M!R

late-night thoughts typed in lowercase, turning feelings into paragraphs no one asked for

[sanlikestowrite]

Lars Lindstrom as your boyfriend (Headcanons) — Male!Reader 𖧧

SFW:

Lars is an incredibly quiet observer in the office, but his eyes always find you. He has a subtle, unintentional staring problem where he will completely freeze while organizing files, just admiring how effortlessly you navigate the room. If you catch his eye and smile, a rapid, bright flush creeps up his neck, and he immediately ducks his head to look busy.

Despite what gossip says about you two being an "unlikely match" due to your charm, Lars holds zero insecurity about it. In fact, he takes a quiet, immense pride in the fact that while everyone else at work only gets your professional politeness, he is the only one who knows the soft, private warmth you reserve for him outside those walls.

His desk is a small, sacred gallery of your relationship. Tucked right next to his computer is a framed photo of the two of you laughing, alongside a dried wildflower from your very first date and the small, heart-shaped rock you skipped across the river and handed to him. He touches the rock with his thumb whenever he feels overwhelmed by the office noise.

Gift-giving is how Lars speaks when his words get stuck. You often find small, thoughtful tokens left on your desk or in your car—a perfectly carved wooden trinket he spent days smoothing out, a specific pastry he remembered you liking, or anything he found that reminded him of you. He never makes a grand gesture of delivering them. They appear like quiet promises.

While the rest of the world still requires a cautious distance due to his lingering touch aversion, you are his complete exception. There is no pain or stinging sensation when your skin meets his. Instead, he craves your touch like a grounding wire. He will silently slide his hand into yours under the dinner table, his fingers trembling slightly—not from fear, but from the sheer relief of being close to you.

His jealousy is entirely non-confrontational but incredibly transparent. For instance, if a coworker leans too close to your desk or gets overly physical, Lars will suddenly appear, clutching a stack of completely irrelevant paperwork. “Um, excuse me—sorry but the manager needed these, uh, reviewed by you right away. Please. It’s... it’s urgent,” he’ll stammer, inventing a bureaucratic emergency on the spot to pull you away.

Acts of service are his default way of showing devotion. Lars will wake up extra early to prepare your lunch, cutting your fruit into neat, perfect pieces and hiding a tiny, encouraging note inside the bag for you to find later. Or you’ll come home to find he has quietly whisked away your laundry, folding every shirt and sweater with a slow, meticulous care that leaves them in perfectly smooth piles without ever being asked. If you mention your back hurts, he will spend the next hour sitting behind you, carefully massaging the tension out of your shoulders.

He loves the routine of waiting for you after clocking out. Lars waits for you so he can walk exactly three paces behind you to the parking lot, letting everyone see that you are leaving together. Once you are both inside the privacy of your car, his entire posture relaxes, replacing his usual slouching with a contented sigh.

During quiet evenings at home, Lars prefers to bury his face directly into the crook of your neck while you watch TV or read. He likes the weight of your arm wrapped around his waist, holding him securely against your chest. With you stroking his hair, he lets out a low, quiet purr that vibrates against your skin, completely at peace.

NSFW: MDNI!

In the bedroom, he’s a total bottom, full stop. Utterly surrendered to whatever you have in store.

He is incredibly shy about the sounds he makes, frequently biting his lower lip, covering his mouth, or burying his face in the pillows to muffle his reactions. Lars views intimacy as something sacred and deeply vulnerable; the thought of being too loud makes his chest tighten with a nervous, endearing bashfulness.

The moment you deliberately quicken the pace into something overwhelming, his self-control shatters. Unable to contain the intensity, he fills the quiet bedroom with a breathless rush of high-pitched whines, desperate whimpers, and helpless moans.

When the friction overwhelms his tolerance, the last of his restraint dissolves into a string of breathless pleas. He anchors himself to your forearms or tightens his fists in the bedsheets, entirely shattered by the absolute authority you hold over him.

“Mmh-nngh, please, wait...” A strained sound escapes him as his spine arches sharply off the mattress—he’s either trying to press closer or pull away, impossible to tell. “Slow down, pl-ease, I can't—ah, can't think, please...”

Lars has a severe praise kink that makes him melt instantly under your touch. Hearing you murmur how good he is, how perfectly he takes you, and how beautiful he looks beneath you sends a visible shiver running through his whole frame, driving him closer to the edge.

He turns into a weeping mess the closer he gets to coming. As it builds, helpless tears spill over his lashes and streak down his flushed face, driven entirely by a sensory high so thick it forces the cries right out of him.

Despite how easily he short-circuits, Lars is incredibly eager to please you and surprisingly open to trying new things, positions, or light kinks. Expressing a desire for something instantly triggers his need to provide, making him more than happy to accommodate your every fantasy.

Lars has a massive thing for hand-holding and wrist-pinning during intimacy. Having his hands firmly secured by yours gives him a huge sense of relief, leaving him nothing to do but feel every single sensation.

Once you both come down from the high, Lars requires heavy aftercare, clinging to you like a lifeline. He wraps his arms tightly around your neck, hiding his tear-stained, flushed face against your chest while you whisper sweet nothings through his ear, his heart hammering a rapid, joyous rhythm against your own.

