dramalama

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧 23 | she/they | chaotic bisexual dumbass | avid reader | i‘ve never been normal about anything .𖥔 ݁ ˖🛸

[kira-7]

This is a spot from an italian estate agency (we are governed by the right-wing party)

The woman says "Ridiculous..."

If you want to spread it elsewhere, here's the official link

[arctic-hands]

[Video Description: An ad with piano music over it all, showing an elderly woman in her home, knitting, when two younger men walk by her window, which catches her attention. She stares out her window at them as they kiss each other while walking, the old lady staring in disbelief. Cut to the old woman approaching a residence with a broom in hand, staring up at the second floor window where a small rainbow Pride flag is hanging. The old woman stares up at it and mutters "Ridiculo", before getting up on a ladder with her broom to remove the flag. Focus on the flag fluttering to the ground as church bells chime. The scene then cuts to the couple from before, approaching their home with grocery bags in hand before one stops and stares at the second floor, stopping his partner who then drops the groceries as he too stares up. It's then revealed that the small pride flag had been replaced with a gigantic, hand-knit pride flag. It then cuts back to the old woman's home, where a tin of rainbow-colored yarn sits on her table. The hands of the old woman are holding and fondly touching an old black and white photo of two young smiling women, leaning against each other. Cut to the old woman's face as she stares out with a look of happy pride on her face. At the end of the video, the name "Idealista" appears on screen, followed by "buon pride" along with a rainbow. End VD.]

[spaceofentropy]

One correction:

The old lady is not in her home. She is at work. She's meant to be what in Italian is called "la portinaia", aka a cross between a doorwoman and cleaner of a residential building. She's in her small "office" space, at the entrance of the building, from where she can survey the coming and goings of the inhabitants. It's a job that has mostly disappeared, but is culturally very clear to us as having the connotation of "potentially gossipy, one-million-percent judgmental woman who sees everything that goes on in the apartment complex, knows everyone and their secrets, and has Strong Opinions™️".

In this case, thankfully, the Strong Opinion™️ is that those two men are ridiculous with their teeny tiny flag for ants.

[zszsze]

can i come to your house and make you know some information

[ominous-signs]

A french one a friend sent me, we send each other pictures of doors for.... reasons.

The direct translation is "door out of use" and "just like us all", but the french word for "out of use" also means "doomed". So it would be something like "door doomed, just like us all".

Official ominous sign

[certified-door-posts]

certified door post

[13shapeshifters]

ich glaube das wetter hat vergessen dass es bei pride month ums schwul sein geht und nicht darum wie unglaublich schwül es sein kann.

[official-german-gaming]

Visit Original Link

(Ursprünglicher Post von @shrimpleasthat) Hatte spontan mal die Lust diesen Post hier zu vertonen, also hier isser (Musik ist Drought aus Pokémon OmegaRubin/AlphaSaphir)

[langernameohnebedeutung]

Loading screen tip: you can make thunderstorms arrive faster by opening the weather app every few seconds

[burgerdotcom]

reblogs were off

[darlingofdots]

NINA WarnApp: Amtliche WARNUNG vor extremer HITZE! Vermeiden Sie die Hitze und halten Sie Innenräume kühl!

die Hitze: unvermeidbar

die Innenräume: nachdrücklich nicht kühlbar

ich: sterbend

[yujateaandpi]

Shoutout to all the educators who inspire us to love the world even more.

[pineappical]

ACTUALLY heres another one i quickly animated of rocky beating the shit out of grace

[official-deutschebahn]

gumo meine freunde was passiert grade in deutschland gibt mir updates

[official-deutschebahn]

danke !

[ancient-hoe]

Lilith and Eve, by Yuri Klapouh, 1963.

[ratsoupee]

field trip cancelled

Based off hit tumblr post:

[bibigo-lover]

odd reunions.

summary: you wake up late on the hail mary, and grace doesn't seem to remember anything about you—or, your relationship. you don't know how to break the news to him. (a continuation of love hypotheticals, but can be read as a standalone! part iii here!)

pairing: ryland grace x reader

word count: 4.7k

tags: established relationship, hurt/comfort, fluff and angst, temporary amnesia, avoidance, close proximity, awkward flirting, avoidance, tending to injuries, ryland grace doesn't know how to be nonchalant — and neither does reader

cross-posted to ao3

The force with which you slam open the door to Stratt’s office echoes down the hall—loud enough to trigger a couple of security detail officers to rush in behind you. They concede only as Stratt raises her hand up and nods for them to shut the door. Her relentless calm against your impatience only urges intensity. “Send me up. I want you to send me up,” you demand, nails digging into your plans. It’s your first time, after all this time working for Stratt, that you’ve ever been upset at her. It’s a foreign feeling, being so incensed with someone so excessively authoritative.

“Sit,” Stratt tells you. Her eyes are wide despite her well-kept composure; she would’ve expected this from anyone but you—her calm-and-cool documentation specialist. Begrudgingly, chest rising and falling rapidly, you sit. It feels a step down from your initial entrance. A part of you wants to. drag all of her files with thrown-out arms onto the floor—but you know that’ll only make her more bewildered with you.

Instead, you repeat: “Send me up with him.” It was clear to everyone but Grace what was going to happen to him after the accident. When DuBois and Shapiro passed, you had wept to him in his bunk—head rested on his chest as he thumbed the muscle of your shoulder. And, he simply hadn’t known that you were crying for him, too. You loved Grace, even though you’d only just gotten to know him. You’d just gotten to know him, and it was going well.

