was yes. You gave him a nod, and Ryland’s smile only widened as he turned back to the kids in the room.
“Alright, kids. Your gorgeous teacher here is the Sun,”
Little oohs and awes sounded from the kids around the room at Ryland’s little slip in of the word ‘gorgeous.’ There was a sting in your bottom lip as you bit into it with your teeth, trying to contain your own smile. Marcus spoke up from across the room without raising his hand, as usual.
“Then what’s Mr. Harkin?”
“Oh, he’s Pluto,” Ryland shot back immediately, nodding his head. “Suits him.”
Laughter rang through the room, the young boys as rambunctious as ever. Ryland met your astonished look with a tiny wink of his own, one that forced a small laugh to tumble from your lips. Then, he began to slowly spin, walking around you in a circle.
“And I am the Earth,” he called out to the kids, and you could only hope he didn’t trip over his own two shoelaces. “The Sun holds 99.8% of the mass in our solar system, which means it’s packing some massive gravity.”
Ryland stopped spinning himself, still moving around you in a circle. He held his hand out toward you, and you slipped yours into it without hesitation, spinning in that circle slowly with him.
“Because the Sun holds such intense gravity, it’s actually pulling Earth into it. But, Earth has such high forward velocity that it actually keeps us moving sideways. Put these two together, and it keeps Earth moving in an almost perfect circle around the sun. Can anyone tell me another fun fact about our movement around the sun?”
The words went in one of your ears and straight out the other. There was no paying attention, not when Ryland’s hand held your own. Soft skin, just slightly rough around the edges, and those blue eyes were so soft, locked onto you as if there was nowhere else he wanted to look.
“Our speed changes!” Olivia called out from somewhere in the back, but you didn’t even try to look and find her. “When we’re closer to the sun in our orbit we move faster, and the further away we are, the slower we move.”
“Very good, Olivia!” Ryland called out, sparing just a quick glance over to the kids in the room as his hand held yours tighter, still spinning slowly together. “Madison, we also know this works because there’s other sun-like stars out there that are also orbited by planets. Like Tau Ceti, which has four Earth-like planets orbiting it.”
“Is the sun important for other things, besides just being the center?”
Ryland’s eyes flickered to you, and you watched as he paused. The slight hesitation on his face, the bobbing of his Adam’s apple for a moment, before those blue eyes locked onto yours and refused to look away.
“I-It is…for a lot of reasons. The Sun is the Earth’s entire reason for existing. The Sun gives the Earth life. The Sun is the reason the world is beautiful,”
Your breath hitched, eyes still trained on Ryland. There was something in his words, something in that earnest, raw look that he had written across his features as he looked at you that added a weight to his words. A weight that sent a tiny chill across your skin, raising the hair on your arms.
“Without the Sun…the Earth would be nothing,”
There was quiet across the room. Then, a couple snickers, followed by Olivia’s smug little voice.
“The Sun sounds beautiful the way you talk about it,”
“She is,” his voice was lower, softer than it was before. Until, he seemed to realize what he said, the red on both of your faces spreading further than before as his eyes shot wide. “THE SUN I mean! I-I’m talking about the sun, obviously, b-because this is a science presentation!”
Laughter rang through the room, little chants of your names mashed together coming from some of the kids as the bell rang and saved either of you from further embarrassment.
Ryland, being Ryland, chose that moment to finally trip over his own two feet. You pulled on his hand as hard as you could, saving him from plummeting to the ground as he instead just landed on his one knee.
“Make good choices,” Ryland commented lowly as some of the kids walked past the two of you, still snickering and giggling to themselves. You let go of his hands finally, simply resting it on his shoulder with a gentle squeeze. “Don’t uh, I don’t know, blow up the world during lunch or anything. Or pop those chip bags and give kids heart attacks, whatever you kids do these days.”
You laughed, stepping around Ryland as your kids lined up outside of the room, waiting for you. He shot you a sheepish smile from the floor, and your skin still burned with heat at the memory of his words as you looked at him.
“Every time I think you’re doing well with those kids, they manage to knock you down a peg,”
“Yeah, well, what’s new?”
When you met your class outside, you didn’t let them get a word in before you warned them not to say anything. You could still hear little comments talking about ‘shipping’ their English and Science teachers the entire way back to your classroom.
❤︎
Ryland Grace didn’t understand how he had ended up here.
Well, he did. Calling the leading scholar in his field a “staggering waste of carbon” at a UNESCO conference in Denmark was an easy way to get blacklisted from the field he’d studied in for many years in college. It was an easy explanation for how he ended up teaching middle school science at Grover Cleveland Middle in San Francisco.
Not that he had a problem with teaching! He actually loved it. Loved his kids, loved talking about science. He loved teaching the future little scientists of the world about why every facet of science was awesome. The pay wasn’t great, though.
Especially when it was the reason he rode a bike to school daily.
And there was currently the equivalent of a monsoon raining down from the sky onto the pavement, the reason he’d been standing at the front doors for the last 20 minutes hoping that the rain would simply let up. The heavens didn’t take pity on him, though, and it only rained harder and harder. His rain coat and bike were not meant to withstand heavy rain and damaging winds to this extent.
Best cast scenario? It takes him a little longer to get home on his usual 20 minute bike ride than normal. Worst case? He crashes and dies, dead in a ditch covered in mud.
“Ryland, please tell me you aren’t thinking of riding your bike home in this?”
Then there was you. You were probably the single greatest reason why he loved teaching at Grover Cleveland Middle. If he ever had the unfortunate chance to meet that scientist from the conference again, he’d thank him this time for being a staggering waste of carbon, because it led him down a path to you.
“I can’t be that bad,” he tried to joke, waving you off as a crack of thunder seemed to shake the entire building, and his fake confidence faltered for a second. He glanced back at you, coat wrapped around your bag instead of yourself in order to keep its contents dry. “Just, you know…the slight threat of bodily harm.”
He really wished the path that led to you was less bumpy and full of himself looking like an idiot, but at this rate he’d take what he could get from the universe.
“Yeah, absolutely not,” was your immediate reply, head shaking as she fished your car keys out of the bag still covered with your coat. “I’m giving you a ride home, can’t risk the best science teacher’s life over a dumb storm.”
Ryland immediately shook his head, turning to face you beside him. He was not letting you risk your own life in the storm for him. If it really came down to it, he’d sleep at his desk. There was a change of clothes he kept in the bottom drawer, it wasn’t the first time he’d had to do it.
“I can’t let you-”
“This isn’t up for discussion,” Ryland snapped his mouth shut as you cut in once again, dangling your car keys up in front of him with a little shake. “I…care about you, okay? I want to know you are home safe.”
There was no stopping the immediate heat that filled Ryland’s cheeks, and he knew it. There was red blooming across your own, but Ryland shook all wishful thinking from his mind. The AC unit in this school was unreliable, you were definitely just flushed from the heat. No other reason.
Ryland decided he wasn’t going to put up a fight at this point, but he wasn’t going to let you do this without anything in return. He shrugged the yellow raincoat hanging over his own shoulders off as he kicked the glass door in front of him open, the muffle sounds of the torrential downpour now louder as droplets of water splashed into the front door. He held the jacket out, hanging it above your head to protect you from the rain.
“At least let me save you from getting drenched,”
“You’re going to look like a dog that just had a bath by the time we reach my car,” Ryland only smiled at your joke, and the little giggle that fell through your lips. The close proximity didn’t help as he held the jacket up around you.
“Actually, it’s not windy today,” he shot back with a grin, nodding out the propped open door into the rain. “That means if we run, I’ll be drier than if we walked, because the rain that’s hitting us from above is proportional to time. Though, the rain hitting us from the front is proportional to distance, and when running-”
“Ryland Grace, you are adorable when you get all science-nerd, but if we’re going to run…we should run,”
Ryland was thankful that you couldn’t see the renewed heat flooding his cheeks, as you were both too busy sprinting through the torrential downpour to the staff parking lot.
Being a gentleman (who was head over heels in love with you and too terrified to say a damn thing) was thrown out the window with how fast you were booking it to your car, the idea of shielding you from the rain with his jacket abandoned after just a moment booking it across the lot. He could feel the coolness of the water settling against his skin as it soaked through every layer of clothing he had, every few seconds having to furiously wipe at his glasses in hopes of seeing through them.
None of it really mattered in the end, not when he heard your laugh. The little shrieks of laughter as a particularly big drop happened to fall right in your eyes. Or the laughter as Ryland managed–in his signature fashion–to slip on the final step into the parking lot, and you had to double back in laughter to help haul him to his feet.
He’s spring clumsily through the rain a thousand more times if he got to see you smile like that. And that is why his kids always told him that he was definitely ‘whipped’ for you. Whatever that meant.
The second you had both jumped into your respective seats of your vehicle, doors slamming shut, there was only a moment of silence between the both of you. Ryland felt like his chest was going to explode, remembering why he always hated gym class, his heavy breathing mixed with yours as you both caught your breath, before you locked eyes over the center console.
Then the laughter resumed.
He held his hand to his stomach, feeling an ache settling in as he couldn’t stop his own laughter. Your’s grew slightly louder in his ear as you leaned over, trying to help him wipe at his glasses that were still covered.
“I was right, you look like a wet dog,”
Ryland’s only response was to shake his soaking wet hair like one, a simple reaction that earned yet another shriek of laughter from you and a light slap to his shoulder. You muttered something unintelligible under your breath, but Ryland found himself unable to tear his gaze away from your lips as you started the car and began to pull out of the staff lot. How soft they looked, the way the little beads of water running down your cheeks fell over them.
Whipped. He still didn’t get it, but he agreed wholeheartedly with his kids at this point.
There was no driving fast in this rain, especially when the windshield wipers were moving at their highest programmed speed and it still wasn’t enough. It was quiet in the car for just a moment as you pulled out of the parking lot, but Ryland broke it the second your phone had connected to the car’s bluetooth, music filling the space between him and you.
Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars. Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars.
“Frank Sinatra,” Ryland couldn’t help the growing smile on his lips as the familiar song flooded through the car speakers. He kept his eyes trained on the side of your face, watching the little smile grow on your own lips, eyes focused on the road conditions in front of you. “Old books and old music. Didn’t know you had such an old soul.”
“You calling me old, Ryland?”
“N-no!” Ryland immediately back track, hands flying up and shaking back and forth as his eyes went wide. “I might say some stupid stuff some–okay, most of the time–but I know better than to comment on a woman’s age.”
“I’m just teasing you,” he could thankfully hear the sincerity mixed in with the teasing lit to your voice. “But yes, I do enjoy some old music. Always been a big fan of Sinatra, especially this one.”
“It’s a nice song…just not scientifically accurate,” he caught the side eye that you threw his way for just a moment, another crack of thunder banging across the sky and almost shaking the car. Ryland couldn’t help but jump slightly. “Jupiter only has a 3.13° tilt to its axis, so it doesn’t experience seasons like we do. Mar’s would, though, because its axis is tilted at 25°, only 1.5° more than our own tilt…”
Ryland trailed off as the car rolled to a stop at a red light, and he caught you fully facing him this time with a bemused expression written across your face. His smile dropped just slightly as he let out a sheepish laugh, adjusting his glasses as they slid back down the wet bridge of his nose.
“...I went full science-nerd again, didn’t I?”
Your laughter drowned out the rain beating against the roof of the car as your attention returned to the road once more.
“You always do, but I happen to enjoy it very much,”
If only teaching paid more, because the commute to Ryland’s apartment was a lot shorter than his bike ride home every day from work.
Parked in an open space across the road from the dimly lit apartment building, Ryland Grace hesitated with his hand on the handle of the door. His eyes swept out over the area around the vehicle, still being hounded with rain. The top of his road looked like the beginning of a river, the way the water was rushing down the small incline to pool at the bottom.
“Thanks…for this,” he gestured toward the weather right outside the card.
You moved to respond to him, when the weather alert on your phone propped up on your dashboard sounded out. Ryland could just barely make out the headline: FLASH FLOOD WARNING.
The roads were far too dangerous, and Ryland already knew from various conversations that you lived on the opposite end of town from him.
He…could ask you to stay for the night. Just for safety reasons, obviously! He was quickly trying to work through the pros and cons list in his head.
Pros: his only friend that just so happened to be the woman he’s been head over heels in love with for the last year would be safe and not driving in this storm.
Cons: his only friend that just so happened to be the woman he’s been head over heels in love with for the last year would be inside his tiny little apartment that looked like it had been hit by a separate hurricane than the one it felt like they were currently suffering through.
“I should probably get home-”
“Stay,” Ryland cut in, quickly continuing his words after his vague statement. “I-It’s just, the roads are bad, and you live on the other side of town. This storm is just going to get worse, and I-I’d hate to know something happened to you.”
You hesitated, he could tell, shaking your head.
“Ryland, I couldn’t ask you to let me stay,”
He hesitated himself for a moment, every feeling he’d kept bottled up for a year now threatening to escape past his lips. Instead, he settled on echoing your own words.
“I…I care about you. I want to know you’re safe,”
Moments later, he had his rain coat draped over your head as he rushed you inside his apartment to shelter from the storm.
Ryland’s hands shook the entire time as he put his key into his front door’s lock. The last time he had guests over…was never. His apartment was built and designed for him and his brain, scattered with notes and books and piles of arts and crafts that he worked on in order to decorate his classroom. It was not meant for visitors, especially not ones as pretty as you.
“Don’t, uh, mind the mess,” he mumbled, holding the door open and motioning after you, allowing you to take a step inside his apartment as he let out the small breath he didn’t realize he was holding.
Chucking off his sneakers, little puddles of water forming below them on the ground, his jacket found its way into a pile with them. Ryland wiped his hands nervously against the thighs of his jeans, the action doing nothing against the soaking went material, as he watched you take in his apartment.
The apartment that looked like it had been ransacked, at least partially. Stacks of books relating to a thousand different topics were stacked on the ground by the tv stand, on top of the coffee table along with the coffee cup he’d abandoned there early in the morning in a haste to get to the school, and and by his desk that had a stack of papers scattered around it after her strewn them about in order to find one specific slip of paper at 11 p.m.
It was a mess, and Ryland regretted everything.
“It’s not messy, it’s homey,” your reply sent a burst of heat through his skin as you turned to him with a bright smile, leaving your own bag and coat by his pile of wet items before gesturing to your own soaking wet clothing. “Do you maybe have something a little less…wet?”
He scurried away into his bedroom, trying to ignore that little section of his brain that took your comment in a MUCH different way.
His bedroom was worse. Ryland wasn’t letting you sleep on the couch, but he surely wasn’t letting you see his room in a state like this.
Clothing was thrown across the room and Ryland quickly ran about, shoving piles of clothing away into corners where he was certain you wouldn’t be able to see any of it. Throwing it into his closet and slamming the door before it could fall out, pushing it down in his laundry basket, kicking it under his bed so it was out of sight and out of mind, whatever he could think of.
“Great idea, Ryland,” he muttered to himself, pulling on a dry pair of sweatpants and a tshirt for himself, trying to shake the remaining water out of his hair as he rummaged for something you could wear. “Almost get the woman you’re in love with killed by letting her drive you home in a monsoon. Invite her to stay the night in your apartment that makes you look like an even bigger loser than you are. Amazing idea. A doctorate in molecular biology and this is the best you can do.”
You were waiting by the couch in his living room, just glancing around at everything with a smile, when he reappeared. Sheepishly, he handed the folded clothing over to you, hand running through his soaking wet hair as he pointed down the hall.
“You can take my bed for the night. Uh, just leave your clothes in the bathroom, I can throw them in the dryer in a bit. I can scrounge up something to eat in the meantime,”
“Thanks, Ry,” your hand reached out, squeezing his upper arm lightly, and he felt the heat in his skin instantly bloom under your touch. “For all of this.”
If it wasn’t for the giant crack of thunder that flickered the lights of the building for a moment and made Ryland jump out of his skin, he would’ve forgotten how to breathe again.
He rummaged through every part of his kitchen, desperately trying to find something that he could make the two of you to eat that also wouldn’t make him seem pathetic. All he could come up with…was a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, and a jar of jelly.
Yesterday. He’d stayed late after the end of the day to help in tutoring. He forgot to go grocery shopping. Ryland let out a sigh at his realization, back to his fridge door and head banging back against the stainless steel, hand running down his face and dragging against his skin as his glasses were knocked off, hanging off of one ear.
“Great,” he muttered into his palm. “Just absolutely freaking great, Ryland.”
Ryland Grace desperately wished he had the guts, the bravery, to just simply tell you how he felt.
