you have to dress in this style for the rest of your life!
(you do not have to follow the beliefs associated with the style if that style has associated beliefs. The wheel curse does not affect anything like that.)
Warnings: canon violence, canon language, canon talk of death, methods of kill, and angst
Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Criminal Minds. All credit goes to their respective owners. If there is any warnings that exceed the normal death/kills from the show, I will list them. If you’ve seen the show, then it’s the same level of angst unless otherwise stated.
Feedback is gold, and it’s the only currency I take
special thanks to dinahdelightful for a random reblog that made me aware of the and gum088 for making dess a bird watcher :) and to ekko_idk on twitter for making noelle a photographer!
Summary: After Rocky finds out the history between you and Grace, you're forced to address it with the scientist himself when he demands to know who the woman is he keeps dreaming about, but things don't go exactly as planned.
Notes: I ended up not using any actual scenes from the movie because I can't find the actual scenes I need for reference, so I conveniently timeskipped them or changed them a little lol. Like I said before, I'm a professional writer but you won't see any of my extensive editing here. Roughly edited. I didn't intend on making it three parts, but I couldn't help it.
Pairings: Ryland Grace x doctor!Reader
Warnings: Talk of death/dying/impending doom, but Rocky saves the day! A little bit of steam but nothing really happens that's too intense. Angst.
Rating: MA
"A little to the left," Grace advised softly, earning a sharp look from you.
"I am a little to the left."
Grace glanced sideways at you from his place beneath the Petrovascope, narrowing his eyes. "I need you to go a little more to the left. Please. I'm not at a good angle."
"And I'm not a pilot."
"And I'm not Superman. I can't see through the walls of the ship. Please, move a little bit more to the left. I'm sorry, I--"
You heaved a huge, involuntary (and unnecessary) sigh. "Stop apologizing, Ryland. I'm sorry. I'm just... Tired."
Grace's dark blue eyes softened, searching your face for something he couldn't remember. He did that sometimes, as bits and pieces of his memories came back. Like he was on the verge of figuring out exactly who you were to him. A part of him, deep down, still remembered you were being serious if you said his first name. It wasn't much, but it was progress. He knew you'd gone to college together. He remembered going to Dairy Queen once, but couldn't remember any details. He assumed that you were brought onto the mission and became friends after.
How wrong he was.
"...Okay," Grace finally relented with a sigh, turning his attention back to the Petrovascope as you started ever so slowly adjusting the ship's trajectory. You'd been awake for a little under four months now, and every ounce of your being longed for Earth, Earth food, scenery... You missed home. You wished you could have seen your parents one more time. They're probably gone now... You blinked rapidly to banish the thought. You hadn't talked to them in years, but would they wonder why you went on the trip? Would they know it was because of Grace? You missed their house... Most of all, you just wanted you and Grace's apartment back. It was cozy, in its own way.
No, you wouldn't think about just how much you'd lost sacrificing yourself so Grace wouldn't die alone.
Although it felt like you'd already lost him anyway. Every time you looked at him, he was Grace, he was there, but he was so, so far away and out of your reach.
He wasn't unkind to you. He never was. But even with him being kind and generous and thoughtful, he still saw you as a stranger. It hurt your heart.
"A little more... A little more... There there there, stop. Perfect." Grace slid out from underneath the Petrovascope. "I can almost see it. We're in loose orbit, so if we just give it a couple of hours I should be able to see the Petrova line."
"Cool," You hummed, starting to go for the buckles of your harness, "Can I stop being the pilot now?"
Grace chuckled as he pulled himself toward the door. "Yes, you can stop being the pilot now. Do you wanna turn on centrifugal mode so we can walk around normally, though?"
Wordlessly, you did as he asked. As soon as gravity was restored, you made your way to the dorm for some much-needed rest. You were going on sixteen hours of calculations and precise movements, after all. You both cleaned up before going to your separate pods. He'd decorated his at some point, covering it in drawings from the kids and some string lights he'd found of Oleysa's.
Yours was barren. It was a bitter mimicry of your apartments before you lived together.
Well, no, not barren. You'd had Stratt pack a lot of your personal items. The only issue was that it all involved you and Grace. He hadn't remembered enough of you yet for you to get any of it out.
"Y/N?" His voice rumbled from below, quiet in case you'd already fallen asleep.
"Yeah?"
"...Did Oleysa and Yao have one of these bracelets, too?" Your heart constricted as he continued, "'We will always.' It's a little cryptic. They didn't have one on them when they died, obviously, and I don't know if you have one, but... Forget it, it's stupid."
He was entirely unaware of the way you were staring at your own bracelet, a copy of his. Something you'd made for you both in high school after a particularly rough summer with your parents. Figure it out, yours said. Because that's what you two did. That's how you worked.
"...You'll figure it out," You promised dryly. You forced all emotion out of your words, fearful of revealing too much to him yet.
"You think so?" He sounded hopeful. You wished you could share that with him. All you could see was death with the man you'd sacrificed yourself for, and he didn't even know. It made you angry. At Stratt, at the astrophage, at Grace, at everything.
But all you could do was cry. "I know so," You choked out, every syllable fighting to maintain composure.
Grace was nice enough not to say anything about you crying. You were only separated by a thin slab of steel, but it felt like you'd left your Grace back on Earth.
"I don't trust this," Grace sotto-whispered from behind you, his breath tickling your ear, "I don't trust this at all."
You stood before a wooden, shaky bridge. As always, a few of Stratt's agents trailed behind you, politely doing their jobs yet ignoring your obvious PDA. You knew he was exhausted, so you wanted to make this quick. But only a few more days until the launch, and after that you and Grace would have your whole lives together.
It's the little things that matter right now, since you were trapped on a base in the middle of Russia.
"Trust me," You chirped, although you weren't too sure of the bridge yourself. "You always have."
"...You're wearing a dress in freezing weather. I don't know if I trust you anymore."
You couldn't help but laugh. It was a warm dress; long sleeves, a coat, and fluffy boots that the agents had procured for you in return for a few quick checkups on their families for free-- not that you wouldn't do it for free, but still. You'd chosen it specifically for this; and even asked him to go before he'd even changed out of his slightly-formal teacher's uniform-- the only thing he could wear to the formal events that required suits around here.
You took his hand in yours and raced across the bridge, dragging a slightly-afraid Grace behind you. He stumbled and nearly fell as you ran across wildly, a mess of laughter between the two of you as you came to a snowy, secluded outcropping with several telescopes. You raced towards the biggest and pointed at it excitedly. "Look in it! Look!"
"Okay, okay!" Grace laughed as he bent low, careful not to adjust the zoom. The star at the other end should've been bright and beautiful for him. "Oh, wow. It's gorgeous. Is that--?"
"Tau Ceti," You finished for him eagerly, "I found Tau Ceti for you."
He looked up over the telescope, beaming as he pulled you in close for a sideways hug. "It's beautiful."
"It took me all day."
"I figured as much."
"Alllll day."
"Are you asking me for something?"
You hummed playfully. "Mmmmayyyybeee."
He chuckled, kissing you on the cheek. "What is it?"
"Just an answer. Not even a promise. Just a someday or never will be okay."
Grace furrowed his brow, peering over his glasses at you. "That's... Okay?"
"How long do you think we'll be together?" You asked bluntly.
Grace blinked rapidly in surprise, like you'd just sideswiped him. "Forever, obviously." You flushed as he stammered to reword his answer. "Well. Not forever. One day we're going to die. But I mean, all our lives, probably. Unless you leave me, but I trust you. We've already been together so long, it feels like we've already been together for years..." His eyes squinted slightly, accusingly. "Why?"
"So we're going to get a house and a dog like you said, move to the country where we can see the stars, and grow old together?"
Grace wasn't picking up where you were going with this. "That's... That's the plan, why?"
You didn't even brace yourself. You just said it, caution be damned. "Would you want to get married someday?" Grace's jaw dropped slightly. He gaped like a dying fish as he struggled to form a coherent thought. You waved your hands wildly. "Not yet! Not any time soon! Someday, I said, someday--"
"What about next Monday?"
You stopped short, shocked. "...Huh?"
"It's after the launch," Grace explained, looking off into the distance rather than at you. "We'll be free to go. We can go to the courthouse as soon as we get home. Rest after. Then have a wedding. I don't want you to feel rushed, it's just, I've known you since we were getting out of diapers. I don't think there's much more we need to wait for. The sun is dying. The stars are dying. So let's do it." He finally looked at you, dark blue eyes sparkling as he reached into his pocket. "If... If you want to." To your amazement, he pulled out a couple of plain gold rings.
Your eyes met his, astounded. "Grace--"
"I got them earlier. I figured now might not be the best time, but we were coming out here anyway, and--"
"Yes," you blurted, heart pounding against your ribcage. Grace, who wouldn't take risks, who didn't take leaps of faith, was doing this. For you. His only exception. "Yes, let's do it. Let's get married."
Grace beamed at you and pulled you in for an ecstatic, snowy kiss. One of the last ones you would ever share.
You stared at your ring. It was a size too large, so you'd kept it on a cord around your neck. You'd found it in your personal belongings after you'd woken up, with all of your pictures of Grace. You wondered sullenly if Grace would ever remember fully just how close you two were and how close you were to a future snatched away from you. A couple of frozen trees and a preserved puppy couldn't help that.
A part of you wondered if it would be better if he didn't remember. You were struggling as it was, knowing what you'd lost, but at least Grace wouldn't die without anyone he knew (even if he didn't realize it). If he remembered, it might be a little more depressing than what he already knows. It might throw him into a panic, an existential crisis, or worse.
Maybe he'd just fall in love with you all over again.
Maybe it was best he never did.
Maybe you never should have come along in the first place. What if your presence makes everything worse?
A sharp thud from underneath you made you jump, followed by a loud groan from Grace. "Grace?!" You crawled toward your makeshift curtain at the foot of your pod and pulled it away just in time to hear him scrambling out of his bed. He mumbled something incoherent as he stumbled out of his pod, hair disheveled and glasses askew. You stayed in your pod. "What?"
"There was a lady," He slurred groggily, trying to pull himself out of sleep by frantically rubbing his eyes. "She was with me, Y/N. In my trailer, on the base, on the ship, she was with me everywhere. I can't... I can't remember..." Grace wiped his hands down his face before turning a surprisingly accusing gaze on you, brow furrowed tightly enough to crunch the bridge of his nose. "You remember. You know who she was. What was her name? What did she look like?"
Your heartstrings snapped. "Grace..." You'd never seen him so distraught. So angry.
"I remember promising to save her stars, is that why I'm here? I don't even know if I did this for her! I don't have any pictures of her! Nothing!" He took a couple of steps closer, grabbing the curtain when you tried to put it back. "You remember, Y/N. You know who she was. Can you at least tell me her name?"
Your mouth moved on its own for a minute. If he was remembering, that was good, but... But it also meant he'd remember why he was here. You'd have a limited time to make the best of this death mission for him so that when he finally figures out why he's here, it might have less of an impact. But forcing memories on him might trigger it before he can set himself in the mission, before he finds out why Tau Ceti doesn't have a Petrova line. You sat back on your heels and sighed deeply through your nose, avoiding Grace's piercing gaze.
"Why won't you tell me anything?!" His voice cracked. It broke your heart.
"...Because... Forcing you to remember everything can hurt you, Grace. I can't tell you anything unless you remember it on your own." Grace stayed where he was for a moment before throwing the curtain back and climbing back down. You imagined he was probably running his hands through his hair before sinking to the ground. After a moment, you heard the rustling of his jumpsuit as he made his way for the lab. "...Grace..." The swish of fabric stopped as Grace listened. In your lap, you ran your thumb along the edge of the engagement ring he'd given you before launch. Your chest ached with the struggle of keeping your voice level. "She loved you. More than the stars you're trying to save..." Hot tears streaked down your face as you remembered everything you'd given to be with him. To die with him. "...More than life."
He was silent. Then he walked away. Shielded by the blackout curtain, you collapsed in a heap of silent, violent sobs.
SIX MONTHS LATER
"Dirty. Dirty. Dirty. Dirty. Why room so messy, question?"
"Well I wasn't exactly expecting company, was I?!"
"This room for garbage? Eughhh..."
You watched in awe from the sidelines as Rocky, in his xenonite ball, infiltrated the ship in his very polite, but also very blunt, sort of way. A part of you was worried you'd wake up tonight turned to meat paste because he actually was going to vaporize you both, but. Maybe he wouldn't.
You walked around him, utterly transfixed. Rocky paused, standing up straight on his five legs, almost like he was at attention as you circled him. "Y/N interested in Rocky technology, question?"
"Y/N," Grace hissed, "Don't encourage him!"
You ignored him. You felt kinda bad about it, but there was an alien on board the Hail Mary. A real alien. Sure, you'd met him in the tunnel, but to see him here was different. In the bright, sterile lighting of the lab, you could see all of the carven tattoos etched across his carapace and legs. "Wow..." You knelt beside him, aware of Rocky watching your every move. "You've gotta tell me all about these, buddy. If they're not private or anything. And if it's not rude to ask."
"Not rude," Rocky insisted, stamping a foot excitedly. "Whole purpose in shapes. Mmm... Need word..."
"Need word for what?" You tilted your head, investigating one particular mark that looked strangely like the Petrova line.
"Something big Rocky does sometime in life. Happen rare. Very celebrated." He began to slowly tap each of his legs together in thought.
"Accomplishments?" You tried, thinking of your own career. "Something somebody does like, once in a lifetime? Something big you've done with your life?"
"Yes! Y/N understand Rocky better than Grace."
"Hey!" Grace cried plaintively.
You chuckled and shook your head, moving over to the computer to input "accomplishments" into the translator. "Well... I did realize he was pointing before you did."
Grace rolled his eyes. "All of a microsecond before I did."
"What's this?" Rocky rolled into the evaporator when he tried to look at it, backing away rapidly as Grace rushed to keep it stable.
Exasperated, he grumbled, "That's the evaporator..."
Rocky, meanwhile, whirled around to continue investigating. "Rocky will build workshop here. Will need much room for Rocky, and much less space for Grace."
You scoffed, aghast. "What about me?!"
Rocky paused, as though considering your request, then turned toward the wall. "Y/N can have more room than Grace. Realized Rocky was pointing first."
"Hah!" You grinned triumphantly at Grace, who only rolled his eyes again.
"Can you go see what he destroyed on his way up here? Please? I heard some glass break and I couldn't stop to look."
"Yes, peasant." You mocked, and all but skipped away.
You and Grace were doing a bit better. He stopped bombarding you for answers when he realized you truly weren't going to give him any, and ever so slowly remembered that you two had known one another a long, long time. He remembered living together, at this point, but not that you were the lady he was dreaming about. He thought she was someone he'd met on base, because he still thought that Stratt only sent you too because she recruited you both at the same time.
He still didn't remember loving you. He was fully convinced you two were just roommates.
You put up some pictures of you two now, adding a bit of color to your sleeping pod; but you kept the pictures of you kissing or cuddling tucked safely under your bed still. It still hurt. It didn't make it any easier to know that your Grace was still lost in there somewhere. But piece by piece, he was coming back to you.
Slowly.
Rocky ran past you like a steamroller, Grace hot on his heels (Would you call them heels?). "Rocky! Wait! You can't just modify Mary!"
"Rocky will get belongings!"
You couldn't help but smile to yourself as they ran by. Well. Guess you'd just have a new friend now.
It's been a week or two since Rocky's come aboard, and you are holed up in your sleeping pod, running some experiment models before you try to sleep for a bit. Grace was still in the lab. For these last couple of days, you'd been switching shifts while trying to calculate the best possible route to Adrian. It seemed to be the best course of action to give you both ample rest. Rocky would roll back and forth, intent on watching whoever was sleeping at the time to keep them safe.
You heard the rumble of his ball into the dorm and smiled softly to yourself, anticipating what was coming next. "Y/N still using human thinking machine, statement." The musical notes rose softly behind the sounds of Rocky's translator. "Time sleep, time sleep. Human stupid when no sleep."
You chuckled to yourself and leaned out of your bunk, checking the loading screen with a frown. It still had halfway to go. "I've gotta wait for it to finish loading before I can turn it off. Then I'll sleep, I promise." Your wedding band swung out from under your tank as you leaned down, and hurriedly, you stuffed it back in your shirt, glancing around for Grace. Thankfully, he was nowhere in sight.
"Ooh," Rocky perked up, standing straight on all his legs. "Y/N wear metal, question? Why hide? Is private?"
"Uh..." Of all things, you hadn't guessed Rocky's curiosity would be your issue here. "It's a human thing."
Grumbling with frustration at your hesitance to answer, Rocky began to roll away. "Rocky will ask Grace."
You all but fell out of your bunk with how quickly you flailed out of it. "Rocky! Wait! I'll explain! Don't tell Grace!"
Rocky paused, confused as he turned to stand in front of you. You sat cross-legged on the floor, taking a deep breath as you tried to figure out the best way to explain it to him. "Y/N don't want Grace to know, why question?" He kept his vocals low, like he was whispering. You appreciated that.
You ran your hands down your face. "...Your mate, Rocky. Do you have... On Erid, do you guys have some kind of official bond to make everyone know you two are mates?"
Rocky tilted his carapace, clicking his fingers like he was thinking. Then his claws found a teal patch of rock on his shell, right near one of his elbows. "Yes. Exchange piece of carapace. Vow to stay together."
Grief tugged at your heart. You can't imagine being in Rocky's metaphorical shoes... Although really, you kind of are. Except that you didn't have to watch your crew's corpses in the hopes that they would wake up, and your "mate" has been with you the whole time. You pointed to the teal piece of his shell. "Humans have something like that. We call it marriage. We exchange rings to let everyone know we're spoken for."
Rocky gasped quietly, in awe."Y/N marriage, question?!"