Stratt is quick to reject your request, you can tell, by the way her lips pucker in dissatisfaction. “You don’t know what you’re asking of me.”

“I know what I’m asking and I want you to do it,” you affirm. “You can say that Grace and Yao and Ilyukhina don’t know two cents about documentation,” It’s a good excuse, and you know it is because you’ve spent the past few hours thinking it up. All Stratt needs to do is feed it to the committee. “DuBois would’ve done that job, bless his soul. I can do it in his place. Same job up there as I do down here, and I’m good—you know that. I can be useful.” Utilitarian, first. You know Stratt well enough to cover all your bases.

Decent justifications. You can see Stratt crack just slightly. She shakes her head disapprovingly, “We would have to recalculate for launch to account for your rations and your belongings. It would take an extra week to account for the extra weight. And you’d have to get fitted for a suit.” With an authority as uninhibited as hers, all Stratt needs to do is say yes. All the logistics are not as much of a barrier as she’s making it out to be.

So, you have to be more point-blank: “He might hate you for sending me up, and for a while, he might hate me even more for making you do it.” That part frightens you more than the act of doing it: Grace’s disappointment seeing you on the same suicide mission that he’s been relinquished to. It’s strange, though, that you haven’t felt more sure about something in your whole life. You want to be with Grace. “He has to go up. We all know it, even if he thinks he’s not fit for it.” You glance down at your lap, and back up at Stratt, “You care for him, don’t you?” 

She’s quiet. You push harder, “I know you do, or you wouldn’t go through all the effort to take care of him. I’m asking you to do this for him. Let me do this. He needs me.”

“You’ve only just met,” Stratt counters. For a moment, she sounds like your mother—scolding you for running away, in some juvenile act of defiance. It’s possible that Stratt cares about you even more than she does Grace. You’ve known her for double the time that he has, and worked with her just as closely. Your most generous assumption of her feelings towards you is that of a caring mentorship.

“And it will have been worth it in the end. You have to believe that.” The last thing you’re sure about is that Stratt has seen you and Grace together from the beginning. How you had liked Grace and Grace had liked you. How you’d kept each other company all of those months. How you’d spend all those dull morning meetings passing notes to each other. How, after one of those wistful karaoke nights, you’d been holding hands at the bar seats—Rylan’s cardigan draped over your shoulders.

It’s a set plan. You’ll be missing on the day that Stratt asks him to go up—some excuse about Yao and Ilyukhina needing your informational support after DuBois’ passing. And, inevitably, when she forces him to go up, you’ll be packing your go-box to be loaded onto the Hail Mary. Grace will run out to the field to evade the anesthetic, and you will be nowhere. In the end, he’d have fought harder if he knew you were planning on going up there with him. 

—

When you wake up from the coma, you’re quick to shed yourself of the plastic wrapping, the intubation, and the rest of the IV and tubing with sweaty, frightened palms. It takes you a minute to orient yourself—dead, black air outside the portholes, the bleak whiteness of the ship’s hull. You’re in a bedding unit on the ground floor, accompanied by the automated whirring of a robotic arm. “What is the capital of California?” the computer repeats, “What is the capital of California?” When you look up, the rest of the pods shut, you know clearly what you have to do. 

“Consciousness detected. User 4,” the computer rattles on as you clamber up the ladder, bare in the stark-white underwear they sent you up in. You remember—Stratt, “not enough time to code your information into the ship’s computer”—as glance down the robotic arm spinning on the floor below. When you climb up to slide each of the coma pods open, with no avail—there’s absolutely no one home—you realize that you must’ve woken up a little late. You have to find him. They must be around somewhere, but it’s all eerily quiet.

The hull of the ship is… not exactly what you remember it to be. You’d done only one walkdown with the rest of the crew, and it never once had anything like this. There are these strange crystallized structures mounted up on the walls, lined with dark geometrical frames. “What the hell,” you mutter. You come up to one of the larger structures in the containment room, and tap your hand on the crystalline surface of it. It’s anything but normal, and still, no crew in sight. You feel like you might be sick from the implication.

It’s not before long that you hear a repeated thunking along the floor just outside in the room over. Before long, there’s a smaller version of the structure hurdling in. You feel your stomach drop at the sight. Inside, there’s some kind of spidery thing making its way towards you, appendages rapping closely against the glass shell to wheel along. It feels like something straight out of Alien, and you’re very sure that you need to start running.

“Oh, no. Nope.” You shoot your arms out, looking for anything to throw. If a bunch of these beings have taken over the Hail Mary, and possibly captured the rest of your missing crew of three… it's awfully neat. There’s nothing on the ground, no signs of struggle, and absolutely nothing to throw.

“Grace. Grace. Grace,” an automated voice buzzes out. What? Your jaw goes slack. This thing knows your boyfriend’s—no, you’re not even sure you’d gotten that far—Grace’s name.

There’s a raspy voice echoing down the hall that’s all too familiar: “Rocky, I said I need an extra hand. You’re not still mad at me about the eating thing, are you?” You can already feel the tears welling up in your eyes. You remember clearly how you let Stratt stick you with the syringe. You’d done it for him, and he’s here—and you’re both here. Everything according to plan. Except the alien, of course. Still, he rolls back and forth, back and forth in front of you.

“Grace, friend awake. Grace, come now,” it buzzes again, pressing up flush against the containment of the glass, as if trying to examine you. “Come, come, come, come…” All things considered, it doesn’t appear that this thing wants to eat you.