From the moment he met you, when you had arrived for your first day at Grover Cleveland Middle, he was a goner. It had been a long time since he’d had a partner, his last one certain that he was too busy with his head in the clouds to pay attention to her, and she wasn’t wrong. But from the moment he looked at you, waving and smiling as you introduced yourself to all of the teachers that had gathered to welcome you, you were suddenly the only thing his brain wanted to focus on.
He had been so focused on you, too busy admiring every inch of you in silence, that in his typical clumsy fashion he tripped over his own two feet and knocked Principal Marshall’s papers out of her hand, spreading them five feet across the floor. But you’d joined him on the ground, laughing lightly to yourself, as you helped him clean up the papers, and Ryland knew he was a goner for you.
It only continued every single day, getting worse, and you somehow became his friend. His only friend, if he was being quite frank. So he tried to hide the way he really felt, too scared to mess anything up. He’d rather have you in his life in any way he could, then mess this up and lose you forever.
Keeping those feelings in was getting increasingly harder in the last few months. Which explained why he’d traveled cross town just to get lunch from your favorite place, or compare you to the sun and basically called you his entire reasoning for living in front of a bunch of children-
Either Ryland was going to blurt it out at some point, or he was taking these feelings to the grave with him.
“Peanut butter and jelly? Sounds like we’re eating like royalty tonight,”
He shouldn’t have looked over at you. He really, really shouldn’t have. Leaning against the opposite wall of the kitchen, hair still damp and dripping onto the cheesy “I had potential” shirt he’d been gifted by one of his students the following year. Sweatpants that were bunched up around your ankles so that you didn’t trip over the length, waist tied in as tightly as possible so they didn’t just slide right off your hips.
Ryland Grace had never thought it possible that you could look more gorgeous than you did every day, but he stood corrected. He felt more in love than he ever had just looking at you right in this moment.
“Sorry, I don’t exactly…live a life of luxury,” Ryland awkwardly laughed as he spoke, pulling out two sad paper plates from the cabinet next to him and flashing them in your direction, shaking them lightly in the air. “Hope this doesn’t ruin my perfectly curated image.”
His eyes followed you as you brushed past him, humming to yourself with a little grin. You fumbled through every drawer in the kitchen, looking for something, when Ryland quickly popped open the one right next to him, showcasing his small selection of utensils. You flashed another heart-stopping grin at him before digging out two knives from the drawer.
“That image cracked a long time ago, Ry. Like that time you let Marcus perform some chemical reaction and got the fire department called to the school,”
The tall blonde groaned to himself, rubbing at his temple as you pushed past him to throw some of the bread down onto the plates and crack open the jars of peanut butter and jelly set out.
“That was one time!” he tried to defend himself, saddling up beside you as you passed him one of the knives. He almost completely missed the opening of the peanut butter jar, eyes too transfixed on the sight of you in his clothing. It was still up in the air if his heart was actually working correctly yet. “I learned my lesson very quickly not to let him handle any more chemicals.”
“Don’t worry. I made the mistake of doing popcorn reading when we were working on The Outsiders. Marcus seemed to end up with every single instance of profanity in the book, which he would yell at the top of his lungs,”
Ryland snapped his fingers, glancing down at you at his side with a teasing smile.
“You know what? That explains that really loud ‘HELL’ I heard across the school a couple months ago. I was so sure that it was going to shatter the windows of my classroom,”
“Oh, shut up! It wasn’t that bad!”
Your laughter permeated the air, elbow digging into his side as you spoke. And when your eyes locked with his, and Ryland got the perfect look at every square inch of your face, he could see it so clearly in his head.
Mornings just like this, where you’d both struggle to get out of the warmth of the blankets. The way he would surely annoy you with his very disorganized morning routine, but he’d make up for it with coffee already set out for you, just as you liked it. The lingering moments by the door, too wrapped up in each other because you didn’t want to leave the peace of this space, even though you were going to the same place.
Late nights, curled together on the couch with some movie playing on TV that neither of you were particularly paying attention to. Whispered words, laughter shared. Kisses that lingered, hands that trailed-
Thunder broke Ryland from his spell, thoughts gone in a flash. He was back in his dingy kitchen, with you just inches away, staring up at him as the picture of true beauty.
“T-This is nice,” he cleared his throat, turning back to his sandwich as he spread his toppings along the bread, heat blooming across his cheeks again. It always did around you. “Making dinner with someone…no matter how sad the dinner is. I haven’t done this in awhile.”
“Right,” your voice responded after a momentary pause. “Sarah, wasn’t it? You were dating her when we first met. What, uh…what ever happened to her?”
“Oh, we broke up a long time ago,” Ryland waved the comment off, shaking his head. “She just, uh, thought my head was too far in the clouds. Didn’t think I wanted to be down here on Earth. She wasn’t wrong. It was for the best, though. She hated…all of this. The rundown apartment, the lack of a car, my love of science. She just never understood it. I was just…too much for her. But she’s with Mark now, so I’m sure she’s happy.”
Ryland chose not to mention that his last relationship had been dead long before it officially ended, the pair not having seen each other in well over a month by that point. If his math was right, which it usually was, Sarah had started dating Mark before she’d even broken it off with him.
He also failed to mention the relief he felt inside when she had called it off, knowing his heart had belonged to you the moment your eyes had locked with his.
Fingertips just barely ghosted over Ryland’s cheek, and he froze in place. Eyes trained on the plate in front of him, he could feel the way your hand curled around his cheek. The way your thumb glossed over his skin, back and forth, and the way your other fingers barely grazed over the shell of his ear. He couldn’t help the way he instantly leaned into the touch, a touch he hadn’t felt in so long.
Ryland turned his head, still resting in the palm of your own, to look you in the eyes. You gave him the softest smile, hand trailing across his cheek and ghosting over his jawline. His eyes watched it move, the way your fingers gently curled around the frame of his glasses dangling precariously from his face, and placed them gingerly back where they belonged, resting on the bridge of his nose.
His breath caught, your body so close to his, as your hand trailed back down and rested on his chest for just a moment, your own gaze flickering to its resting spot while his gaze stayed on your face.
“You are never, and will never be, too much, Ryland. Not for the right person. They’ll love every part of you. The clumsy parts, the nerdy parts, every part that makes you…you,”
The Sun. That’s what you were to Ryland Grace. He meant every word he had said in that planetarium that day, driven by the rare jealousy of seeing Harkin that close to you.
The Sun was the reason Earth had life. Without the Sun…the Earth would be nothing.
Without you…well, Ryland Grace had accepted long ago that he didn’t understand what it was like to truly live until he’d met you.
Your eyes flickered for just a second, and Ryland took in an audible breath, swearing they settled on his lips for just a second. The apartment was quiet, except for the hum of the fridge and the pattering of the rain against the living room windows.
The moment shattered with yet another terribly timed clap of thunder, your body jolting away from his, focus turned back to the counter in front of you, face hidden from his wide eyes.
“Y-you know…I can’t tell you the last time I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich,”
Ryland shook his head, smiling slightly to himself at the little stutter in your own words, turning back to finishing his own food as well. But the moment still lingered in his head, the heat that bloomed from where your skin touched him still lingering.
“Since peanut butter is banned in school for allergies, probably awhile,”
“I almost forgot that rule a couple weeks ago and almost packed peanut butter crackers,” you joked back, before Ryland heard you snap your fingers. “Oh! Speaking of work, did you put yourself down to volunteer for the school dance next week?”
Sandwiches finished off, Ryland packed the ingredients away and stashed them back in their appropriate spots, laughing awkwardly to himself.
“Hah, uh, no I didn’t. I chaperoned last year and kind of left covered in punch, became the kids’ favorite ‘meme’ for a week afterward since one of them got a picture of it,”
He turned back to you. Leaning against the island counter, holding your sad little sandwich in your hands, face still lit up red as you smiled toward him.
“I think so far it's me, Doyle, and Harki, plus Principal Marshal and I think Katie and Dawson from the front office. We could really use another teacher,” he swore the fluttering of your lashes was on purpose just to kill him and his resolve. “Sign-up? For me?”
Well, there was no universe in existence where Ryland said no to a request like that.
Rejoining you at the counter, he held his own sandwich in his hand, reaching out and tapping it against yours as if you were sharing a toast.
“For you? Totally,”
Even as you both took a bite of your sandwiches, eyes still locked together, Ryland felt as if something had shifted in the air. Your eyes were still as kind, your smile still bright, but it felt like there was a new weight to your gaze as you looked at him.
And he swore–and hoped–for just a split second, that your eyes had just flickered down to his lips again.
❤︎
The student council had outdone themselves with this end of the year dance.
As you stepped through the main doors of Grover Cleveland Middle’s building, the smile on your face grew immediately at the sight before you. The walls were lined with little fairy lights, little styrofoam planets hanging down from the ceiling at various lengths, glow in the dark stars right around them and glowing. Silver streamers hung around the fairy lights, with the check in desk decorated with tons and foam and lights behind them to look like twinkling lights in the clouds.
“A space theme?” you called out as the two kids in front of you ducked away from the registration desk. Evelyn Doyle finally looked up from the sign-in sheet, grin growing as she took in the sight of you and rounded the desk. “I hadn’t heard anything from the student council on the theme, but they did well.”
“Nevermind the theme, you’re finally here!” you laughed as you threw her arms around you, reciprocating the hug, before her hands landed on your shoulders in order to get a good look at you, eyes trailing you up and down. “And look at this dress, oh my god!”
The deep yellow dress fell right around your knees, the fabric light and airy as it swooshed through the air with every move you made. Buttons lined the front down to the tie around your waist, leaving just enough room for the little gold necklace resting against your collarbone. You thanked yourself for choosing a short sleeve option, already feeling the heat in the building from how many kids were all packed in and dancing together.
“Thank you,” was the sheepish reply you gave your friend as she let you go. “I’m sorry I’m late, I caught one of my student’s parents in the parking lot and they turned it into a mini parent-teacher conference, sadly.”
“Not a problem,” she waved the comment off, gesturing toward the doors of the gym just off to the left of you both. “Just get on in there, have some fun, and keep those slow dancers at least 12 inches apart at all times.”
If the hallways were gorgeous, the inside of the gym shone even brighter. Bathed in blue and purple, even more little lights twinkled around the room, hung off the walls, the ceilings, and on every surface they could possibly find. Moon and star decals, made by the art students, hung off the walls and from the ceiling, almost glowing under the lights.
Your eyes trailed over all of your children, scattered throughout the room, already having been dancing for at least thirty minutes. The smile on your face grew as you watched each one of them, gathered with their friends as they danced together in groups, or even stood off to the sides and just observed from beyond the dimly lit dance floor.
Mr. Harkin had been stationed at the punch table, and you could hear him from across the room warning these middle schoolers not to try and spike the punch. You could only giggle to yourself, shaking your head at his antics, before your eyes swept over the crowd once more-
The music seemed to stop in your ears, breath hitching, the second you laid eyes on him across the room. Ryland Grace.
He wasn’t in anything fancy. A nice pair of jeans, the worn pair of black dress shoes you’d seen by his apartment door that night. A dark green shirt was tucked into his jeans, adorned with a worn, navy blue suit jacket overtop, and those same glasses almost falling off the bridge of his nose as he spoke animatedly to Olivia.
Ryland looked good. Too good, in your eyes.
For just a second, he looked up, and his eyes happened to meet yours across the room. You thought for sure you’d forgotten how to breathe.
Whatever had happened that night, in the silence of his apartment with only the beating of the rain against the windows and the roof as a witness, had shifted something. From the moment your fingertips had ghosted along his skin, your hand had rested against his chest, and you’d been close enough to see the specs that danced in those ocean blue eyes of his up close, nothing had been the same.
Like the little bubble you had been existing in with your harbored crushed had finally popped. Like a toe had dipped just slightly over a line, and there was no going back from then on.
You always blushed around your friend, every time he’d manage to fumble his way through a comment that borderlined on a kind-of-not-just-friendly compliment. But since that day just a week or so ago, every time he has been within a few feet of you, your face lit up like a hot summer’s day.
Moments where he’d find a second to linger in your classroom door, held a new weight to them. Sharing lunch together, fingers just barely brushing for a second as you both reached for your food, to moments when you’d simply be walking together down hallways, back of hands brushing along each other’s but no one making any moves to stop it from happening.
Something was different, and you weren’t sure you wanted to go back to how things were before. Not after touching his skin, or existing in his orbit like that. Not when you’d seen the side of him beyond these school walls.
You were in love with Ryland Grace. You had been for a long time. And, finally, you were done trying to pretend that there wasn’t at least a small chance that he felt the same.
“I need your help,”
The heated staring contest between you two was broken by the sound to your right. You turned, just to see Marcus standing directly beside you and reaching up to pull on the sleeve of your dress. His hands wrung together, foot tapping incessantly on the ground, and you immediately knelt down in front of him to get a better look at his face that he was trying to hide from you.
“Marcus? Honey, what’s wrong?” you asked gently, hands coming to rest on his arms as you tried to get him to look at you.
“I…I like Olivia,”
Oh. It was one of those problems. The anxiety you felt in that moment finally washed away, an easy smile falling to your lips as you took a quick glance over in Ryland and Olivia’s direction, the former’s eyes still locked onto you from across the room.
“I did hear a rumor about that. Olivia is a great girl,”
“She is,” he said quickly, finally looking at you. His nerves were basically written across his face. “I-I’ve been really mean to her. I didn’t mean to be.”
“I know, honey. Sometimes feelings can be confusing,” you stood up, hands on your hips as you looked down at him with a smile. “Do you want to dance with her?”
“I do,”
You held your hand out toward him with a smile.
“Then why don’t we start by going and apologizing to her?”
With Marcus’s hand in yours, you confidently led him across the room, eyes locked back onto Ryland’s as you approached. He stood with Olivia at his side, who was talking his ear off, a dopey looking grin on his face as he nodded to whatever she said as he continued to watch as you approached him.
“Dr. Grace, I’m sorry to interrupt you and Olivia,” you announced yourself to the pair with a grin of your own, hands on Marcus’s shoulders and you lightly pushed him forward. “But Olivia, there’s something that Marcus here wants to say to you.”
The young boy shuffled awkwardly forward, hands wringing together again as he stood in front of his crush.
“I, uh, I wanted to say I was sorry. For being really mean to you. I didn’t mean it,”
Olivia’s eyes went wide, as she too shuffled uncomfortably for a second. Ryland saddled up to your side, the pair of you sharing a glance as you watched the interaction happen right before your eyes. His hand graced over yours lightly, and it took everything in you not to reach out and lock your fingers with his.
“Oh! It’s, um, it’s okay. Thank you,”
“Say, Marcus?” Ryland called out to them both, catching the boy’s eye and gesturing toward Olivia with a wink. “What do you think of Olivia’s dress?”
“I…I think she looks really beautiful,”
That comment finally seemed to catch Olivia off guard, her eyes wide in shock as she giggled nervously.
“Oh! I…thank you, Marcus. You look really nice too,”
“Thank you,” his posture seemed to straighten out at Olivia’s reaction, like seeing her accept his compliment gave him the confidence he needed. “Do you want to dance with me?”
Olivia shot you and Ryland a look, and you both immediately gave her a thumbs up. Then, your happy eyes could only watch the two pre-teens awkwardly shuffle away together to the dance floor, not daring to meet the eyes of the other.
“Look at us, playing matchmaker for middle schoolers,”
“I think they did that for themselves, we just helped,” you laughed, turning your head. The laughter died on your lips the second your eyes met with Ryland’s, voice low and breathy as you whispered to him through your smile. “Hi.”
“Hi,” he whispered back just as breathily. His hand came up to the back of his head, running through his hair for a moment, and you could see the red and pink hues that lit up his cheeks. “I got worried when I didn’t see you. I was ready to call you.”
“You could’ve,”
“I’ll remember for next time,” he shot back, hands finding their way to rest in the front pockets of his jeans. His eyes moved back over the crowd, finding your two young students once more. “I’m proud of him for that. That…must have taken a lot of guts to do.”
You followed his gaze, landing on the pair as they danced together, laughing and talking like old friends.
“Like you said before, it can be hard for boys to express their feelings. All he needed was to pull up his big boy pants and ask her,”
Ryland laughed beside you.
“Yeah…I should probably follow in his footsteps,”
You glanced back to him, seeing him already watching you. A single eyebrow raised toward him quizzically, even though your heart felt like it was ready to beat directly out of your chest.
Ryland’s mouth opened, then closed, then opened again, as if he were trying to force out words that he couldn’t quite seem to get right. You didn’t even realize you were holding your breath, hoping inside that whatever he wanted to say would address the weight that seemed to be hanging between your gazes.