"Not quite," You bit your lip until you tasted blood, fighting waves of memories that you'd tried to block until Grace remembered them first. Memories of laughter, of soft stolen kisses in the snow, memories you'd done everything in your power to ignore. You took a deep breath. "Well... Uh... We'd never got to the ceremony. We were forced onto the mission..." You realized your slip-up as it came out of your mouth and corrected yourself sloppily. "I had to go on the mission."
Rocky took a couple of steps closer, his translated voice surprisingly gentle. "...How long you with mate, question?"
You started picking at the fraying ends of your bracelet, trying not to choke on half-formed sobs. "All our lives. We were friends first. We were just friends for a long time. And then... Then the sun started dying. We realized we didn't have long left. So we promised to build a life together." Shaking your head, you looked down at your hands to try and hide the tears that fell of their own accord. "We didn't get to."
Rocky was silent for a few moments, processing all of the information you'd just told him. "Rocky... Sorry. Rocky sure you will be able to when you get back to Earth!" Ah, yes. Neither you nor Grace had the heart to tell him yet that it was a one-way mission.
A bit more aggressively than necessary, you wiped your tears away with the backs of your hands. "Thanks, bud."
Rocky clicked his fingers together again. "Y/N say that we had to go on mission." Oh boy. You should've known he'd catch your slip-up. You have no way out of it, now. You can only hope the alien can keep a secret. "Who we?"
Down the hall, there was a crash from the lab, followed by a hurried, "I'm okay! Just dropped something." Briefly, Grace came into your view as he picked up the scattered mess of tools he'd just knocked over.
As though understanding something, Rocky slowly turned to face you and dropped his sensor in astonishment. "Is Grace Y/N mate, question?!" He whispered it. Thank God.
But you couldn't lie to him. You resigned yourself to your fate, prayed you weren't doing the wrong thing, and nodded. "Yes, but--"
Panic set in as Rocky frantically began to roll toward Grace like a kid tattling on somebody. Your heart dropped. "Grace! Grace!"
You snatched his ball as Grace whipped around, concerned. "What is it, bud?"
"Rocky," You urged softly, "You cannot tell him. He doesn't remember. He has to remember on his own or it could hurt him, okay?"
Rocky whirled on you. "Hurt?! Bad?!"
"Yes. Bad."
"What is it?!" Grace rushed into the room, disheveled from clearly destroying by accident. He realized you were standing there and furrowed his brow, confused. "Why aren't you asleep? What's going on?"
Rocky, struggling to process this information, looked back and forth between you both wildly. You minutely shook your head, begging him not to say anything. "Uhhh... Uhhh..."
"Rocky?" Grace pressed, hands on his hips. "You alright, bud?"
Rocky threw two of his "hands" up and rolled away frantically. "Nothing! Rocky keep secret! Rocky not say anything!"
Grace watched him leave before whipping back around to you, pointing to the retreating alien accusingly. "What'd you say to him to make him freak out like that?"
You shrugged, trying to play it off. "He asked me a question, I answered. It was personal."
"Personal?" Grace arched a brow, disbelieving. "You told an interstellar alien something personal that made him lose his marbles and eject from the conversation?"
You shrugged again, pointing to the mess of a lab behind him. "Well, I see you decided to redecorate the lab."
Grace's shoulders slumped. "I knocked over a toolbox. I hoped it wouldn't wake you up, but I guess not."
"I never fell asleep, to be honest." You reached into your cot and pulled out the tablet, checking that the status was fine before shutting it off. "I'm too awake to sleep now. Let me help you clean up the lab."
Grace shot you a curious look over the gold rims of his glasses. "You aren't going to lie down, at least?"
"Nope." The adrenaline-inducing panic of almost destroying the entire social status of the ship kind of ruined that, you wanted to add. But you didn't, obviously.
After helping Grace clean up the lab, you noticed Rocky huddled by himself in a corner, watching you two. You approached him cautiously, honestly scared he might run away again. "Rocky keep secret," He whispered conspiratorially, but a little too loudly. You hurriedly shushed him as he added, "Grace will remember! Rocky have faith."
His voice, right behind you, made you jump near clean out of your skin. "'Grace will remember' what?" You spun around and came face-to-face with his chest, backing up rapidly when you realized just how close he was. Judging from the sharp look he was flashing between you both, he was very not happy about being kept out of the loop.
Understandably.
"What will Grace remember?"
"Grace mate," Rocky piped up helpfully. Or, he probably imagined he was quite helpful.
"My mate?" Grace echoed, turning his full attention to you. "Oh, so you mean the lady I can barely remember and keep asking you about, but you say you can't tell me who she is because it'll fry my brain or something? But you can tell the first alien you see, is that it?"
"Grace--"
"Rocky leave before Rocky tell." Wise decision on his part, really. You wanted to follow him, but Grace had backed you up against the xenonite enclosure and you didn't really have anywhere to go.
"Grace, what?" He huffed, crossing his arms over his chest as he glared down at you. "Grace, I can't tell you because it could hurt you? Grace, I just can't tell you? Grace, I'm making up every medical excuse I can not to tell you what I remember because the conversation is uncomfortable?" You very, very rarely saw him as snarky as this-- and he wasn't even being loud, or mean. He never was when he was pissed. The last time you saw him like this, he'd just called his superior a waste of carbon. "How about, Grace, I'm going to tell you what happened because we're in the middle of space, this can't possibly get any worse than it is already, and you deserve to know what's going on." He took a couple of steps closer, making escape impossible unless you climbed over the xenonite. Which, you were about to.
Plaintively, you held up your hands. "Listen--"
"No, you listen," Grace interrupted, "Let's finish up what we're doing and get some rest. We can go to the mental health bay and talk about it. You can't avoid this conversation forever, Y/N. I deserve to know who she is."
Surely, there was something that could get you out of this. Maybe if you pulled up a medical list of reasons why forcing a person with amnesia to remember things isn't a good idea, you could convince him that it really isn't worth it. Maybe you can get around the fact that you don't want to tell him because if he remembers what you two almost were, the life you almost had, the life you gave up to be with him in death... His deep blue eyes bore into yours, waiting for an answer.
If he remembers, it could entirely throw off his concentration on the mission to Tau Ceti E. It could ruin his drive to save Earth and Erid. But... If you got everything together, all your pictures and letters to each other and mementos... You'd figure it out. Yeah. You'd help him remember, then you'd figure it out. But what if he only sees me as a friend now? What if he doesn't want the love part anymore?
"Tomorrow night," You offered, catching yourself moving your fingers like Rocky moves his claws when he thinks. You squeezed your hand to stop it. You didn't realize you'd picked up on his mannerisms already. "Let me... Let me get some stuff together. I have pictures and notes and stuff."
Grace pulled his glasses to hang off of his right ear. His hands found his hips as he nodded meaningfully, a few crazy tufts of his dark brown hair bouncing against his forehead as he did so. A breath of relief left his chest, like he'd been holding it. "Okay, fine. I'll take it." As he turned away, he shot you a meaningful look over his shoulder. "We can meet in the mental health bay. Maybe put on a forest ambiance or something?"
"Sounds good," You squeaked. It didn't. It really didn't.
Now you either had to think of a way to get out of that awkward conversation and showing him all of the pictures, or you just had to face the music. You weren't entirely sure you could do either. Maybe you should just eject yourself from the airlock instead. You glanced over at Rocky, who was peering around the corner curiously. Enthusiastically, he gave you a thumbs-down (thumbs-up, for him). "Rocky have faith."
Good.
Because you certainly didn't.
You sat on the metal grate of the mental health bay, trying to fight your trembling hands as you stared at a field of wheat. The fans hidden in the walls projected a light breeze, tinted with the scent of something that could mimic summer on the American plains. It really was nice. It was the closest thing to Earth you'd ever have again, so, you supposed it had to be nice.
You folded your hands together on the small box sat in your lap. It contained everything you had that might make him remember who he is to you. What you were to him. God, you're so nervous right now. You take a deep breath when you hear his footsteps coming. Please, let this go well. Rocky had the good sense to stay in his habitat, working on some experiments of his own. You're more than certain he's probably listening, but at least he's pretending not to.
Grace enters the room quietly, like he's trying not to scare you. "Hey," He says softly, and remains where he is for a moment. You brace yourself with one final breath (perhaps your very last) and smile awkwardly at him. He's wearing his white flight suit. He stuffs his hands in his pockets as he surveys the pretend fields of crops. "You're really tense, you know."
"Am I?"
"I can see you shaking." Grace watched you carefully before furrowing his brow. "You act like I'm gonna throw you out of the airlock if I don't like how this goes."
"You might."
Grace sighed, shaking his head, as he turned to the control panel and started flipping through options. The beach, which he surprisingly skipped. A moonlit forest. A mountain lake. He eventually landed on a pub. Soft, slow jazz music filled the air. Grace stopped. "Ooh. This one's nice." You fought a smile. Leave it to Grace to try and make something as comfortable as possible for everyone but himself. You're sure he would've preferred the beach. The lights dimmed to a soft, sleepy yellow. It felt like you were relaxing at an out-of-the-way pub in the 40s. The smell of old peeling paint, stale coffee, and cheap wine trickled out of the vents. It was comforting.
Grace was very full of surprises tonight. He leaned down and grabbed the box straight off of your lap before you could protest, setting it aside and out of the way. He grabbed you gently by your wrists and started pulling you to your feet. "You need to relax. If you're going to tell me news so horrific that I'm going to throw you out of the airlock, you need to tell me calmly. Maybe I'll be generous and not kill you."
"I am calm. I am definitely calm."
"Sure. I'm also the pilot of this ship."
"Well... Technically I mean, both of us are the pilots now..."
Grace made a face that said you were definitely joking about that subject too soon. He looked around at the fuzzy, floating lights of the out-of-focus pub. "Should we dance?"
Your heart jumped into your throat. You two used to slow dance all the time. At first it was for practice for his faculty events, where you'd always be his plus one, or vice versa. Then it was to relax after long work days, or just to be close to each other. But why not? The music was right. The mood was kind of okay, your heart was just about to leave your chest; not a big deal AT ALL.
Grace wrapped an arm around you with a bit of awkward finesse. He knew what to do, but his hand shifted for a moment before resting on your lower back like he was unsure where to put it. Like a well-oiled machine, your other hands linked with muscle memory alone, resting between your chests. Slowly, your bodies started to sway along to the drifting tunes of the jazz playlist.
Your mind, however, went somewhere else.
Your last dance before the explosion that caused all of this.
You and Grace were in your small trailer, dressed for a date you could never officially go on. You couldn't exactly leave base, but this was a celebratory dinner for just the two of you anyway. You were getting married in five days. What's not to celebrate? You wore something simple but nice, and he wore his teaching uniform-- he didn't exactly get to pack much else that was formal. He held you close, lovingly, like you meant the whole world to him. Like he couldn't get you close enough.
Grace's deep blue eyes locked on yours, filled with something like adoration. Like this dance was making him feel more than he remembered. "How long have we been friends, again?"
Deep breaths. Honesty is key here. Rocky have faith. This is the man you grew up with. He is most definitely not going to kill you. "We went to the same kindergarten." He nodded, urging you to go on, but his gaze trapping yours felt intense for some odd reason (it's not like you're going to tell the man you're in love with that forgot you that you were going to get married. No biggie.). You averted your eyes. "We quite literally grew up together. Every minute of every day, you were there."
Grace didn't seem fazed. "I pieced that one together. Mostly. I still don't remember everything." Good. Progress. Slow, but progress. For you, anyway. Lord it is hot in this room. Are you sweaty? Can he feel your hands are sweaty and still very much shaking?
Grace let his forehead fall against yours. "Crazy, huh? We're getting married? I didn't see that coming."
You tried, and failed, to suppress a giggle. "How is that more surprising than the sun dying?"
The memory seemed to echo in the mental health bay, like it was playing over the speakers. God, you just want to go curl up in your pod and avoid this. "Can't I just like... I don't know, write you a whole letter explaining everything instead and go on a spacewalk for a few hours?"
Grace chuckled at the preposterous suggestion. "What are you going to do on a spacewalk for hours?"
You stammered helplessly for a minute. "I... I-I don't know, I'll find something to do. I-I... I'll--"
"Figure it out?" He challenged softly, giving you pause. He said it pointedly. Meaningfully. Or were you imagining it?
Using only your eyes, you risked a glance up at him. Grace was staring at you, like he was scrutinizing cells under a microscope. He might as well have been.
Grace hummed thoughtfully as he leaned down to kiss you. "Yes. It's much more surprising."
You swallowed hard as Grace let go of your hand to push your sleeve down, pulling your half of the bracelet pair out of its hiding place pointedly. He wasn't looking at it. He already knew what it said. "Why'd you lie to me about the bracelets?"
Your heart fell. You'd hoped he'd have forgotten that. "I didn't think you'd remember we'd known each other that long, and I didn't want to freak you out."
"What about when the sun dies noticeably, Grace?" You whispered against his lips between kisses. "When the ice starts, and the food disappears, and everyone starts fighting?"
Grace half shrugged, making a point to tap your bracelet as he helped guide your arm around his neck. "We'll figure it out, remember?"
"Yeah. Guess we will." You smiled, utterly gone. You were over saturated in love, drowning in it, surrounded and smothered by this man's very presence alone. You leaned into his lazy kisses with hearts in your eyes as you leaned against him. "I love you, Ryland."
Grace let go of you like you'd suddenly caught fire, making you freeze. He took a few steps back, blue eyes wide as he silently took you in like he was seeing you for the first time. "Oh my God."
"What?" You squeaked, not daring to move. Don't throw me out of the airlock. He never would. But you had to have humor somewhere right now.
You could see his brain short circuiting as his hands flew up to his hair. He turned around and paced a few steps away. Very... worrying behavior to say the least. He stayed like that for a minute as your mind raced, raced back to the last time you'd seen him as himself, as your Grace and everything went so, so wrong... That night... That dance...
You two were a laughing mess as you fell back onto the bed in a heap. Grace was careful not to put his full weight on top of you, but ensured the kiss never broke. "God, I love you," He breathed, shrugging off his jacket.
Before you could blink, Grace whipped around and rushed to you, his hands finding your shoulders, elbows, face, like he wasn't sure what to do with himself. His eyes darted across every detail of your face, like he was trying to memorize you in real time. "Y/N," He tried, voice catching, "You... I..."
You waited. A bit impatiently, but you waited. "What?" You asked again, a bit more carefully.
Grace kissed you. Not sweet or slow or gentle, like you expected to happen, but like a man starved. You froze entirely, despite this being the man you were going to marry. Did he remember? Or did he just decide to kiss you anyway? He had to have remembered, right? You were overthinking. Genuinely, seriously overthinking, because the second you started to reciprocate it, he answered with deeper, more frantic kisses so strong you were sure they were going to bruise your lips.
"I missed you," He managed, wrapping his arms around you to pull you close. "I missed you so much it hurt to breathe, and you were right. Here."
"Grace," You sobbed, heart clenching tightly in your chest as you threw your arms around his neck. He's back. He does remember. Your Grace is back.
Outside, lightning flashed. Odd, it was winter here. It might not be the right time, but it was weird. Breathlessly, as your fingers tangled in his hair, you managed, "Was that lightning? Here?"
Grace walked you backward without breaking apart until your back hit the wall. "I should be mad at you," He hissed, hands trailing fire down your arms, back, stomach, anywhere he could reach.
"You should," You agreed, wholeheartedly.
"You know what," He added, grasping for the zipper of your flight suit, "You're right, I should throw you out of the airlock."
"I-I'd probably agree to that right now too, honestly."
Grace trailed the kisses across your jaw, down your neck. The misplaced lightning was instantly forgotten. "I really do not care about that right now." He pushed the hem of your dress up, finding the crook of your knee to pull your leg over his hips. "Neither should you."
"I should hate you a little bit," Grace managed roughly as you worked on his own zipper. "Just a little. For like five minutes. After."
"Hate away," You replied, still stunned from the rapid turn of events and not at all completely coherent. He started to pull your suit down your shoulders, but paused. His fingers had caught on the chain around your neck, the one that held the engagement ring hiding under your tank.
Oh dear. "Grace--"
Grace yanked the chain up, revealing the ring. Recognition flashed across his face. Disbelief, confusion... Anger. His eyes flicked up to meet yours as he stepped back, leaving you feeling cold. "You weren't a part of the crew."
The windows burst inward, shattering and sending glass shards into your skin. Grace cried out, covering you as best as he could as the glass skipped across his back. Dust and debris flooded the trailer. You're pretty sure you screamed.
"Grace..." You could smooth this over. Definitely. The heat had died and the mood was unbelievably ruined, but you could fix this, right?
"Are you okay?! Are you okay?!" Grace felt you all over, checking for serious injuries the best he could. You both were on the floor. You'd been on the bed, how did you get here?
"I'm okay," You choked, scanning Grace for any injuries. Your brain took on hospital mode, and suddenly Grace was a patient instead of your future husband. Neither of you could hear very well, ringing in your ears and head as you tried to assess the damage. "Let me see your back.
"You weren't part of the crew," Grace repeated, voice falling as the realization hit him. He stumbled back a step. "There was an explosion. The lab. DuBois and Shapiro were vaporized."
A chill settled over you as the memory of racing for the remains of the lab with Stratt and Grace flashed vividly before your eyes, moments before everyone was separated and dragged to different bunkers in case of an attack. The last time you would see Grace until you woke up on the Hail Mary, he slipped you your engagement ring and told you he loved you.
And now here you were.
"No," You admitted finally, "I wasn't."
"Stratt asked me to go instead," Grace breathed, and a hole filled your chest. Stratt had told you everything she and her men had done in great detail, giving you all the information you asked for. Grace didn't remember any of that still. How he was forced on board, chemically restrained... He still thinks he chose this. "I must've... I must've went, obviously, but... You..."