You have to cough a few good times, massaging at your throat, before yelling out a crackly: “Grace!” There’s a clatter—the sound of something metal dropping onto the floor, glass breaking. Then, rushed steps. He stands in the doorway, hands locked behind his head, eyes wide with his glasses hanging off the edge of his face. You run straight into him, arms shooting around his waist.

“You’re awake,” Grace says. You can feel his arms wrap slowly around you as you press your ear to his chest. Though, for you, it only feels like a long nap since you’ve last seen Grace, you can’t be sure how long it’s been for him.

Rocky, you remember Grace calling him, rolls toward the two of you: “This is hug, question?”

Grace nods, chin coming up against the top of your head. “Yes, Rock—this is a hug,” he looks down at you, astounded, “And… uh, morning. I didn’t think you’d wake up. System advised against taking you out myself, and—”

You can’t be bothered to peel yourself off of him. “Just be quiet a second, Grace. I’m just trying to soak in the fact that you’re okay.” Before they put you under, you’d considered plenty of scenarios about how he’d react to your being on the Hail Mary when you both woke up. His confusion, a possible hint of anger. Now, he’s… rather pacified. You reach up to run your hands through his scruffy blonde hair, nails dragging it on his scalp. He’s watching you check over his face with intent.

“Oh. This is… nice,” he hums, eyebrows knitted together. You must look strange, inspecting him like this—but for you, on that last day you hadn’t been sure that either of you would get up to space safely. Grace is just as handsome as he was when you left him, and the yellow NASA jumpsuit on him reminds you only of his old raincoat.

You have to tilt your head up to kiss him, and as soon as you get remotely close, he seems to straighten up and away from you. “I’m sorry, I can’t—I’m married.” You retract from Grace stiffly. Was he married? No, that doesn’t make sense; he couldn’t have been married, he lived alone—one ex. He had an ex before. And then, he had you. Grace tells you, “I don’t know why I know that, but I’m very certain about it. In here.” He taps his index finger against his right temple. You have to think it over again.

“Right. Sorry,” you say deliberately. It’s a perfect chance to solve it then and there—Are you? or No, you’re not.—but there’s an obstruction, you remember now, Stratt’s words: He won’t remember a single thing about himself. Echoes, if anything. “I’m just… super happy to see that everything’s doing well,” you tell him, “Just got ahead of myself.” Maybe it’s the easy way out, avoiding the truth of your circumstances and his. It’s too immediate, too real. You can see Grace squeeze his hands together in an anxious kind of manner, how you’d seen him do when he had a time crunch on the project and didn’t want Stratt to be pissed with him.

—

Per your lack of actual belongings, Grace lets you borrow a pair of boxers and a t-shirt of his. In the reflection of the windows, black space and your own silhouette, you have to wonder what just the three of you are going to do. No Yao, no Ilyukhina. News of their passing gives you a bout of nausea, to which Grace resolves with a bottled water and an assurance that their burials were nothing but peaceful. Though there’s a lingering sense of urgency for you to be around Grace, you can’t exactly push it. Married? Grace seems flighty around you within the first couple of hours of your waking up from the coma, like he’s frightened to be caught in the same room as you. When you give him your name, he doesn’t seem to react to it in any way. It’s like some odd fever dream.

You figure it all has to be taken in little by little. The two of you agree to have a bit of alone time—if that’s even possible—in the projection room. Together, the two of you settle on a beach ambience, all fog and homely. For a moment, with the digitalized sound bouncing around the enclosed sphere, you can pretend that the two of you are there, sitting on the sand together with your knees pulled up to your chests. Grace starts. “So, your name isn’t on Mary’s manifest. Are you some kind of stowaway?” There’s a commitment to his words, a seriousness just beneath the joke that makes you pull back an immediate answer.

You can’t even comprehend what Grace might think when you tell him—if he’ll be heartbroken that you’re there, if he’ll be made that you martyred yourself for him. So, you keep it vague: “I thought it best fit for the project to be sent up with the three of you. I’m still shocked that I swung it, but I did.”

“They just let you come up?” His skepticism makes you nervous. Maybe, Stratt was right. You aren’t supposed to be on the Hail Mary, and you never were; you were only meant to document and archive and keep track of the information. 

You run your tongue over your teeth. “No, I mean, I really had to sell the idea.”

“Of you joining the suicide mission.” Him and his stupid logical inquiry. You can only give him a sickly sort of nod, and trust that he won’t dig any further into it. After all, if it was as easy as it was for Yao, Ilyukhina, and DuBois to give themselves up for the cause, it’s not out of the realm of possibility for there to be someone else like them. Grace seems to accept this easily. “And, you and I…?”

Would’ve been great together, given time. And now there is time. Instead, you admit a measly: “We knew each other, yeah.”

“And you know about me. Who I am,” he affirms. Grace isn’t quite sure how to ask you how you know him, what you were to each other—friends, coworkers, or otherwise. 

You shoot for as-vague-as-possible: “I mean, as much as you do. We only knew each other for a very short amount of time.” He looks unsatisfied by your answer, but doesn’t seem to prod any further. To him, you appear just as clueless an agent as he is. Guiltily, you hope that he’ll stay that way until you can figure out how to tell him anything different.

—

You decide to put on a puppet show, laying supine in the little pod with little figurines in your hand. Rocky’s doing: he’s made one little miniature of you and one little miniature of Grace. In front of your face, you dance them along with one another, two geometrical forms moving in unison but unable to join together. You can hear Rocky rolling into the room far before he even enters the room, the bulkiness of his xenonite shell knocking across the ground of the hall. When you tilt your head to look out at him, he’s already well jutting into your sleeping pods.