Yellow! Lars can be a bit tricky to capture, so hopefully I did him justice and you liked how this turned out.

Holland’s up next! And if there are any other Rygos characters you’d like to see me write for, you’re welcome to leave a comment or drop a request in my inbox. Bye ☘︎.

[sanlikestowrite]

Geometry of a Ghost

SUMMARY: The cosmos demands a sacrifice, and a fading earth is left behind to swallow its own grief.

Warnings: Explicit Content, High-Intensity Friction, Mating Press, Doggy Style, Odaxelagnia (Biting/Branding), Mild Asphyxiation (Choking/Hand on throat), Dacryphilia (Crying during intimacy), Emotional Deception, Psychological Distress. MDNI!

Tags: Ryland Grace/Male Reader, Top!Reader, Bottom!Ryland Grace, Angsty Smut, Rough Comfort, Science Metaphors, Pre-Mission, Imminent Departure, Heartbreak, Heavy Emotional Whiplash, Tragic Undertones.

Total Word Count: ~2,720 words

Chapter 1: Before the Sky Goes Out

"The sun is dying, and I’m paralyzing myself over a single line of code."

Ryland's voice was a dry, raspy whisper, buried beneath the low-frequency drone of the hangar's narrow maintenance corridor. He didn't look at you. He couldn't. He was perched on a stack of reinforced equipment crates, pulling his legs tightly against his chest, as if trying to shrink away from a world that was already squeezing him out. His standard-issue flight jumpsuit hung down around his waist, leaving a thin, faded undershirt to cling tightly to his toned frame.

"The thermal expansion on the main thruster shields is within margin," he continued, his fingers twitching in a restless rhythm against his shins. "But the automated sequence... it doesn't account for the localized radiation pockets near the Oort cloud. It’s— it’s too much data. If the ship’s shield-grid misses a recalculation while we’re in the tanks, the hull integrity drops by twelve percent. Twelve percent is the difference between a mission and a coffin, ███."

He finally looked up, and it was like being hit by a physical force. Without his glasses, his striking, blue eyes looked terrified, reflecting the harsh, amber safety strobes of the hangar like fractured glass. He kept running a hand through his blonde hair, over and over, leaving messy strands sticking up in a chaotic halo that made him look younger—and far more vulnerable—than a man tasked with saving the species should ever look.

"I keep thinking about the amnesia," he admitted, his voice cracking on the last syllable. "Stratt says it’s for our own good. But what if I wake up lightyears away and I can't even remember why I’m there? What if I look at a petri dish and it’s just… glass? What if I fail everyone?"

You didn’t give him room to spiral. You stepped right into his orbit, your broader shadow completely swallowing his frame as you moved directly between his parted knees. The ambient stench of the bunker—hydraulic fluid, lithium, and the damp chill of Siberian bedrock—vanished instantly, replaced by nothing but the heat radiating off his skin.

Ryland’s breath hitched in a sharp, jagged gasp. He uncoiled his limbs instantly, leaning forward until his forehead was pressed hard against your sternum. His hands came up, his fingers bunching the fabric of your shirt into tight, white-knuckled fists. He was shaking—not an intense tremor, but a steady, electric vibration that felt like a machine running far too hot for its own safety.

"Don't say that," you murmured, the words fracturing against the crushing gravity of the secret you were harboring. You couldn't offer him the hollow comfort of a promise. Instead, you locked your arms around his shoulders and bowed your head, burying your face deeply into the crook of his neck. You blindly inhaled the familiar, grounding scent of him—the sharp, sterile tang of ozone and isopropyl that always lingered on his skin, underscored by the faint heat of cold sweat. You pressed closer, keeping him tucked securely beneath your chin and fiercely guarding the angle of your face. You couldn't let him tilt his head up; you couldn't risk fracturing under the sheer, unblemished weight of a trust you already knew you were destined to betray.

The silence that followed was suffocating. Ryland didn't say another word. He just let out a small, muted sound—half-sob, half-relief—as his hands slid down to your hips, his palms scorching through your uniform as he pulled you flush against his mouth.

He wasn't looking for an acknowledgment of what was coming; he was silently begging you to drive the rest of the universe out of his head before the sky finally tore open. There was a desperate, grounding weight to the way he held you, as if he could anchor both of you to the floor and freeze the inevitable entirely through sheer, stubborn force. For a few seconds, the looming threat outside the room faded into background noise, replaced entirely by the sharp, erratic cadence of his breathing against your skin.

Chapter 2: Stolen Under the Amber Light

You didn’t give him the grace period to retreat back into his own head. Dropping your weight, you trapped his waist between your hands and hauled his lean frame off the equipment crates, dragging him down into the cramped space between the machinery. There was no gentleness to it—just the raw necessity of grounding him. His weight hit the dark, heavy canvas maintenance tarp you’d dragged across the concrete, the rough fabric bunching violently beneath his spine before his frantic momentum could even register the shift. Ryland’s breath left him in a sharp, clipped gasp, his fingers instantly clawing at the fabric of your uniform to haul you down with him, smashing his mouth into yours.