Grace looked like he was going to be sick. He stumbled again as he backed away from you. "I told Stratt not to bring you into this. I... I told her to give you the means to buy that house..."
It seemed to dawn on him then.
The fatal reality of what you'd done.
"You chose this?"
"Grace--"
"You chose this?!" You hadn't heard him yell in a very, very long time. And certainly not at you.
"Ryland--"
A shadow fell over his face, his eyes darkening. "Don't 'Ryland' me, Y/N, you chose this! You chose to follow me-- you-- why would you do that?!"
You flinched, staying where you were as Grace stormed out of the room. The soft jazz took on a bitter light now as you hesitantly followed after him, the harsh light of the dorm making you wince as you stepped out of the mental health bay. "Grace," You choked back a sob, vaguely aware of Rocky entering in his ball, as quietly as possible.
Grace whirled on you, tears streaming down his face as he grabbed you by your elbows, tight enough to bruise. "WHY?!"
"I couldn't let you come alone!" You screamed back, letting the sobs come.
"You could have lived a normal life--"
"Not without you!" You couldn't. You died when Stratt told you he'd be gone. "I couldn't stop thinking about you dying up here alone, starving to death by yourself, I couldn't, Ryland, I can't live without you."
"Die?!" Rocky gasped, inserting himself. He went ignored for now, which hurt your heart, because the panic in his voice made you cry harder.
Grace shook you-- not hard, but he was definitely angry. Tears streamed down his face. "Why?! Why would you do that for me?! I would've been better knowing you were safe, Y/N, and now I have to watch you die! I have to watch the woman I love die, and there's nothing I can do about it! Why would you do this?!"
"Because Stratt asked me if I wanted to go, and the thought of a life without you was worse than the thought of dying with you!" You countered, shoving him with all of your strength; not that he budged at all. "Stop shaking me!"
Rocky saved the day, rolling between you two with the force of a steamroller that forced Grace to release you. "Stop fight! Stop! Warning!" He brandished one arm like a scorpion, striking the air in Grace's direction. The teacher turned away from both of you, hands tangling in his hair as he tried to breathe evenly. "Why mad, anger question?! Rocky mate on Erid. Rocky not see mate in 46 years. Rocky would give anything for mate to be here. Better together. Alone bad bad bad. Sad, statement. Better together anyway." Rocky stomped his foot several times. "What mean die, question? You lie?!"
"We... we lightly veered away from the truth," you managed through the tears you were trying to calm. "We didn't want to scare you, Rocky. I'm sorry."
Grace inputted then, reluctantly turning around with his hands on his hips. "We had enough astrophage to get here, but not enough to get home." Grace leaned down to address him on his eye level as Rocky worriedly stomped. "Look, we got to meet you, we got to do all this amazing stuff--"
"No," Rocky protested, shaking his carapace like one might shake their head. "No, no."
"I had made peace with it," Grace pointedly shot a glare your way.
"What mean? What mean make peace?!" Rocky was visibly distressed now, staring hopelessly at Grace.
"It means..." Grace searched for the right words, "It means I know I'm not going home. I know why. And it's okay." It was a front, you realized. He was putting on the same brave face he put on for his students when he told them about astrophage even though it was tearing him up to imagine them dealing with the effects of the sun dying. Rocky didn't move, didn't say anything. Grace experimentally lifted a hand for a thumbs-up. "Thumbs up?"
"No."
"Tiny thumbs-up?"
"No."
Grace's breath hitched as he stood up. "Come on. We've got stars to save." You stared hopelessly at Grace. He wouldn't even look at you now, which tore your heart apart. "I need space for a few minutes, though," He said, hanging his glasses on his shirt. "I'll be uh... In the cockpit. But I need a minute. I need to process." Grace turned away, a heaviness clinging to his shoulders that he tried to hide from Rocky.
"Grace?"
"Yeah?" He paused, putting on the facade again.
"You Y/N are..." Rocky stomped his foot in frustration. "Need word."
"What word do you need?" You rasped, leaning against his enclosure.
"To risk self? To help other?" Rocky tried.
"Dumb?" Grace scoffed meaningfully. You narrowed your swollen eyes at him as he made his way to the computer; just barely, you saw the word he typed into the translating system.
Brave.
You sank to the floor as Grace made his way into the hall, trying to swallow your ugly sobs into silence. This had gone exactly as badly as you'd anticipated. Your entire chest hurt as you struggled to contain your grief for your life lost that you could now openly mourn, and for what would surely be the biggest argument you two would ever face.
Rocky lightly tapped one of his legs twice, fingers twitching rapidly as he moved closer to you. "How much astrophage you need, question?"
Grace stopped at the end of the hallway, reaching up to lean against its frame. He didn't turn around as he answered, a resigned sigh escaping his lungs. "2 million kilograms."
You wiped your face with your sleeve, taking a shaky breath as you composed yourself. You thought of the frozen dog and realized that even if you did unfreeze her at any point, she'd starve just like you two would. You weren't sure if you could subject her to that, but you wondered if there would be any way to grow some of the seeds from the vault. But even if you could bypass starvation, the ship would eventually run out of power, and then life support. You faced a painful--
"I can give." You froze at Rocky's words. So did Grace. Rocky looked between you two (or, it appeared he did), tapping his claws as he awaited your answer. "I go home six years slower."
"That's too much," Grace managed, voice strangled. You heard it, though: Hope. You didn't dare speak, not trusting yourself to keep from bursting into tears again.
As though to emphasize his point, Rocky used the handholds in his xenonite enclosure to come closer. "Rocky watch crew die. Could not fix." Your head fell forward as the sorrow clinging to his words ripped a choked sob from your throat. "Grace say Grace Y/N will die. Rocky fix." Grace emerged from the shadows of the hall with tears streaming down his face. Hopeful. Scared. Rocky tapped the xexonite pointedly. "Grace Y/N go home."
Silence, broken by half-stifled crying, filled the room for a moment. "Okay." Grace finally said, his trembling legs giving out as he sat down on one of the metal chests. His hands found his face as he bit back tears that came anyway.
The house. The dog. Trees, rain, wind, the wide open sky, home. You can go home. You can have the life with Grace you always wanted. But Rocky will go back slower. He's giving six years of his life for you. It hurt. There was no easy way through this. "Rocky," You breathed, and he turned toward you. You couldn't find the words, you couldn't make yourself talk to this alien who was giving a chunk of his life to save you two.
"Thank you," Grace choked, finishing your attempted gratitude for you. It felt like a very small, very weak thanks in the face of what Rocky was doing for you.
"Oh, Hail Mary," You breathed, not hailing the ship but the old life you left behind on Earth, echoed by your parents when something truly incredible or unbelievable happened. Words you said shortly before giving up life on Earth for the man you loved.
A beat passed, then another. Both of you were still crying, but neither of you had moved. "I thought Grace made peace, question?"
"I didn't mean any of that," Grace admitted with a dismissive wave of his hand. "That's just something you say." Grace heaved a shaky, teary breath. "Thank you." His deep blue eyes found yours, this time without the vague recollection and straining to figure out who you were. He knew exactly who you were now. He adjusted his arm slightly and you knew instantly want he wanted.
Without hesitation, you launched yourself across the space between you and threw your arms around his neck as he closed his arms around you in a tight embrace, burying his face in the crook of your neck. "I love you," He breathed against your skin.
"I love you too," You managed before letting your sobs loose into his shoulder. Home, home, home. You don't have to die. You can go home.
Your embrace only lasted a moment before Grace had another idea. Shifting away from you, he kept one arm around you while he threw the other one around Rocky's xenonite ball with a hoarse laugh. "Come here." You followed suit, extending an arm around the other side while keeping a firm hold of Grace with the other.
Rocky, meanwhile, panicked. "W-whoa, whoa, what is happening question?!"
"It's called a hug, Rock," You explained.
"Oh."
At his silence, Grace added, "It's usually not something one does by themselves."
"Rocky hug too, question?"
"Would you just get in here?" You chuckled.
Hesitantly, Rocky leaned forward and pressed his carapace against the xenonite. You and Grace faced one another, each with a cheek pressed against the ball. You felt Rocky's heat through the material and smiled; Grace rubbed a few comforting circles in your back.
"How do you know when the hug is over, question?" Rocky tentatively asked.
"You just kinda feel it," Grace answered softly, lost in your eyes.
"Is Grace feeling it, question?"
"Nope."
"Is Y/N feeling it?"
"Not in the slightest."
"Oh. Okay. Yeah."
You couldn't help but laugh, but you were absorbed in Grace's azure gaze and the warmth of the embrace. You were going to get to live on that farm and stargaze for the rest of your life, with an unfrozen Laika. You were going to get to marry him. You were going to get to die of old age (if you don't die on the mission itself).
But, Grace was right.
First, you had stars to save.
Thank you so much for reading! I'm so sorry about the wait, and for dragging it into a Part 3, but I think you guys will like where this goes!
Summary: You volunteered for the Hail Mary mission because they needed a doctor, and because Eva Stratt was nice enough to tell you that your lifelong friend Grace was on board whether he liked it or not. Now, you two are the only ones left alive on a suicide mission to save the stars, and he can't remember anything about you, himself, the mission... Or the day you both confessed your feelings before your unwilling odyssey to a system far, far away.
Warnings: Angst angst angst, idiots in love, amnesiac Grace. Lots of em-dashes but I'm not AI.
Notes: I haven't written a fanfic in a veeeeeeeery long time. I'm a fantasy writer and I spend ages and ages editing my professional work but you won't see that here. It's sort of edited, but mainly just on the fly. I didn't want to make it too long so I decided to split it into a couple of different parts.
Pairings: Ryland Grace x Reader
\\ Part 1 \\ Part 2 \\
You woke up first.
The Hail Mary hummed softly as the computer's soft voice said, "Eye movement detected." The pristine, sterile environment stung your eyes as your body bag was unzipped. When you could stand, you'd go to the 360 screen room and put on some forest ambiance to decompress. "What is two plus two?" Oh, you forgot it had that feature. You couldn't show proper cognitive function by answering it, though.
Everything hurt. Your limbs ached from lack of movement for four and half years, but the medical robot had kept your muscles stimulated with electric shocks that kept them from degenerating. Your feeding tube was removed. You tried to speak against your raw throat but couldn't force the words out.
It's so quiet. Why am I awake? Is anyone else?
"What is two plus two?"
You tried to call out, but nothing happened. You couldn't hear if anyone else was moving around, and a trickle of ice-cold fluid flowed into your IV line. No, no one else was awake.
You were the only one beginning to emerge from your medically induced coma on a ship you didn't know how to operate in the middle of a solar system you knew very little about.
Where is he?
"What is two plus two?"
With every ounce of fading strength you had as the drugs took over again, you flopped your head to the right side, where a bunk was still sheltered in the wall with vitals reading fine. Just like when you first were put to sleep.
"G...r...a...ce..." It was a pitiful sound. It couldn't really even be said that it sounded like his name, but it was all you could manage.
Grace...
"What is two plus two?"
"Gr...ace..." His vitals blinked stubbornly at you. They were fine. You knew it was irrational and futile, he couldn't hear you. But you were terrified. Yao and Olesya's vitals on the bunks above you were dark. Dead, probably, because you could still see their body bags inside. Right now, you were alone. Icy tears slipped off the bridge of your nose.
"What is two plus two?"
"Grace..."
~~~
"Grace!" You slammed your hands on his desk, making him jump so hard he nearly fell out of his chair.
Ryland Grace glared at you over the rim of his glasses as he righted himself, straightening the papers he'd been grading. His dirty-blond hair was a right mess, sticking up in all directions like he'd just been touched by a static spark.
"Have you ever heard of knocking?"
You grinned, crossing your arms as you leaned against his desk. "I don't think you wouldn't heard me with the way you were snoring."
Grace made a face, offended. "I wasn't snoring."
He wasn't. But you liked to make fun of him.
You made a show of checking your nails (which weren't manicured, but you had nothing else to make a show of), frowning. "You were late, so I came looking for you."
Grace's deep blue eyes widened. "Late?" He checked his watch and shot to his feet like a man possessed, shuffling to collect his papers and shove them in his briefcase. "Oh no. I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry. I'll make it up to you, I promise. I'll go with you right now. Is now okay? I know it's late--"
Your mischievous giggle gave him pause. You flashed him a cheeky grin over your shoulder. "The release is tomorrow, Grace."
His shoulders fell. "Y/N, what..." He fell back into his chair with an exaggerated roll of his eyes. Tomorrow was the release of a new book in a series you'd been reading together, and he'd promised to go with you to the signing. With the deadline of the broadcast for the Petrova Line's probe getting nearer and nearer, everyone was acting like it was their last day on Earth. Since it was a Saturday, he'd promised to come with you early to get a signed copy-- which might take several hours, if people weren't chaotic enough to just storm the venue. "What am I gonna do with you?"
You pulled a bright yellow beanbag out of your hoodie pocket. It fit perfect in your palm. "Take me to the movies. Go get ice cream. Go for a walk in the park. Anything you do that involves me is going to be awesome." You tossed him the beanbag. "Here. A sun for your Earth."
He snatched it out of the air. "Oh, that's cool. Thank you." He turned it over in his hands a couple of times, thinking. "How about... ice cream, then my place? We can watch a movie on the TV? I'm really sorry, I'm just so exhuast--"
"If you apologize one more time," You warned, "I'm gonna dump water on your head." You waved his water bottle at him pointedly. You both held a hard, cold stare for as long as you could; he cracked first, smirking slightly. You widened your eyes suddenly and he fully broke with a soft laugh.
"Okay, fine. I won't apologize again. Today."
You and Grace had known each other a very, very long time. You grew up in the same town, were bullied at the same school, attended the same college, and now lived in the same city-- and not wholly by intent. But you're glad for it, because if you had to go a day without seeing Grace, then you might as well go a day without breathing.
You'd been raised in very different lives. While his was a science household, yours was very strict Catholic. You escaped through science and were punished severely for it, which pushed you into a career as a doctor that you didn't want but were extremely good at. You'd won a couple of awards. It just felt... hollow. It wasn't what you wanted.
You lived in an apartment chock full of biology books, projects, and knick knacks that you'd collected over the years, and it just made you sad. It was like a memory of the life you could have had if you hadn't listened to your parents-- parents you didn't speak to anymore, but you were so deep in medical school debt that going back to school was just unattainable. You didn't have any friends; maybe some friendly coworkers, but never anyone close.
No pets, no boyfriend, no kids, no plants. Just you, yourself, and Grace.
No one was like Grace.
When you were kids, he'd help you with your science projects. In college, he supported you when you cut off your parents when they were trying to set you up with guys your age and trying to get you to get married-- the final straw that broke the camel's back with them. You guys moved to different cities briefly after that, but kept in touch. When he was fired, he moved to your city and got a job as an 8th grade science teacher.
Just like you supported him; when his parents died after college, when the rest of his family cut him off because of his "crazy" theories that got him fired in the first place. You helped him find an apartment in your city, cosigned for him, and since he only has his bike, you let him use your car, and you ferried him around wherever he needed to go.
You two were close, to say the least. And you loved him with all of your heart. The dorky way he wore his glasses, his stupid science shirts, his perpetually messy hair, his passion for science and his kids and biology, his theories, the little things he'd do...
It's a shame he doesn't know any of that.
Somehow, you knew each other better than you knew yourselves, and you couldn't bring yourself to admit that you were in love with him; that you've been in love with him since you were young. Ninety percent of the pictures in your house were of you and him. The pictures and the gifts from Grace were really your only pops of color against the plain backdrop of whites and grays in your apartment. You weren't going to risk ruining the only good thing in your life. At least, not any time soon.
Grace had tried to date around awhile back, which hurt your heart, but you said nothing. When his college girlfriend Linda left him for a geology professor, Grace essentially swore off dating because he was scared of getting hurt again-- which left him with only you.
Not intentionally. You both did try, separately and together, to have friends and go out. Nothing ever seemed to work out. It felt like it was you and Grace against the world.
Wordlessly, you admired him as he collected his things and threw on his jacket. He noticed you watching him only as he started toward the light switches. He slowed down halfway there, pausing to look over his shoulder at you. "...What? Do I have something on my face?"
Heat crept up your neck as you averted your gaze. You shook your head minutely and hurried to catch up with him. "Nope."
He waited for you to reach him and put his free arm around your shoulder with a smile, leading you out of the classroom. You flipped off the switch as you left. "How was school today?"
"Long," He sighed. "The kids are worried about the Petrova line, but I can't tell them anything about it until the probe reaches it." He readjusted his coat hung over his arm. "What about you?"
You took a deep breath. You didn't want to tell him about what was going on at work, but you didn't really want to keep anything from him. The only secret you'd ever kept from him was that you were in love with him. "So... I think I might get fired." Grace stopped in his tracks, brow bunching together with worry. "I had a patient the other day who'd been banned from three other practices... He kept starting fights over his care. Wanting us to do specific procedures but not wanting us to perform the needed tests. Dr. Meyer-- you know him--"
"Unfortunately," Grace grumbled, a muscle ticking in his cheek. Dr. Meyer was the office manager and lead doctor of your practice, and very very persistent in getting you to go out with him. Every time you denied, you got repercussions at work-- forced leave, complaints from staff, and every time you reported him nothing was done. He was apparently under investigation, but you saw no evidence of that. The only time Grace had met him was at a plus one work event a few years ago, and despite Grace being right there had kept trying to flirt with you and pull you away.
Needless to say you'd been looking for other options, but you couldn't afford to be without a job and it was very, very difficult to find a position in your town.
You continued with a sigh. "Well, he accepted him, and when he started requesting the procedures, I denied care. He wouldn't accept the pre-admission tests, and we can't do anything without that. He didn't even want me to read his medical history. Nothing is wrong with him physically. It's neurological, but he refuses to see a specialist. He just keeps coming to doctors.