He asks, “Why hide while Grace working, question?” Right about now, Grace should be doing a couple of extra checks on the Taumoeba, and making sure that the Hail Mary’s trajectory towards Rocky’s ship is still on-point. Which means he’s busy. And you can escape for a generous forty-five minutes before he needs a spare hand.

You have to lock the miniatures away in your closed palm, and slide them just beneath the pillow. You scoff: “I’m not hiding. Where’d you get that from?” You click a button off the side of the pod, letting it extend the bed outwards; as you get up, legs dangling off the side, you can see Rocky roll back slightly. 

He insists: “In bed. Make little noise in corner of ship.” It’s all very matter-of-fact.

“I just needed to take a breather,” you correct. In truth, you are very patently hiding from Grace. It’s a terrible habit now that you know that Grace is a pin drop away from recalling who you are.

Rocky pushes again, “Need meaning of word.”

“Breather, like… there’s a lot happening, and I need to rest for a second and think.” It’s the most clean-cut definition you can think up for Rocky. Though, it omits the obvious: you’re terrified to tell Grace and are perpetually delaying the inevitable.

“Think what, question?” As flatly as his programmed voice seems to ring out, Rocky shows a genuine sort of care that you’d find rare among most humans. You can’t exactly reject his attempts. They’re nothing but good-willed.

It takes you another minute or so of silent deliberation before you can figure out how to seek Rocky’s help without giving away too much. Finally, you offer up a decent, analogous-enough hypothetical: “If your mate—if Adrien had come up with you, left Erid, would you be angry with them?”

Disjointed and with much urgency, he responds: “Not angry. Sad. Very sad. Adrien stay on Erid. Stay home. Journey is too high risk.” His response can only send you into a further state of despondency. Rocky and Grace are more alike than either of them would like to admit. Rocky only affirms what you already expect of his response, and by extension, of Grace’s. He must be able to gauge your panicked reaction in the laborious sound of your breathing and the well-engrained frown adorning your face. “Are you sad, question? Thinking of mate.”

“Something like that.” You smile faintly. The thought of calling Grace that—given your absolute lack of time together—amuses you. Still, it’s an endearing thought. You wonder if he’d be as entertained by it as you are.

“Not familiar with Earth mating traditions,” Rocky reminds you. “If talk with Grace, maybe feel better, question?” Rocky has absolutely no clue.

—

Out of the three of you, you happen to have the least painful injuries after Tau Ceti-E—a couple of tender bruises on your back, and a sprained ankle. As you’re still very much in love with Grace, it feels absolutely excruciating to act casually around him. Him flinging himself out of the ship for the bacteria collector was enough to send you into a panic. And, now that everyone’s safe enough—injuries aside—you fall back into an easy enough routine.

And, it’s not as if he’s a blank slate. He’s still plenty identical to how he was when you first met—intelligent, sometimes klutzy, and prone to curiosity. You flock to him like you did then, on the carrier ship. There’s some instances, you think, that Grace must feel it, too—despite how much he strays away from you.

Like now, as you insist on cleaning his wounds up. Though it’s an easy enough job for the robotic aide, both you and Grace have unanimously agreed to let the system cool down after the obvious intensities of your near crash. So, you’re in the lab, Grace is seated on one of the tall stools, whining as you peel off the old patch off his cheek. “Ow. Ow. Ow.”

“This isn’t going to go any faster with you squirming like that,” you say, discarding the papery adhesive on the counter. The gash on Grace doesn’t look terrible, just scabby around the edges. You take up supplies from the open medical kit on the counter beside you both. Your hand grips his chin as you drag an antiseptic-saturated cotton swab across his cheek. His scruff is rough against your fingertips. “Just stay still and let me disinfect it. You’re worse than a kid.”

“You know, I don’t think you’re wrong,” he responds with gritted teeth. You can tell he’s trying, out of embarrassment, to hold in any further disgruntled noises. “Have you been icing your ankle?”

“As much as I can,” you mumble. You can tell that he’s trying to distract himself, hands gripping the seat of the stool.

Grace hums, “Well, if you need to be off your feet for the next couple of days, I’m pretty sure Mary isn’t going to get any worse.”

You lift the swab off his cheek a moment. “Are you asking me to take a break, or are you telling me to?”

“Whatever you’ll agree to more easily?” Grace grins softly. His insistence is so familiar that you almost forget that the half of him that knows you is missing.

You return the swab back against his wound, and he flinches less intensely than before. Softly, you tell Grace, “I’ll think about being off my feet. Don’t want Rocky waking up to a dumpster fire of a ship—you know how he hates messes.”

It isn’t until the new bandage is on his cheekbone that the two of you, at once, recognize the sort of position you’re in. Grace with his hands grasped tightly around either side of your waist, and you wedged in between his parted legs. You must have failed to notice, and clearly he hadn’t either. You swallow soft, face hot. You can see Grace’s eyes flash down to your lips and back up.

“Thanks,” he coughs out, red-faced, “I better go check on Rock now.” As soon as his glasses are shoved back onto his face, Grace dismisses himself with a beeline towards Rocky. You make sure to step aside, making sure to toss the used supplies into the nearest waste bin, before closing up the kit and tossing it back into its usual drawer. Now, the ship feels exceptionally tiny. You can see Grace press his face closer to the xenonite glass of Rocky’s container. His glasses are fogging up, and you can see through the glass that he’s trying his best not to glance up at your direction.