"Louder," he choked out against your lips, the demand frantic and uneven as his teeth scraped yours. His pupils were blown wide, completely eclipsing the vivid color of his eyes in the dim light. "Make it louder. Shut it off."

You crashed your mouth back over his, your tongue driving deep and possessive, drinking the frantic noise right out of his throat until his thoughts completely short-circuited. A white-hot rush of adrenaline and pure, unadulterated hunger flooded your veins. Your hands moved on instinct, tearing his shirt up and over his arms; your calloused palms scraped hard over his ribs, leaving a searing trail of flush, red marks that burned into his sun-kissed complexion. The sheer sensation of his heat radiating into your hands was intoxicating, a dizzying spike of pleasure that blurred the edges of the room.

He was completely undone beneath you, his hips lifting in an eager, frantic tilt as you stripped the rest of his clothes away. Left entirely exposed, the contrast between your impressively solid build completely swallowed him up, crowding him out until the entire world was reduced to your mass pinning him into the floor. Watching him shudder under the overwhelming sight of you sent a wave of ecstasy straight down your spine; you weren't just taking him, you were consuming him, filling every inch of his awareness until there was no room left for anything else.

Stepping between his thighs, you settled your hips into his and seized his ankles. You drove his legs upward, forcing his knees backward until his thighs tightly framed his own ribcage, locking his lower anatomy into the tarp. You held him in a brutal mating press, flattening his folded frame beneath your torso until he was completely split open. The sudden, extreme vulnerability of the position sent a feverish flush traveling from his collarbones straight up to his burning cheeks.

"Don't stall," Ryland choked out, his head thrashing back, frustrated and raw, blinding anticipation tangled in his chest. He was fighting a losing battle to stay grounded, the tendons in his throat straining hard beneath the surface as he fought to keep from crying out. He squeezed his eyes shut, his hands clamping onto your forearms like a vice, silently demanding the release he knew was coming.

His desperate pleading shattered whatever restraint you had left. Searing heat pooled in your lower belly at his compliance, a possessive urge tightening its grip on you as you bypassed any further hesitation. He bit his own lip, his toes curling sharply toward the canvas as you coated your hand in the slick, clear medical lubricant from the tech kit to prepare him. Your fingers drove inside his tight heat with a steady, unrelenting pressure. The sheer, gripping suction of his body clamping around your digits sent a dizzying jolt of electricity straight up your spine, turning his remaining verbal protests into a long, wet, ruined groan that vibrated deep within his core.

Yet, you didn't give him the comfort of your gaze. Every time his eyelashes fluttered open and his blown-out eyes tried to track yours—seeking some kind of grounding reassurance—you intentionally averted your eyes. The guilt was an intoxicating poison, making the physical sensation of him even more addictive. Instead, you focused on the frantic pulse hammering wildly in his throat, on the sharp line of his collarbone—anywhere but the raw devotion on his face

Aligning your thick, aching shaft directly at his slick, twitching entrance, you didn't hesitate. You drove your full weight forward, burying your entire length inside his agonizingly narrow depths in one slow, unyielding, and continuous thrust that filled him completely.

Ryland’s mouth split open in a silent scream, his entire spine bridging upward as his anatomy stretched to accommodate the sudden, widening impact of your entry. A breathless hitch caught in his windpipe; his nails dug directly into the thick muscle of your biceps, scoring deep lines into your flesh as his internal walls spasmed, locking around you in a frantic, strangling constriction.

Your hands clamped onto the ridges of his pelvic bones, anchoring his mass and slamming him back down toward the floorboards to break the arch of his spine. There was no room for hesitation. You drove forward with an unmerciful momentum, bottoming out against his deepest depths with a dull, solid impact that reverberated off the narrow concrete walls. Every shift of your frame was a deliberate execution, a demanding cadence that forced the air straight from his lungs, leaving only the harsh, sweating heat of bodies grinding together in the enclosed space.

Chapter 3: The Weight of the Whole Sky

The air in the narrow corridor grew stifling, thick with the wet, musky scent of sex. Ryland was weeping openly now, salt tracks disappearing into his blonde hair as his nervous system completely short-circuited under the relentless, pounding cadence of your pelvis driving down onto his folded frame. Yet, his legs remained rigidly hooked around your torso; his lower body twitched upward to meet every strike, chasing the scorching, deep-tissue rub of your shaft with desperate compliance.

A sharp, fractured hitch caught in his windpipe as his fingers tangled into your hair, anchoring you to his chest. He didn't pull; he simply used his remaining strength to drag your upper body down, forcing your faces close enough that his feverish exhalations blasted directly over your mouth

"P-Please," he whimpered into the hollow of your throat, the plea scraping out in a ruined, defenseless rattle. "Take all of me... I'm yours. I'm entirely yours."

Hearing that absolute, blind devotion—while you harbored the dark reality of what you were doing—shattered the last of your restraint. You couldn't handle the sheer intensity of him laying himself this completely bare.