"Yesterday, I found forged papers okaying the procedures with my name on them. Once it leaves our practice to the surgery department, I'm screwed. I never even did a full exam on the guy."
"Y/N," Grace interrupted in warning, his voice soft. "...You won't be able to work in healthcare again. At least, not easily." You shook your head solemnly. The wind blew your hair into your face and you pulled it away. "Maybe that's a blessing in disguise," Grace added, helping to tuck your wild hair behind your ear and wholly unaware of the way your heartbeat quickened. "You'd be able to pursue a science degree like you always wanted."
"I can't afford that, Grace."
He stared at you for a moment, like he was doing calculations in his head. Finally, he took your arm and began leading you to your truck. "We'll figure it out, don't worry. Whatever happens, happens. You know I've got your back."
"I know." You tossed him your keys and turned toward his bike. You didn't have to look to know he caught them. He always did. He didn't have to ask to know you'd already snatched his bike lock keys out of his back pocket. By the time you'd gotten his bike unlocked, he'd already pulled up behind you. He parked by you and started to get out. You rolled your eyes. "I'm fully capable of putting it in the bed."
He shrugged. "It's my bike, though." He tossed it in a bit unceremoniously as you got in the passenger side. He smiled at you when he returned. "Sooooo, Dairy Queen, then my place? What do you want to watch?"
"I dunno." As he pulled out of the school, you added, "To be totally fair I don't even know what kind of ice cream I want. Or if I'm gonna get food while we're there."
Grace chuckled a bit. "You'll figure it out."
"That's your answer to everything."
"Our answer to everything," He specified, and pulled up his right sleeve to reveal a bracelet you hadn't seen in a very, very long time. Just simple brown cord with a couple of beads, it said "We will always..." You'd made that for him in high school.
"You still have that?!"
Grace smiled at your agape jaw. "What? You still wear yours." He laid his arm on the center console, silently asking for you to lay yours by his. You pulled up your own sleeve a bit, dumbfounded, and let your bracelet finish the sentence on his. "...Figure it out." "Your job, ice cream, movie, the Petrova line, doesn't matter what it is. We'll figure it out."
"I guess we will," You were stuck staring at the bracelets in shock for a minute. You were sure it'd been stupid when you made them. You still wore yours out of habit-- you'd never gone without it-- and your half of the sentence kind of made sense by itself, even if it made it singular rather than involving Grace in whatever you were figuring out. Seeing that he still wore it unlocked some kind of giddy well of emotion that you struggled to keep under control as you turned your gaze to admire his profile.
"What?!" He laughed, glancing at you while trying to pay attention to traffic. "Why do you keep looking at me like that?"
"Maybe I'm trying to decide what kind of ice cream I want."
"By looking at me like that?"
"Like what?"
Grace sighed with exasperation and shook his head as he pulled into Dairy Queen. "Nothing. Nevermind. Drive-thru?" You just nodded, frustration keeping you silent. You wouldn't show it, but sometimes you wished when he caught you staring he'd actually keep going with it. Push you into admitting how you feel.
You kept your hand where it was-- hanging beside his over the center console-- and leaned forward to turn up the news. They were still talking about the Petrova line, speculating on what it could be. You both tensed, anxious at the possibilities that all ended in global catastrophe. Subtly, you slipped your fingertips between his. "Grace..."
"Yeah?"
You couldn't look at him. At some point, you'd have to confess before you both inevitably died terribly, but not yet. "...Will we figure this out, too?" You weren't just talking about the Petrova line. You're sure he must like you too, at least a little bit-- unless you were just wishful thinking. Surely his tender hugs and gentle touches like you were made of glass or long stares meant something more than just friends to him too.
Grace surprised you by shaking your hand away. You were briefly hurt before he repositioned his hand to take yours, entwining your fingers with a gentle squeeze. "Yes." He ran his thumb over the back of your hand and met your gaze meaningfully. "I promise."
Maybe he wasn't just talking about the Petrova line, either.
~~~
"Grace! Grace!" Your hoarse voice cut through mechanical beeping and squealing of the medical systems panicking as you crawled out of your cot. Tubes left every orifice but your mouth, which was raw from the feeding tube that had been removed. Everything hurt worse now. You couldn't stand. Your vision blacked in and out. This was day two of trying to get to him.
Olesya and Yao were dead. They had to be. But Grace's vitals were still working. He was fine, right? What if he died next?
No. You couldn't take it. Not your Grace.
"Grace!"
The computer's mechanical voice cut through the chaos: "Eye movement detected. Preparing Dr. Ryland Grace for wake up procedure."
You felt the anesthesia in your IV again. It was quick-acting. Your vision began to fade as his cot was pulled from the wall. He has eye movement. He's waking up. But is he sound? Did Stratt actually induce amnesia? Please tell me he fought it. Please...
You filled your lungs and yelled his name with everything you had before you were swept away into darkness again.
~~
You and Grace sat on his couch, half asleep as the credits of Return of the Jedi played.
"Good movie," You mumbled, head nodding into the pillow on your lap. Grace didn't answer right away. You smiled warmly at his sleeping form before switching off the TV and bracing yourself for the drive home. It wasn't long, but it was certainly lonely.
"Y/N," He said groggily, making you jump. He didn't seem to notice. "I was thinking."
"Apparently hard enough to knock you out."
He hummed a laugh and cracked his deep blue eyes open, hesitating. "What if we just moved in together?"
Your heart dropped. "What?"
Grace started listing things off on his fingers. "We're literally always together, we're always spending the night at each other's apartments, you're about to lose your job, you have a car we both can use. It's not like we really have any concept of personal space anyway."
"I mean... I have seen you at your worst. You were dying." Grace immediately knew you were talking about when he was sick a few years ago-- just a basic cold. But he'd taken a week off of work because he could barely breathe or move, you stayed at his place to nurse him back to help, and he acted like he was on death's door. You dramatically started mocking him. "Oh my God, I can't feel my face, I'm gonna die--"
Grace raised his voice to speak over you, rolling his eyes. "I was sick, I couldn't even walk--"
"Please, get me a pen so I can write my will I'm not gonna make it--"
"The one time I call for you for help because I'm sick and I could barely breathe--"
"I'm LITERALLY dying I need to go to the hospitaaaaal--"
"I thought I really needed to go!"
You busted out laughing. "To be totally fair, you really were sick enough to have me worried. I just like teasing you."
"So I noticed!" He scoffed, glaring at you from his place on the couch-- still half-asleep. "You're one to talk, anyway. Any time you get the slightest congestion--"
"I'm gonna stop you right there--" You held up a hand in a futile effort to stop him, but he ignored you.
"Graaaace, can I borrow some benadryllll?"
"I do not sound like that!"
"You're a doctor how do you not already have benadryl?!"
"I keep forgetting to buy some and you're always prepared for anything."
Grace made it a point to judge you over the rim of his glasses. "Well? Living together? You'll always have access to Benadryl."
"And you'll always have someone to take care of you when you're sick, you big baby."
"I am not--"
"Can I think about it?" Your tone had shifted into something more serious that Grace could sense. You two hadn't lived together since that one summer you'd both went to your grandparents' house out west when you were teens to run a science experiment on the Great Plains. But living with him now?
The world could end any day now. You're kind of on a deadline here. Living with him might push you to make the leap into confessing. But could you bring yourself to do it?
Grace only nodded. "Take as much time as you need. No pressure if you decide to or not. You know that. You sleeping here tonight?" You answered with a distracted hum. You usually slept over on the weekends, insisting to stay on his pullout couch while he got his bed. He brought you some bedding as you got everything ready and pulled a pair of pajamas out of your purse.
"Y/N?" Grace lingered in the door to his bedroom, the rest of the lights in the house off except for the TV.
"Yeah?" You paused on your way to the bathroom to change, turning to look at him.
He chewed on his bottom lip for a minute and straightened his glasses before clearing his throat. "I don't know if you... have anybody. Romantically, like that. But if they're uncomfortable with it--"
"There's nobody, Ryland." Your voice cracked. You never used his first name unless it was very, very serious. He knew that. He couldn't bring his gaze up to meet yours. Nobody but you. "I don't have anyone." You hesitated, then added with a breezy cough, "But if you--"
"I don't." His eyes flicked up once, almost like he was gauging your reaction. "I-I'm not with anybody. Haven't been in a long time." A heavy silence dragged between you. You were only separated by a hallway, but it felt so much longer than it really was, so much deeper. It was like the vastness of space itself stretched between you. "Do you have anyone you're interested in?"
You froze. Say it now. Say it. Your tongue was like lead in your mouth. "Grace--" You choked, and you inwardly cursed. It sounded like you were only reprimanding him. "Grace uh..." Panic made you change the subject. "Do you?"
Grace met your gaze intently. Your face flushed. "...I don't know yet." The two of you lingered in the hallway a moment before he half-turned away. "'Night."
The door clicking shut behind him was the loudest thing you'd ever heard.
~~~
You choked as you woke up. A tube was in your throat again, hindering your screams as you groggily flailed around, trying to pull out the IV but finding yourself restrained.
You had moved in with Grace. You two had been living together for only a couple of weeks when he told you about getting signed on for the Petrova taskforce against his will, then his discoveries about astrophage. He told you all about his findings-- a mistake, actually, because you woke up in the middle of the night to a couple of FBI-looking guys kidnapping you and whisking you away to the lab, where you were basically put on house arrest unless Grace was with you-- and Stratt, refusing to deal with the loopholes of getting you slowly in the loop, allowed you top security clearance just so you could be with Grace. She called you his security blanket, which wasn't entirely a lie, although he was also yours. Comforting each other from shared panic attacks wasn't easy, though.
Stratt had been nice enough to order some of your things returned to you. Stratt had been nice enough to do quite a lot of things, and you couldn't even blame her for doing what she did to Grace.
From an unbiased perspective, it was the logical thing to do.
To you, she wrestled your love onto a ship bound for a star never to return, against his will, forced him into a coma, and erased his memory for a little while.
"Hey, hey easy!" Grace. Oh my God, he's okay. You weren't thinking straight. All you wanted was off of the damn bed. "Calm down! Let me help you!" It took everything you had to calm down. You were in space. No trees, plains, rain, ever ever again, just endless space and death waiting for you--
--but Grace was here. Grace, who you'd chosen to die for.
"Hold still," He urged, leaning over you. You welled up, tears streaming down your face when you see him. A little more tired, his hair a bit longer and his face hastily-shaven. "I had the robot take everything else out. You were out of it for a couple of days though, so I had them put the feeding tube back in. I didn't want you to starve. Relax." You forced yourself to, watching as he gently began to pull the tube out of your mouth.
You choked and coughed, doubling over; it was over quick, and he undid your restraints hurriedly. "The computer did this. It said you kept throwing yourself out of bed-- oh--!"
You threw your arms around his neck and let out sobs held back by four years of a medical coma. You'd had all of twenty minutes to decide if you were going to die for Grace by the time Stratt got to you. Now that you were awake, and so was he, it was all hitting you at once.
You were going to die. Within the next couple of years.
You weren't ready.
"Grace--"
"I don't remember you," He managed, voice cracking. "I know you're important. I just can't remember why."
Your sobs came heavier. You'd hoped she wouldn't have drugged him. You'd hoped she'd trusted you enough to keep him from sabotaging the mission-- and you both knew he'd never do that. But she had to take precautions. Vaguely, you heard Grace mumble more to himself than anything, "You're shaking... Uh..." He kept his arms wrapped around you, though, supporting you on the bed. "Computer, do we have heated blankets?"
A moment later, a wall of warmth enveloped you. "I take it you remember a lot more than I do," Grace commented, resting his chin on top of your head. "I'm sorry. I don't know how else to comfort you except hold you."
"It works," You choked, eyeing his wrist. Stratt had listened to you. She didn't have his bracelet removed, or yours. You stared at it as your sobs slowed and your vision faded away.
~~~
"This is stupid," Grace grumbled, adjusting the telescope again. Your eyes found the bracelet on his wrist and smiled. "We can't see it. It's too cloudy. We're on the wrong side of the hemisphere anyway."
"Then find a star other than Tau Ceti," You countered softly, "Find a closer one."
Grace huffed and squinted against the telescope. You fought a giggle, despite the seriousness of the circumstances. At the end of a long, difficult, tiring day, Grace had still wanted to come out and stargaze with you, even if he was being grumpy about it. Being on Baikonur, if you got a few miles away from the base, the sky was endless. Of course, a security detail had to follow you, just so you wouldn't decide to bolt. Grace had disguised it as "research."
He froze then, locked on something. You saw him turning the knob to zoom in and excitement fluttered in your chest. "Find one?"
"Um. Yeah?"
"Why do you sound unsure about that?"
He stepped back, frowning. He extended a hand for his notebook, which you happily handed over. You liked watching him when he's doing something science-y. "It's... It's supposed to be Betelguese."
Your eyebrows shot to your hairline. "'Supposed to be'? Does it have on a fake mustache or something?"
Grace shot you a glare and you raised your hands in poor self-defense. "It's really, really dim. Take a look." You did as he asked and the usually bright red, pulsing orb was much fainter than you'd ever seen it. Your stomach dropped as Grace sighed and jotted down a couple of notes.
"Grace..." You tapped on the telescope's metal casing worriedly. "If... Even if the Hail Mary saves our sun... Will there just be a massive star-death? Will our sky be dark?" You couldn't help the crack in your voice. The thought of thousands of stars dying scared you. A dark sky at night felt unnerving to even think about. Ever since you were a child, you'd adored the stars. You and Grace used to take camping trips solely to stargaze, before all of this with building the Hail Mary.
"Probably," Grace breathed as an icy wind blew across the fields, "Yes. Most likely. I'm sorry. If I could save them all, I would."
"I know you would..." You stepped back from the telescope and let him take over again as he pivoted toward another nearby star. Your heart was pounding. It's now or never. Literally. "Grace... I uh... Can I tell you something that might utterly ruin our friendship?"
He glared at you over the edge of the telescope's eyepiece. "Is it worse than the time you called me back in college and told me you drove into my dorm when you were drunk and trying to park? And then I had to come bail you out of jail?"
You weighed the possible outcomes and winced heavily. "In my defense, I wanted to say hello to my best friend ever?"
"You don't sound sure about that." He tried to hide a smirk and sighed deeply as he went back to the telescope. "Nothing's going to ruin our friendship. Not at this point. What is it?"
You turned away from him, heart pounding and breath coming in short, quick bursts. You can do this. You can definitely do this. "...We've known each other a really long time."
"Yeah."
"We're pretty close."
"Well, I didn't invite you to live with me and get you trapped on this mission because we're not close, so."
You started pacing, keeping your back to him. "You didn't get me trapped here."
Grace scoffed. "I did, actually."
"No, you didn't, last I checked you didn't dress up as some FBI guy and bust down the front door to kidnap me--"
"I love you."
You're pretty sure your heart collapsed in on itself. Your lungs just decided to stop working entirely. You whipped around to face him; his hands were shaking as he fiddled with his pen and notebook, unable to look at you. "Always have. I just... Recently, I realized just how much. I invited you to live with me because I hated being away from you. After I moved back... It was like finding out you can poke an astrophage and kill it. It was jarring." A smile spread across your face at his own reference. "I can't stop thinking, dreaming, about you. Every day is just waiting until I see you again. Just..." He kept his head down as he shortened the distance between you slowly, cautiously, like you'd run away if he moved too fast. "Your cooking, your laugh, your smile, your eyes, your humor, your hair, the way you talk, the way you look at me when you think I'm not looking or the way you interrupt every single movie with your own commentary. I love it. All of it. Every part of you. And if I could go up there and save all your stars, I would. I love you." Finally, only a foot away, he looked at you. Really looked at you, his sapphire eyes glistening with a hint of fear. "Is that by any chance what you were going to say, or did I just ruin everything?"
Now that he'd said it, it was less intense. Your hands and knees trembled as you took a few more steps forward, until you were practically up against him. From here you could hear how quickly he was breathing. "Ryland... I wouldn't want you to save my stars." His shoulders dipped ever so slightly. "I need you here. With me. Every day until it's over. Every day until the stars are all gone. I need you more than any star, even our own. You mean everything to me. And to answer your question, yes. I was going to say 'I love you' and make a whole dramatic speech, but you stole my moment. So. I love you."
You'd barely finished your sentence when he kissed you, as gentle as his fingers were ghosting across your face; like he was asking for permission, almost. You wrapped your arms around his neck to pull him closer and he took that as a sign to go ahead, wrapping an arm around your waist to pull you flush against him. He pulled away and pressed his forehead to yours, cupping your face in his hand. "When this is all over, we'll move somewhere where you can see the stars every night before they're gone."
"Only if we can get a dog."
Grace smiled, kissing you again. It was softer this time, more passionate as he moved slow, taking his time. He was savoring you like a man starved. "Deal," He said against your lips.
~~~
On shaky, unsteady legs, you left the washroom of the Hail Mary.
After Grace had helped calm you down, he carried you to the washroom since you couldn't walk by yourself. Even not knowing who you were, he was still resoundingly kind. He helped you where he could, and then he left when you decided to clean yourself up. You detangled four years of rats in your hair, washed, and when you smelled decent, you pulled on a pair of shorts and a tank top underneath an orange NASA jumpsuit.
Finally, having eaten a tube of surprisingly good-tasting sludge, you made your way to the lab. You couldn't imagine he'd be anywhere else. You turned the corner and there he was, fiddling with a couple of instruments with no particular experiment nearby. Nervous, maybe.
You watched him for a second; he'd cut his hair since he'd helped you out. It had been hours ago, now. Messy, just like it always was. His glasses hung by one ear and he wore one of those stupid science pun tees under a yellow cosmonaut suit. The man who'd promised to save your stars metaphorically. You'd never wanted him to do it physically. Yet here you were.
The love of your life sat only feet away, and your entire lives together had been erased.