—

While Grace is occupied with taking care of Rocky, you’ve dedicated yourself to restoring the Hail Mary to her prior state. The cleaning is a decent distraction, and gives you a good chance to survey the ship’s inventory. The cockpit has the worst of it, manuals scattered and screens cracked from the interior pressure. You try your best to order everything back into place.

There's a whiteboard discarded in the flight deck lodged behind the chairs, bent in the middle but still largely recoverable. You pick it up gently, as if recovering some kind of ancient artifact. There’s a couple of phrases at a time scribbled neatly in columns: San Francisco? Good with cilantro. I’m a teacher. You can’t imagine what it must be like to be him—bits and pieces of who he was before the launch, trying to sew themselves into something meaningful. Another column: Notebooks? Sweet coffee, no exceptions. Gorgeous.

There are a couple more identifiable things that sell the understanding that it’s all you. Hometown. The names of cafes and restaurants you liked to go to before the project started. That sells it: this side of the board is all about you—detailing in fragments all the time that you’d spent being together all that time on Project Hail Mary before the launch. How you’d like each other from the start over breakfasts in the carrier ship’s cafeteria. How you’d pass notes across the table during those five o’ clock committee meetings.

Open windows. How you’d kissed for that first time before dinner with the team, in your crammed bunk room. You’d had the windows propped open that night to let the open air and sea mist in; he remembered that. He remembered sentiments about you—but he still can’t quite place your name or your face. It’s you who’s clouding Grace’s brain, and he doesn’t even know it. He thinks you’re married. It’s an educated guess that he’s reiterated enough times to think it’s real.

—

It takes quite a bit of thinking over when you decide to confess. While Rocky shows Grace his ship, you’ve decided to stay back and make sure the Hail Mary is in top shape to get refueled. You come up with the courage while he’s gone, and it’s all plotted out thoroughly in your head:

Grace, I haven’t been honest with you. I need to tell you that I knew you more than I said that I did, before this. I need you to forgive me for what I’ve done, and know that it was the best possible choice I could’ve made—even if you might not agree. And anyway, we’re here now and we won’t be going back, so there’s nothing to be done but be together. 

When Grace makes it back in, suit shedded, he doesn’t think twice to collapse onto the ground of the main hull. You find him like that, knees pulled up to his chest, heavy-lidded eyes swollen from crying. He must know now, somehow, how he got there. And, he must have a sneaking suspicion about how you got there, too. The need for your drawn-out confession has evaded the both of you.

There’s the chirps and ticks of the ship’s machinations, the low hum of the Hail Mary cutting through space, and there’s the sound of his muffled sniffling. Oh, Grace. You’re quite aware of the fact that he can see the soles of your shoes right next to his. Your voice falls lower than a whisper: “Are you upset with me?”

“It’s you. Of course not,” Grace grumbles. You let out a little bit of a sigh—seating yourself onto the ground beside him. He hangs his head, “We’re so not married.”

“In your head, I guess we were.”

“That’s so embarrassing,” Grace groans, palm coming up to cover his face. You have to nudge his shoulder with your own. Not that embarrassing, you want to say—but all too shy to do it aloud. He murmurs, “Why did you do it?”

“It was this or slow death. Living with the fact that I wouldn’t ever see you again.” This is a confession in and of itself—admitting to Grace that you cared about him crazily enough for you to leave the planet. “I convinced Stratt before she sent you up, made sure you wouldn’t find out about it. I knew you wouldn’t want me to do it, and I knew you didn’t have a choice.”

“You knew she was going to send me, and you volunteered yourself up to keep me company,” he repeats back to you. He nods with a sturdy, rasped out “huh.” It’s clear that he’s still trying to settle with the fact that he’s known you this whole time—more than known. Grace rubs his fingers gingerly against his forehead.

“Sure you’re not mad?”

To that, he eagerly shakes his head. “I should be. Selfishly, I’m kind of stoked. I mean, I get you all to myself. That’s, like, the dream. I win.” Grace throws a weak, celebratory fist into the air. You have to stifle a giggle. Yes, this is the Grace you knew. “Obviously,” he says, “you get the short end of the stick.”

“Don’t,” you tell him, index finger pointed. “I’m one-hundred percent where I want to be. It’s you and me, Dr. Grace.”

“You and me,” he repeats. He makes a quick swipe at your hand, lips brushing over your knuckles in a quick kiss. Grace makes sure to hold your hand hostage in his own, and the two of you sit there a while, your head leaning on his shoulder. There isn’t a single bit of assurance that the two of you will be making it back to Earth in due time, and still, you don’t feel much of a need to rush.

[anxiousseas]

Part 2

This isn’t the end of the comic but everything from here will be done in lineart only because coloring and shading a comic to quite tedious

Part 1

[soverdant]

no ordinary love | ryland grace

pairing: ryland grace x teacher!biochemist!reader

genre: established relationship; husband and wife stuck in space (but they don't know that yet;)

word count: 3.2k

author's note: i caved in. after watching the movie, i've also devoured the book and it was SUBLIME (somebody pls get the ken reference) so, yep. took artistic liberty and made it a four-person mission instead of a three-person mission cause y not? took inspiration in the book as much as the movie (such as writing style hehe) this is a more, "you-focused" fic as its the first one in a series im working on. do look out for it:))

summary: you wake up in space without any knowledge of how you got there with two corpses for roomates. and oh, if it's any consolation, there's also another person—just that he's as disoriented and clueless as you are.