“Stay here,”
There wasn’t even time for you to respond before the tall blonde rushed away, almost tripping as he dashed over to the DJ booth across the way from the makeshift dance floor. He whispered something to the DJ, and you could see the thumbs up he got in return, before he rushed back over to you, panting slightly.
“Ryland?” you questioned softly, the man who held your entire heart without knowing it standing just a foot in front of you with a nervous grin on his face. “What did you just do?”
As if on cue, the song changed, and familiar lyrics floated through the room, bouncing off the walls.
Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars. Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars
“I’m pulling up my big boy pants,” he responded with a nervous laugh, his hand outstretched toward you. “And asking you to dance with me.”
Nothing else existed the second that you slid your hand into Ryland Grace’s without hesitation, letting him pull you in. You weren’t in the school, not in a room decorated for a middle school dance, and certainly not surrounded by middle schoolers and a bunch of faculty that had placed bets on you both.
It was just you and Ryland Grace. That’s all you wanted it to be.
Your arms found a place to rest around his shoulders, fingertips just barely brushing past the strands of hair that tickled the back of his neck. There was a fluttering in your chest the second that his hands made their way to your waist, curling around the divet just above your hip bone, pulling you into him just by another inch.
In other words, hold my hand. In other words, darling, kiss me. Fill my life with song, and let me sing for ever more.
"I didn't tell you yet…,” his voice was soft, words whispered just between the two of you in a crowded room. “But you look beautiful,"
"You don't have to flatter me, Ryland,"
"No, really, you look-"
"Like a banana in this yellow dress?"
He paused. His tongue poked out, running along his bottom lip, and you could see the nervous bob of his Adam’s apple before he spoke again.
"...like the sun,"
You are all I long for, all I worship and adore.
Oh. That fluttering in your chest was back, and suddenly, you weren’t at a middle school dance anymore. You were back in that planetarium, spinning in circles. And this time, there were no doubts in your mind. You were the Sun, and he was the Earth. And what was the Earth, without its Sun?
"Ryland-"
"I wasn't lying,"
You cocked your head.
"...about what?"
"That I knew Homer wrote The Odyssey,"
That drew a short laugh from you, but you could still see the nerves that were laced through Ryland’s smile.
"Right, you were just distracted,"
"I was. By you. I'm always distracted by you,"
In other words, please be true. In other words, I love you.
You took a deep breath. He’d crossed the line for you, thrown himself onto the other side, and was waiting for you with open arms. It was just a leap of faith.
“I’m always distracted by you, too. Since the day we met,”
The song faded away, melting into the next. There could’ve been eyes on you both, either from students or from faculty, but nothing would break either of your gazes away from the other.
Ryland took a quick look around the room, before his hands took hold of your own, bringing them down between you both. He gave you a grin, one filled with more happiness than you had ever seen–and you knew your own matched his perfectly–before he tugged you toward the doors of the gym.
“Come with me,”
“Ry, we’re supposed to be chaperoning!”
“I don’t see Principal Marshall anywhere. What’s the worst she could do, fire us?”
“Quite literally, yes!” you shot back with a laugh.
Ryland only shrugged his shoulders, tugging you again, and you didn’t even try to fight back. Your feet simply moved with him.
“Worth it,”
Hands clasped together, fingers intertwined, your laughter echoed off the walls of the empty hallways as Ryland Grace ran you down them, a destination clear in his mind. Every few seconds he’d look back, just smiling at you as his eyes trailed over every single inch of you, before you’d yell at him to look at his own feet before you’d both be sprawled across the linoleum floors.
The door to his classroom was open as you flew inside, hand slipping from his as you caught yourself on the projector cart sitting in the middle of the room. Spinning on your heel, you caught his eye just as he shut the classroom door behind him, and the silence enveloped you both once more. Finally alone, no prying eyes to watch.
The momentarily confidence that seemed to seize hold of Ryland dissipated in that moment. He wiped his hands against the front of his jeans, chuckling awkwardly as he took a few steps toward you.
“What was your plan here, Dr. Grace?” you teased, taking a couple steps toward him as well, too high on the feeling of everything you’d just finally realized. High on the feeling of finally not denying what your heart knew long ago: you and Ryland Grace were never just friends.
“I’m not going to lie,” he shot back, coming to a stop just in front of you, barely an inch or two separating you. “I hadn’t thought this far ahead.”
“Then stop thinking,”
No one had leaned in first. It had been both of you, as if drawn together like two magnets, as your lips finally found one another's.
Goosebumps rose across your skin as Ryland Grace’s mouth moved against yours with an ease that shouldn’t exist between two people that have never kissed before. It was like a perfect dance between two partners that knew each other better than anything.
Your lips never left his, moving against his as if you couldn’t believe you had deprived yourself of this for so long, as your hands wound around his shoulders. Fingers curled into his hair, finally carding themselves through the blonde strands that felt so soft between your fingers.
The slightest little moan, enough to send heat coursing through your body the second you heard it, slipping from Ryland’s mouth into your own. His hands grasped at your hips, winding around your back to press into your lower back and tug you as close as humanly possible, as if he was a starved man that craved to touch you in any way that he could.
His lips were soft, a feeling that you knew you were going to crave for the rest of your life now that you’d had a single taste of them. You pressed further into him, a small mewl tumbling from your own lips and swallowed by his mouth as you pressed every inch of yourself into him, desperate to hang onto the moment in case the world would be cruel and wake you from this dream moments later.
The need to breathe was what finally separated you, but not far. Ryland’s forehead pressed to yours, his breath fanning out across your skin. His hands still gripped at your hips, holding him to you, as yours stayed carded through his hair, nails gently scraping at his scalp as you chest heaved as it tried to level your breathing back to normal.
“If I haven’t made it clear already, you’re my best friend,” his words were breathy, accented by the way he was still trying to catch his breath. But his smile was bright, his eyes almost shining, as he looked down at you. “And I’m completely in love with you. Literally, since the moment we met.”
You laughed, trapped in this little bubble with him, as your hands slid from his hair to instead cup his cheeks. The tip of your nose just barely brushed against his, and he bumped his right back against yours without hesitation.
“I’m completely in love with you too, Ryland Grace. Since the moment you tripped over your own two feet,”
The sound of your laughter filled the empty, dark science classroom again as Ryland’s hands came to scoop you up around your thighs, spinning you in relentless circles. All you could do was hang onto his broad shoulders and smile, his lips peppering a thousand kisses to every inch of skin he could possibly reach.
The Earth needed the Sun, like how Ryland said he needed you. The person that makes it all worth it, that makes the days brighter, that makes this short little life worth it.
Summary: The entire school knew how close you and Ryland Grace had become since you'd joined Grover Cleveland Middle's staff a year prior. That knowledge only fueled the rumor mill, that one that ran between the staff and students alike, on just how close the two of you were. It didn't help that you were definitely head over heels for the slightly awkward and endearing science teacher.
Warnings: pre-Project Hail Mary and should not include spoilers but caution anyways just in case, pre-movie storyline, tooth-rotting fluff, idiots in love, workplace romance, friends to lovers, slightly suggestive-ish comments but no smut, female reader but no characteristics described, definitely some incorrect science information but I am not a scientist so apologies, I am also not a teacher so I am sorry for any inaccuracies there lol, lightly edited so apologies for any mistakes
“Can anyone tell me why it was that Penelope asked her suitors to string Odysseus’s bow?”
The silence that followed was deafening. Your eyes shut for half a second, a tiny sigh escaping through your lips. Reopening your eyes, not a single one of your students had dared to raise their hands. No one except for Olivia, your star student, who waved her hand repeatedly in the air from the back of the classroom. A single glance to the clock told you all you needed to know.
11:55. These kids were already in lunch mode, and there was zero way you were getting them to listen to you.
With a sigh and a wave of your hand, you gave Olivia the okay to answer the question. She happily took your permission and ran with it, always the first to answer any questions you posed in class. If only the rest of these damn middle schoolers were as eager as she was.
“Penelope didn’t want to marry anyone else, so she gave them an impossible task,”
“Why does she always know everything?”
Marcus thought his comment was whispered just low enough that you wouldn’t hear him in the first row, but he was never quite that lucky. He quickly shut his mouth and looked anywhere but in your direction the second he caught sight of the disapproving look you were casting directly at him.
“You are exactly right, Olivia. Thank you for answering my question,” there were a few chuckles in the room at the obvious sarcasm laced through your words, as you hopped up onto your desk to relax and get a better look around the room full of kids. “Penelope knew the only person that could string her husband’s bow, was her husband himself. She needed to buy time, especially when these suitors only really wanted to be the ones to inherit Ithaca-”
There was a loud knocking on the door to your classroom that had been left open for the last 20 minutes of class, interrupting your words. You weren’t surprised in the slightest to meet the eyes of none other than Ryland Grace, the science teacher.
“Uh- sorry! Didn’t mean to interrupt important book talk stuff. Super important, you uh-you never know when Shakespeare will come up at your future desk job,” the cringe that Ryland physically did at his own comment was easy to see, even from across the room. He gave you a sheepish smile, his glasses barely hanging onto his face from their unconventional spot hanging off of one of his ears. The blonde held up the brown bag in his hand, and you could practically smell the food that rested inside. “I’m early, I’m sorry. Didn’t think you’d want to have a cold burger for lunch.”
“I told you!” Marcus still didn’t understand the concept of a whisper, leaning over to his best friend Jason at the desk beside him, slapping him on the arm. “They’re totally dating!”
“As if Mr. Grace could pull her,”
There was a chorus of snickers and laughter through the class, any semblance of order you might’ve had descending into chaos as every single one of your loveable, little shits just kept casting looks between you and Ryland, who still stood awkwardly in your classroom doorway with reddened cheeks.
Your face was surely no better, you were sure you could feel the heat that was emanating off of your skin, as you ran a hand down the burning skin of your face and wondered why you chose to teach these little menaces for the rest of your life. The world decided to be kind to the pair of you though, for once, letting the lunch bell save you from any further embarrassment from a group of 13 year olds.
“Please come to class prepared to actually answer questions tomorrow!” you called out over the hustle and bustle of the class as they grabbed their things, eager to scurry off to their lunch hour and finally eat. “Your unit test is at the end of next week, and I would prefer not to fail all of you.”
They weren’t listening, but by this point in the day you were hungry and didn’t have the energy to try and argue with them.
Any of that tiredness they brought to your bones? It disappeared the second you watched the way they all interacted with Ryland on their way out the door.
Big smiles, every single one of them excited to see the school’s favorite science teacher lingering in the doorway to their English class. You could just barely hear the tail end of one of Ryland’s terrible science puns, something about a hungry planet needing a ‘light snack’ that got a groan out of Marcus. All it did was bring a soft smile to your face, though, one that somehow softened even more at the quick, secret handshake Olivia shared with him before she was out the door.
Then, it was just the two of you, smiling like idiots as you locked eyes across the room again. And god, did you want that fluttering group of butterflies in your stomach to calm down for just a moment.
Having a crush on Dr. Ryland Grace, the former molecular biologist turned San Francisco middle school science teacher, was inevitable from the moment you turned up at the school for your first day over a year ago. Incredibly smart, amazing with kids, and so incredibly handsome you thought your heart stopped beating the first time you saw him–hell, Mrs. Doyle, the math teacher for over 5 years, said there were at least 4 other young teachers that absolutely had crushes on this man. You were far from the first.
He broke that perfect vision of himself you were building in your head within 5 minutes of meeting, tripping over his own two feet and knocking the stack of papers a mile high from the Principal’s hands, but you had only found it even more endearing.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” he apologized again, long legs striding across the room and reaching your desk in a matter of seconds. “I had a free period before this, a-and you mentioned this morning you forgot lunch so I grabbed some for both of us-”
“Sal’s?” you questioned, pointing to the bag of foot now sitting on your desk with the familiar logo. “They’re, like, 10 blocks away. Why’d you go that far?”
“Because I know they’re your favorite,”
The flare of heat in your cheeks was instant. Ryland Grace, who rode a damn bike to the school every day, used his free period to ride 10 blocks away and pick you up lunch from your favorite spot, all because you mentioned offhandedly at 7 a.m. about forgetting your lunch for the day.
Well, he certainly didn’t do that for the four fresh out of college teachers that had crushes on him. You’d mentally consider that a hefty win in your book.
“How sweet of you to remember,” Ryland simply waved you off, head turned away as he passed your wrapped burger into your hands, taking up space on your desk chair while you stayed comfortable on top of your desk. “You even remembered tomatoes this time!”
“I forgot them one time and I never hear the end of it,” laughter was shared between you both for a moment as Grace took a bite of his own burger. “I caught the tail end of that discussion. Olivia answering all your questions like a champ?”
“Isn’t she always,” you shot back with another laugh, turning slightly on your desk to better face him. “I swear she’s the only one that I can ever get to answer any of my questions. She might be the only one that does any of my assigned readings.”
“To be fair, can you blame her?” Ryland’s words were muffled slightly by the food in his mouth. You couldn’t even contain the slight smile that grew as he managed to just barely catch the ketchup dripping off his burger before it could smear itself on the stack of papers that needed graded at your desk. “Shakespeare was just…so interesting. Couldn’t get enough of his stuff. Don’t know why your kids don’t want to read it.”
There was silence for a moment, your eyebrow quirked in his direction. The blonde stopped mid bite of his burger, looking back at you quizzically, trying to figure out what he had said wrong.
“You know we’re currently learning The Odyssey, right?”
“Yes?”
“I’ll let you think about that for a second,”
He did, just slowly blinking in your direction. He glanced at the chalkboard behind you, covering in little notes you’d made throughout the class discussion, before they flickered to the copy of the book that sat on your desk. That was finally when you saw the light bulb flicker on above his head, Ryland’s eyes shutting as he let out a loud sigh.
“...that wasn’t written by Shakespeare, was it?”
The laughter that bubbled out of you practically had you throwing your head backward.
“No, but I’m sure Homer won’t be too offended,” feet landing on the ground as you hopped off your desk, you gave Ryland’s shoulder a quick squeeze as you moved past him. “The attempt was cute, though, it was a good try.”
Cute. Why in the world did you let that one slip? You were practically cursing yourself in your head for that one, taking another bite of your burger as you worked to erase the whiteboard to prepare it for your next class. You didn’t dare steal a glance over at Ryland, in fear that your little slip-up was going to ruin everything.
There was only quiet for a moment before the single moment of awkwardness was gone.
“I promise you I know Homer wrote that. I swear!”
The desperation to believe him drew another laugh out of you. Sparing a glance in his direction, Ryland was giving you his best, exaggerated puppy dog eyes, begging you to believe him, as a smile just barely squeaked its way onto his lips.
“Right, of course you did. My mistake. Whatever you say, Ryland-”
“I mean it!” It was his turn to laugh this time, a sound that had those butterflies rattling around once more. “I was just…distracted.”
“Uh-huh, distracted,” as if you were preparing to scold one of your students, you turned to face him fully with a hand on your hip, eyebrow raised expectantly. “By what, exactly?”
If a human being could buffer, Ryland Grace always seemed to be constantly buffering. Your eyebrow remained raised, waiting for him to piece together his response. All he could do was open and close his mouth like a fish, before looking away and taking another bite of his food.
“Nevermind that, just finish your food before it gets cold. I did bike, like, three miles to get that thing,”
With a roll of your eyes that held zero malice what-so-ever, you made sure the blonde could see your next bite of your food, a satisfied smile on his face.
“Back to the previous topic,” you steered the conversation in another direction, wiping off the last bits of chalk on the board and writing down your next period at the top so that you could start the discussion on the reading over again. “I don’t understand why it’s so hard to get some of these kids to just read the content. They all pay attention in your class!”
“I heard Jason make a comment yesterday during class that Marcus has a crush on Olivia. Maybe they’re too distracted to read,”
You shot him a skeptical look.
“Marcus, crushing on Olivia? He was just making fun of her before you came in the room,”
Ryland averted his eyes, suddenly very interested in his ID badge hanging around his neck from his school issues lanyard.
“W-well, maybe he just doesn’t…know how to express his feelings,” he spared a glance up at you, seeing you were still watching, as he tripped over his words again. “It can be hard for boys–and men–of all ages, to…tell someone how they feel.”
“Well, I don’t know where he’s learning from, but making fun of the girl you like isn’t the right way to go about things,” you shot back.
“Then teach them!” Ryland sounded absolutely ecstatic, that light bulb over his head going off again as he looked like he’d come up with the world’s greatest idea. “Classic literature, there’s plenty of great love stories in there. Get his interest by teaching them about that, so he can learn from them.”