A hollow, aching hole opened up in your chest and you hiccuped with the effort of fighting back sobs. "Grace..."
He looked up. Unknowing of who he was to you, of how much you meant to him, about the sacrificed promise of a home to watch the stars and a dog you'd never have. Of a life you'd never have. You weren't sure if the amnesia was permanent, but it hurt. It hurt worse than knowing you were going to die. Grace's eyes glistened with unshed tears. "I... I know you're important. I just can't... I can't remember. Did I know you?"
"Yes," You choked out. Forcing memories on someone coming out of a coma was a shockingly bad idea. You would have to suffer alone for however long it took for him to regain his memories. The thought made you hiccup again. "Yes, we knew each other."
"How long?" His eyes pierced through you, vague recognition there. But he didn't know you. Your Grace was gone, even if temporarily. Who knows? Maybe he was gone forever. When you didn't answer, he asked again. "How long did we know each other?"
You wiped tears away. You needed to be professional, like he was your patient, but... It's Grace. It's my Grace. "A long time."
Grace stood up, taking a deep breath. "Who are you?"
"I'm..." Your best friend. Your lover. Your lab partner. "Your doctor," You choked, managing to look him in the eyes. "I'm your doctor."
"What's your name?"
The sentence hurt more than you thought it would. "Y/N."
The silence that dragged between you was as heavy as your uncertain fates.
~~~
Stratt had you sat across from her. It was only a day after the explosion that killed Shapiro and DuBois. Why were they in the lab together? They knew better than to be in one place... And to use that much astrophage... Worryingly, after he'd come to check on you in the chaos, you hadn't seen or heard from Grace.
And you had a sinking feeling as to why.
"I think you know why you're here," Stratt breathed shakily. Tears rimmed her red, puffy eyes. "I didn't want to do it, Y/N. Really, I didn't. But I had to make a choice."
The ragged gasps of your struggling lungs gave way to desperate sobs. I'll never see him again. I'll just know he's out there. My Grace, my Grace-- "Oh, hail Mary," You breathed. A coincidental exclamation leftover from your upbringing, one that didn't come out for anything short of life-changing.
"I'm about to give you a choice," Stratt's voice cracked as she spoke. You couldn't villainize her. However much you hated her right now, you couldn't. She murdered the love of your life, but her reasoning was so legitimate you couldn't blame her for what she did. Grace was the only one who knew anything about the astrophage. The Hail Mary launches in three days. There's no time to train anyone else, and the human race is on the line.
Even if Grace was the sacrifice.
"A choice?!" You shrieked quietly, "Like you gave him?! What's my choice, Stratt? What kind of statue to build in his honor?"
She drummed her fingers on the table, taking a breath like she was trying to hold back the tears. "...Do you want to go with him?"
Your heart dropped.
Stratt continued with little emotion in her voice as she tried to conceal her pain. "You're a capable doctor. They might need one. You know everything about the medical robot, the supplies, everything. If you want to go, I will let you. You can have a few hours to decide."
You'd leave Earth. Forever. No grass. No rain. No wind, no storms, no waterfalls or hiking or camping or going to Dairy Queen. No BBQs or mindless grocery trips or just going for a summer night drive.
But you wouldn't have Grace.
"I'll go." It felt like a bullet to the chest. It might as well be. Stratt didn't even seem surprised. "I'll go," You reiterated, "I don't need to decide. I'm not letting him go alone. I can't."
Respectfully, Stratt nodded. "Whatever you want, within my power, I can give to you."
"Seeds," You said immediately. "Fruits, vegetables, flowers, trees. I want a whole ecosystem. Eggs. Uhhhhh... Any way to get a small population of breedable livestock would be cool. A dog, maybe. Definitely a dog, if nothing else. I want all the kitchen utensils and ingredients and food that you can get. When we're not in zero g, I want everyone to feel at home."
"Done," Stratt whispered. There were still tears in her eyes, but there was also gratitude. A profound, deep gratitude. But also grief, like she was saying goodbye now. "You could die for him so easily. He couldn't do it for the world."
The words stung your heart.
~~~
You stared at the frozen assortment of seeds, plants, and embryonic livestock. At the bottom of the fridge was a puppy, frozen in cryogenic fluids and vacuum-sealed like you and Grace had been. Stratt really had given you everything you'd asked for. It wasn't like you were interstellar colonists, but she'd been happy to give you a couple of chickens and small pigs to work with if you'd wanted to take the time to raise it and make the crew fresh chicken stew.
And the dog. She'd included the dog. Plenty of chicken and dog food, too.
"I named her Laika," Grace mumbled from behind you. "I can't find any logs on why this was included. Everything down to the last piece of dirt was cataloged, except for this. I just can't figure out why."
"I asked for it," You explained softly, closing the fridge. Now wasn't the time to defrost any of it. "You could say I was a very, very last minute addition to the crew."
"Why?" Grace pressed, following you to the control room's ladder. "What aren't you telling me?"
You whipped around, frowning. "What?"
Grace put his hands together, clearly exasperated. "You're hiding something. I don't know why I know that, but I do. You're hiding something and you won't tell me because you're a doctor, and if I freak out from how much you're loading on me then you're gonna blame yourself. I get that, I really do, but you have to tell me why I'm here. I know we're not orbiting our sun, but why?"
You were backed into a corner-- literally and figuratively. If you told Grace everything and left out the parts about you being a couple, or him being forced, he'd feel betrayed later. If you told him now, he might not trust you. Unfortunately for him, letting him remember on his own might be the best way of going about this.
So, start slow. He isn't asking about your personal relationship right now. You took a deep breath, and tried to recall every detail of the Hail Mary mission you could to brace for follow up questions. "Well, Grace..."
His own words under the plains that night came back to you. If I could go up there and save all your stars, I would.
"...We're here to save the stars."
Thank you so much for reading part 1! I post very slowly but I had to get this out of my head!
(Average Metropolis reader after investigative reporter C. Kent's 452nd article on yet another case of landlords/business owners/factories' continued use of lead pipes/paint/gas/glass knowingly exposing the public to dangerously toxic lead levels) what the fuck happened to this guy
One day Bruce Wayne mentions in an interview that heroes like Superman are overrated, as the most effective way to reduce crime is to provide public resources and improve local infrastructure, then cites how neighboring city Metropolis has effectively lowered their violent crime by 13% after addressing their outdated water system and investing low income housing. the reporter conducting the interview suddenly starts looking a little uncomfortable
"Who, Clark Kent? Yeah, we're pretty sure he's a Meta. Is he a superhero? Like what, "Lead-detector guy"? "Captain pipes?" Don't get me wrong, he's a great guy and it's a handy trick, but it's lead detection, not laser vision. He's not about to go running around in tights any time soon."
everyone assumes that kent is so squirrely around superheros because he’s just desperately hoping not to be conscripted to the JLA to fix their plumbing
[Description: a looping bouncy animation of grace and Rocky from project hail mary. Grace throws himself onto rocky for a hug, smiling and nuzzling his face to the top of Rocky's xenonite covered carapace. Rocky brings a claw up to ruffle Grace's hair and grace throws himself even more on top of rocky, rocky wrapping his arms around grace. End description.]
Unserious people living in fear are manipulated, then indoctrinated. Republicans can always rely on white people to play the victim and blame the scapegoat du jour.
“You look nice,” Ryland says, smiling a little shy, as if the compliment had just slipped out and he was supposed to be embarrassed about that.
“I uh,” You pause, swallowing thickly.
Holy fuck he looks good in a suit.
in which: You need a date to the wedding you foolishly agreed to attend, luckily your co-worker is a willing sacrifice. Extremely willing.
[warnings: eventual nsfw 18+, a bit of fluff, excessively drawn out flirting]
wc: 14.2k (Whoops) [ Masterlist ] [ ao3 Link ]
Woe finds you on a Tuesday at the staffroom lunch table.
Picking apart the leftovers of a miserable thrown together attempt of fried rice that came to be after realising there were no better dinner options with the ingredients you had in the fridge two days ago and the determination to not get take out more than once a week that would surely fade come February. Alas, it is still January and all those new year resolutions are still sticking like cheap adhesive hooks that will eventually be weighed down enough to slip as time ticks on.
Eat take out once a week, maximum. Read one book a month, minimum. Sleep more. Stop turning down social invites
The last one is what leaves you particularly perturbed, as your lunch goes lukewarm and your thumb flicks about on the social media profile.
“I just… I can’t say no.” You lament. “It would be weird.”
“Weirder than going?” Margot asks, pulling her own container of lunch from the oven. It’s also leftovers, but slices of impeccably cooked roast with what looks to be red wine sauce and vegetables- no doubt made by her smokeshow of a house husband (he just works from home, she insists. You’re pretty sure the pair are sitting on a lofty investment profile because no man ‘works from home’ cooks roasts bi-weekly and buys his wife diamond earrings for her birthday).
“I don’t know. Maybe.” You manage, the next bite of fired rice tasting like loneliness packed into an over-salted flavour profile.
“What’s weird?” Ryland asks, sitting down in the chair across from you.
The staff room of E-Block is near abandoned. Of the ten-odd teachers with rooms in the little block of aging brick, most tended to eat in their classrooms. Save for you, Margot and Ryland. Occasionally there will be another visitor, but most days, it is just the three of you.
“Wedding.” Margot supplies, sitting down and shuffling her chair in with a sense of poise so rarely found in Middle-Schools. She’s older, somewhere in her early fifties, and still manages to approach the job with the same level of discipline as before ipads made their invasion into the classroom.
Ryland frowns. “You’re already married.”
He’s… well, Ryland's… actually you’re not sure how to put him into words, which is saying a lot considering the literature degree collecting mildew in the filing cabinet of your apartment.
He’s in the same boat as you in terms of finding yourselves with a teaching career. Studied something else first, got your passion and love for it soured by morons and went back to college for a second round, dishing out more cash for a masters in teaching that has you trying to tame fourteen year olds all day. Delightful, truly. Although, Ryland had certainly lasted a lot longer with that first degree than you had. A doctorate. He hates the kids knowing that though. A handful of them had called him ‘Doctor Grace’ last year, after digging about online and getting their grubby fingers on his linkedin profile.
‘Mr Grace’ as he is now known, is awkward. A little socially inept at times, but not enough to come across as anything other than endearing. Now is one such time, as he looks over the frames of his glasses at Margo, the stack of pop quizzes he’d brought to mark and keep himself occupied momentarily forgotten. His eyes darted from her face to the ring on her finger.
“Mm mm.” She hums, shaking her head as she chews, then levels her fork to point in your direction.
“You’re not getting married.” Ryland states when he turns to look at you, like it’s a scientific fact, one he’s so assured of.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Mr Grace.” You reply, still sort of wallowing at the photos on your phone.
His gaze flickers, a little less sure as the corner of his lips fall and, like he had with Margot, settles his eyes on your hands. Your lack of a ring. “You aren’t, are you?”
“No. My ex is, though.” You sigh, despondent. The reminder glares back at you from the overly-bright phone screen.
“Oh. That sucks.” He manages, clicking open a red pen to start circling and ticking the first sheet on his pile. “Happens to the best of us.”
The kettle rumbles away on the tiny kitchenette. You look at him for a long moment. The best of us. Like it’s happened to him. Ryland’s not one to discuss relationships beyond the occasional quip about quitting to be a house husband like Margot’s. He’s never mentioned past romances, you don’t think he’s been in a relationship in the three years since he started at Grover Cleveland Middle. It’s such a bizarre glimpse at his life, that he doesn't even seem to register what he's revealed, marking as he waits for the boiling water to cook another lunch of instant ramen.
You sit up a little straighter in your chair, weary of knocking your shoes against where his long legs sprawl under the small table. The staff room is meant for ten but is cramped even with the three of you, nothing more than a little kitchenette and big whiteboard in the corner. There’s a shelf against one wall, just far enough away from the doorframe that the door doesn't crash into it when pushed open. There’s a long window the length of the wall on the door’s other side, a good view of the eighth-grade outdoor lunch area. The other staff call it the fishbowl, it’s why they opt to eat in their classrooms, not keen on the kids' eyes on them when it is supposed to be one of the fleeting breaks during their day.
Thank god the door is closed- if the kids heard you whining about this, a wedding, they’d never let up. “I’m considering the pros and cons of skipping it.”
“You were invited?” He baulks, dropping his pen.
You try not to smile, focusing on your self pity instead of the three shoddy attempts Ryland takes to catch his pen from dropping out of his hand, rolling off the stack of paper then off the table. “I already said I’d go too.”
“Why?” Ryland sounds appalled, like that one time you’d caught him trying to explain that the five second rule is not an effective barrier against bacteria to a student.
“It’s complicated.” You say, biting at your cheek.
“Bullshit.” Margot aptly calls. Looking over with the same expression she used to call students on their bullshit. You're not a big fan of having it directed at you.
“We went out for maybe two months in college.” You sigh, setting your phone on the table face-down to stare at your lunch, contemplative. “He’s engaged to one of the girls from my sorority. We’re… friends.”
Margot watches. “With your ex or the sorority girl?”
“Sorority girl. Daisy.” That's the better option of the two at least. You think it is, not that there is much left to save you from the impending train wreck of discussing the relationship woes of your late teens and early twenties with the only two coworkers who care to eat lunch in a communal space. The company is nice, Ryalnd had said once, when you’d asked, gets me out of the classroom.
Margot screws her face up for a second, muttering it again under her breath as if the name offends her.
“You were in a sorority?" Ryland asks, face a little blank as he looks at you from across the table.
It makes you falter, the way his thoughts seem to be buffering like the school's slow wifi. “I… Yeah? That’s the interesting part?”
He shakes his head, looking down at his marking sheets and pushes his glasses up from where they’re slowly slipping down the bridge of his nose. “No, I just can’t picture it.”
You purse your lips, consider pulling up some photos from your sorority days, then remember the kind of outfits the lot of you wore and think better of it. “Well Daisy and I were roommates for a year and a half. She’s nice. Works in PR now.”
“But she’s marrying your ex?” Ryland asks, still kind of baffled.
You dismiss it with a lazy hand wave. “I mean, she asked before they went out and everything. I just think it’s a little weird. I don’t even know why I said I’d go. It’s going to be embarrassing.”
Margot tuts twice, done with her lovingly made lunch that symbolises how successful she has been in the department of marriage when you have all but failed so far. “Why is it embarrassing? Two months is nothing.”
“I was a little head over heels for this guy.” You admit, sheepish.
Ryland stands up, clears his throat as he turns away. “Yeah? How so?”
His back is to you, as he peels the lid off his cup ramen and wrestles with the flavour packet. You come to the conclusion it’s easier to confess this sort of stuff with only one set of eyes on you. “I was sort of convinced he was my soulmate. He was doing pre-law, witty too.”
“Hot?” Margot asks, always straightforward.
You feel a blush rise on your cheeks as you remember the early days of your sorority experience, flopped back on the bed as you made little love sick sighs at your ceiling. “God, his jawline. And his hair- it was so… ugh!”
The thud is dull when your forehead lands on the table, to the right of your now abandoned lunch. “I don’t even know why I said I’d go. It’s dumb.”
You hate how you sound- petulant like the kids you prod for not searching for better words in their assignments, moping like your world is ending over something so trivial. It’s not even the new years resolution that has you mulling this over so intently. You’d agreed to go months ago- six months ago- and said yes to the offered plus one, adamant to yourself that you’d have someone by then, a partner or something. Someone of importance.
Attending alone is going to be even worse than if you had just RSVP’d for yourself in the first place. It’s one thing to watch your college friend and ex-sort-of-boyfriend exchange vows alone, and a whole other monster to do it with a pointed empty seat beside you.
All of it tumbles out your lips in a hurried hurl of word vomit, followed by a few moments of silence that has you cautiously raising your head to peek over the wall of your forearms. Ryland is staring at you, cup noodles steaming in his hands where it hovers over the sink, like he’d been about to pour out the excess water. Margot is looking at you with a frown, the same one she wears when teaching senior mathematics and the children have drawn up an equation for her to solve with the foolish belief they could stump her for more than ten seconds.
And just as in class, Margot is not phased for more than a handful of moments. “Then find someone with a better jawline and better hair to go with you. You can borrow mine.”
You blink at her, mulling the words over before asking, “Are you trying to pimp your husband out to me?”
“Only for aesthetic reasons, of course. It’d be nice to have the house to myself for once. Not like you have better options.”
It would sting more if it wasn’t so true. There were very few options and with the wedding only two weeks away, that was certainly not enough time to squeeze in enough dates with someone to justify taking them to a damn wedding.
“I mean, how good is his jawline?” Ryland finally says, walking over with his little cutlery box, plastic chopsticks he washes and reuses almost everyday, to set his lunch down on the table and settle back in across from you. “Are we aiming high?”
There is no way to un-dig this hole, not now that they’ve both decided to put their two cents in. You concede with another sigh and reach for your phone, arms and chin still on the table as you fish about Instagram for a photo. It’s the one that had reminded you of this awful upcoming event, posted by Daisy. You all but toss your phone on the table between your coworkers, sinking a little lower into your folded arms, awaiting judgement.
The photos must be from a walk though of the venue, the pair of them posed together between some old marble arch where they were having the ceremony at. She was laughing, hand on his chest, showing off the ring on her finger while he looked at her, besotted. The caption made it worse. Only two weeks left till I get to marry my man on these very steps.
You like them both, you really do, but the thought of showing up by yourself, as the lonely friend who’d never found ‘it’, your own version of the love they were celebrating, well it was just nauseating.
Margot looks the photo over critically before humming in a sort of so-so tone. “You can do better.”
Ryland looks kind of at a loss. “This is your type?”
As if to emphasise the point, he lifts the phone up and turns it around to show you the image you were already being haunted by. “This is the hair that had you all…”
He doesn't find the words, just waves the hand with his chopsticks around in a messy motion, looks at you critically over the rims of his glasses.