°⋆. ࿔*:･ part one of about time | next chapter

"eye movement detected."

you managed to pry your eyes open and immediately get blinded by a too-bright light that felt like it burned down your retinas or may have caused some permanent vision-related problem.

am i in heaven?

you blink a couple times, trying to ease the stinging pain. maybe you were blind. you couldn’t tell. whenever you closed your eyes, you could still see the remnants of the brightness that blinded you as circles and other sort of shape that made your head hurt.

"what is two plus two?"

the voice says again; a computer? or that’s what you think anyway. it sounded like a feminine voice—monotonous, with no emotion. you open your eyes again, now finally less sensitive to the light and look around the room. you felt tubes stuck in all sorts of places, ones you didn’t even want to think about. and you were also, incredibly tired. it felt like you were almost numb, almost. you could still feel things. you were laying in a bed and sort of wrapped in something?

you intuitively felt like you were awoken from a deep, peaceful slumber. but now you’re awake, barely, and vaguely aware of your surroundings. right now, it feels like you're in an oven. no, more like plastic bag. a garbage bag?

you try to move your limbs to no avail. that doesn’t seem right. you try to move them again to have them just freeze up again.

uh oh.

your breathing goes heavy. all of a sudden, you’re hyper aware of the plastic mixed with sweat clinging on to your skin, and the tightness of it makes you feel claustrophobic. the blinding lights, and unsureness of where you were made you panic.

“what is two plus two?” the voice says again.

you pass out.

—

"for your homework, i assigned you to read the tell-tale heart by edgar allan poe,"

you brace for impact,

your students groan,

you wince.

what makes it so hard for students to just read a brief 10-page story for class? hell, even at least try to pretend to be a little bit interested about english literature for even just a few minutes.

the exaggerated groans only grow louder, and you roll your eyes playfully.

“in the first paragraph,” you continue regardless. “the narrator asks, 'but why will you say that i am mad?' what evidence from the text suggests that— “ a knock from the door interrupts you.

it was ryland. some students already started giggling and snickering, lips curving from ear-to-ear. any sort of contact between the both of you always had their best interest compared to any other subject in this school.

you looked at him through the glass in your door as he points to his watch. meeting, he mouths.

“well, um, just stay still for the mean time and do whatever homework it is that you have for your next period until the bell rings.” you say to your students.

you look at back at ryland and just nod, pointing to your table.

“i’ll just get my stuff,” you mouth.

he gives you a smile, a thumbs up, and leans onto the doorframe from outside.

this interaction only made the giggle situation even louder. you look towards you students and place your finger on your lip, trying to quiet them down, but when has that ever worked?

“mr. grace really seems to like you, miss.”

you huff and continue dumping things inside your bag, ignoring the comment.

“i think you’d make a cute couple.” another voice arises from the back.

“they’re married, dummy.” the classroom explodes with laughter. you wanted to laugh too, but had to set a good example and authority as their teacher.

“alex, language.” you say one last time before leaving the room filled with a bunch of immature 12-year olds to see ryland waiting for you outside. you could tell he heard the silly thing because of that cheeky smile he had on.

“they’re right,” he says as you walk through the hallways, placing a quick peck on the top of your head.

“we do make a cute couple,” you furrow your brows at whatever that was. but you’d be lying if you said you didn’t find it funny, cute even.

—

you wake up; still wrapped, still sweaty. you try to move your body again, but now only focusing on your fingers to no avail. having no control over your body parts was such a foreign feeling. that scared the shit out of you.

"eye movement detected." the voice chimes out again. not from a human, you guessed. it still seemed too monotonous and robotic for it to be one. maybe it was a robot.

oh god.

"what is two plus two?"

"ffffrrrr!" that can't be good. was that sound coming from you? you couldn't quite tell.

"incorrect. what is two plus two?"

"foooooooohhr!" you give it your all might into that one syllable word you can’t seem to pronounce all of a sudden. in fact, you found it hard to talk at all. every breath felt so, dry. and when you tried to swallow, it stung.

“correct.”

the bag unzips. now free, you shift around a little, you could feel things now, and even move your fingers after a few tries. you scan around the room for the second time. it looked like a hospital, a fancy one at that. were you in a coma? if so, was the wrapped-up situation really necessary?

you moved your head to the left and see an empty bed. oh. you moved again, to the right side now, and get a clear view of the rest of the room. you see two other beds with what seems like people laying down, wrapped in a bag, just like you were earlier.

oh good.

"body movement detected. what is the square root of sixteen?" the monotonous voice asks again. you sigh. you were getting pretty tired of these questions, and you yourself had so much you wanted answers to. you were also incredibly tired. but you were far too curious to know where you were, how you got here, and where the hell the other awake people were to try and fall back asleep.

you turn your head to the center and see robotic arms reaching towards you. you panic and tried to get out a scream, only to hear a wheeze of some sort.

"whr th hll m i?" you mumble.

"incorrect. what is the square root of sixteen?" it asks again.

"whe-" you took a breath and tried again. "whr the hel 'm i?" better! not sounding very good, but speaking has progressed. 

"incorrect. what is the square root of sixteen?" you roll your eyes.

"foooour!" you answer again, easier this time.

"correct. please remain still."

"wait, wht?" you felt a shrill of panic wash over you as the robotic arms reach towards your body. they removed the tubes, not all of them, however you felt a tiny bit comfortable now.

"where 'm i?" you asked once more, not so fogged up now, and fully conscious of wherever you were. you've also regained control of your torso, and you tried to roll over to only fall, which made you feel winded, knocking your head along the way. “ow-“

your vision turns black.

—

“can anybody give me the answer to question three: what is the difference between an independent and a dependent clause? anyone?” you flail your black marker around, looking for a student who could volunteer.