You slammed your hips dead stop, burying your thick, aching cock to the absolute root, pinning his lower anatomy utterly flat and helpless against the floorboards. The sudden cessation of movement wrung a high, broken cry from his lungs, his pelvis twitching blindly into yours as his internal walls spasmed, starving for the sliding heat he needed to release him.

Your hands trembled where they clamped onto the ridges of his pelvic bones. All through the night, you had forced your eyelids shut or stared blindly at the void above his head, weaponizing the dimness just to block him out—because facing the reality of what you were doing carried a crushing rot you couldn't stomach. But as he keened softly beneath you, his inner heat squeezing around your buried thickness in helpless, pulsing contractions, the agonizing restraint finally snapped.

You forced your gaze downward, finally, completely taking him in.

And what you saw shattered you. Ryland’s head was thrown back, his throat completely exposed as his chest heaved in ragged, shallow gasps, his face entirely flushed and streaked with tears. His striking, ocean-blue eyes were staring up through the dim amber light, searching for yours with a vulnerability so raw, so utterly defenseless, it made your heart seize with a physical ache. He wasn't just submitting; he was looking at you like you were his only god in a world that was ending, offering up an unblemished devotion that you knew you were destined to break.

A hot, heavy tear escaped your eyes, landing squarely on the sensitive curve of his chest. Then another. Before you could stop it, your breath caught in a jagged, suffocating hiccup, and you completely broke down. Your tight grip on his hips gave way as your chest began to heave, a ragged, miserable sob ripping right out of your throat as you collapsed your torso completely over his, burying your wet face in the crook of his neck.

Ryland froze completely, the sudden weight of your breakdown stilling his entire frame. A sharp breath caught in his throat, his eyes wide and searching as he tried to process the sound of your weeping. The physical vulnerability of the mating press was completely forgotten as his focus shifted entirely to your pain; his trembling fingers scrambled upward, blindly cupping your jaw to catch the tears spilling onto his skin.

"Why are you crying?" Ryland breathed, his voice cracking, entirely stripped of his frantic academic shielding. "Hey... look at me. ███, look at me. The telemetry is solid. We're going to make it to Tau Ceti. We're going to fix the sun and come right back. Why are you—"

"They grounded the co-pilot, Ry," you choked out, the words ripping away like rusty shrapnel, shredding his fragile reassurance to pieces. "The protocol... Eva Stratt changed it right before I came down here. The Petrova Task Force—they reviewed the flight metrics. They decided the Hail Mary only needs one pilot, not two. To cut down on mission weight." Your hands tightened drastically over his pelvic bones, your voice fracturing as the truth finally spilled. "They only need three crew members. You, Yao, and Ilyukhina. Yao is primary. I'm not—" A sharp, broken sniffle cut the air, the confession splintering apart. "I'm not going with you."

A suffocating stillness dropped over him, heavier than the air in the corridor. The thumb resting against your jaw went entirely numb, slipping away and dropping uselessly. The feverish flush on his cheeks drained away instantly, leaving him deathly pale. His eyes wide and unblinking, he stared into your face, his gaze darting frantically between yours as his mind actively tracked your expression for a laugh, for some saving sign that this was a sick, twisted joke.

"What?" Ryland's voice was barely a breath, a tiny, fragile thread. "No. No, no, no. That's a mistake. What if something happens to Yao? I'm a school teacher. You're our pilot. My pilot. You promised me!"

A weak, trembling fist came up, striking the center of your torso—not hard enough to hurt, but a frantic, frustrated jolt of pure panic as his features crumbled. "You promised we'd go together," he choked out, his hand staying pressed against you as if trying to force you to stay. "I can't face out there alone. I don't know how to survive a starship! You can't leave me with them. You can't leave me."

"I don’t have a choice," the words came out thin, crushed under the weight of the panic as you dropped your head against the junction of his shoulder, lips pressing hard into his hot, sweat-damp skin. "Stratt threatened to lock me in a black site if I told you before the launch block. I had to sign the variance.“

"You lied to me."

The words came out hollow, almost soundless. He looked up from the floor, his fingers curling into your shirt, his nails digging in as the realization settled deep into his bones. "The whole time we were doing this… y-you knew you weren't coming."

"Because I wanted to give you something to hold onto!"

Your vision blurred fully, turning him into a smear of shadow and dim light as the last of your breath hitched. "I wanted you to remember what it felt like. I couldn't let you go into that sky without knowing how much I loved you."

"I don't want to remember!"

The rejection was a high, thin panic, his voice fracturing on the vowels as he ran out of air. He went completely rigid beneath you, his hands blindly batting at your arms, anything to create a fraction of distance between your skin and his.

Chapter 4: Tear the World Apart

You couldn't let him pull away. Not now. Not when the digital clock on the corridor wall was actively bleeding away your remaining seconds. You needed him entirely present—needed his nervous system to lock onto the terrifying reality of your skin before the vacuum of space claimed his future.