“He slicks it back now. It used to be… I donno. Messy? Fluffy? Good to run my fingers though.” He scoffs a little to himself, dissatisfied maybe with your excuse.
The only forgiving factor is that the photo does highlight the sharp cut of his jaw, which even Ryland concedes to. “He does have a good jawline...”
Yours is better, you want to say. Immediate and impulsive, because it kind of is. Especially when the shadow of his stubble stretches a few extra days between shaves. Your ex is clean shaven- you used to think that was sexy, at least sexier than the patchy beards boys in college had back then. Now you’re kind of obsessed with the so-called ‘5-o’clock shadow’ Ryland sports on Fridays.
It’s not something you’re likely to tell him though, especially not when you glance at the clock and realise you have a duty across campus in three minutes. Saved by the bell maybe, either way you’re able to liberate your phone from the pair of them and their conspiratory whispers, bin the scraps of your lunch and haul ass out of there.
By the end of the school day, you have reached the conclusion that you will blame it on work. That some mandatory day of ‘professional development’ as it is called nowadays, has come up and you will just have to miss the wedding, truly you’re devastated about it all.
Then Ryland corners you in your classroom. The bell’s long gone, as are the students. He’s dressed like he’s on his way out, his green backpack tossed over one shoulder and bike helmet hanging by the strap in one hand. You’re halfway through explaining your plan and the wording you’re going to use in the tragic text message to Daisy when he cuts you off.
“I’ll go with you.”
He’s a little breathless with it, like he’d been saving up all his oxygen to get the words out, leaving him in one big rush as they topple though the doorway of your classroom and splatter onto the linoleum floor between you both.
“I know that I’m not Margot’s husband with a ‘better jawline and better hair’ but we can go and eat nice wedding food- If he’s a lawyer it’s gotta be fancy, right? And we can make fun of his stupid slicked back hair together and you don’t have to be alone or make an excuse and feel guilty about it.” Ryland’s big speech is as flawed as it is heartwarming
Because he does have a better jawline and better hair. And Margot looks between you both during lunch hours and staff meetings like you’re her personal romance drama, there to occupy her during the day.
But the wedding food will be good, your ex will shill out for the best and Daisy has always had a taste for the finer things in life. Ryland is the best company you can think of to have by your side and he knows you well enough to understand how guilty lying about something makes you feel, how it churns your gut.
“Yeah. Okay.” You smile, something warm and fuzzy in your chest.
His eyes don’t move, maybe widen a little before he speaks again, still a little breathless. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
It isn’t a hard thought to come around to, taking Ryland to a wedding. As a date is something that goes unsaid between the pair of you, not sure whether it could be classed as such for real, or if this is simply a favour between friends-slash-coworkers. It is certainly a date for show, to the many college friends you’re about to reunite with after a few years, for your Ex, Jack who’s obsessed with his wife, for Daisy who you’d told years ago to ‘go for it, he’s a nice guy’ working under the assumption that she’d only last a few months by his side too.
You’re not sure which answer you’d prefer, honestly; a date or a favour.
He texts you a lot- after school, on the weekend- asking about what he should wear, what you’re going to wear, how he should prepare for this sort of thing. It’s sweet, cute in a way that has little butterflies flapping around in your stomach.
“Okay, I’ll show you. Wait, hold on.” You placate, setting your phone down on the bed, screen up.
“It’s a lovely ceiling fan, but I doubt it fits the dress code.” Ryland drawls, and you can hear the smile there.
“Ha ha.” You reply, a little echo-y as you lean into your closet to pull the dress out.
He’s up in arms about what to wear, says he needs to know what you’re wearing too so he can match. The invite’s dress code called for formal attire in ‘dark colours’. On the facebook page she’d made for the event, Daisy had a full post going into more detail, about how she’d love any and all dark tones- forestry green, navy, even burgundy was fine. You had taken a firm stance against burgundy considering there’s some old wedding traditions that state wearing red indicated you’d slept with the groom. Which you had, but you were not about to advertise that.
So navy it was.
You’d sent Ryland a picture of the invite, where it was stuck to your fridge with letter magnets spelling out ‘woe’- it had felt fitting when you’d stuck it up there- and several screenshots of the lengthy dress-code post Daisy had made that went into excruciating detail. He wasn’t satisfied though.
Even your attempts to describe the dress you’d bought didn’t work well enough.
“I mean it! you expect me to know what any of those words apart from ‘floor length' means?” he bemoans from your phone speakers, face time call crackling. “I need all the data.”
“Oh listen to you, Mr. Science,” You drawl with a smile, pulling the dress out. It’s too long to hang from a door knob so you have to stretch up on your tip toes to hang the coat hook over the curtain rod of your bedroom window.
“I was thinking of changing my name. Very to the point, don’t you think?” He replies, still smiling as you collect your phone. His eyes are sparkling with something cheeky when you appear back in frame.
Ryland’s dressed down, in one of those dumb science t-shirts he wears on ‘Casual Fridays’ as it is called in staff meetings. This one’s dark blue and has the periodic table on it in worn down white transfer ink. You’ve seen it enough to know the punch line sprawled over his lower stomach even though it’s not in frame. I wear this shirt periodically. He finds an extra layer in humor that the shirt is factually correct as well, that he does in fact, wear the shirt in regular intervals as he’d explained to you during a free-period on one of those casual Fridays.
He’s at his kitchen bench, phone propped up against something, while he taps away at his laptop. You’ve not actually been to Ryland’s apartment before, but it sorta feels like you have, the cramped studio always on display in the back of video calls like this one.
It’s just one long rectangle. Kitchen by the front door, a bench, a gap that is probably intended for a kitchen table but he’s stuck a desk there instead, his bed that’s almost always unmade with a tv wall mounted across from it, and a balcony. Like this, you can see the expanse of it behind him. The stacks of paper piled up on his desk, the extra monitors and little trinkets gifted from students, the sage green sheets of his bed, peeled back on one side, sun shining in through his big glass balcony doors. Honesty, you kind of want to see the view from his apartment in person, he’s a little higher up than you are, in a better part of the city too.
Ryland’s not brushed his hair, it’s all spiked up in different directions and you wonder if the mug he’s been sipping from, periodically, is his morning cup even though it’s just past ten. He’s blinking slow behind his glasses, sitting a little too still for his brain to be fully functional yet.
“I’m sure the kids will love it. Harder to spell on their assessment sheets, though.” You can imagine it, the staff badge, the name on his board in fun bubble writing where it would stay untouched for a whole school term.
You flip the camera, showing him the dress he’s been complaining about not understanding for the last half hour over text before he gave up and called you.
It’s cute, how his head tilts and he leans towards his phone for a second before just picking it up and holding it close enough so his eyes and forehead are just about all that is in frame. “Is that velvet?”
“It’s fake satin. I think.”
“Fake satin?” He repeats, confused.
The dress was one you already owned, bought a year or so ago for another friend’s wedding that you had attended alone but not felt crappy about, even if it did seem like everyone your age was getting married nowadays. It’s got a fitted bodice, but there fabric is a little drapey, looks like it pools over the chest and down towards the fluid skirt. "Wasn't expensive enough to be real satin.”
“Okay, I know what you mean by delicate straps now.” That had been his main hang up, whining about, What do you mean delicate straps? Like they’re about to break?, swearing that the shit he was googling was just not helping the mental image considering there were about six different results for everything.
“Yeah, and here, the lace up back.” You say, stepping up to twist the dress away from where it sat flush against the curtains to show the corset style back, with thin cord lace just a little thinner than the straps.
“Isn’t that going to be a nightmare to put on?” He asks, squinting still.
“There’s a zip.” You say, dragging the little hidden zipper down, showing him how the dress fabric parts and slips open. “So it’s fairly easy to get on. The cords are about as tight as they should be anyway, it isn't hard to pull to fit.”
You fumble a little trying to get the zip back up but eventually just conceded to leave out like that until you put the dress away. When you glance down at your phone, Ryland has moved, no longer sitting down and if you had to guess, is now walking the length of his apartment instead. He looks a little distressed.
“Come on, you’ve got the easy part.” You try, a little concerned he’s about to say he shouldn’t go. “You just have to put on a suit.”
“I can’t just ‘put on a suit’.” He whines, flopping down onto his bed like the world is ending. “I’m supposed to be like, your big ‘fuck you’ to the girl who got with your ex. I’m supposed to look good with you. I don’t know if I have a suit nice enough for that dress.”
“Ryland. It’s not about saying ‘fuck you’ to Daisy, or pulling some revenge stunt. I just didn’t want to go alone like a loser when I said I was bringing someone.” You can’t really help the little breathy laugh that weaves its way though his name, because he sounds like you did four days ago acting like the world was about to end, face down on the lunch table. “You don’t have to come.”
“No, I’m coming. I just need to go through my wardrobe.” He’s cute, you decide, in a round-about sort of way. The determination to play this self elected role well, to perfect it and give it his all, like he does with everything else in his life. The whole situation was elevating your ‘aesthetic appreciation’ of Ryland that you’d been attempting to suppress, to a new sort of level.
You flop down on your own bed, roll over on your side and let him derail the conversation towards lesson planning, listen to him talk about the plans he has for the next weeks worth of classes, a couple of activities he’s got in the works. All while you consider the pros and cons of having him beside you instead.
Ryland was probably the teacher you got on best with at work, despite being from two very different teaching areas. When he’d first arrived, you’d assumed he would be a little pretentious, with his Phd and professional experience beyond the classroom. You weren't expecting him to be so awkward. The children took to him so quickly, and Ryland had told you time and time again that he doesn't understand why they think he’s cool.
Over the years you’ve found that he can be cocky, in certain bouts of confidence seemingly appearing via divine-intervention. A local bar had run trivia nights for some six odd months, and it had unleashed a beast within him.
On Monday afternoon he sent you a photo. A little black bag with a logo you’d googled, realising it was a menswear store before the second photo had come though. A tie, sleek navy like your dress, rolled up neatly with a matching pocket square beside it, both nestled in a box that screamed expensive. You’d sent back a random string of praise, imagining him lulling it over in the store. It was nearly five in the afternoon, he’d left work pretty much on the final bell. You wonder how long he spent comparing the seemingly endless ties the shop’s online store offered, considering what would match best to your dress.
It makes you a little giddy, to be honest, has you dreaming of a situation where you’d asked him to come to the wedding, or where you’d already been together long enough that it was simply a given when the invitation turned up in your mail box.
Neither of you mention it during school hours, not keen on the kids hearing whispers of you and Ryland doing anything outside work hours- students will take anything and run with it.
But he messages you about it constantly. Makes a plan; he’d come to your apartment and you would uber from there to the venue, it was a sunset ceremony and evening reception. He lived close enough that it was a brisk walk or quick bus trip. He pointedly mentions that he would not be cycling- ‘In a suit? God, never’- and makes sure you know that the uber would also drop you both back to your flat and he’d walk home or take another separate uber.
There’s talk about your ‘backstory’, which he takes as seriously as he does exam periods. You tell him it’s not super necessary, that saying you met at work is more than enough exposition for the gaggle of college friends you’d not seen in years. But he was never one to do things in halves.
“We obviously would have met at school.” He says, like it’s a given. Ryland is laid out on the reading rug at the back of your classroom, staring at the ceiling. And the fake clouds that are actually just a hobby-fill glue gunned to paper and taped to the ceiling, he’d turned the fairy lights that are threaded though them on before he’d decided the floor was his resting place. “Maybe trivia is where it happened. We liked trivia.”
“We did like trivia.” You agree, pointedly.
It’s almost impossible to not just sit there and watch him, the student folders that you’re sorting worksheets into acting as a very inefficient distraction.
He’s got a button down on, some pale blue that looks nice under his grey wool blazer. The pale wash jeans and white converse are a bit more casual, but he wears the combination well. Too well. Laid out like this, with one knee up, he looks far too attractive for you to swallow. Glasses pulled down to hang off his jaw, sitting there catching the afternoon light as it came through the windows, casting rainbow refractions onto the back wall.
“Maybe trivia was a date. What would you have done?”
“If you’d asked me to trivia as a date?” You glance up. He’s already looking at you, head tipped to the side, something soft, tentative there in his eyes.
“Yeah.” You can see the way his throat bobs when he swallows, how his chest rises with each breath.
Ryland sounds… nervous, in a way that does remind you of the first trivia night you’d gone to. He’d been dressed similarly there, you remember thinking he looked nice, polished up a little more than he did in the school day with dress shoes and what smelt like cologne. Handsome where he waited by the entrance, backlit by the bar’s warm lighting. He’d been a little twitchy for the first hour or so, but settled into himself by round two.
With the way he’s looking at you, now as he plans out the false scenario that’s beginning to sound a lot more like a confession, you’re starting to get the idea that trivia could have been a date. If either of you had put it into words.
“Enjoyed it, probably.”
“Really?” He looks shy, a bit of a flush working its way up his cheeks.
You smile at him, thinking about how nice it would have been to kiss him in that bar with a sweet cocktail on your lips, dizzy from his flattery about your trivia skills. You hum, nodding a little as you look at the folders and sheets spread out over your desk, feeling a flush rise to your own cheeks.
He knocks when you’re halfway through lacing up the back of your dress, holding the cords with one hand as you open the door. Ryland’s not been to your apartment before, something you’d failed to realise until he called you and asked during his walk over, if you’d have to buzz him in.
He was appalled to find out the front door to your building was sporting a broken lock and had been tied back with a length of rope for the last two months while the landlords procrastinated fixing it.
“See,” You say, opening the door for him, keeping it propped open with your foot as he shuffles in. “My door locks.”
“Still one less lock that you’re supposed to have.” he grumbles, stepping out of his very nice dress shoes. They look expensive- black leather shined up propper.
Actually, Ryland looks expensive.
“You look nice,” he says, smiling a little shy, as if the compliment had just slipped out and he was supposed to be embarrassed about that.
“I uh,” You pause, swallowing thickly.
Holy fuck he looks good in a suit. It’s the only thought spinning around your head. It’s a proper one, tailor made no doubt. Blazer, slacks and undershirt, all three of them a deep inky black. The navy tie he’d sent you a photo of is done up around his neck in a knot neater than you’ve ever seen him wear to work. The pocket square is folded too, fluffed up with a little volume that suggests he did so intentionally.
Suddenly you’re reminded of all those times he’d complained about all the formal conferences and charity gala’s he’d attended during his days in academia. You realise you have made a grave error.
There have always been little parts about Ryland that oozed wealth, the glasses he wore for one, that he told you were antique when you’d asked. The watch on his wrist that you thought looked like some practical sporty thing but found out was actually worth three months rent when you’d googled it out of curiosity. These little things fall out of the spotlight and become footnotes that are often ignored when he’s in his classroom, or tiny apartment.
Dressed in such a nice suit, here in you apartment definitely wearing cologne- the same from that very first trivia night, something a little warm, woodsy like oaky bourbon, sharp and contrary to the fresh nothingness he smelt like at work- Ryland seemed so far beyond you.
“You look good.” You manage, letting the door slip shut and dropping the lace of your dress, it loses its tension a little but stays in the same spot for the most part, to run a hand over the lapel of his blazer. “How long have you had this?”
“Ages. Dug it out of the back of my closet. A little tighter than when I last wore it, but it will do the trick. Right?” He tacks that last bit on, like he’s waiting with baited breath for your approval.
“I’ll say.” You slide your hand down the lapel a little bit, down over the press of his chest. The tightness just shows the subtlety of his build, lean muscle that comes from idle exercise and good diet, maybe even a splash of genetics. He’s tidied his facial hair up a little, slid the electric razor over all of it to make sure it’s the same length, no doubt. Ryalnd’s still got his glasses on, you were a little worried he might have opted for contacts and are very relieved you get to see this outfit complete with the lenses that frame his face so well.
With a realisation you might be getting a little lost in your head, you drop your hand, turning to walk further into your apartment, towards the couch where your shoes for the night sat on the floor. “Right, we'll, I'm nearly ready. The uber will be here soon.”
“Do you need a hand?” Ryland asks, and you’re about to turn, ask him, ‘with what’ when you feel his fingertips against the small of your back. It sends a jolt though your skin, he’s cold. From the outside air, where as you’ve been nice and cosy with the heat on while you’d done your hair and make up.
Goosebumps rise under his hands as they gather the ties for the back of your dress. Something low swoops in your gut, like the dip of a roller coaster, free falling as he chuckles a little behind you. “Sorry, cold fingers.”
You swallow. “It’s.. it’s okay.”
“How tight?” He asks, giving the strings a gentle tug. You almost sway with the moment, feeling a little swept off your feet already.
“Bit tighter.” You manage, as he presses a flat palm against the small of your back, over the criss-crossing cord, and gathers both ties in one hand to pull slow and firm. It tugs you back into his hand, a steadier hold than you’d expected.
“There?” He questions when the dress is pulled in to sit flush with your skin but not dig in. You get the feeling he might have done some research, when he plucks at each string to even them out and make sure none of them are too tight, on how these dresses are supposed to sit.
“Yeah, perfect.” It leaves you like a sigh, as his palm dips, brushes where the zipper sits before pulling back to tie a neat bow, tugging the cords out carefully so both loops are even.
All of it has you lightheaded, directing more effort than necessary to get yourself to the couch and pull your heels on, black mary janes that are comfortable enough to walk in. As you fiddle with the buckles, you eye him.
Ryland’s hair is tousled, intentionally a little messy, not combed or slicked back. Looks like it would be nice to run your fingers though, and you find yourself wondering if that’s why he’d opted for the style, if he’s here, dressed up as the guy with ‘better hair and a better jawline’ that Margot had pitched, unaware that he already was exactly who he’s trying to be.
He holds an arm out for you to loop yours though, walking down the stairs in steady but slowed steps. You smile. “Wow, full gentleman experience.”