“Alright, give me an example then, Mr. Suddenly an Expert in Classic Literature,”
“Romeo and Juliet,” he said like it was the easiest thing in the world, balling up the remnants of his finished food and tossing it in the bag it came in. “Greatest love story ever told, so great Taylor Swift wrote a song about them.”
“Except they don’t run off and get married and live happily ever after, Ryland. Romeo thinks she is dead and kills himself with poison, and when Juliet realizes he’s dead she stabs herself,”
Ryland’s excitement fell slightly, his mouth forming a little ‘o’ shape.
“...oh,”
“Don’t think that’s what I want to teach young, impressionable pre-teens about love-”
“Daisy and Gatsby, then! He loved her so much he stood on that dock staring at the-the bright yellow light of a stoplight for her,”
“It was a green light and it was the dock light, first of all. I’m not even sure how you could be that off. Secondly, Gatsby is murdered at the end of the book and Daisy doesn’t even attend the funeral, she and Tom move away and pretend it never happened,”
Ryland’s eyes are shut at this point, his fingers massaging his temples and those glasses just barely hanging on from their place around his neck.
“...does anyone not die in these old books?”
The sound of your laughter permeates the room and you sweep over, collecting his trash and combining it with yours. You never even spared him a glance, though you could feel his eyes on you, as you swept the trash away with you to the other side of the room, his voice echoing across to you.
“I’m going to get lucky on one of these guesses!”
What Ryland Grace was really lucky about was how adorable you found him, and how head over heels you were for him, because his lack of literary knowledge was astounding.
❤︎
“I’m sorry, you’re trying to tell me that aren’t currently fucking the eye candy that is the science teacher in room 305?”
“Evelyn!”
Evelyn Doyle was in her late thirties, married since she was 18, and already had three kids with her high school sweetheart. Since you had transferred into Grover Cleveland Middle, you’d become fast friends and she had become a great mentor.
She had, sadly, caught onto your pathetic crush on Ryland Grace before you had even fully realized it, and was now ‘vicariously living through you’ as she always said.
“There’s not a single child left in this entire school right now,” she shot back, gesturing around her empty classroom, as she finished cleaning up anything her students had left around at the end of the day. You rolled your eyes at her excuse, perched on the edge of her desk. “Please, I’m tenured, what are they going to do?”
“I’m more so yelling at you for butting into my love life, once again,” was your reply through laughter. “Ryland and I are good friends, that’s it.”
It was her turn to laugh, finishing up her cleanup around the room before she joined you at her desk, packing her things away into her shoulder bag.
“Oh please, you keep denying that little crush of yours-”
“I never said I was denying that,” you cut her off. “Lord, you realized I liked him before I even did. But he and I aren’t anything besides friends. I’m not lying.”
Your pleas fell on deaf ears, like they typically did when you were around Evelyn. She simply waved your statement off, tossing her bag over her shoulder as you followed her out of her room and down through the quiet of the school hallway. The quietest the hallway ever was, in the hours right after students were sent home for the day. You’d rather be anywhere else, preferably at home, but these mandatory once-a-month staff meetings were unavoidable.
“Whether you’re telling me the truth or not, you have to understand why everyone thinks so–teachers AND students. I think even some parents think so!” The only response she got was an eyeroll, her shoulder bumping into your’s playfully. “He brings you lunch at least once a week, meaning he rides that dingy bike to get whatever you’re craving that day.”
“It’s usually just something random-”
“Constantly in your classroom, or vice versa,” she cut you off, and you quickly realized you weren’t getting a single word into this conversation. “I’m pretty sure Principal Marshall has considered, somehow, moving your classroom closer to his just so he’ll stop being late to classes because he’s busy talking to you.”
Okay…yeah, you didn’t have a retort for that one. Your classroom was on the opposite end of the school building from Ryland’s own, and yet every time he had even a split second he was somehow always leaning in your doorway. Even if it only resulted in a conversation that lasted all of a minute.
Many times those ended with your students having to remind him that the bell rang and he definitely had students in his own class unattended, waiting on their teacher. More than once he’d slipped as he tried to sprint back to his classroom from yours. It didn’t matter how short those little conversations were, though, because every second around him was precious to you.
“Awe, look at you blushing about it-”
You slapped Evelyn’s hand away, throwing her a look of disdain that didn’t really hold any true malice to it.
“Look, all I’m saying is the ball is in his court,” was the response you finally settled on as Evelyn propped the door of the small auditorium open for you to enter. “Ryland is nothing but friendly to me, so if he’s interested then he’s got to show me.”
“You’re acting as if you’ve made your own feelings clear, honey,”
“No, but I clearly don’t do a good enough job of hiding them,”
Speak of the devil: there he was. Ryland’s head shot up the moment the pair of you walked into the auditorium. Those damn glasses hanging down from one side of his face, framing his stubbled jawline perfectly. A smile lighting up his face the second those blue eyes found yours, gesturing to the empty seat beside him.
A packed auditorium, as you and Evelyn were the last ones there. Every seat up practically filled, and yet Ryland Grace sat among a crowd of people, eyes trained on you and a single seat saved for you amidst it all.
All you could feel was the heat in your cheeks, and the touch of Evelyn patting your back as she laughed, voice low but loud enough to hear as she shifted past you to find a seat of her own.
“Doesn’t have interest in you my ass,”
Her words swam through your head with every apology you muttered to the other teachers as you snuck past them in the cramped rows, happily taking the empty seat beside Ryland.
“You didn’t have to save me a seat, you know,” your voice held a hint of teasing to it, but it was soft. Filled with an adoration that you knew you were terrible at hiding. Luckily, Ryland was terrible at picking up on it.
“Wanted to sit next to you,” he whispered back as Principal Marshall began to drone on about updates neither of you particularly cared about. He leaned in close, a hint of his breath wafting over the shell of your ear as he spoke. “You make these slightly less boring.”
Close proximity to this man was your worst nightmare, and the cramped auditorium wasn’t helping. That single touch of his breath against your skin was enough to send a simultaneous shiver down your spine and another round of heat to your cheeks. His suit jacket covered arm rested on the shared armrest between your seats, the edge of his bicep ghosting against the bare skin of your arm with every little shift he made, tapping incessantly against the armrest.
The slight action made you smile. He never could sit still in these meetings, always hated them.
“Did anything fun happen in class today?” you kept your voice low, eyes trained on the principal, as your head tilted slightly over to Ryland so he could better hear you.
“Uh, if you count Madison telling me that she thinks the sun orbits the earth, then sure,” you had to stifle your laugh at that, casting Ryland a side glance as he grinned at you, doing a terrible job of whispering back at you as usual.
“How could she possibly think that?”
“You’d be surprised,” Ryland leaned just a tad bit closer, the side of his arm pushed up fully against your own. You could almost hear the smile in his voice without even having to look over at him. “The National Science Foundation estimates that 26% of Americans still think the sun orbits the earth.”
“Jesus, that many?”
“Well, 100% of them are stupid, so,”
Nasty looks from other faculty were shot your way that second you choked on your own breath, slapping a hand over your mouth in an attempt to stop yourself from breaking out into uncontrollable laughter. You gave them the most sympathetic look you possibly could, learning how to breathe normally again before mouthing sorry at them all.
Ryland didn’t care in the slightest for the warning look you shot him, a bright smile on his face as his eyes seemed to trail over every inch of your face.
“If you keep doing this in every faculty meeting, they’re going to separate us, Ry,”
“I met Madison’s parents for the first time last month for parent-teacher conferences,” he continued, ignoring your plea. Instead, he leaned in even closer, eyes locked on yours, and god it was impossible to look away. “They are, 100%, undeniably, part of the Flat Earth Truthers Club.”
You shook your head, a smile creeping back up on your lips. Ryland’s gaze could still be felt on the side of your face as you turned back to face the front, eyes focused back on the principal again in an attempt to pay attention to the meeting.
“Flat earthers are ridiculous. They’re just scared of science,”
“Well, you know what they say…the only thing they have to fear is sphere itself,”
There simply wasn’t enough time to clap your hand over your mouth and conceal your laughter, a split second of it breaking through the quiet of the auditorium. And Ryland? His smile was somehow even brighter than it was before, still locked onto your face, never having strayed once.
“Dr. Grace, is there something you feel needs to be shared with the rest of your fellow faculty?”
Principal Marshall’s voice was enough to knock Ryland out of whatever trance he seemed to have put himself in. Eyes wide as if he’d just seen a ghost, hands barely able to catch his glasses as they almost fell right off of his ear where they dangled, a burst of red spread through his cheeks instantly as his deer-like eyes locked onto the unamused principal.
“I-I uh, no. No, nothing, Principal Marshall,” he scratched at the back of his head, ruffling up his already messy hair, a nervous tick you’d picked up since the moment you’d met him. You simply buried your head in your head, eyes trained on your shoes and Ryland out of the corner of your gaze, terrified to look up at your fellow faculty that you’d already apologized to once. “Just getting super jazzed about faculty updates. Hard to keep it in here. I’m like a mushroom, getting all…hyphae…”
A collective groan sounded through the auditorium at the terrible biology pun that rolled off of him with ease. All you could do was smile into the palm of your hand.
“Please just…pay attention to the meeting, Dr. Grace, before I separate you and your other half,”
Other half. That’s not how she meant it, but it was impossible not to let your mind wander to the idea.
Early mornings. Coffee, the smell of eggs and toast burning in the kitchen. Ryland and his hair that was surely even more unkempt that early in the day. The guarantee that he definitely had about 120 science puns ready to go at any moment.
Late nights. Curled up on a couch. A movie, a shared blanket, warm in the embrace of his arms. The quiet of just being with someone that made you happy in ways you’d never felt before. The promise of another day with them on the horizon.
It was becoming increasingly harder not to think about Ryland Grace like that every day, of what a life with the awkward, endearing science teacher could be.
And as Principal Marshall continued her meeting, and your eyes met the blue ones that were already looking at you: soft, kind, a hint of something you couldn’t understand in them, you could only dream he thought the same thoughts when he looked at you.
❤︎
“Alright, who can tell me the day of the first human space flight?”
Not a single middle schooler, packed into the building’s planetarium, raised their hands at first. Many of them started whispering to each other, confused looks on their faces, but Ryland just waited with a smile on his face. A brave soldier from Mr. Harkin’s class, Damien, finally raised his hand.
“Uh, Mr. Grace? Wouldn’t that…be today?”
“Excatly!” Grace’s clap echoed through the room as he pointed toward the young kid sitting in the front row of seats. “International Day of Human Space Flight, commemorating the first human space flight by Yuri Gagarin. It was a trick question, and you passed my tiny friend.”
Were you excited about losing a chunk of your day to escorting your class to the planetarium, along with other classes in the building, for a special science presentation? Absolutely not, especially not with how terribly your class did on their last The Odyssey assignment.
When you found out that Ryland was giving the presentation during your allotted time? Suddenly, The Odyssey meant nothing to you. Not when you could watch Ryland teach, something he did so effortlessly.
The way he captured every single child’s attention with ease. That glowing smile on his face every time they answered a question right, and simply the way he seemed to love what he taught. You were captivated every time you got the chance to see him teaching the thing he loved so much.
“Yuri Gagarin was a Soviet cosmonaut who became the first person in space in 1961 aboard the Vostok 1,” the planetarium was lit up with the night sky, little stars reflecting down. You could almost see them in the students eyes, in their bright smiles as they looked up into the vastness of space. Your eyes trailed to Ryland, already looking at you with a soft smile of his own, before he cleared his throat and moved throughout the room, focusing back on the kids. “Over the course of 89 minutes, his ship traveled to a maximum altitude of 187 miles, as it orbited the Earth.”
“Wait, so we weren’t the first people in space?” one of your students, Lydia, called out. Ryland laughed, pointing over at her.
“No, we kind of sucked,” you rolled your eyes with a grin at Ryland’s statement, though it drew a laugh from all of the kids. “No, America had actually scheduled its first space flight for May 1961, so this was a huge blow to us. It really heated up the space race.”
“He really is good with them, isn’t he?”
Glancing over, Mr. Harkin had saddled up beside you on the edge of the room, head tilted toward you and voice low so as to not disrupt the lesson the kids were being taught. Your gaze drifted back to Ryland as he continued his lesson, eliciting more laughter from the kids. It only brought another soft smile to rest on your lips.
“He is, in a way that I just don’t understand,”
Those blue eyes you’d become so fond of met yours for a moment across the room, face illuminated by the light projecting onto the planetarium’s dome walls. The little grin he wore seemed to drop just slightly, gaze still locked on you but flickering every moment over to Mr. Harkin as he spoke to the students. Harkin’s elbow dug lightly into your side.
“Careful, you’re giving him major ‘heart eyes’ across the room right now,”
You did your best to conceal your laughter, shooting Harkin a look, Ryland’s gaze still felt on the side of your face even as you looked away.
“Why do I feel like I’m about to find out that every teacher in this school has a secret betting ring going on when it comes to Ryland and I?”
“I mean, it’s not a secret. Principal Marshall runs the damn thing,”
“Mr. Grace?” one of the youngest girls in the grade, Aurora, called out, raising her hand up to get Ryland’s attention. “My mom told me the other day that there’s 8 planets in our solar system. What happened to Pluto?”
Ryland went to answer when Mr. Harkin beside you laughed, capturing the attention of everyone in the room, as he shook his head at his young student.
“No, honey, scientists a couple years ago decided that Pluto wasn’t a planet anymore,”
Your eyes flickered to Ryland, who was already staring at Harkin from across the room as he tossed his little crochet earth back and forth in his hand. His response was a bit of a forced laugh.
“Well, your teacher isn’t wrong. Scientists classified Pluto as a dwarf planet a couple years ago,” he explained to the kids, eyes trained on the little crochet sphere in his hands. “But there’s 8 other very important, even closer planets that we should focus on. I mean, who really cares about a tiny, slow planet that takes 248 years to orbit the sun–honestly, he should just accept that he’s slowly falling into obscurity and stop trying to steal the spotlight.”
The room got quiet. Your eyebrow raised slightly, head tilted, as everyone just seemed to stare at Ryland, who had yet to look up.
“Uh, Mr. Grace?” some student in the back called out. “Why did you call Pluto ‘he’? Are the planets boys and girls like us, too?”
Ryland’s head shot up, as if he suddenly remembered he was in a room full of students. His eyes shot to you, his mouth opening, then closing, before he quickly looked away.
“I–well…planets don’t really…I’m not trying to misgender the planets, you know? That’s not for me to decide, that’s for them to–you know what, does anyone else have any other questions that aren’t related to Pluto?”
You really didn’t want to laugh at Ryland, but only he would be able to accidentally turn a lesson about space and planets into almost a lesson on bodily autonomy. He caught your eye, his widening just slightly and you could almost see his cry for help written across his face, but it only made your laughter worse.
It was little Madison that raised her hand next, speaking before she’d even been called upon.
“Are you sure the Earth isn’t the center of the universe?”
Ryland hung his head in shame, the shaking of his head evident from across the room as a few of the kids around laughed at the young girl’s comment. You were quick to shoot them a warning look, not keen to hand out any detentions today.
By the time your gaze turned back to Ryland, he was already looking at you. His gaze flickered to Harkin, then back to you, and it was like a light bulb had just flickered on the way his eyes lit up.
“Yes, Madison, I’m sure the Earth isn’t the center of the universe. And I can show you,” his long legs crossed the room in seconds, his body sliding between you and Mr. Harkin as his hands landed on your shoulders with a tiny little squeeze that sent your heart leaping through your chest. “But to do that, I’m going to need this volunteer that I’m not quite giving a choice.”
“It’s not volunteering if you didn’t ask, Ry!”
You exasperatedly tried to whisper to Ryland as he steered you across the room to stand before all the kids. He only shook his head as a bunch of your own students started cheering for you around the room, only worsening the red that coated your cheeks the second his hands had landed on your body.
“I need you for this,” he shot back hastily, positioning you in the middle of the room, standing in front of you. His body blocked the students from your vision, blue eyes boring down into yours, hands gently squeezing at your upper arms as you begged the blush in your skin to not be too obvious. “You trust me?”
A ridiculous question, because the only answer was yes. You gave him a nod, and Ryland’s smile only widened as he turned back to the kids in the room.
“Alright, kids. Your gorgeous teacher here is the Sun,”
Little oohs and awes sounded from the kids around the room at Ryland’s little slip in of the word ‘gorgeous.’ There was a sting in your bottom lip as you bit into it with your teeth, trying to contain your own smile. Marcus spoke up from across the room without raising his hand, as usual.
“Then what’s Mr. Harkin?”
“Oh, he’s Pluto,” Ryland shot back immediately, nodding his head. “Suits him.”