Clamping your fingers into his waist with a bruising, unyielding grip, you hauled him over. You ignored the frantic, wet protests spilling from his mouth as you pinned him into the canvas. Dragging him up onto his hands and knees on the tarp, you yanked his hips back against your thighs in a stark, demanding angle. Ryland let out a fractured, high cry as his chest collided with the floorboards, his spine fully arched and his pale backside completely exposed to the sheer panic of your hands.

You didn't grant him a single breath to steady himself. Gripping the ridges of his pelvic bones—your thumbs sinking deep into his flesh—you drove back inside his wet, tight depths from behind with a frantic, punishing velocity that knocked the oxygen right out of him.

"Aah! Oh f— god... w-wait, please—" Ryland splintered, his palms scrambling forward across the deck to lock around the base of a low structural pipe, his knuckles turning white as your pelvis struck his seat with unyielding force. "It's too much—███, I can't... nn-no, please, just—hold me..."

The pace turned utterly feral, born of pure, unadulterated heartbreak. And then, as the physical heat crossed the threshold into sensory overload, the dam broke inside your skull.

With every blunt, heavy strike of your hips on that low mat, memories of your brief, stolen months together detonated behind your eyelids. Ryland laughing over a lukewarm cup of slate-colored coffee during those late-night lab shifts, his blonde hair a chaotic mess. Ryland tracing his fingertips along the stiff cuffs of your uniform, whispering that the cosmos only felt safe as long as you were at the helm. The quiet, hidden nights where he had stared out the viewport at the stars and told you he was only brave enough to face the dark because you’d be holding his hand in the void.

The sheer gravity of the loss made a ragged, miserable sob tear from your throat. You collapsed your chest entirely over his trembling spine, crushing his smaller frame beneath your bulk. Reaching around his neck, you hooked your fingers under his chin, hauling his head upward and backward to force his face around until your lips crashed together.

It was a completely unmade, messy, desperate kiss right there in the dirt of the corridor floor. It tasted like salt and sweat. It was the kiss of two people trying to swallow each other whole, trying to pack a lifetime of unlived years into a single, suffocating minute because it was the last time they would ever touch. Ryland’s mouth was slippery and frantic against yours, his voice cracking straight into your lips, letting out tiny, broken stutters of your name between hitching breaths.

"Don't—hngh—don’t let go," he wept into your mouth, his hands scrambling frantically upward to lock around your forearms, his fingernails digging deep into your wrists to anchor the contact and pull you even closer, deeper, until the friction between your bodies was absolute. "Stay..."

You broke the seal of the kiss only when your own lungs were starving. Your right hand wrapped securely around the front of his throat, your thumb pressing into his windpipe just enough to clip his air, forcing his pulse to hammer in his ears as his vision swam with oxygen deprivation and pure, agonizing ecstasy.

The loud crack echoed through the concrete space, and Ryland let out a sharp, choked whine, his hips bucking back against your groin in pure, submissive reflex. He was weeping hysterically now, a chaotic mess of hitching breaths and broken stutters, the psychological trauma mixing with the intense physical overload until he couldn't tell where the pain ended and the pleasure began.

"███,” he whimpered, a breathless, ruined sound muffled against his forearms. Your name left his lips as a broken, repetitive sob, dragged out and pathetic as your weight kept him pinned.

You leaned down, your teeth sinking hard into the meat of his shoulder, biting down with a deep, crushing force. You didn't tear the skin, but you held him there in your jaws, clamping down until a distinct crescent mark formed—a dark brand that would turn an angry, deep purple long before the countdown to launch even began. Ryland choked out a muffled, broken groan into the canvas, his fingers clawing backward, his nails dragging white lines down your thighs as his body completely dissolved under the onslaught.

Shifting your mouth to his neck, you sucked fiercely on the sensitive skin beneath his jawline, leaving unmistakable, dark hickeys. You wanted him branded. You wanted his flesh to remember the exact shape of your anger and your grief, even if the administration wiped his logs

His inner walls were pulsing erratically around you in an involuntary, desperate cadence, entirely undone by the aggressive friction. You picked up the speed to a blinding, savage blur, hammering into his deep tissues one final time, driving him directly over the edge into a messy, cataclysmic release that left him shuddering and sobbing into the empty air of the corridor.

You followed him a second later, letting out a sharp, guttural groan against his neck as you drove yourself into him as deep as his pelvis would allow, spilling your seed inside him in a heavy, burning rush that filled him to the absolute root.

Epilogue: Left Behind in the Shallows

The automated sirens didn't scream down here; they merely pulsed a silent, rhythmic crimson against the structural pillars of the hangar floor. T-minus thirty minutes to crew submersion.

Ryland lay curled on his side over the narrow tarp, his frame shuddering against the chilled concrete as you slowly withdrew. He didn't request help. He didn't even look toward you as he dragged himself up, his movements mechanical, totally hollowed out. The man who had been terrified of isolated lines of code and green smudges on a monitor was gone. His features had flattened into a smooth, unreadable mask.

He yanking his flight suit back up over his bruised torso, fingers shaking so severely he could barely guide the heavy plastic zipper along its track. The stiff collar rose, but it failed to fully obscure the marks you had just stamped into his neck—a fresh, agonizing brand of a promise you couldn't keep, destined to be scanned by the automated medical sensors inside his pod.