“first one to raise their hand gets a treat!”

abby raised her hand. finally.

“okay, abby. please stand up,”

“but you said the first one to raise their hand gets the treat?” you sigh. outsmarted by a 12-year old: just a regular day.

“okay, but I need the answer to the question please.” you tried to divert their attention back to the lesson. a student raises their hand.

“miss, I have a question.”

“yes?”

“what’s happening to the sun?” the whole class suddenly had their eyes on you, now more attentive.

“uh huh, this is an english class, not science.”

“but you have a phd in chemistry, right?” a student says. you see some nodding, the rest of them asking what a phd was.

it's biochemistry but, close enough. that was also the reason why you met ryland. you were studying in the same university. ever wonder how a doctorate in chemistry gets you a job as a middle school teacher in english literature? go ahead and call the dean of the first university you've worked for an 'incompetent prick' and see where that gets you.

a job in a middle school teaching a subject you were misaligned with but overqualified to do. but whatever. you've always had a passion for literature anyway; sneaking into some classes while juggling a doctorate in chemistry on the other hand. wasn’t at all bad. the bridging was quite difficult, but you made it through.

"is it true that they're eating the sun?" a student asks.

"well, we can't tell if they're eating it but—"

"my mom says it's a government conspiracy and they’re trying and distract us."

"oh anyway, you should ask your parents about that. not sure it should come from me, you know." you say, heading back to the whiteboard to presume the class.

"but you're our teacher," the noise only continued to grow louder.

you sigh.

"there's so many articles popping about this stuff. and we're not so sure what these are so i can't really give you guys correct information as of the moment, right?" they frown. a good way to distract them from the topic anyway. they were also way too young to be worrying about the possible extinction of humankind and all other species on earth.

"they say the sun's gonna cool down and we're gonna freeze to death and all go extinct," shane, a smarter one adds up.

the students gasp in horror, leaning to their seatmates asking if it was true and having all sorts of questions.

"guys, guys calm down! i'm sure every brilliant mind in the world is working on it. they're gonna-" the ring bells and in a blink of an eye, the ever so worried and panicking students you were facing were fleeing the classroom in an instant.

“tsk,”

—

you wake up, still on the floor. you stay there to feel your body for a bit, also because you weren’t quite sure if you could get back up again, but you could tell that you were much better than when you first woke up.

first agenda was going to be looking for awake people in this room, and to do that you were going to have to learn how to walk.

you crawl and roll for a few minutes, bumping onto the walls and all sorts of things, before getting a hold of your limbs again. something feels off about it; there's a certain wrongness into it. it felt like being on a boat minus the aggressive rocking part, but the ground doesn’t feel as solid. huh. but maybe you were still groggy to a certain extent.

you walk towards the beds of your roomates and see two gray, mummified bodies. you back up to the wall, horrified. you wanted to throw up. there seemed to be no signs of decaying or anything like that, but the sight upset you so much you wanted to puke.

are they dead?

you knew better than to want to have someone to answer that question. you roam around, tears start to blur your vision and you don't know why. you felt that you had a connection to these people, like they were your friends. you just simply couldn’t remember their name. now that you thought about it, you couldn't even remember your own name. you were emotional and confused now more than ever.

after scurrying the room, looking for more things that could answer your questions, you stumbled into a storage room. only about a meter tall, but it looked like it had something that might help you. you were still naked afterall.

even so, you were still wondering where the people were. there are two mummified corpses in this room that looked like they hadn’t been moved by anyone, making you wonder if it was done on purpose or if there was any people to do the job at all.

rummaging here and there, you eventually found what looked like bags that contained personal belongings. four of them. a good sign. you were the third person in this room, as well as the other two mummified friends you had. and so the fourth one must be here somewhere.

you see the lables in each bag, one written in chinese, russian, and the other two in english. you took the english labled bags that read "grace". your name must be grace. but why two bags? weird. maybe there wasn't a fourth person afterall? you thought maybe you just had more stuff than they did. but you remembered the bed.

that only confused you more.

you opened the first bag named grace that you got a hold on and found a yellow jumpsuit with your name on it but also had the logo of NASA?

that can't be right. you weren't an astronaut. you were… you couldn't even remember.

okay, then maybe you were. why would your uniform be in here, though? does that mean you were in space? that's ridiculous.

but oh. that explained the wrongness you felt: the gravity. you shake your head to shake the thought off. ever since you’ve woken up you felt so out of place, so bewildered. why where you naked, why are there bodies of dead people, where the hell were the people? whatever it was and wherever it was that you were, you decided you only wanted an answer to when you got dressed properly.

you hurriedly put on the yellow jumper without much thought. it was quite big but you didn't mind.

a few minutes of mindless exploring, you wandered off into some kind of lab. what kind of hospital made a lab above the patient room? but it was heavily equipped. almost every equipment you could think of was in here: test tubes, pipettes, microscope, even a scanning electron microscope. wait.

"how do i know all these things?" you wanted to cry.

just then, you spot a figure facing away, just a few feet from you. you walk towards it.

—

"hey, jonas, no running down the hall." you say as you pass, walking towards a specific classroom to see a specific teacher.

you open the door expecting somebody for there to be nobody. he must have left early, or had a meeting, you assumed. you took out your phone and typed in something quick before putting it back.

[3:48 pm] you: hey, will be waiting for you here in your room. head's hurting, kinda.

you walk towards his table in the middle of the room, putting your bag on top and sitting down. Then, quickly leaning onto the table to rest your head.

a few minutes in and you swore you could have fallen asleep when the doors opened. you raise your head hoping to see ryland when a lady dressed in black comes in.