Laughter rang through the room, the young boys as rambunctious as ever. Ryland met your astonished look with a tiny wink of his own, one that forced a small laugh to tumble from your lips. Then, he began to slowly spin, walking around you in a circle.
“And I am the Earth,” he called out to the kids, and you could only hope he didn’t trip over his own two shoelaces. “The Sun holds 99.8% of the mass in our solar system, which means it’s packing some massive gravity.”
Ryland stopped spinning himself, still moving around you in a circle. He held his hand out toward you, and you slipped yours into it without hesitation, spinning in that circle slowly with him.
“Because the Sun holds such intense gravity, it’s actually pulling Earth into it. But, Earth has such high forward velocity that it actually keeps us moving sideways. Put these two together, and it keeps Earth moving in an almost perfect circle around the sun. Can anyone tell me another fun fact about our movement around the sun?”
The words went in one of your ears and straight out the other. There was no paying attention, not when Ryland’s hand held your own. Soft skin, just slightly rough around the edges, and those blue eyes were so soft, locked onto you as if there was nowhere else he wanted to look.
“Our speed changes!” Olivia called out from somewhere in the back, but you didn’t even try to look and find her. “When we’re closer to the sun in our orbit we move faster, and the further away we are, the slower we move.”
“Very good, Olivia!” Ryland called out, sparing just a quick glance over to the kids in the room as his hand held yours tighter, still spinning slowly together. “Madison, we also know this works because there’s other sun-like stars out there that are also orbited by planets. Like Tau Ceti, which has four Earth-like planets orbiting it.”
“Is the sun important for other things, besides just being the center?”
Ryland’s eyes flickered to you, and you watched as he paused. The slight hesitation on his face, the bobbing of his Adam’s apple for a moment, before those blue eyes locked onto yours and refused to look away.
“I-It is…for a lot of reasons. The Sun is the Earth’s entire reason for existing. The Sun gives the Earth life. The Sun is the reason the world is beautiful,”
Your breath hitched, eyes still trained on Ryland. There was something in his words, something in that earnest, raw look that he had written across his features as he looked at you that added a weight to his words. A weight that sent a tiny chill across your skin, raising the hair on your arms.
“Without the Sun…the Earth would be nothing,”
There was quiet across the room. Then, a couple snickers, followed by Olivia’s smug little voice.
“The Sun sounds beautiful the way you talk about it,”
“She is,” his voice was lower, softer than it was before. Until, he seemed to realize what he said, the red on both of your faces spreading further than before as his eyes shot wide. “THE SUN I mean! I-I’m talking about the sun, obviously, b-because this is a science presentation!”
Laughter rang through the room, little chants of your names mashed together coming from some of the kids as the bell rang and saved either of you from further embarrassment.
Ryland, being Ryland, chose that moment to finally trip over his own two feet. You pulled on his hand as hard as you could, saving him from plummeting to the ground as he instead just landed on his one knee.
“Make good choices,” Ryland commented lowly as some of the kids walked past the two of you, still snickering and giggling to themselves. You let go of his hands finally, simply resting it on his shoulder with a gentle squeeze. “Don’t uh, I don’t know, blow up the world during lunch or anything. Or pop those chip bags and give kids heart attacks, whatever you kids do these days.”
You laughed, stepping around Ryland as your kids lined up outside of the room, waiting for you. He shot you a sheepish smile from the floor, and your skin still burned with heat at the memory of his words as you looked at him.
“Every time I think you’re doing well with those kids, they manage to knock you down a peg,”
“Yeah, well, what’s new?”
When you met your class outside, you didn’t let them get a word in before you warned them not to say anything. You could still hear little comments talking about ‘shipping’ their English and Science teachers the entire way back to your classroom.
❤︎
Ryland Grace didn’t understand how he had ended up here.
Well, he did. Calling the leading scholar in his field a “staggering waste of carbon” at a UNESCO conference in Denmark was an easy way to get blacklisted from the field he’d studied in for many years in college. It was an easy explanation for how he ended up teaching middle school science at Grover Cleveland Middle in San Francisco.
Not that he had a problem with teaching! He actually loved it. Loved his kids, loved talking about science. He loved teaching the future little scientists of the world about why every facet of science was awesome. The pay wasn’t great, though.
Especially when it was the reason he rode a bike to school daily.
And there was currently the equivalent of a monsoon raining down from the sky onto the pavement, the reason he’d been standing at the front doors for the last 20 minutes hoping that the rain would simply let up. The heavens didn’t take pity on him, though, and it only rained harder and harder. His rain coat and bike were not meant to withstand heavy rain and damaging winds to this extent.
Best cast scenario? It takes him a little longer to get home on his usual 20 minute bike ride than normal. Worst case? He crashes and dies, dead in a ditch covered in mud.
“Ryland, please tell me you aren’t thinking of riding your bike home in this?”
Then there was you. You were probably the single greatest reason why he loved teaching at Grover Cleveland Middle. If he ever had the unfortunate chance to meet that scientist from the conference again, he’d thank him this time for being a staggering waste of carbon, because it led him down a path to you.
“I can’t be that bad,” he tried to joke, waving you off as a crack of thunder seemed to shake the entire building, and his fake confidence faltered for a second. He glanced back at you, coat wrapped around your bag instead of yourself in order to keep its contents dry. “Just, you know…the slight threat of bodily harm.”
He really wished the path that led to you was less bumpy and full of himself looking like an idiot, but at this rate he’d take what he could get from the universe.
“Yeah, absolutely not,” was your immediate reply, head shaking as she fished your car keys out of the bag still covered with your coat. “I’m giving you a ride home, can’t risk the best science teacher’s life over a dumb storm.”
Ryland immediately shook his head, turning to face you beside him. He was not letting you risk your own life in the storm for him. If it really came down to it, he’d sleep at his desk. There was a change of clothes he kept in the bottom drawer, it wasn’t the first time he’d had to do it.
“I can’t let you-”
“This isn’t up for discussion,” Ryland snapped his mouth shut as you cut in once again, dangling your car keys up in front of him with a little shake. “I…care about you, okay? I want to know you are home safe.”
There was no stopping the immediate heat that filled Ryland’s cheeks, and he knew it. There was red blooming across your own, but Ryland shook all wishful thinking from his mind. The AC unit in this school was unreliable, you were definitely just flushed from the heat. No other reason.
Ryland decided he wasn’t going to put up a fight at this point, but he wasn’t going to let you do this without anything in return. He shrugged the yellow raincoat hanging over his own shoulders off as he kicked the glass door in front of him open, the muffle sounds of the torrential downpour now louder as droplets of water splashed into the front door. He held the jacket out, hanging it above your head to protect you from the rain.
“At least let me save you from getting drenched,”
“You’re going to look like a dog that just had a bath by the time we reach my car,” Ryland only smiled at your joke, and the little giggle that fell through your lips. The close proximity didn’t help as he held the jacket up around you.
“Actually, it’s not windy today,” he shot back with a grin, nodding out the propped open door into the rain. “That means if we run, I’ll be drier than if we walked, because the rain that’s hitting us from above is proportional to time. Though, the rain hitting us from the front is proportional to distance, and when running-”
“Ryland Grace, you are adorable when you get all science-nerd, but if we’re going to run…we should run,”
Ryland was thankful that you couldn’t see the renewed heat flooding his cheeks, as you were both too busy sprinting through the torrential downpour to the staff parking lot.
Being a gentleman (who was head over heels in love with you and too terrified to say a damn thing) was thrown out the window with how fast you were booking it to your car, the idea of shielding you from the rain with his jacket abandoned after just a moment booking it across the lot. He could feel the coolness of the water settling against his skin as it soaked through every layer of clothing he had, every few seconds having to furiously wipe at his glasses in hopes of seeing through them.
None of it really mattered in the end, not when he heard your laugh. The little shrieks of laughter as a particularly big drop happened to fall right in your eyes. Or the laughter as Ryland managed–in his signature fashion–to slip on the final step into the parking lot, and you had to double back in laughter to help haul him to his feet.
He’s spring clumsily through the rain a thousand more times if he got to see you smile like that. And that is why his kids always told him that he was definitely ‘whipped’ for you. Whatever that meant.
The second you had both jumped into your respective seats of your vehicle, doors slamming shut, there was only a moment of silence between the both of you. Ryland felt like his chest was going to explode, remembering why he always hated gym class, his heavy breathing mixed with yours as you both caught your breath, before you locked eyes over the center console.
Then the laughter resumed.
He held his hand to his stomach, feeling an ache settling in as he couldn’t stop his own laughter. Your’s grew slightly louder in his ear as you leaned over, trying to help him wipe at his glasses that were still covered.
“I was right, you look like a wet dog,”
Ryland’s only response was to shake his soaking wet hair like one, a simple reaction that earned yet another shriek of laughter from you and a light slap to his shoulder. You muttered something unintelligible under your breath, but Ryland found himself unable to tear his gaze away from your lips as you started the car and began to pull out of the staff lot. How soft they looked, the way the little beads of water running down your cheeks fell over them.
Whipped. He still didn’t get it, but he agreed wholeheartedly with his kids at this point.
There was no driving fast in this rain, especially when the windshield wipers were moving at their highest programmed speed and it still wasn’t enough. It was quiet in the car for just a moment as you pulled out of the parking lot, but Ryland broke it the second your phone had connected to the car’s bluetooth, music filling the space between him and you.
Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars. Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars.
“Frank Sinatra,” Ryland couldn’t help the growing smile on his lips as the familiar song flooded through the car speakers. He kept his eyes trained on the side of your face, watching the little smile grow on your own lips, eyes focused on the road conditions in front of you. “Old books and old music. Didn’t know you had such an old soul.”
“You calling me old, Ryland?”
“N-no!” Ryland immediately back track, hands flying up and shaking back and forth as his eyes went wide. “I might say some stupid stuff some–okay, most of the time–but I know better than to comment on a woman’s age.”
“I’m just teasing you,” he could thankfully hear the sincerity mixed in with the teasing lit to your voice. “But yes, I do enjoy some old music. Always been a big fan of Sinatra, especially this one.”
“It’s a nice song…just not scientifically accurate,” he caught the side eye that you threw his way for just a moment, another crack of thunder banging across the sky and almost shaking the car. Ryland couldn’t help but jump slightly. “Jupiter only has a 3.13° tilt to its axis, so it doesn’t experience seasons like we do. Mar’s would, though, because its axis is tilted at 25°, only 1.5° more than our own tilt…”
Ryland trailed off as the car rolled to a stop at a red light, and he caught you fully facing him this time with a bemused expression written across your face. His smile dropped just slightly as he let out a sheepish laugh, adjusting his glasses as they slid back down the wet bridge of his nose.
“...I went full science-nerd again, didn’t I?”
Your laughter drowned out the rain beating against the roof of the car as your attention returned to the road once more.
“You always do, but I happen to enjoy it very much,”
If only teaching paid more, because the commute to Ryland’s apartment was a lot shorter than his bike ride home every day from work.
Parked in an open space across the road from the dimly lit apartment building, Ryland Grace hesitated with his hand on the handle of the door. His eyes swept out over the area around the vehicle, still being hounded with rain. The top of his road looked like the beginning of a river, the way the water was rushing down the small incline to pool at the bottom.
“Thanks…for this,” he gestured toward the weather right outside the card.
You moved to respond to him, when the weather alert on your phone propped up on your dashboard sounded out. Ryland could just barely make out the headline: FLASH FLOOD WARNING.
The roads were far too dangerous, and Ryland already knew from various conversations that you lived on the opposite end of town from him.
He…could ask you to stay for the night. Just for safety reasons, obviously! He was quickly trying to work through the pros and cons list in his head.
Pros: his only friend that just so happened to be the woman he’s been head over heels in love with for the last year would be safe and not driving in this storm.
Cons: his only friend that just so happened to be the woman he’s been head over heels in love with for the last year would be inside his tiny little apartment that looked like it had been hit by a separate hurricane than the one it felt like they were currently suffering through.
“I should probably get home-”
“Stay,” Ryland cut in, quickly continuing his words after his vague statement. “I-It’s just, the roads are bad, and you live on the other side of town. This storm is just going to get worse, and I-I’d hate to know something happened to you.”
You hesitated, he could tell, shaking your head.
“Ryland, I couldn’t ask you to let me stay,”
He hesitated himself for a moment, every feeling he’d kept bottled up for a year now threatening to escape past his lips. Instead, he settled on echoing your own words.
“I…I care about you. I want to know you’re safe,”
Moments later, he had his rain coat draped over your head as he rushed you inside his apartment to shelter from the storm.
Ryland’s hands shook the entire time as he put his key into his front door’s lock. The last time he had guests over…was never. His apartment was built and designed for him and his brain, scattered with notes and books and piles of arts and crafts that he worked on in order to decorate his classroom. It was not meant for visitors, especially not ones as pretty as you.
“Don’t, uh, mind the mess,” he mumbled, holding the door open and motioning after you, allowing you to take a step inside his apartment as he let out the small breath he didn’t realize he was holding.
Chucking off his sneakers, little puddles of water forming below them on the ground, his jacket found its way into a pile with them. Ryland wiped his hands nervously against the thighs of his jeans, the action doing nothing against the soaking went material, as he watched you take in his apartment.
The apartment that looked like it had been ransacked, at least partially. Stacks of books relating to a thousand different topics were stacked on the ground by the tv stand, on top of the coffee table along with the coffee cup he’d abandoned there early in the morning in a haste to get to the school, and and by his desk that had a stack of papers scattered around it after her strewn them about in order to find one specific slip of paper at 11 p.m.
It was a mess, and Ryland regretted everything.
“It’s not messy, it’s homey,” your reply sent a burst of heat through his skin as you turned to him with a bright smile, leaving your own bag and coat by his pile of wet items before gesturing to your own soaking wet clothing. “Do you maybe have something a little less…wet?”
He scurried away into his bedroom, trying to ignore that little section of his brain that took your comment in a MUCH different way.
His bedroom was worse. Ryland wasn’t letting you sleep on the couch, but he surely wasn’t letting you see his room in a state like this.
Clothing was thrown across the room and Ryland quickly ran about, shoving piles of clothing away into corners where he was certain you wouldn’t be able to see any of it. Throwing it into his closet and slamming the door before it could fall out, pushing it down in his laundry basket, kicking it under his bed so it was out of sight and out of mind, whatever he could think of.
“Great idea, Ryland,” he muttered to himself, pulling on a dry pair of sweatpants and a tshirt for himself, trying to shake the remaining water out of his hair as he rummaged for something you could wear. “Almost get the woman you’re in love with killed by letting her drive you home in a monsoon. Invite her to stay the night in your apartment that makes you look like an even bigger loser than you are. Amazing idea. A doctorate in molecular biology and this is the best you can do.”
You were waiting by the couch in his living room, just glancing around at everything with a smile, when he reappeared. Sheepishly, he handed the folded clothing over to you, hand running through his soaking wet hair as he pointed down the hall.
“You can take my bed for the night. Uh, just leave your clothes in the bathroom, I can throw them in the dryer in a bit. I can scrounge up something to eat in the meantime,”
“Thanks, Ry,” your hand reached out, squeezing his upper arm lightly, and he felt the heat in his skin instantly bloom under your touch. “For all of this.”
If it wasn’t for the giant crack of thunder that flickered the lights of the building for a moment and made Ryland jump out of his skin, he would’ve forgotten how to breathe again.
He rummaged through every part of his kitchen, desperately trying to find something that he could make the two of you to eat that also wouldn’t make him seem pathetic. All he could come up with…was a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, and a jar of jelly.
Yesterday. He’d stayed late after the end of the day to help in tutoring. He forgot to go grocery shopping. Ryland let out a sigh at his realization, back to his fridge door and head banging back against the stainless steel, hand running down his face and dragging against his skin as his glasses were knocked off, hanging off of one ear.
“Great,” he muttered into his palm. “Just absolutely freaking great, Ryland.”
Ryland Grace desperately wished he had the guts, the bravery, to just simply tell you how he felt.
From the moment he met you, when you had arrived for your first day at Grover Cleveland Middle, he was a goner. It had been a long time since he’d had a partner, his last one certain that he was too busy with his head in the clouds to pay attention to her, and she wasn’t wrong. But from the moment he looked at you, waving and smiling as you introduced yourself to all of the teachers that had gathered to welcome you, you were suddenly the only thing his brain wanted to focus on.
He had been so focused on you, too busy admiring every inch of you in silence, that in his typical clumsy fashion he tripped over his own two feet and knocked Principal Marshall’s papers out of her hand, spreading them five feet across the floor. But you’d joined him on the ground, laughing lightly to yourself, as you helped him clean up the papers, and Ryland knew he was a goner for you.