You stood by the heavy bulkhead door, your palm pressing hard against the manual release lever, your chest throbbing with a heavy, suffocating weight that made every breath feel like swallowing shattered glass.

"Ryland," you breathed, the name turning to ash on your tongue. "Please."

He froze, his hand pausing on the collar of his uniform. He still refused to look at your face.

"The retrograde amnesiacs," Ryland said, his voice terrifyingly flat, stripped of all human inflection. "Stratt scheduled the sedatives to scrub the short-term memory registers during the initial coma sequence. It's standard protocol... to prevent pre-launch trauma from interfering with waking neurological functions lightyears away."

He finally turned his head, his eyes locking onto yours one final time through the dim shadows. They were utterly cold. Vacant.

"I hope the dosage takes everything," he whispered. "I hope I wake up in the next solar system without the slightest memory of your existence."

He walked right past you into the red-lit corridor without waiting for a response, his shoulders straight, moving toward the stasis gel tanks alone.

But behind the cold, empty mask he had forced onto his face, deep down where the terror lived, Ryland’s heart was shattering into microscopic pieces. He knew what lay ahead for you. He knew he was getting the mercy of oblivion—that the drugs would wipe away his memories, leaving him to wake up lightyears away with a clean slate, unaware of the ghost he left behind. But you? You were condemned to remain on a dying planet. You had to live every single day remembering the exact trajectory of his smile, the precise resonance of his laugh, and the love that was now entirely one-sided

He didn't want you to spend the rest of your life grieving a dead man in the stars. He didn't want you to stay loyal to a memory. He needed you to hate him. He needed to slash a knife through whatever threads still tied you to him, so that maybe—just maybe—you would try to survive without him.

He didn't mean a single word of it. He loved you enough to let you despise him, even if it meant you would finally move on.

Hello again!

It’s roughly a week and a half since my last fanfiction went up. Before anyone points it out—this is an AU, so I’ve taken some liberties here and there. Canon can cope.

I’ve also been trying to interact with some of you more recently, so if I’ve replied to your comments or anything… hi. I see you. I’m just socially awkward about it.

I really value you taking the time to read this—seriously. If you have any insights, let me know (be nice… or don’t, I can take it). See you next update. ❀࿐

[sanlikestowrite]

The Half-Life of Us

SUMMARY: A astrobiologist and his sole surviving crewmate are trapped together in deep space, not realizing how quickly their professional boundaries are about to completely dissolve.

Warnings: Sci-Fi Erotica, Explicit Sexual Content, Rough Sex, Fingering/Anal Fingering, Intensive Edging/Orgasmic Denial, Light Breath Play, Crying/Overstimulation Tears (Dacryphilia themes), Mild Degradation, Touch Starvation, Size Difference. MDNI!

Tags: Ryland Grace/Male Reader, POV Ryland Grace, Dom!Reader, Sub!Ryland Grace, Touch Starvation, Trapped in Space, Slow Burn to High Heat, Science Metaphors, Explicit, Edging, Mind Melting.

Total Word Count: ~3,200 words

Chapter 1: The Co-Efficiency of Friction

Human skin sheds roughly forty thousand dead cells every single minute.

Yeah. Gross, I know. It was the exact kind of useless trivia Ryland used to throw at his middle schoolers back in his classroom just to watch them write “ew” in the margins of their notebooks. But out here, in the cold, endless void of the Tau Ceti system, it was the only stupid math keeping Ryland from losing his mind. Forty thousand cells a minute. Which meant the Hail Mary wasn't just a spaceship; it was a sealed metal box slowly filling up with the microscopic, physical dust of two men.

Two men. Not one.

When Ryland first crawled out of the amnesia haze of his coma, surrounded by creepy robotic arms and the mummified remains of his actual crewmates, he thought he was totally alone in the universe. But then, in the third pod, there was a heartbeat. A steady, stubborn little beep on the monitor.

You.

It took weeks of grueling physical therapy, a lot of stomach-churning space-slurry feeding tubes, and several frantic breakdowns that Ryland technically hid by locking himself in the lab to get You upright. But now, You were here. Standing in the middle of the science bay, squinting at a digital readout of the Petrova lamps, wearing nothing but a pair of issued grey sweatpants and a tank top that showed off the sharp, clean line of Your collarbone.

Oh, great, Ryland thought, his brain instantly short-circuiting. Fantastic. He's attractive. Just what I needed on a suicide mission.

"Grace," You murmured, Your voice still carrying that rough, low gravel from months of artificial sleep. You didn't even look at him, Your fingers tapping a restless rhythm against the console. "The radiation shielding on the starboard side is fluctuating by point-zero-two percent. Is that normal, or are we about to turn into glowing space meat?"

Ryland stopped washing his beaker. He didn't mean to stare, he really didn't, but his brain was currently undergoing a massive system crash.

For months on Earth, Ryland had been isolated in a sterile underground lab under Eva Stratt’s iron fist. Then came the coma. He hadn't been touched—not truly touched, with warmth and human intent—in almost a year. Every nerve ending in his body felt like a live wire waiting for a spark. And You were standing less than three feet away, smelling like the ship’s recycled water and warm, clean skin.