“I told you, I can't just ‘put on a suit’. It’s more than that.” He chides jokingly, and you pity the version of you that didn’t realise this was an option.
He opens the door for you- the car door, the door into the building door tied back by a rope (he glares at it when you pass it)- then rounds the back of the little toyota that’s polished up to try and seem fancier than it was. You don’t talk much on your way to the venue, comfortable silence that the driver thankfully settles into.
It’s nearing sundown when you pull into the driveway, a big circular road that’s already crammed with other cars and guests climbing out.
“You can just let us out here.” Ryland says to the uber driver, unbuckling his seatbelt to hop out, then rounding the car again to open your door, hand held out like it’s necessary, when the car is nowhere near low or high enough to warrant such assistance.
You place your palm in his anyway, letting him pull you from the car, no more temperature disparity in your hands since you’ve both been in the car for fifteen minutes, but it still makes your skin tingle. He’s got cufflinks, the same pale gold as his glasses, in the shape of atoms. You flick one lightly. “I like these.”
He smiles, something a little smothered like he’s trying to stamp it down from a grin as he threads his arm though yours again, beginning the small walk to the venue's front steps. “Well I like your dress, so I think we’re even.”
It’s a ballroom, with these big stained glass windows in the room they hold ceremonies in, you’d seen some lovely shots on the venue’s website of sunset light streaming through them. Imagining Ryland in the warm sunlight has you in a good mood, he’s always suited it, even if the city’s never had much to offer.
“Not too much for our first date?” You tease.
Something like a laugh tumbles out of his lips, leaning down to whisper in your ear. “First date was trivia- and you were underdressed. Keep up.”
You flush, crowding a little closer to his side to make it through the entryway without shoulder checking anyone. Had you been? It was so long ago you could hardly remember anything other than jeans, tight ones that dug into your waist when you sat down- tight jeans hardly felt like being underdressed, they probably meant you wanted him to stare at your ass. Either way you let him have the win, as minute as it is.
Doesn't really matter what you wore back then when you’ve got him like this now.
Together you sit about halfway down on the bride’s side, the pew’s nearly empty, only someone on the other end you don’t know but looks vaguely enough like Daisy, that's you’d guess extended family.
“So why’d you like this guy so much?” Ryland asks, quiet enough for it to just stay between the two of you. He’s glancing around, but his eyes keep bouncing back to Jack at the front of the venue, where he’s talking to gaggle of similarly dressed guys, his groomsmen.
“What?”
“Him,” Ryland says, tipping his head a little to gesture at Jack. “What had you talking about soulmates? Couldn't just be the hair, tons of guys have good hair.”
“They do.” You answer, raising a hand to tangle one of the longer stands where it’s dangling over his forehead around your pointer finger and give it a light tug. Ryland’s eyes settle on you, like there’s nothing else to look at. “He made me feel like the only girl in the world.”
“That’s a cliche.” He refutes. “And a song lyric.”
You smile. “I’m serious. He’s like that with every girl he went out with. He’s like it with Daisy. He just loses sight of every other woman, so attentive.”
Ryland stays silent for a moment, eyes searching for something in yours. Maybe permission, or a want, for him to keep digging, it’s almost as if he’s scared what he might find. “What'd he do? To make you feel like that?”
It’s cute, how nervous he is, despite the fact it feels as though all week, the pair of you have been laying this ground work, a path to follow that will lead you somewhere inevitable, like a trivia date, or the messy sprawled sage green sheets or Ryland’s bed. You smile at him, wondering if he’s thought about you in them. You wonder if he knows how easily you could be, that you might just follow him to the edge of the universe.
Still, you answer his question, offering a peek into your brain, the way you used to operate when teenage giddiness was closer than adult yearning. "Took me dancing. Kissed me slowly, cared about how I wanted things to go. It was like he just couldn’t stop looking at me, for me. It was intoxicating.”
“I can’t.” Ryland blurts out, all reckless abandon, and he’s looking at you like you’ve already kissed him breathless just by being here. You let your leg shift to press the length of your thigh against his, warm even through the layers of fabric.
You breathe in deep through your nose, the scent of his cologne sticking dizzyingly to the air, a scent you think is enough to get drunk on even without the assistance of wedding champagne. "Can't what?”
“Stop looking at you.” He clarifies, eyes darting down to your lips. “I can do the other things though.”
A flutter knocks about your chest, unsteady and uncoordinated. “Yeah, you like dancing Doctor Grace?”
“If it’s with you.” He amends.
“And slow kissing? You like that too?”
“Yeah I do.” He’s not even trying to hide it now, gaze settled on the dusty pink line of your lips, his own a little slick with spit when he darts his tongue out to trace one quick line along them.
You almost asked him to prove it, but in your peripherals, down the aisle and pausing at the sight of you, was Macey, another one of your college friends, smiling. So you place a hand on Ryland's thigh, just above his knee. “Good. Really good.”
Ryland looks dizzy with the praise, like it’s all rushed straight to his head.
“Hey Macey, good to see you.” You greet, using your hand on Ryland's knee to tip his legs towards you, making room for Macey to shuffle into the pew.
“Oh my god, good to see you too! It's been awhile, hasn’t it?” She leans down a little awkwardly to wrap you in a hug as you half stand, and it’s good to see someone after so long, to look at them and remember times when things were simpler and you were allowed to be a little stupid, a little dangerous. It’s nice to see her here, for her to sit next to you- Macey’s always encouraged you to be a little wild, and with the way Ryland’s been looking at you all night, you might need her ego-bosting tonight.
“I’m Macey, nice to meet you.” She extends a hand to Ryland over your lap and he shakes it curtly, offering his own introduction.
There’s a big rock on her finger, and you remember seeing it on an instagram post, some dreamy forest scenery with a ‘coming soon to a theatre near you’ caption under it.
“I suppose it will be your wedding next then,” You tease, “Where’s Jamie?”
“Oh she had a work trip, couldn't avoid it. She wanted to come though.” Macey waves off. Her and her fiance met on some film set, both camera operators, at the time, although you faintly recall reading something about Jamie’s name working its way up to director for some upcoming project, amongst the throws of social media posts from people who once knew everything about you and now you only see once every few years.
“So Ryland,” Macey starts with a glimmer in her eyes, something evil and mischievous that throws you back to seeing her in the living room with a bottle of tequila and monopoly board. “How’d you two meet?”
“We teach at the same school,” He grins, a hand sliding to your knee, just along the inside of it, where your dress fabric hangs low with slack, enough for his palm to press there, thumb drawing slow lines back and forth. “A little cliche but I don’t mind.”
Macey smiles, fans her face a little like that’s just soooo romantic. “What do you teach?”
“Science, opposites attract I guess.”
“Please tell me you used that line.” She practically swoons.
Ryland huffs a little laugh. “No, the kids threw that one at me actually.”
“Really?” You question, a raised eyebrow because that was not part of the backstory he’d been cooking up all week.
“Oh yeah. You should hear them. “Mr. Grace, you and Miss are ,like perfect for each other. You should ask her to the spring dance. They’re relentless, I swear.”
He pitches his voice a little, lazy tones and improper grammar leaking out in the way it did when he did impressions of your students and you can’t help but giggle a little.
“Their heads might explode when they find out.” Macey laughs too, then like a stroke of inspiration, slaps her hand against your arm a few times in pure, unrestrained excitement. “God- remember when we found out Professor Morisaki and Professor Collins were married? Holy shit it was like our heads exploded.”
You bark a laugh, muffling it under your hand considering the rather low level of idle chatter in the venue. “Oh my god, I forgot about that.”
“Professors of yours?” Ryland asks, this soft smile spread across his lips still.
“Yeah, we were doing a car-wash fundraiser! They were kissing in the background of one of our photos!” Macey still whispers gossip like she did in college, like your students do now.
Ryland looks a little red in the face when he asks. “A car wash fundraiser?”
Macey smirks, always too good at picking things up from others' words and you kind of want to stomp your heel over her toes to tell her off before you remember how this evening had been going so far. “Oh? Don’t you know? We were a little wild in college.”
You scoff. “A little?”
“Okay, a lot.” She corrects. “The car wash was an annual thing. White tshirts, bikinis. There’s definitely pictures. I have pictures.”
“Macey.” You scold, mostly joking.
She shrugs, straightens up and sits to face the fronts, pointedly not looking at you with a smirk on her face. “Hey- I’m just reminiscing on good times. Don’t you remember the kissing booth we ran? Of course you do you were the most requested-”
Now you stomp your foot onto hers, although she doesn’t do anything but laugh to herself.
Ryland is back to that dazed look, like he’s on some far off planet in his mind, when he murmurs, "Kissing booth?”
You glare at Macey, for a sharp moment. Before patting one hand on Ryland’s chest, leaning in close when you say, loud enough for Macey to hear. “Tell you about it later, handsome.”
He ducks his head a little close to you, a tiny little movement that stops as soon as it starts. His cheeks are the reddest you’d ever seen, looking a lot like he’s about to kiss you now, when there’s a music cue somewhere further up the aisle and a hush falls over everyone. He doesn't look away at first, eyes glued to yours for a long second before he bites his lower lip, to stop himself saying something and reaches a hand up to lace his fingers together with yours over his chest. He pulls it gently to his lap, smothering it in between his warm palms, fiddling with your fingers as the ceremony starts.
It’s beautiful, truly. The light lowered through the stained glass windows, reflecting and casting colour across the whole room, gentle music and teary vows. Picturesque really, and it reminded you of that time you’d all made ‘vision boards’ as a bonding activity, and Daisy had a little corner on hers that outlined the life she’d like to live, from a small sunset ceremony to the little white picket fence outside a cottage. You’re happy she’s finally arrived there, that she has a man who’s willing to give her everything she’d dreamed of.
You tell her as much, when you catch the pair of them in the reception hall. A warm hug for each of them and a firm hand shake between Jack and Ryland. It’s a lot less daunting than you had thought it would be, seeing them with the knot tied, no bad blood lingering or awkwardness about what once was. Just contentedness, with where your lives had led you each.
The food is good and the atmosphere is better, seeing people from a previous life chapter all reunited, laughing and catching up. The reception is held in a ball room, with gorgeous polished hard wood floors and lovely low lighting that hangs from the ceiling in delicate chandeliers. There’s a classical band, a memento board for people to take polaroids and write well wishes on them, a corner with photos from Both Daisy and Jack’s lives, in albums and tacked up on walls, showing where they meet and things bleed together into their future. All of it’s beautiful.
It’s heading into the later part of the night, when some people have excused themselves and cake has been cut, a hefty supply of the champagne depleted, that a nice slow song comes on.
You aren’t really paying that much attention to it, until you see Ryland shift beside you, rising and holding out one hand, palm up, towards you. “Care to dance?”
Something warm spreads over your face, a flush probably, as you lay a hand in his and he ever so gently pulls you to your feet, right in close to him. He leans down again, lips pressing feather-light to your temple before he leads you towards the dance floor.
It’s littered with other couples, celebrating the love they have for each other as well as the bride and groom.
All of it has you a little dizzy, settling a hand on Ryland’s shoulder as his palm slides around your waist, fingers slowing around the lace up back of your dress, pressing into your skin with gentle intent. He’s warm, firm against you, breath fanning across your cheek as you look up at him. “I know this isn’t the kind of dancing you meant, but it’s the best I can do for now.”
You humm, feet shifting in time with his, a slow waltz you weren’t even aware he knew. “I think I prefer this kind of dancing nowadays.”
Ryland’s lips tick up into a smile. “Yeah?”
He looks as good in the warm lamp light as he does in sunlight, kissing across his tanned skin and stubble, showing off the highlights of his hair. You want to run your hands through it, press a kiss to the scruff of his jaw. You settle on talking instead, worried he’s not one for such public displays of affection. “Left my wild nights behind in college.”
He sighs, like this is a devastating blow, hanging his head slightly, glasses slipping a smidge down his nose. “A shame. I was looking forwards to an appearance.”
You purse your lips, lifting the hand from his shoulder to cup his jaw, tilting his head back up a little, the pad of your thumb pressing his glasses back up to where they're supposed to sit. “Might do a private showing. Just for you.”
“You going to wash my car?” He asks, teasing. Eyes following the movement of your hand as it slips back down into place on his shoulder.
Your forehead falls, pressing against his collar bone as a furious blush blooms over your face, the worst it has been all night, murmuring, “You don’t have a car.”
He must have known what you were going to say, or some semblance of it because you certainly weren’t speaking loud enough for him to catch all of it, but he still sighs, a little dramatic. “Guess we’ll have to go with the kissing booth then.”
You lift your head a little, to look up at him where he’s smiling down, mirth dancing about in his eyes. “Oh, what a shame.”
The drawl has him crack a grin, cheeks flushed as he looks away. Fingers dancing slowly along the skin of your back, between the cords he’d tied up so perfectly for you.
For you, all of it. His nice suit he’d dug out from the back of his closet, the smart shoes nudging against yours with every step of the waltz. Ryland would do a lot for you, the realisation comes a little late, considering everything. You lean forwards a little, resting your cheek on his chest, as the song slows right down, indulgent.
“You got plans after this?” You ask, and it sounds so cheesy, so bland once it’s left your lips.
Still, when he answers, the smile is audible in Ryland’s voice. “Thought I was getting a private show. Is that offer off the table?”
“Think I can manage it,” You murmur, listening to the final few chords echo about the ball room, basking in the way his voice had rippled and rumbled through his chest, low against your cheek.
He lingers for a few seconds in the quiet, holding you close against his chest. You wonder if he, too, is basking in it. The closeness, the idea of having something that you’ve both been pretending couldn’t happen, wasn’t there in the air of exhaled breaths and weighted stares.
When he pulls back, there is nothing but adoration in his eyes, hand that holds yours falling low, but not releasing it, palm soft against your waist, almost as if he doesn't want to let you go just yet. “Wanna get out of here?”
“Bit forward, Ryland,” You tease, “we’ve not even taken photos yet.”
His eyes follow yours to the polaroid board in the corner, considers it for a moment before he’s pulling you gently by the grasp of his hand around yours, towards it.
The polaroid camera is a little hand held thing, there’s a stand for it, and poster board instructions on how to set a timer delay.
Ryland insists on taking one of just you, and while you’re grinning, trying to convince him to join you against the black fabric backdrop, the shutter goes off.
He rolls his eyes, but lets you drag him in beside you for the next photo. The timer is set, and just as you’re preparing to smile, something a little sweet and knowing, he gets one hand around the small of your back, knocks one of those very smart shoes against your heel and tilts you into a dip. It leaves you a little breathless, as he smiles, nose almost touching yours, shutter flashing off to the side.
He lets you choose which photo goes on the memo board. “Whichever one you don’t put up there, I’m keeping.”
You look a little silly in both, at least you think as much, caught off guard, and laughing a little out of breath. Ryland insists you look amazing in both. Something a bit selfish pulls at your gut, as you apprise both photos, and eventually, hand the one of you and Ryland to him- liking the idea of getting to see it again, of having a physical reminder of the night you two have spent together.
He grins like he’s won something, pulling his wallet out from his jacket pocket- a crisp brown leather that looks worn but well cared for- and to your mortification, tucks the photo into the clear slot. The one most people put their licences, or photos of loved ones, like heart-shaped lockets back in the old days. Ryland says nothing on the matter and he folds his wallet back up and slides it back into his pocket, waiting for you to write your message on the other polaroid’s back.
You scrawl some comment about happy endings and humble crazy beginnings, Signing your name on the bottom under the image of your laughter, and tack it up on the board next to the one Macey’s left.
Ryland’s got his arm out, hooked there for you to loop yours through again.
You manage to catch Daisy by the bar on your way out, and give her a tight hug, telling her again how beautiful the wedding has been, how happy you were for her.
The night air is crisp and the second you’re outside, waiting for the uber that’s just a few minutes away, Ryland strips off his suit jacket, draping it over your shoulders with a lack of hesitation that makes it seems as if he’s been waiting to do it all night.
You look at him and raise a brow, but don’t say anything when you catch sight of his pleased smile. It’s almost devastating to realise he looks even better in just the black button down and tie than he did in the full suit.
Again, the drive is mostly silent, but you notice pointedly, that you’re not going back to your apartment. And when you tilt Ryalnd’s phone and tap the screen awake, you recognise his street name in the trip’s destination.
“Presumptious.” You smile.
He grins back, lets a warm palm wander to the curve of your knee, fingers curling around it then venturing to settle a little higher around your thigh. “How are you going to wash my car if we don’t go to my place?”
“You don’t have a car.” You repeat, curious where all this teasing confidence has come from, if perhaps your very clear signals have finally given Ryland the means to throw out all of that unnecessary nervousness and doubt.
“Right,” He hisses, patting his other hand on his leg, as if to say ‘drat, there goes that plan’. Then he leans in close, whispers to you, “What was the back up plan again?”
“You are much bolder after a few glasses of champagne.”
He hums, a considering sort of sound that rumbles in the minimal air between you. “More so when I know I'm right.”
“And what, pray tell, are you right about?”
“That you like-like me.” He teases, like a child on the playground and if you were a little less level-headed, you might have kissed him right there, leant across the middle seat to lock lips with him in an uber.
But you don’t want the first time you kiss him to be viewed through a rear view mirror by a driver who looks very unimpressed by the conversation happening in the back seat. “You gonna prove that hypothesis in your apartment?”
“That’s very forwards of you.” He teases, head tipping down like he is going to kiss you.
Expect you turn your head, and his lips brush against your cheek, as you tut. “All scientists say experiments are supposed to be conducted in controlled environments.”
He leans back, still close enough for his warm breath to fan across your face. “You’ve been seeing other scientists? I’m heartbroken.”
“Give yourself some credit, your classes are very interesting.”
“Earsdropping, huh? Didn’t think you were the type.” He looks far too pleased by the idea that you’ve listened to him teach, like he doesn't know that when you come for something during class hours that you linger by the door and wait for him to finish whatever he’s saying, as if you could look at anything else when he was so captivating.