It only continued every single day, getting worse, and you somehow became his friend. His only friend, if he was being quite frank. So he tried to hide the way he really felt, too scared to mess anything up. He’d rather have you in his life in any way he could, then mess this up and lose you forever.
Keeping those feelings in was getting increasingly harder in the last few months. Which explained why he’d traveled cross town just to get lunch from your favorite place, or compare you to the sun and basically called you his entire reasoning for living in front of a bunch of children-
Either Ryland was going to blurt it out at some point, or he was taking these feelings to the grave with him.
“Peanut butter and jelly? Sounds like we’re eating like royalty tonight,”
He shouldn’t have looked over at you. He really, really shouldn’t have. Leaning against the opposite wall of the kitchen, hair still damp and dripping onto the cheesy “I had potential” shirt he’d been gifted by one of his students the following year. Sweatpants that were bunched up around your ankles so that you didn’t trip over the length, waist tied in as tightly as possible so they didn’t just slide right off your hips.
Ryland Grace had never thought it possible that you could look more gorgeous than you did every day, but he stood corrected. He felt more in love than he ever had just looking at you right in this moment.
“Sorry, I don’t exactly…live a life of luxury,” Ryland awkwardly laughed as he spoke, pulling out two sad paper plates from the cabinet next to him and flashing them in your direction, shaking them lightly in the air. “Hope this doesn’t ruin my perfectly curated image.”
His eyes followed you as you brushed past him, humming to yourself with a little grin. You fumbled through every drawer in the kitchen, looking for something, when Ryland quickly popped open the one right next to him, showcasing his small selection of utensils. You flashed another heart-stopping grin at him before digging out two knives from the drawer.
“That image cracked a long time ago, Ry. Like that time you let Marcus perform some chemical reaction and got the fire department called to the school,”
The tall blonde groaned to himself, rubbing at his temple as you pushed past him to throw some of the bread down onto the plates and crack open the jars of peanut butter and jelly set out.
“That was one time!” he tried to defend himself, saddling up beside you as you passed him one of the knives. He almost completely missed the opening of the peanut butter jar, eyes too transfixed on the sight of you in his clothing. It was still up in the air if his heart was actually working correctly yet. “I learned my lesson very quickly not to let him handle any more chemicals.”
“Don’t worry. I made the mistake of doing popcorn reading when we were working on The Outsiders. Marcus seemed to end up with every single instance of profanity in the book, which he would yell at the top of his lungs,”
Ryland snapped his fingers, glancing down at you at his side with a teasing smile.
“You know what? That explains that really loud ‘HELL’ I heard across the school a couple months ago. I was so sure that it was going to shatter the windows of my classroom,”
“Oh, shut up! It wasn’t that bad!”
Your laughter permeated the air, elbow digging into his side as you spoke. And when your eyes locked with his, and Ryland got the perfect look at every square inch of your face, he could see it so clearly in his head.
Mornings just like this, where you’d both struggle to get out of the warmth of the blankets. The way he would surely annoy you with his very disorganized morning routine, but he’d make up for it with coffee already set out for you, just as you liked it. The lingering moments by the door, too wrapped up in each other because you didn’t want to leave the peace of this space, even though you were going to the same place.
Late nights, curled together on the couch with some movie playing on TV that neither of you were particularly paying attention to. Whispered words, laughter shared. Kisses that lingered, hands that trailed-
Thunder broke Ryland from his spell, thoughts gone in a flash. He was back in his dingy kitchen, with you just inches away, staring up at him as the picture of true beauty.
“T-This is nice,” he cleared his throat, turning back to his sandwich as he spread his toppings along the bread, heat blooming across his cheeks again. It always did around you. “Making dinner with someone…no matter how sad the dinner is. I haven’t done this in awhile.”
“Right,” your voice responded after a momentary pause. “Sarah, wasn’t it? You were dating her when we first met. What, uh…what ever happened to her?”
“Oh, we broke up a long time ago,” Ryland waved the comment off, shaking his head. “She just, uh, thought my head was too far in the clouds. Didn’t think I wanted to be down here on Earth. She wasn’t wrong. It was for the best, though. She hated…all of this. The rundown apartment, the lack of a car, my love of science. She just never understood it. I was just…too much for her. But she’s with Mark now, so I’m sure she’s happy.”
Ryland chose not to mention that his last relationship had been dead long before it officially ended, the pair not having seen each other in well over a month by that point. If his math was right, which it usually was, Sarah had started dating Mark before she’d even broken it off with him.
He also failed to mention the relief he felt inside when she had called it off, knowing his heart had belonged to you the moment your eyes had locked with his.
Fingertips just barely ghosted over Ryland’s cheek, and he froze in place. Eyes trained on the plate in front of him, he could feel the way your hand curled around his cheek. The way your thumb glossed over his skin, back and forth, and the way your other fingers barely grazed over the shell of his ear. He couldn’t help the way he instantly leaned into the touch, a touch he hadn’t felt in so long.
Ryland turned his head, still resting in the palm of your own, to look you in the eyes. You gave him the softest smile, hand trailing across his cheek and ghosting over his jawline. His eyes watched it move, the way your fingers gently curled around the frame of his glasses dangling precariously from his face, and placed them gingerly back where they belonged, resting on the bridge of his nose.
His breath caught, your body so close to his, as your hand trailed back down and rested on his chest for just a moment, your own gaze flickering to its resting spot while his gaze stayed on your face.
“You are never, and will never be, too much, Ryland. Not for the right person. They’ll love every part of you. The clumsy parts, the nerdy parts, every part that makes you…you,”
The Sun. That’s what you were to Ryland Grace. He meant every word he had said in that planetarium that day, driven by the rare jealousy of seeing Harkin that close to you.
The Sun was the reason Earth had life. Without the Sun…the Earth would be nothing.
Without you…well, Ryland Grace had accepted long ago that he didn’t understand what it was like to truly live until he’d met you.
Your eyes flickered for just a second, and Ryland took in an audible breath, swearing they settled on his lips for just a second. The apartment was quiet, except for the hum of the fridge and the pattering of the rain against the living room windows.
The moment shattered with yet another terribly timed clap of thunder, your body jolting away from his, focus turned back to the counter in front of you, face hidden from his wide eyes.
“Y-you know…I can’t tell you the last time I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich,”
Ryland shook his head, smiling slightly to himself at the little stutter in your own words, turning back to finishing his own food as well. But the moment still lingered in his head, the heat that bloomed from where your skin touched him still lingering.
“Since peanut butter is banned in school for allergies, probably awhile,”
“I almost forgot that rule a couple weeks ago and almost packed peanut butter crackers,” you joked back, before Ryland heard you snap your fingers. “Oh! Speaking of work, did you put yourself down to volunteer for the school dance next week?”
Sandwiches finished off, Ryland packed the ingredients away and stashed them back in their appropriate spots, laughing awkwardly to himself.
“Hah, uh, no I didn’t. I chaperoned last year and kind of left covered in punch, became the kids’ favorite ‘meme’ for a week afterward since one of them got a picture of it,”
He turned back to you. Leaning against the island counter, holding your sad little sandwich in your hands, face still lit up red as you smiled toward him.
“I think so far it's me, Doyle, and Harki, plus Principal Marshal and I think Katie and Dawson from the front office. We could really use another teacher,” he swore the fluttering of your lashes was on purpose just to kill him and his resolve. “Sign-up? For me?”
Well, there was no universe in existence where Ryland said no to a request like that.
Rejoining you at the counter, he held his own sandwich in his hand, reaching out and tapping it against yours as if you were sharing a toast.
“For you? Totally,”
Even as you both took a bite of your sandwiches, eyes still locked together, Ryland felt as if something had shifted in the air. Your eyes were still as kind, your smile still bright, but it felt like there was a new weight to your gaze as you looked at him.
And he swore–and hoped–for just a split second, that your eyes had just flickered down to his lips again.
❤︎
The student council had outdone themselves with this end of the year dance.
As you stepped through the main doors of Grover Cleveland Middle’s building, the smile on your face grew immediately at the sight before you. The walls were lined with little fairy lights, little styrofoam planets hanging down from the ceiling at various lengths, glow in the dark stars right around them and glowing. Silver streamers hung around the fairy lights, with the check in desk decorated with tons and foam and lights behind them to look like twinkling lights in the clouds.
“A space theme?” you called out as the two kids in front of you ducked away from the registration desk. Evelyn Doyle finally looked up from the sign-in sheet, grin growing as she took in the sight of you and rounded the desk. “I hadn’t heard anything from the student council on the theme, but they did well.”
“Nevermind the theme, you’re finally here!” you laughed as you threw her arms around you, reciprocating the hug, before her hands landed on your shoulders in order to get a good look at you, eyes trailing you up and down. “And look at this dress, oh my god!”
The deep yellow dress fell right around your knees, the fabric light and airy as it swooshed through the air with every move you made. Buttons lined the front down to the tie around your waist, leaving just enough room for the little gold necklace resting against your collarbone. You thanked yourself for choosing a short sleeve option, already feeling the heat in the building from how many kids were all packed in and dancing together.
“Thank you,” was the sheepish reply you gave your friend as she let you go. “I’m sorry I’m late, I caught one of my student’s parents in the parking lot and they turned it into a mini parent-teacher conference, sadly.”
“Not a problem,” she waved the comment off, gesturing toward the doors of the gym just off to the left of you both. “Just get on in there, have some fun, and keep those slow dancers at least 12 inches apart at all times.”
If the hallways were gorgeous, the inside of the gym shone even brighter. Bathed in blue and purple, even more little lights twinkled around the room, hung off the walls, the ceilings, and on every surface they could possibly find. Moon and star decals, made by the art students, hung off the walls and from the ceiling, almost glowing under the lights.
Your eyes trailed over all of your children, scattered throughout the room, already having been dancing for at least thirty minutes. The smile on your face grew as you watched each one of them, gathered with their friends as they danced together in groups, or even stood off to the sides and just observed from beyond the dimly lit dance floor.
Mr. Harkin had been stationed at the punch table, and you could hear him from across the room warning these middle schoolers not to try and spike the punch. You could only giggle to yourself, shaking your head at his antics, before your eyes swept over the crowd once more-
The music seemed to stop in your ears, breath hitching, the second you laid eyes on him across the room. Ryland Grace.
He wasn’t in anything fancy. A nice pair of jeans, the worn pair of black dress shoes you’d seen by his apartment door that night. A dark green shirt was tucked into his jeans, adorned with a worn, navy blue suit jacket overtop, and those same glasses almost falling off the bridge of his nose as he spoke animatedly to Olivia.
Ryland looked good. Too good, in your eyes.
For just a second, he looked up, and his eyes happened to meet yours across the room. You thought for sure you’d forgotten how to breathe.
Whatever had happened that night, in the silence of his apartment with only the beating of the rain against the windows and the roof as a witness, had shifted something. From the moment your fingertips had ghosted along his skin, your hand had rested against his chest, and you’d been close enough to see the specs that danced in those ocean blue eyes of his up close, nothing had been the same.
Like the little bubble you had been existing in with your harbored crushed had finally popped. Like a toe had dipped just slightly over a line, and there was no going back from then on.
You always blushed around your friend, every time he’d manage to fumble his way through a comment that borderlined on a kind-of-not-just-friendly compliment. But since that day just a week or so ago, every time he has been within a few feet of you, your face lit up like a hot summer’s day.
Moments where he’d find a second to linger in your classroom door, held a new weight to them. Sharing lunch together, fingers just barely brushing for a second as you both reached for your food, to moments when you’d simply be walking together down hallways, back of hands brushing along each other’s but no one making any moves to stop it from happening.
Something was different, and you weren’t sure you wanted to go back to how things were before. Not after touching his skin, or existing in his orbit like that. Not when you’d seen the side of him beyond these school walls.
You were in love with Ryland Grace. You had been for a long time. And, finally, you were done trying to pretend that there wasn’t at least a small chance that he felt the same.
“I need your help,”
The heated staring contest between you two was broken by the sound to your right. You turned, just to see Marcus standing directly beside you and reaching up to pull on the sleeve of your dress. His hands wrung together, foot tapping incessantly on the ground, and you immediately knelt down in front of him to get a better look at his face that he was trying to hide from you.
“Marcus? Honey, what’s wrong?” you asked gently, hands coming to rest on his arms as you tried to get him to look at you.
“I…I like Olivia,”
Oh. It was one of those problems. The anxiety you felt in that moment finally washed away, an easy smile falling to your lips as you took a quick glance over in Ryland and Olivia’s direction, the former’s eyes still locked onto you from across the room.
“I did hear a rumor about that. Olivia is a great girl,”
“She is,” he said quickly, finally looking at you. His nerves were basically written across his face. “I-I’ve been really mean to her. I didn’t mean to be.”
“I know, honey. Sometimes feelings can be confusing,” you stood up, hands on your hips as you looked down at him with a smile. “Do you want to dance with her?”
“I do,”
You held your hand out toward him with a smile.
“Then why don’t we start by going and apologizing to her?”
With Marcus’s hand in yours, you confidently led him across the room, eyes locked back onto Ryland’s as you approached. He stood with Olivia at his side, who was talking his ear off, a dopey looking grin on his face as he nodded to whatever she said as he continued to watch as you approached him.
“Dr. Grace, I’m sorry to interrupt you and Olivia,” you announced yourself to the pair with a grin of your own, hands on Marcus’s shoulders and you lightly pushed him forward. “But Olivia, there’s something that Marcus here wants to say to you.”
The young boy shuffled awkwardly forward, hands wringing together again as he stood in front of his crush.
“I, uh, I wanted to say I was sorry. For being really mean to you. I didn’t mean it,”
Olivia’s eyes went wide, as she too shuffled uncomfortably for a second. Ryland saddled up to your side, the pair of you sharing a glance as you watched the interaction happen right before your eyes. His hand graced over yours lightly, and it took everything in you not to reach out and lock your fingers with his.
“Oh! It’s, um, it’s okay. Thank you,”
“Say, Marcus?” Ryland called out to them both, catching the boy’s eye and gesturing toward Olivia with a wink. “What do you think of Olivia’s dress?”
“I…I think she looks really beautiful,”
That comment finally seemed to catch Olivia off guard, her eyes wide in shock as she giggled nervously.
“Oh! I…thank you, Marcus. You look really nice too,”
“Thank you,” his posture seemed to straighten out at Olivia’s reaction, like seeing her accept his compliment gave him the confidence he needed. “Do you want to dance with me?”
Olivia shot you and Ryland a look, and you both immediately gave her a thumbs up. Then, your happy eyes could only watch the two pre-teens awkwardly shuffle away together to the dance floor, not daring to meet the eyes of the other.
“Look at us, playing matchmaker for middle schoolers,”
“I think they did that for themselves, we just helped,” you laughed, turning your head. The laughter died on your lips the second your eyes met with Ryland’s, voice low and breathy as you whispered to him through your smile. “Hi.”
“Hi,” he whispered back just as breathily. His hand came up to the back of his head, running through his hair for a moment, and you could see the red and pink hues that lit up his cheeks. “I got worried when I didn’t see you. I was ready to call you.”
“You could’ve,”
“I’ll remember for next time,” he shot back, hands finding their way to rest in the front pockets of his jeans. His eyes moved back over the crowd, finding your two young students once more. “I’m proud of him for that. That…must have taken a lot of guts to do.”
You followed his gaze, landing on the pair as they danced together, laughing and talking like old friends.
“Like you said before, it can be hard for boys to express their feelings. All he needed was to pull up his big boy pants and ask her,”
Ryland laughed beside you.
“Yeah…I should probably follow in his footsteps,”
You glanced back to him, seeing him already watching you. A single eyebrow raised toward him quizzically, even though your heart felt like it was ready to beat directly out of your chest.
Ryland’s mouth opened, then closed, then opened again, as if he were trying to force out words that he couldn’t quite seem to get right. You didn’t even realize you were holding your breath, hoping inside that whatever he wanted to say would address the weight that seemed to be hanging between your gazes.
“Stay here,”
There wasn’t even time for you to respond before the tall blonde rushed away, almost tripping as he dashed over to the DJ booth across the way from the makeshift dance floor. He whispered something to the DJ, and you could see the thumbs up he got in return, before he rushed back over to you, panting slightly.
“Ryland?” you questioned softly, the man who held your entire heart without knowing it standing just a foot in front of you with a nervous grin on his face. “What did you just do?”
As if on cue, the song changed, and familiar lyrics floated through the room, bouncing off the walls.
Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars. Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars
“I’m pulling up my big boy pants,” he responded with a nervous laugh, his hand outstretched toward you. “And asking you to dance with me.”