"Uh. Normal," Ryland squeaked. He cleared his throat frantically, trying to sound like a respectable scientist instead of a guy losing his mind over a clavicle. "Totally normal. The Astrophage is just... settling. It’s like a car engine warming up. No glowing space meat. I promise."

You finally turned your head, a faint, tired smile touching Your lips. "Good. Because I didn't survive a suicide mission to the stars just to get micro-waved."

You stepped closer. Too close. The science bay was a masterpiece of efficient, cramped engineering, which meant any movement required a delicate ballet of dodging elbows and hips. You reached past him to grab a stylus from the magnetic strip, and Your bare forearm brushed firmly against his.

It was a fraction of a second. Just a brief, heavy glide of skin against skin.

Ryland completely froze. A physical shockwave went straight up his spine, so intense his fingers twitched and he nearly dropped the glass beaker right into the sink. His heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird. Holy moly. Touch. That was touch. A real, warm human.

"You okay, Ryland?" You asked, noticing how stiff his shoulders had gotten. You didn't move away. In fact, You tilted Your head, Your eyes scanning his face with a sudden, quiet intensity that made his skin feel tight.

"Yep! Fine! Great!" Ryland muttered, his voice way too high. He frantically wiped the beaker with a towel, over and over. "Just... thinking about data. Lots of data. Brain is full."

You let out a soft huff of laughter, but Your eyes lingered on his mouth for a heartbeat longer than necessary before You turned back to the screen. Ryland stared down at his own hands. He’s a man of science, but right now, the only hypothesis he could form was that if You touched him like that again, he was going to completely fall apart.

Chapter 2: The Thermal Mass of Two Bodies

The problem with the Hail Mary was that everything was shared. The oxygen, the water, the terrifying burden of saving the human race—and the sleeping quarters.

There were only two operational bunks left after the equipment shift. They were stacked vertically, little more than padded shelves recessed into the bulkhead, separated by a thin privacy curtain. But tonight, the ship’s primary life-support system was running a diagnostic cycle, which meant the heating grids in the bunk area were completely dead for the next six hours.

"It's freezing," You muttered, walking into the main cabin while rubbing Your arms. Your breath formed a faint plume of mist in the dim, emergency-red lighting. "Tell me the Astrophage didn't die."

"Astrophage is fine," Ryland said, huddled on the small bench with a thick insulation blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He probably looked like a miserable space-penguin, his teeth clicking together. "The ship is just re-routing power. It’s going to be like a meat locker in here until zero-four-hundred."

You stood there, shivering, looking at the tiny bench and then at him. The blanket Ryland was holding was the only heavy-duty thermal layer outside of the EVA suits, and it was barely big enough for one person to wrap themselves in completely.

"Move over," You said suddenly.

Ryland's eyes widened. "What?"

"Move over, Grace. Basic thermodynamics," You said, stepping up to the bench and not waiting for his permission. "Two bodies generate more thermal mass than one. If we sit separately, we both freeze. If we share the blanket, we don't. Move your butt."

Oh, boy. Okay. Thermodynamics. Sure. Let's go with that, Ryland’s brain scrambled for a counter-argument—something about personal space, or the psychological boundaries of a command structure—but You were already sitting down right next to him.

The contact was immediate and total. Your thigh pressed firmly against his from hip to knee. Ryland let out a small, choked gasp as You reached out, grabbing the edges of the heavy silver blanket and pulling it over both of Your laps, tucking it in tight around Your sides.

"Jesus, you're like a furnace," You whispered, leaning Your shoulder heavily against his.

Ryland literally couldn't breathe. Every single point of contact felt like it was branded with fire. The touch-starvation he had been trying to ignore for weeks violently rushed to the surface, making his entire body tremble. He wanted to pull away out of sheer, overwhelming panic, but his instincts—the deep, primal part of him that was absolutely starving for human warmth—forced him to stay rooted to the spot.

"I—uh. High metabolism," Ryland managed to choke out. He was staring straight ahead, his arms locked tight against his chest to keep from accidentally grabbing You. "Lots of... caloric intake."

"Mmm. Keep talking," You murmured. Your head dropped, Your cheek resting softly against his shoulder. Your eyes drifted shut, exhausted from the day's repairs. "Your voice is nice. It's warm."

A giant, heavy lump formed in Ryland's throat. He looked down at the top of Your head, the messy strands of Your hair just inches from his lips. You looked so vulnerable like this, stripped of the survivalist bravado You wore during the work shifts. You were just a guy, millions of miles away from everything You had ever known, looking for comfort in the dark.

Slowly, deliberately, Ryland let his arm relax. He allowed his shoulder to sink into Yours, absorbing the heavy, comforting weight of Your body. He let out a long, trembling exhale, his eyes stinging with sudden, hot tears.

He was so goddamn lonely. And You were right here.