“I’ll Tell you exactly what type I am in,” You glance down to tap his phone awake, checking the ride estimate. “four minutes.”
He nods and you wonder if he’d get that head-rush distant expression on his face if you praised him for the patience. It’s something you want to save for later, you decide, for private. Just for you.
Ryland manages to wait, even keep his hands to himself, once you’re both out of the car, leading you though his building with a sort of reverent silence, that you get the impression wouldn’t return once broken. You stand across from each other in the elevator. With both his hands braced on the bar at hip height, Ryland fixes you with a look that echoes in the space, though the mirrors surrounding you and over the idle hum of machinery. You’re still wearing his jacket, over your shoulders, a slight barrier between the handrail and the curve of your back, as you stand with your arms crossed smiling at him.
The giddiness that bubbles up and about inside you, as you huddle in close behind him through the hallway, as he unlocks his door and lets you squeeze in past him, is something you’ve not felt in a long time. There’s not much room for childish excitement in the modern dating landscape, it feels as though everyone is in a rush, trying to get where they want to be with a relationship before it’s too late.
Ryland though, he’s here. You watch him latch the door, before he turns, standing there to let his eyes run up you again.
“Soooo,” He says, pursing his lips and tangling his hands together in front of him, like he’s suddenly nervous.
“So?” You ask, taking a few steps forwards to run your hand down the plane of his chest again, feeling it under your palm just like you did when he’d turned up at your apartment that afternoon.
“It’s been four minutes.” He swallows, and this close you can see how his adams apple bobs. Your other hand reaches up to scratch feather light against the stubble of his jaw, hand on his chest catching on the silky soft fabric of his tie, the one he’d picked out just for you.
Rylands hands are slow, one moves to the dip of your waist, landing where it had during your waltz, if not a little more firm as it presses you close against him. He catches his jacket by the collar, lets it slide back off your shoulders and hang from his grip as it slides to settle on the curve of your hip.
“It has.” You lick your lips.
Tuggin on his tie was not supposed to be a demanding thing, more so a gentle tease like you have been doing all night, stepping around that first move like it was a pitfall trap you’d never make it out of. Expect he pitches forwards much easier than you expected and Ryland's lips are pressed against yours.
Soft and still a little honeyed by the champagne, he moves slowly against you. He takes one step back, then another, pulling you with him and not letting his lips leave yours as he backs himself up against his apartment door.
Your teeth catch on his bottom lip, and a sharp inhale escapes him, almost a gasp, before he melts into the wood at his back, parting his lips and slipping his tongue up against yours.
It’s slow kissing, it’s dizzying and it’s want. Everything he’d promised you hours ago, in the afternoon sun of that venue, looking like a dream come true.
For what could be hours, you stay there, pressed up against him, kissing at his skin, until he shifts his legs, just slightly, enough to press one somewhere between yours, a soft presence halted by the fabric of your dress.
Breathless, you break the kiss and he lays a sweet peck against your temple, an echo of earlier, before he begins to nose at the line of your jaw, your neck. Kissing then sucking at the divot along your collar while you pant. “Ryland,”
He says your name, just as breathless against your skin, his hand dropping the jacket to pull at the chord of your dress.
“Is your doorway where you take all the girls?”
“There are no other girls.” He murmurs like a confession, far more earnest than you’d been prepared for.
“Just me?”
He pulls back, pupils blow wide and face flushed blotchy and red. “Yeah.”
Ryland leans forwards, crowds impossibly close until your feet begin to shuffle, back, back, back into his studio apartment. It passes in a blur as he presses in to kiss your lips again, glued to them until he deems it’s been enough backwards paces and presses another kiss to your jaw. Using his grip on your sides, Ryland turns you around, folds in around behind you.
His bed’s unmade, messy sheets splayed out in front of you, a pile of sage green cotton that feels like a promise, a sight you’ve dreamed about far too many times.
There’s pressure there, against your ass, a hard length that’s tight against his slacks and it makes your stomach swoop to know he’s so turned on by the slow kissing you’d been thinking about all night. His shuddering breath rushes like wind by your ear, as his fingers pull at the bow he’d tied himself. “Been thinking about this for too long.”
“Yeah?” You shudder when his lips find their place against your neck, sucking and biting at the skin there in a way that will probably result in a lasting reminder. “Since you laced it up?”
“Since you showed me this zipper." He pulls at it and the fabric gives, parting to sit low on your hips. Ryland kisses at the juncture of your throat, biting, and nipping.
The dress doesn’t fall, not with the straps still hanging loosely from your shoulders, but it’s a damn near thing. One of Ryland’s hands winds around your waist, dragging you back against him as he presses up with one slow grind that has him choking on a groan. His cock, still trapped in his slacks, drags between the zip and against your underwear in a tease that’s maddening with far too much still left to your imagination.
You try to turn but he’s got you wrapped up so firmly in his arms that it’s not plausible, so instead you reach a hand back, over your shoulder to tug at the knot of his tie, fingers slipping against the silky marital, catching in the bulk to it to tug. A particularly hard tug has him whining.
“Okay,” You huff out as he sucks a little harder just under your jaw that will definitely result in a hickey if you let him continue for much longer. “Come on, don’t you wanna fuck me?”
You punctuate this by groping around between you both until you get a hand over his cock, giving it a gentle squeeze.
“Need to remember this bit.” He mumbles, hand around your waist retreating to slip inside your dress from behind, curving back around so his fingers can skate over the soft skin of your stomach, tips slipping just under the waistband of your panties.
It has you clenching down on nothing and you become actually aware of how uncomfortably wet you’re beginning to get. You squeeze your thighs together, squirming in his grasp.
“Next time, Ry-” He splays his hand over your stomach, using it to press you back into him. “Ryland, come on. Need you.”
It tumbles out in a breathy whine, and it’s like you’ve said the magic words. He’s turning you around in his grasp, hands reaching up to slip the straps off your shoulders and marvel at the sight.
He swallows as you reach for his tie again, loosening it gently now you can get your fingers into the knot properly. Ryland’s hands hover nervously before settling against your rib cage, fingers brushing anxiously against the underside of your breasts.
Your dress was not one that lent itself to a bra, so you’d gone without. You had assumed that he’d figured that one out, given how he’d both laced and un-laced the back of it, but now that it’s out of the way, he’s looking at your chest like he hadn’t expected to see it so quickly.
“You mean it?” He manages, sounding all tongue tied as you pry the tie off, letting it fall onto the floor, blending into the puddle of your dress- a perfect shade match. “I.. I get a next time?”
“Yeah.” You breathe, working on his shirt buttons, one after the other, coming apart as easily as Ryland did under your gaze. “As many as you want.”
When you get to the bottom of his shirt and reach for the belt buckle, Ryland’s hands move from where they’ve been gently nudging your breasts, to your wrists, snagging them gently as he pulls them back. His shoes nudged against yours, another one of those silent signals to step back that you didn’t know you understood so well until tonight.
“Let me.” He says, one hand coming to your hip to push you gently back and down onto his bed.
You land softly, mattress springing underneath you as you shuffle back, leaning on your elbows to gaze up at him as he toes off his shoes and pulls off his socks, a little off balance like the whole path from the door has altered his centre of gravity.
Ryland is a sight, heaven-sent.
His hair’s spiked out in six different directions, and you want to scratch at his scalp and pull at the strands all over again. He slides his glasses down his nose and sets them on the nightstand. The skin of his chest is just as tanned as his arms, a wide expanse that’s begging to be marked up with your teeth and nails.
The belt buckle clinks softly in the empty air as he slips it open, unbuttoning his slacks before he shrugs the black dress shirt off. God, you want to bite his shoulders.
Your teeth clamp down on your tongue at the thought, kind of wishing the tie was in the picture so you could pull him down on top of you. Just when you’re about to reach up, aiming for his shoulder or maybe even his cheek, Ryland surprises you by taking a knee.
His fingers are a little clumsy as they wrap around the heel of your left shoe, pulling it up onto his bent knee as he fumbles with the buckle. He’s gentle with it, more careful than he was with his own shoes that are certainly worth more than your cheap pair, right shoe, then the left.
Still, it has your stomach tied up in knots to witness with just how much reverence he’s treating you. And the sight of Ryland between your legs is certainly one you could get used to.
He presses a kiss to the inside of your knee before blinking up at you. “Are you… Can I-”
Ryland cuts himself off and that same unwarranted nervousness from before takes over his face, fingers curling tightly around your ankle, as if to ground himself. You smile at him, something that feels a little too giddy and a little too much like your 20 year-old self from college, fumbling and laughing your way to bed. “What is it Ry? You’ve already got me on your bed, no need to be shy.”
He bites his bottom lip, rolling it between his teeth as he considers the words. “If you say so.”
Then he gently leads your leg, by the ankle that’s still gripped tightly in his palm, off his propped leg as he drops it to kneel, and hooks it over his shoulder. Ryland kisses a path up your calf and along the inside of your leg and with an overwhelming flood of realisation, you fall back against the bed, bracing for the moment where he presses a soft kiss on your clit, through the fabric of your underwear.
Despite his earlier hesitance, Ryland does not dilly-dally. Once he hears your shuddering breath that sounds more like a moan than anything else, he hooks a thumb though the crotch of your panties, pulls them to the side and presses another slow kiss against you.
It’s maddening, has you gasping out his name as he licks a stripe up your cunt, sighing into it like it’s the best thing he’s ever tasted. He’s been teasing you long enough that when he presses two fingers along your folds, teasing the resistance of it, they sink in easily. He hooks them up, pressing up against the spongy wall and pulls another moan from your lips.
You're not sure how long Ryland spends between your legs with your hands in his hair and name on your lips, but it’s got you dizzy, clenching around his fingers as he strokes them inside you, languid and slow as he lays gentle kisses over your clit. His stubble scratches against your thighs in a way you’d expected to hate, but are getting rather fond of.
It’s a slow build that crests with you moaning his name and clenching around his fingers as his tongue slows, your hips twitching a little with overstimulation post-orgasm. He moves his kisses to the inside of your thigh, the one not hooked over his shoulder as you catch your breath and it’s highly plausible that he’s leaving another hickey there.
When he does pull back, Ryland is just as breathless as you. Cheeks flushed and chest stuttering as he licked his lips clean. His pupils are blown wide, so much so you can hardly see the blue as he gazes up at you. “You said I could fuck you, right?”
“Yeah,” you swallow, throat scratchy and dry. “You can.”
With your head still spinning from the attention and care he’s taking with you, it’s a moment before you realise his hands are back at your hips as he shuffles you around the bed, up until he can fit his palm behind your head and lift it onto a pillow that smells like him.
Ryland’s above you, propped up on one elbow and a knee to keep his weight off your body. You can feel each heavy exhale on your cheek. “Like this?”
“Just like this.” You say, nodding hand reaching up for his cheek to pull him down into another slow, languid kiss.
He leans in close, whining against your mouth as you part your legs for him to set his between and get a hand on the small of his back, pressing until he gets the hint and grinds downs. It has you both moaning and panting against each other.
You’re getting impatient, and while he must have ditched the pants somewhere between eating you out and repositioning you right side up on the mattress, he’s still got his briefs on and you’re still wearing your underwear.
“Off,” You grunt, hand pulling at the waistband of his briefs.
Ryland’s head drops to the space beside yours, just above your shoulder as he reaches a hand down to pull his underwear down over his cock and down his legs, kicking them off somewhere at the end of the bed.
He gasps, a shaky exhale hitting your skin as you wrap your hand around the length of him.
Warm and heavy in your palm, he’s bigger than you’d expected. When you slide your hand up, swiping a thumb over the head of his dick, there’s so much precum that it pools on your thumb pad. You give him a slow pump, slide eased by the wetness.
Ryland mouths at the skin of your shoulder, and the hand he’s not using to keep himself above you finds its way to your hip, slipping under your panties, pulling at them.
“Condoms. I need-” He cuts himself off with another groan, biting into your skin then kissing it softly like an apology. “I need a condom.”
His hand slips out from your underwear and he gets his knees up either side of your hips to reach over, straining for the nightstand. You take the moment to kiss along his collarbone, using the hand that’s not wrapped around him to tug your panties down, wriggling them off and down your legs.
It doesn’t go unnoticed, and he drops the condom wrapper somewhere beside your head as his gaze whips back to your face. “I was going to do that.”
He sounds a little bit thrown, like he’d really been looking forwards to pulling your panties off.
“You were also going to fuck me.” You prod, giving his cock another languid stroke, watching his face contort with pleasure as he groans. He eases himself back over you, legs between yours and his weight pressing down in a way that has you sighing in contentment.
“Not fair.” He pants, forehead dropping against yours. A hand, so gentle and far too tender comes up to brush the hair by your temple, away from your eyes. “Next time, you let me take my time, okay?”
You press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “We’ll take turns.”
The condom wrapper crinkles in your fingers and you pinch the edge of it between your teeth and rip the corner off, splitting it open with your thumb. Ryland whines, louder and needier than you’d heard him all night, when you roll it over his dick, hips bucking into your hand and cock bumping against your stomach.
He gets his hand down between your bodies, runs three of his fingers through your folds, making your breath hitch. Then he nudges your hand out of the way and runs his cock though them next. You whine, high pitched and stuttered.
It’s a slow steady push when he slips inside you, one that draws out a long moan from your lips. Ryland moans your name, panting and kissing at your throat.
“God,” he pants. “You feel so good, baby.”
A broken whine sneaks past your lips, one hand reaching up to slide around the back of his neck, to lead his face back to yours so you can kiss him all over again.
This type of slow kissing might have been your new favorite, Ryland’s tongue teasing the seam of your lips before you slip them apart, tracing the line of his teeth with your own tongue. He rolls his hips, grinding down in a slow motion. The curve of his cock drags along your walls, along that spongy spot before bumping so deep inside that it must hit your cervix.
You hook a leg up around his waist and it has his stomach pressing up against your clit when he moves again. Moaning into his mouth, you see stars. “Fuck, that’s perfect- so good.”
Your fingers tangle in the hair at the nape of his neck, pulling in a way that earns you a whine and a jerky thrust of his hips. “Y-yeah?”
“Yeah Ry- perfect. Feel so full.” The praise kicks him into gear and his slow occasional grinds turn into a building pace, hips pushing against yours and he buries himself to the hilt with every thrust.
You kiss at the line of his jaw, mouthing and biting at the stubble there. He moans, sharp exhale hitting your cheek. “‘M not gonna last much longer, sw-swetheart.”
“S’okay. Let go, baby.” You murmur by his ear, free hand slipping down to press against your clit.
The pressure alone is almost enough to tip you over the edge, pussy spasming around him. Ryland groans, loud and unrestrained, his rhythm falling apart as you do.
When he does come, he manages a couple more thrusts, shallow as they nudge up against that perfect spot inside you. Ryland whines, shaking a little with over stimulation.
“Couple more.” You moan, fingers winding tight little circles over your clit. “Almost there.”
Your spine goes stiff and a drawn-out whine slips out as you cum, clenching around the weight of him. Ryland stills inside, buried deep as he pants.
Slowly, he eases himself down over you, the gentle pressure of his weight relaxing. Ryland only takes a few moments there though, before sliding an arm under you and around your waist, slowly rolling you both, so he’s sprawled out with his back on those sage green sheets with you draped over him.
He kisses your temple, mumbling your name like a prayer. “‘S a good kissing booth. Might be a repeat customer.”
You push up a little to look at him, hands either side of his chest, and a hitched breath sputters out of his lips as you shift, his cock still inside you. “Might? What happened to ‘next time’?”
He smiles at you, hands reaching for your hips as he draws slow lines up and down your skin with his thumbs. “Well, I don’t wanna push my luck.”
“You’re not pushing anything.” You murmur, leaning back down to kiss him proper.
Once the aftershocks of your orgasm have faded and the idea of being empty no longer pulls painfully at your chest, you raise your hips up and let Ryland’s now soft cock slip out. He exhales heavily, and you lay beside him, eyes on the slow spinning ceiling fan.
He sits himself up not long after, slips the condom off and wanders off to the tiny door that you now know is his bathroom. He comes back with a damp cloth, smiling at you shyly as he cleans you up, gentle swipes over your core and along the inside of your thighs.
Ryland walks over and pulls some boxers on, then returns to the bed to slide a pair over your hips too. “You want a shirt?”
You bite your bottom lip in a poor attempt to smother a grin. “Only if it’s one of your nerdy ones.”
He kisses the smile off your lips and wanders back over to his wardrobe, throws a shirt in your general direction then goes about fixing the sheets.
You admire the sight. It had never occurred to you how nice his arms were, you want them around you again. He pulls the sheets straight, then up over you before he crawls in beside you.
“This okay?” He asks, pulling you over to lay up against him.
“More than okay.” You snuggle closer, cheek pressed against the warm plane of his chest. “Been thinking about this.”
The confession slips out in a rush of endorphins, like you’re so happy to be wrapped up in his arms and sheets, smelling like him, that you just can’t help but let him know.
You can hear the confusion in his voice when he speaks. “Having sex with me?”
No. You almost say, even though you had. It wasn’t where you were trying to go with this though. “Sleeping in your bed. With you.”
The rise and fall of his chest, of a heavy exhale, moves beneath you. “Oh.”
“I think our next date should be trivia.” You declare, a quiet sort of smile on your lips as his fingers trace slow little circles on your back between the waistband of your borrowed boxers and the ridden up hem of the shirt. “So we can get it right this time.”
“Deal.”
[ Masterlist ]
baby's first Goose fic? more proabaly on the way, although next fic published will proabaly be an oc one, with either Ryland Grace or Holland March from the nice guys.
amandla
gamechangershow
kianamaiart
gracieabrams
2087
areudirty
andulkaphoto
izzy806
ellievsbear