Nothing else existed the second that you slid your hand into Ryland Grace’s without hesitation, letting him pull you in. You weren’t in the school, not in a room decorated for a middle school dance, and certainly not surrounded by middle schoolers and a bunch of faculty that had placed bets on you both.
It was just you and Ryland Grace. That’s all you wanted it to be.
Your arms found a place to rest around his shoulders, fingertips just barely brushing past the strands of hair that tickled the back of his neck. There was a fluttering in your chest the second that his hands made their way to your waist, curling around the divet just above your hip bone, pulling you into him just by another inch.
In other words, hold my hand. In other words, darling, kiss me. Fill my life with song, and let me sing for ever more.
"I didn't tell you yet…,” his voice was soft, words whispered just between the two of you in a crowded room. “But you look beautiful,"
"You don't have to flatter me, Ryland,"
"No, really, you look-"
"Like a banana in this yellow dress?"
He paused. His tongue poked out, running along his bottom lip, and you could see the nervous bob of his Adam’s apple before he spoke again.
"...like the sun,"
You are all I long for, all I worship and adore.
Oh. That fluttering in your chest was back, and suddenly, you weren’t at a middle school dance anymore. You were back in that planetarium, spinning in circles. And this time, there were no doubts in your mind. You were the Sun, and he was the Earth. And what was the Earth, without its Sun?
"Ryland-"
"I wasn't lying,"
You cocked your head.
"...about what?"
"That I knew Homer wrote The Odyssey,"
That drew a short laugh from you, but you could still see the nerves that were laced through Ryland’s smile.
"Right, you were just distracted,"
"I was. By you. I'm always distracted by you,"
In other words, please be true. In other words, I love you.
You took a deep breath. He’d crossed the line for you, thrown himself onto the other side, and was waiting for you with open arms. It was just a leap of faith.
“I’m always distracted by you, too. Since the day we met,”
The song faded away, melting into the next. There could’ve been eyes on you both, either from students or from faculty, but nothing would break either of your gazes away from the other.
Ryland took a quick look around the room, before his hands took hold of your own, bringing them down between you both. He gave you a grin, one filled with more happiness than you had ever seen–and you knew your own matched his perfectly–before he tugged you toward the doors of the gym.
“Come with me,”
“Ry, we’re supposed to be chaperoning!”
“I don’t see Principal Marshall anywhere. What’s the worst she could do, fire us?”
“Quite literally, yes!” you shot back with a laugh.
Ryland only shrugged his shoulders, tugging you again, and you didn’t even try to fight back. Your feet simply moved with him.
“Worth it,”
Hands clasped together, fingers intertwined, your laughter echoed off the walls of the empty hallways as Ryland Grace ran you down them, a destination clear in his mind. Every few seconds he’d look back, just smiling at you as his eyes trailed over every single inch of you, before you’d yell at him to look at his own feet before you’d both be sprawled across the linoleum floors.
The door to his classroom was open as you flew inside, hand slipping from his as you caught yourself on the projector cart sitting in the middle of the room. Spinning on your heel, you caught his eye just as he shut the classroom door behind him, and the silence enveloped you both once more. Finally alone, no prying eyes to watch.
The momentarily confidence that seemed to seize hold of Ryland dissipated in that moment. He wiped his hands against the front of his jeans, chuckling awkwardly as he took a few steps toward you.
“What was your plan here, Dr. Grace?” you teased, taking a couple steps toward him as well, too high on the feeling of everything you’d just finally realized. High on the feeling of finally not denying what your heart knew long ago: you and Ryland Grace were never just friends.
“I’m not going to lie,” he shot back, coming to a stop just in front of you, barely an inch or two separating you. “I hadn’t thought this far ahead.”
“Then stop thinking,”
No one had leaned in first. It had been both of you, as if drawn together like two magnets, as your lips finally found one another's.
Goosebumps rose across your skin as Ryland Grace’s mouth moved against yours with an ease that shouldn’t exist between two people that have never kissed before. It was like a perfect dance between two partners that knew each other better than anything.
Your lips never left his, moving against his as if you couldn’t believe you had deprived yourself of this for so long, as your hands wound around his shoulders. Fingers curled into his hair, finally carding themselves through the blonde strands that felt so soft between your fingers.
The slightest little moan, enough to send heat coursing through your body the second you heard it, slipping from Ryland’s mouth into your own. His hands grasped at your hips, winding around your back to press into your lower back and tug you as close as humanly possible, as if he was a starved man that craved to touch you in any way that he could.
His lips were soft, a feeling that you knew you were going to crave for the rest of your life now that you’d had a single taste of them. You pressed further into him, a small mewl tumbling from your own lips and swallowed by his mouth as you pressed every inch of yourself into him, desperate to hang onto the moment in case the world would be cruel and wake you from this dream moments later.
The need to breathe was what finally separated you, but not far. Ryland’s forehead pressed to yours, his breath fanning out across your skin. His hands still gripped at your hips, holding him to you, as yours stayed carded through his hair, nails gently scraping at his scalp as you chest heaved as it tried to level your breathing back to normal.
“If I haven’t made it clear already, you’re my best friend,” his words were breathy, accented by the way he was still trying to catch his breath. But his smile was bright, his eyes almost shining, as he looked down at you. “And I’m completely in love with you. Literally, since the moment we met.”
You laughed, trapped in this little bubble with him, as your hands slid from his hair to instead cup his cheeks. The tip of your nose just barely brushed against his, and he bumped his right back against yours without hesitation.
“I’m completely in love with you too, Ryland Grace. Since the moment you tripped over your own two feet,”
The sound of your laughter filled the empty, dark science classroom again as Ryland’s hands came to scoop you up around your thighs, spinning you in relentless circles. All you could do was hang onto his broad shoulders and smile, his lips peppering a thousand kisses to every inch of skin he could possibly reach.
The Earth needed the Sun, like how Ryland said he needed you. The person that makes it all worth it, that makes the days brighter, that makes this short little life worth it.
Summary: When the Hail Mary reaches the halfway point to Tau Ceti, only two crew members remain: you, the mission's pilot-commander, and Ryland Grace, the chief scientist who doesn't remember being appointed chief scientist.
# # TAGS: Semi-Canon-Adjacent, Long Form, Male!Pilot Reader, Eventual Rocky (No Rocky Here Yet), Surprisingly Domestic Space Fluff, Ryland Falls First, Reader Falls Harder, Slowburn-ish, I'm Still Bad at Tags, Part 1 of ???
# # WARNINGS: Canon-typical Space Dread, Mentions of Dead Bodies, Mentions of Isolation, Nothing Too Crazy, Author is Nowhere Near An Astrophysicist And Most of the Science in This Fic was Either Googled or Ripped Directly From the Book
NOTES: A dash of book-canon here and there, some minor divergence from the film timeline. There are no specifications of reader's height nor form. Reader's pronouns are he/him. No use of 'Y/N'. 5.6k words.
“What’s two plus two?”
Thinking shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did, but the cold feminine voice — once it broke through the ringing in your ears — heralded a throbbing headache and an instant stinging behind your eyes. You couldn’t remember the last time you had felt pain like that. And to your concern, it didn’t seem like you remembered anything at all.
“What’s two plus two?”
You groaned. The second thing you identified was the desert that was your throat. You shifted in place, only to be restrained by both fatigue and what felt to be a myriad of plastic wires and tubes.
“What’s two plus two?” repeated the persistent voice. A machine’s, you deducted.
Though your tongue felt like a dry stone in your mouth, you felt your lips move. The action resulted in a hoarse voice that you later registered to be yours.
“F… Four.”
“Correct.”
You heard a shuffling beside you, like someone was trying to scurry away.
You groaned again. Your face was scrunched up into a pained frown. It took a worrying amount of effort to pry your eyes open. And when you did, it wasn’t much help. White blurriness blinded you and elicited a hiss.
“Eye movement detected. What’s the cube root of eight?” the machine asked.
As your vision and hearing properly adjusted, you caught sight of one robotic arm. It spun and whirred as it attempted to touch and pry at your body. You regained control of your head and neck, which was achieved by your evasion of its metal claw.
“What’s the cube root of eight?”
“Fuck. Off.”
“Incorrect. What’s the cube root of eight?”
After a few harsher blinks, your eyes seemed to return to their functional state. You breathed through your dry mouth as you observed the space around you. LED lights, cameras, more robot arms. A monitor next to your bunk began to beep as your heart rate elevated. You couldn’t recognize anything. And when you searched your mind for some semblance of a name, none made itself known.
The voice kept at it, desperate to know the cube root of eight. You were about to raise your hand to smack it away when another voice said,
“Just try to answer it. It’s not gonna stop until you do.”
Your breath hitched. That voice was no machine. It was entirely human, shy and hesitant and far away. You furrowed your brows. ‘What?’ you wanted to ask. Instead what came out was a confused,
“Huh?”
“What’s the cube root of eight?” The machine again.
You groaned. Though you felt like you’d just been run over by a semi-truck, the answer came easy to you.
“Two.”
The robotic hand backed off. The answer seemed to satisfy both the machine and your disorientation. For all the agonies your body housed, you felt the strength to sit up. It was exhausting to do so, but you managed. You raised your hand to touch your forehead. Tubes followed uncomfortably. You lifted your eyes and took the rest of the room in. It was as foreign as it was familiar.
In the corner, a man was on his knees, hiding behind a desk. You frowned as you made the mess of his sandy blond hair and bespectacled blue eyes. He looked ridiculous, cowering like you might get up and punch him.
“Are… Are you awake?” he asked.
You looked at yourself, at your half-dressed body, the machines and monitors you were hooked up to, then back at him.
“What’d’ythink?” Responding with more than one syllable was apparently difficult. Your words, though clearly sarcastic, came out slurred.
The stranger sighed in relief.
The rest of the process was odd and obtrusive, but you had managed to retain some of your dignity; which was a fragile thing in that cold and sterile room. The robotic arm continued its methodical work, its movements precise and impersonal as it detached the last of the monitoring straps from your chest.
The blond stranger — no longer hiding behind the desk — anxiously waited for the procedures to finish.
“What is your mission designation?” the synthetic voice asked.
You hesitated. The words felt slippery, buried under layers of drug-induced fog. Remembering proved troublesome, but an answer came regardless.
“Hail Mary… Pilot-Commander.”
The blond man gasped. You frowned at him, but returned your attention to the machine.
“Correct. What is the destination star system?”
“Tau… Ceti.” The name came slower that time. You could picture the star charts from training, the long elliptical transfer orbit, the Astrophage-fueled spin drive pushing you to a fraction of lightspeed. But the details felt distant, like someone else’s memory.
The arm retracted with a soft whir, leaving you floating in the gel residue. You gripped the edge of the bunk to steady yourself, muscles, which were impressively intact, protesting the sudden demand for coordination.
The stranger bit his fist. “Careful, careful!”
You scowled. “Who the hell are you?” It felt slightly easier to talk then. Your words were cohesive, but the corners of your mouth were still relatively numb.
His name was Ryland Grace, and he had little to no idea who he was, or why he was there.
“I woke up two weeks ago,” he said. “Same coma situation, only Armando wasn't as nice to me. And I didn't wake up as well as you did. God, I thought you were dead.” His voice cracked near the end, like he was on the verge of tears. You looked up at him to realize that he actually was. “I-I was just waiting for you to wake up. Your monitors were looking after your vitals and keeping you in the coma because your body wasn’t ready.” He sniffled. “At least that’s what it told me.”
Ryland Grace wiped at his eyes with the heel of his hand, clearly embarrassed by the display. His shoulders trembled once before he forced them still. In the dim med-bay lighting, the tears made his sharp features look younger, more vulnerable than the brilliant scientist you were slowly starting to remember from pre-launch briefings. You didn’t intend to look as indifferent as you did, but you felt too exhausted to sympathize, still slightly drowsy from your years of sleep.
Your eyes drifted past him to the floor beside your bunk, where a haphazard pile of spare blankets and a single pillow made for a makeshift bed. A small tablet lay nearby, its screen still glowing faintly with medical readouts. Next to it sat a half-empty water bottle and a crumpled wrapper from one of the emergency ration bars.
He noticed where your gaze had landed. He shifted his weight and cleared his throat. “Oh, that. Yeah… I wanted to make sure I’d be here the second something went wrong with your vitals. I’m not entirely sure what half of the charts mean, but I figured it was smarter to stay close in case the robot glitched or your readings spiked.”
Your brow twitched. “Are you the only one here?”
Grace nodded slowly.
That wasn’t right, you thought. He shouldn’t be the only one. Wasn’t there supposed to be more of you? Four? No, three? You looked at his tired eyes and saw the restless nights he’d spent staring at you, listening to the constant drone of your machines, uncertain if you would ever wake up. He was alone, and lightyears away from home. He must have been so afraid. You knew you would have been. Finally, an emotion other than tired confusion surfaced from your chest; guilt.
“Olesya.” The name left your lips before you could think of it.
Ryland caught his breath. He knew the name, too. Except he didn’t know it because he knew the woman it belonged to— he knew it because it was the name of the corpse he hadn’t yet moved from the airlock.
Sensations flooded you without warning, the sharp sound of her laugh burning the brightest. Olesya Ilyukhina was the chief engineer of the Hail Mary. She’d snuck three bottles of vodka into the ship. You had spent a summer in Russia. She’d attempted to sneak into the Kremlin. You kept her from getting arrested. The sudden wave of grief told you that you knew her well, but you hadn’t the memory to support it. You knew her, and now, she was gone.
You stayed seated on the edge of your bunk for a long time, head bowed, fingers pressed against your temples while the med-bay’s low lights hummed overhead.
“It’ll come back,” Grace told you. “It just takes a while.”
For all his worries, it was clear that he was relieved. He might have been stranded on a ship in space with no clear recollection beyond his name, but at least he was no longer alone.
And what a wonderful thing it was, not to be alone.
Your recovery lasted for a few days. A good percentage of your strength was impressively intact, and it was mostly just a matter of relearning how to have it. You walked (or climbed) the expanse of the ship, familiarizing yourself with the areas, a good exercise for both your mind and body. And when you knew you could move without the numbness in your joints, you set out to give Olesya a proper burial.
Olesya’s body had remained in the airlock since Ryland’s own awakening. The state of her face, the deep circles under her eyes, and the hollowness of her cheeks, told you that she’d been dead for quite some time. Her body could not survive. The experimental hibernation had always been a gamble, even for the rare individuals who carried the gene that made it possible in theory. For years, the ship’s medical system had kept her stable, suppressing her metabolism to a fraction of normal as the Hail Mary burned toward its destination. But somewhere along the way, her body began to fail in ways the automated systems could not correct. There was only fate to blame.
You cycled through the inner door without thought. The airlock was cramped, utilitarian in the way its walls lined with emergency EVA suits and tether lines. Olesya lay secured against the far bulkhead. You had dressed her in her uniform. You took her calloused hands, held them together, and pressed photos of her family into her palm. You kept one to remember her by: a polaroid picture of her 28th birthday. Cake had been smeared across her grinning face, her eyes bright with laughter. You tucked the photo into your breast pocket.
Ryland stood just a little ways beyond the archway, silent, his hands clasped loosely in front of him. He feared to intrude, but then you invited him in. “She was your crewmate too,” you said, wiping a tear with your fist.
He took his place beside you, rueful.
You spoke no grand words, for there wasn’t any need to, and Olesya would have mocked you to death for ‘being such a cornball’. The memories of her that returned were enough: her laugh cutting through tension in the ready room, the way she’d sneak alcohol and call you “flyboy” with that sharp Russian edge. She had kept her promise to keep the ship singing if you kept it pointed true. Now it was your turn to send her on.
Together, you positioned her near the outer door. Ryland keyed in the sequence on the control panel. The inner door sealed with a heavy thunk. The airlock’s atmosphere vented in a controlled hiss, the sound fading to nothing as vacuum took hold. Through the small viewport, the stars waited, indifferent and eternal.
You gave the final command. The outer hatch slid open. Olesya drifted out slowly, pushed by the last puff of residual air, her shrouded form turning gently in the void. You watched until she became another point of light against the black.
Not even the worst medical-induced coma could take your intelligence from you, it seemed. While some memories were blurred, your skills came naturally. Instinctual, second-nature.
“This is the Control Room,” said Grace, who’d been trying not to appear obvious in his concerned hovering. He remembered how he felt the first few days since he’d woken up. He couldn’t fathom how you were moving so much.
You glanced at him with a quirked brow. “I know.”
You sat in the chair that was quite obviously yours. The ship lit up in response. ‘Pilot detected,’ it chirped. You leaned back and sighed. Even the arm rests seemed tailored to your size. It felt good to be there. Cohesive, in a way. Like sliding two puzzle pieces together. Finally, something unequivocally, and undeniably right.