"y/n grace?" the woman says with quite an accent. dutch? maybe.

"yes? how may i help you?" you stand up out of courtesy.

"my name is eva stratt. i’m with the petrova taskforce.”

"pardon?"

"the petrova taskforce—"

"yes, sorry, i heard you the first time. petrova as in,"

"as in the infared light extending from the sun to venus, yes. i need your help." you blink. you were quite surprised a person like her would come to you, come here, in grover cleveland middle school, to ask for your help in an international problem you were sure many more qualified scientists were begging to help with.

"me?" you ask, pointing to yourself, even laughing a little, still not quite comprehending the weight of the situation.

"yes, dr. y/n l/n. we need your help. we want you to analyze the dots for us." you smiled at the use of your maiden name—the name on your doctorate, the one that had been so badly stained just a couple of years ago. you had stood your ground on a principle that earned you a reputation so toxic you chose to leave academia entirely. it was simply easier than trying to scrub the name clean.

“sorry, i tought the arclight probe wasn’t returning until..?”

“yes, it returns on the 23rd and we want you to be the first ones to take a look at it.” you wasn’t sure if it was the head ache, but everything coming from the mouth of this lady sounded like a lie, just so ridiculous it didn’t seem true.

"i don't think i should be the one you should be asking."

you quickly grab your bag and walk to the door, trying to get out before the situation get out of hand and get dirty, as what had happened before.

your head still shot sharp pain and you wanted to go home now, to still no sight of ryland.

you impatiently looked out on the sidewalk and pull out your phone to be met with black suvs and stratt behind you. gosh, this woman was so persistent.

"look, i'm sure there are so many people that you can ask that are way more qualified. not me!" she just looks at you seriously, not seeming to budge.

men in suits get out of the vehicle and stand beside the doors now. you felt intimidated, like they were going to just manhandle you into going with them, but you don't back down.

"and, and my head feels like it's gonna explode if i don't get home now, and i can't even find my husband—"

"that won't be a problem." stratt says.

one man opens the door to the suv beside you and you see a ryland, sitting inside, like an obedient child.

"hi honey."

—

"hello?" you say to yourself. It ends up coming out louder than you expected, seeing as the figure turns around and you see a man, a big man, with a very long beard and long, strangled golden-brown hair. He was wearing the same jumpsuit that cut just a few inches below his knee and hugged his figure uncomfortably. he looked quite familiar, you couldn’t point out why, wondering if you only thought so because you were relieved to see another human. but you were certain you knew this man.

still, you shriek.

"oh, no, no, no! i'm sorry!" he says and walks towards you. you had the chance to inspect his face close up and well, he looked rough. your guess was that he might just have woken up just a few minutes before you did and just was not groomed properly or dressed properly for that matter. well, who were you to judge when you were swimming in your jumpers aswell?

"you're awake!" he hugs you in a way that felt familiar. so familiar.

"i was really scared, i thought i'd be left alone for the rest of the mission."

"what?" you ask. you brain just turning into a big pile of mush as you go around and your questions get left unanswered.

"what's your name? i'm grace. or that's what my jumper says anyway. this thing is so small, you know?" grace? Wasn't that also your name? or so you thought? but he couldn't see that it says the same on your jumper. the poor guy was just too excited to be having somebody to talk to.

"i thought you'd wake up sooner or later. i got a look at our other crew mates and they were in bad shape."

"crew mates?"

"yes. and oh, if you didn't already know: we're in space."

next chapter > | series masterlist

[raythefairy]

Thinking about Rocky’s just straight up trauma that no one seems to ever talk about?? Freaking the FUCK out at Grace imitating sleeping before they really had the words to fully understand each other when he barely knew him. Pleading with Grace, turning to hostility in denial, then to offering six year’s worth of his own trip home when Grace tells him he’s going to die in space. The panic, screaming Grace’s name when he’s unresponsive through the excessive centrifugal force scene, his words aren’t even being translated for the audience but the desperation is so strong it doesn’t matter. Putting himself through an atmosphere that is a very, very far cry from what he’s made to live in to save him. All for an alien he’s known for an earth year or so tops, which is so much less for him than for us. Watching 22 of his crewmates die slow painful deaths without even knowing what was happening obviously did a NUMBER on him but god i see no one talking about it

[adverbian-sideblog]

op tags pass peer review

[cctypical]

i actually fucking hate them more than anything else i rewatched the movie this week and. when grace is standing there just STARING at the taumoeba collector WITHOUT A ROPE WITHOUT NOTHING WITHOUT SHIT and like silently hyping himself up to just jump and go for it THE FUCKING REALISATION ROCKY HAS. grace what are you doing. grace what the fuck are you doing GRACE no GRACE. HEY. DO NOT getchyo ass back here right fucking now you are NOT DOING THAT we can try again later you will die. grace do you hear me YOU WILL DIE dont do it don’t do it DONT DO IT. the fluctuation of their pitch and speed and PANIC as soon as they can tell what he’s about to do. the monotone ass NO NO NO NO NO as he jumps for it anyway. the way they hold their breath just waiting for grace to practically die. waiting to be alone again. waiting to be stranded in space AGAIN on not THEIR ship but a completely alien spacecraft they do not even know how to manoeuvre. and then SUPRISE grace is aight. kills him STOP ACCIDENTALLY TRIGGERING THEIR TRAUMA WITH EVERY OTHER ACTION YOU ASS