And your memories did come back to you; better than Grace’s. It wasn’t perfect or entirely whole, but by the third day of your resurrection, you were showing him around. You walked Ryland through the control room, the lab module, and the narrow corridors, explaining redundancies and emergency procedures mostly just to hear them out loud— as though to check if it sounded right. The relief on Grace’s face was unmistakable. The tension in his shoulders eased with every system you named and every checklist you ran from memory. At least one of you knew what you were doing.
As Olesya was the engineer, you were the pilot; which left the role of scientist to Grace. You would have come to the conclusion regardless. He had an obvious knack for the field. And whenever he stood in the Lab, it felt as right as when you sat in the Control Room. Some things just happened to fit. But it took you a while to understand what to make of him. It felt odd that it appeared easier to regain memories of Olesya than it was of Grace. If the three of you were the designated crew for the Hail Mary, wouldn’t you have spent an ample amount of time pre-launch? The gap felt unsettlingly deliberate, and the thought of it often kept you awake.
There’d been other things you had to explain to him. He didn’t know how to access the ship’s confidential logs. Of course he had a passcode that would get him through, but he’d be damned if he could manage to remember it. The amnesia was normal, you assured him. Though it was slightly troublesome that it was taking him longer to recover. You gave him access to the specifics of the mission, the details of the Petrova Line, the trip to Tau Ceti, the need to understand what makes one star different from the rest. Ryland knew most of what you were telling him, but hearing it from another voice made it seem as though he was digesting it all over again.
“It just doesn’t feel right,” he said. “I’m not– I’m not that kind of scientist.”
You’d eat with him in the mess hall trying to resurrect his life on a small whiteboard. You wanted to remember him as much as he wanted to remember himself.
He told you the helpful details: he knew he was a school teacher, and that he had a PhD in molecular biology. He had bits and pieces of a woman named Eva Stratt. He knew the specifics of Astrophage. He knew the sun was dying, he knew the world was ending. And then there was the less helpful stuff: like his favorite icecream flavor, and why the Marvel Cinematic Universe should have stopped at Endgame, and how he ‘felt like a big Beatles guy’, which he’d topped off with a handful of fun scientific facts.
“Do you remember picking your shirts?” you asked him one simulated morning, ducked beneath one of the consoles and ensuring everything was operational. “I’m just trying to wrap my head around it. It’s the night before liftoff: you’re packing your things. You’re going to spend the next decade saving the universe and you think, hell yeah,these shirts will do.”
Ryland was drinking a cup of warm tea. He was sitting on the threshold that separated the Control Room from the corridor. “I don’t remember packing them,” he said. He looked down at the lame scientific pun printed across his chest. “But sadly, yes, these are very much my shirts.”
He liked having you around. He lingered in your space, finding excuses to sit on that same threshold or lean against the console while you ran diagnostics. His shoulders would loosen whenever you entered a room, like the simple sound of another human voice or another set of footsteps eased something tight in his chest. When a small alarm chirped (for something as minor as fluctuation in the thermal regulator,) he would whip his head toward you like a deer that heard a twig snap. It didn't matter if it was a weird noise, a loose panel, or a faint creak of the hull under deceleration thrust. His eyes would find yours every time. And in them, he'd search for the calm confirmation that it was nothing.
“Do we panic? Is that something we should be panicking over?”
“Even if a hole is blown through our fuel tanks, Dr. Grace, the last thing we should do is panic.”
You found it amusing. You were fairly certain that he was at least a little bit smarter than you. Yet there he was, the man who named and bred the star-eaters, looking to the pilot for reassurance over a rattling bolt.
You had a week before your arrival to Tau Ceti. There was time to kill.
You'd explored and catalogued every nook and cranny of the ship. Which, ideally, you would have recognized from the start. But with the amnesia you were still actively recovering from, you couldn't risk not relearning the Hail Mary like a forgotten mother tongue.
In your efforts, you discovered a couple of things. One: that Eva Stratt had somehow managed to supply the ship with an impossible amount of media. (from music, to films, to games, to electronic novels.) Two: that you had some involvement in the engineering of the ship itself. (Your name was credited on the lower-right portion of the main blueprint.) And three, that you had a polaroid of Ryland Grace wedged between one of your notebooks. The latter, you told him over dinner.
Ryland choked on his ramen, which he’d been having for the third night in a row. “You what?”
“Yeah, right here.” With no elevated emotion, you placed the photo on the metal table. “That’s you, isn’t it?”
Slightly creased in one corner, the polaroid was of a charmingly disheveled Ryland Grace, dressed in a lab coat over a faded university shirt, goggles pushed haphazardly against his hair. His glasses hung in a uniquely awkward way, clinging to his ear and jaw. He wasn’t looking at the camera and was instead beaming at the person behind it. It was candid and blurred in a way that made its edges soft; like it was taken without thought nor warning. He seemed to have been distracted from peering at a microscope. The photo caught him mid-smile.
Ryland’s cheeks turned pink. He had never seen a picture of him like that in his entire life. “W-Where did you say you found it?”
You showed him your notebook, that battered old thing. You raised it up like you were presenting your license to a patrolling officer. It was a navy-blue moleskine with the NASA logo embossed on the cover. It was decorated with a few tattered stickers of your favorite band. There was no one reason you kept it. Some pages had aerodynamic computations while others had your grocery lists. It seemed you had it for anything.
Ryland put his ramen cup down. “And what page was it on?”
You shrugged. You flipped it open, pages fluttering until your thumb pressed to a stop. You turned the notebook towards him to show a spread of what looked like an engine. It was covered in your handwriting, words and numbers scribbled about. It was an early concept of the ship’s cable separation system— which was the mechanism that allowed the upper section to detach from the fuel module and spin on Zylon tethers for centrifugal gravity. But it might as well have been written in Chinese for Ryland. And to his surprise there actually was some Chinese text in there.
“Huh.” Grace sheepishly scratched the back of his head. “So you've got a polaroid of me bookmarked on some sort of astrodynamic floor plan… why?”
You shrugged again, snapping the notebook shut. “Beats me, Doc.”
Grace cleared his throat. “You… don't remember taking the picture?”
“No.”
“Maybe we're closer than we remember.”
“Maybe.” You sat across from him. You tilted your head at his nervous expression. “Maybe you asked me to hold onto it.”
“Hold onto what?”
“The picture.”
“Oh.” He nodded. “Why would I do that?”
You shrugged a third time. “It's a good picture.”
A second whiteboard was born that day. It accompanied Grace's, housing its own questions, bulleted by fragmented facts. It was clear that there were plenty of things you were yet to remember yourself. You knew the flesh of things, the shape of them, but you couldn't see the bones. You'd spend hours staring at the board, chewing on the cap of your marker as though you could will those missing memories to return.
“Any luck over there?” You peered over to Grace's side of the room. His was messier than yours.
He whipped his head around so fast that his chair spun a little. “Huh? Oh. No, just the usual.”
You leaned over to catch a glimpse of his whiteboard. You'd unintentionally grown familiar of his handwriting. He had written questions about who you might be to him. He'd listed the possibilities in red ink:
Friend?
Neighbor?
Labmates?
Hung out with on Taskforce?
Always known as crewmate?
Then, at the very bottom, faint and hidden beneath a thin layer of erased ink, you could make out the ghostly outline of the word:
Boyfriend?
You turned back to your own board and smiled.
“Uh, let's try this.” Grace clapped his hands once. “How ‘bout we just throw rapid-fire questions at each other and see how well we can answer them? Theoretically that should jog our memories.”
You nodded your head. It beat staring at a wall. “Alright.”
Grace grinned. He didn't expect you to agree. “Okay, uh– I'll go first: where'd you grow up?”
You took a slow breath in. Your eyes narrowed like you were trying to see something far away. “Too long ago, can't remember.”
“Oh, sorry.” Grace nodded. “Okay, what about where you lived? Before launch, I mean.”
“I moved around a lot.” The faint image of bags and suitcases fluttered in your mind. Five different house keys, seven different addresses. “I went where the work took me.”
Grace raised his brows. “Okay. Good. That's something.”
You made a sound between a scoff and a laugh. “Alright, MacGyver. Your turn. Where'd you teach?”
He tapped the top of his whiteboard with his pen. “Grover Cleveland Middle School. Remembered that a little while back.”
You whistled. “Not bad.”
“Hold your applause. Where'd you graduate?”
You leaned back, arms crossed over your chest. “You're giving me the hard ones.”
Grace laughed at the accusation. “Am not!”
“I wanna say… MIT.”
“Is that a guess?”
“I'm saying what feels right. Do you play any sports?”
“No, and I don't need to be recovering from amnesia to know that.”
Your questions went on, quick exchanges tossed back and forth while you worked, ate, or sat in the dimmed mess hall. Some were easier to answer than others, some made your head hurt if you thought about it too long. But for what it was worth, it did help. Being prompted to think about things acted as a sort of trigger. It didn't matter how mundane. Were you a morning person or a night person? What was your favorite food? Favorite color? What shows did you like? What books did you read? Were you allergic to anything? Did you like coffee or tea? It went on for days.
“What do you miss most about Earth?” Grace's voice was soft and tired, muffled by the arm he leaned his cheek against. He was slumped over a table. You had accompanied him in the lab. He said he wanted to familiarize himself with the equipment.
You hadn't caught his question right away. You were leaning on the doorway, staring at one of the viewports. It was the night before your arrival to Tau Ceti and you were running calculations in your mind. “What?”
“Miss most about Earth,” he repeated. His eyes were closed.
You smiled. You thought long and hard for an answer, rummaging through memories as though you were searching for a wrench in a tool drawer. None came up.
“I think you should clock out, Grace.”
He hummed and mumbled what might have been a protest, but got up and dragged his feet back to your dormitory anyway.
You didn't have the luxury of getting your own rooms. The shared sleeping area was made to be efficient with space. With Ilyukhina's quarters vacant, you and Grace had three bunks between you. There was some privacy to spare, but it wasn’t often that you were present in your dorm together. The two of you slept in shifts, knowing it would be better if one of you was awake and could easily act on an issue.
“Good night, Captain.”
“Good night, Doctor.”
You spent the rest of the evening in the Immersion Node. It was a room of average size, wrapped in large LED screens that showed you virtually anything you could come up with. Grace had taken upon calling it the Don't Go Crazy Room, which was technically what it was. He spent more time in there than you did. He seemed particularly fond of the beach scene.
But you, you missed the fields.
The screens, in all their artificial brightness, projected a warm rural afternoon. A soft breeze passed over a long expanse of wheat. It didn't look like it would take long before they were ready to harvest. Clouds speckled the bright blue sky, moving in a gentle crawl, obedient to the direction of the wind. Your chest felt heavy. There was a lump in your throat. You took a deep breath. You sat on the ground with one knee propped up, your wrist resting against it.
When you woke, the field was gone. You opened your eyes leaning against one of the screen-walls. There was a sign blinking at you. Warning: Engine Cutoff. Action Needed.
“Cap!” It was Grace's voice. He was shaking you awake. His hair was a tousled mess and it looked like he'd just gotten up, too. “She's counting down!”
You shook your head. “What?”
“Mary! She's counting down! There's something about the engine shutting off? What do we do?!”
His frantic questions did not go well with Mary's cold and mechanical counting. You got up, wiping your eyes with your thumb and forefinger. Grace followed you with clumsy speed. You climbed up to the Control Room, where you sat in your seat, checking the screens.
“Ten, nine, eight… Pilot detected… seven, six…”
Your brows furrowed in focus. Grace anxiously took the seat next to yours, watching your face, waiting for you to give him permission to panic. “What's gonna happen at zero?”
“Calm down, this is supposed to happen. We're approaching Tau Ceti's orbit and the engine is about to stop.”
“W-What do I do?”
“You give me a minute to think is what you do.” You frowned at one of the gauges. “I'm making sure everything's in optimal condition. Sit tight, Grace.”
He did not sit tight. In fact, he had been freaking out so much that he didn't notice you buckle your seatbelt in. “I just feel like we should be–” Mary stopped talking. The counter had finished. There was a noticeable absence in the ship, like a fan had been turned off. The silence only scared him more. “Okay, what's–”
“You are now orbiting Tau Ceti.”
Grace started floating. He squealed an impressively high-pitched scream and started floating. He grabbed the closest thing he could, which had been the backrest of his seat, but his grip loosened and he was wriggling on the ceiling. The Control Room was thankfully small, and there were not many places he could float off to, but there were plenty of buttons for him to accidentally press.
“Grace. Alright– Grace, calm down.”
“What the heck! What the fudging heck!”
“Give– stop that. Look, breathe. Give me your hand–”
He managed to get himself spinning somehow. He'd kicked a stray pack of peanuts off somewhere and he was hovering further away from you. You clicked your seatbelt off, shaking your head. Grace helplessly called for your name. You pushed off your chair. You caught him, miraculously. But gravity was a tricky thing and the force sent you both spinning for a while. Like a pair of dancers on a music box. Grace clung onto you. He buried his face in your neck as you used your arm to brace yourself against one of the control panels.
“We trained for this,” you grumbled, straining to keep yourselves steady.
“I don't remember that!” His legs were floating up behind him, dragging you both. One of his knees bumped your thigh, then his elbow caught you in the ribs. He immediately tried to apologize and only made it worse by pushing off you too hard, sending both of you drifting sideways in a slow, lazy spin.
“God–” You were getting frustrated. “Grace!”
“I’m sorry, I'm sorry!” He yelped when his back bumped gently against the ceiling. “Mary, turn gravity back on!”
“Request unclear.”
“What? I want down!”
You managed to hook one foot under a handrail and pulled both of you closer to the console. You had bunched up a fistful of his shirt and grabbed him towards you. The motion swung Grace around and he ended up facing you, chest to chest, his nose only inches from yours. His blue eyes went wide.
“You’re doing great,” you said dryly, one arm looped around his waist to keep him from drifting away again.
“I don't appreciate the sarcasm,” he muttered, but his grip on your jumpsuit tightened anyway.
Grace swallowed thickly. There was barely any distance between you by then. He could feel the rising and falling of your chest. Were his ears getting hot? When was the last time he had gotten this close to anyone? It was a jarring feeling and an explosion of sensations. Grace didn't dare name them.
You braced your other arm against the panel and gently pushed off, guiding both of you back toward the pilot’s seat in a slow, drifting arc. Ryland’s legs kept trying to find purchase and only succeeded in tangling with yours. At one point his knee bumped your hip and he apologized so sincerely you almost laughed again.
“I'm gonna sit you down now,” you whispered, for he was so close that there was no need to raise your voice. You were unaware of the chill it sent down his spine.
You turned so that he was beneath you as you floated down. You sat him on his chair, one hand holding his shoulder as the other strapped his seatbelt in. Your eyes were focused on locking the buckles, but Grace was looking directly at your face. Your knee bumped his thigh as you anchored your foot against the deck to keep from drifting away. And when your hands snaked to the back of his waist to secure the strap, his breath hitched.
“Uh.” Grace blinked. He was safe in his seat then, no longer floating. To his horror, he was still holding your shoulders. “Thank you, Captain.”
You laughed. His heart stuttered. “Hopefully that pre-launch training kicks in sometime soon.”
Grace laughed too, but it was soft and nervous. He moved his hands from your shoulders to the armrests of his seat. “Yeah, I hope so.” He cleared his throat. He watched you move to buckle yourself into your chair with ease. “Can we turn the gravity back on?”
Your eyes were on the monitor. Your hands glided across the haptic interface, checking the parameters, one eye on readouts. The ship was still settling into its new path around Tau Ceti, the big main screen showing the slow, graceful curve of the planet below.
“Gravity's not something you turn on,” you said. Your tone was calm again and it soothed him. “We’re in microgravity now because the main drive cut out for orbital insertion. The ship has a centrifuge mechanism, but we only use that when we need stable conditions for lab work. And we need to conserve energy.”
You glanced over at Grace, then threw him a smile. “Besides,” you added, returning your attention to the panel as another status light blinked green, “we’re still adjusting to the new orbit. Spinning the whole section right now would throw off the stabilization thrusters. Give it a few hours. You’ll get used to floating.”
Grace let out a shaky breath and tried to nod, but the motion only made him drift a little in the harness. He caught himself on the armrest, ears flushing darker. “Right. Centrifuge. Cables. Lab work. Got it.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I think I do remember something about a centrifuge, actually. Did you know they used it to make butter in the Civil War?”
You laughed again, which pleased him. And for the shortest while, he thought dying in space might not be as bad as he thought.