Ryland didn't sleep at all that night. He spent the entire six hours frozen in place, listening to the steady, rhythmic sound of Your breathing, his heart keeping time with Yours under the silver blanket, completely intoxicated by the simple, quiet magic of being held.

Chapter 3: The Breaking Point

The tension didn't disappear when the heat came back on. It got way worse.

It was in the way Your eyes lagged on him while he worked in the lab. It was in the way Ryland's hand would shake whenever he passed You a tool, Your fingers deliberately brushing against his, lingering just a second too long. The air inside the Hail Mary became thick, charged with an invisible static electricity that had nothing to do with the ship's reactors.

The breaking point happened during a routine inspection of the fuel lines in the lower maintenance crawlspace.

It was a space less than four feet high, requiring both of them to crawl on their hands and knees amidst a maze of pulsing pipes and bundles of wiring. Ryland was in the lead, holding a diagnostic scanner, his breath echoing loudly inside the cramped metal tube.

"Okay, the primary manifold looks... wait," Ryland stopped, squinting at the screen. "That’s weird. The pressure here is higher than it should be."

"Let me see," You said from behind him.

You crawled forward, Your body moving over his until You were draped over his back, Your chest pressing firmly against Ryland's shoulder blades as You leaned over his shoulder to look at the scanner. The heat of Your torso radiated through his jumpsuit, Your breath hot and sharp against the sensitive skin of his neck.

Ryland's hand shook so violently he dropped the scanner. It clattered against the metal floor.

"Ryland?" You asked quietly.

"I can't—" Ryland choked out, his voice cracking completely. The proximity, the smell of You, the absolute weight of Your body pressing him down into the metal deck was too much. The wire finally snapped. "I can't do this, ███. I can't."

"Can't do what?"

"This!" Ryland burst out, twisting around in the cramped space until he was lying on his back, staring up at You. You were hovering directly over him, Your hands planted on either side of his head, your faces inches apart. His chest was heaving, his eyes wide and frantic. “Do you realize what you’re doing to me? You’re always close—always finding some excuse to touch me. Every glance, every brush of your hand, drives me completely insane. We’re the last two men left in the universe, ███. I should be focused on saving the world, but instead, you’re all I can think about. No matter how hard I try, my mind keeps coming back to you.”

The silence that followed was deafening, save for the low, rhythmic hum of the ship’s engines. Ryland immediately regretted it. Stupid, stupid, stupid, he thought, wanting to dissolve into the floorboards. He just confessed to his crewmate. Now it’s going to be weird forever. Brilliant job, Grace.

But You didn't look shocked at all. Your eyes darkened, a heavy, intense heat flaring in Your gaze that made Ryland's breath catch in his throat.

“You think you’re the only one?” You whispered, your voice dropping into a low, steady tone that made the air between you feel heavier. Your gaze held his firmly as you stepped just a little closer, enough for the space between you to tighten. “Ryland… I’ve been watching you for weeks. The way you move around the lab, the way you talk about science—like it’s the only thing that matters.” Your breath hitched slightly, honesty slipping through the control in your voice. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I honestly thought I was going crazy.”

Before Ryland could even process the words, You leaned down, closing the distance between them.

The kiss wasn't gentle. It was a collision of months of suppressed terror, loneliness, and raw, burning lust. Your lips slammed into his, hard and demanding, parting his mouth instantly. Ryland let out a loud, needy groan, his hands flying up to grip Your shoulders, his fingers digging deep into the fabric of Your shirt as he pulled You down onto him.

The taste of You was intoxicating. Your tongue slid into his mouth, claiming the wet space with a fierce, possessive hunger that made his hips buck involuntarily against Yours. The friction of your bodies rubbing together in the tight, hot crawlspace was a sensory explosion. Ryland’s mind went entirely blank, his intellect completely melting away under the onslaught of Your mouth.

You pulled back just an inch, Your lips slick, Your breath coming in ragged gasps as You stared down at him. "The lab," You muttered against his skin, Your thumb tracing his jawline with a fierce, trembling grip. "Now."

Chapter 4: The Chemistry of Displacement

The transition from the maintenance shaft to the lab counter was a blur of friction and oxygen deprivation. Ryland’s brain, normally a finely tuned instrument of logic and sequence, was failing him. It was short-circuiting under the sheer volume of tactile data.

You. Your hands. Your weight.

When You shoved him back against the edge of the primary examination table, the cold stainless steel bit into his lower back through his jumpsuit, creating a jarring, freezing contrast to the blistering heat of Your body wedged between his thighs. You reached down, Your fingers hooking into the front zipper of his uniform and tearing it down with a sharp, heavy snap.

"Jumpsuit off, Grace," You ordered, Your voice dropping into a low, quiet authority that Ryland had never heard before. It wasn't the voice of a co-astronaut; it was the voice of someone taking absolute territory. "Hands at your sides. Don’t move."

Ryland's breath hitched, a frantic, high-pitched whimper escaping his throat. He wanted to argue—he was the primary science officer, for heaven's sake—but his arms felt like lead. The touch-starvation he had been harboring for a year had turned into a physical dependency the second Your bare chest pressed against his. His eyelids fluttered closed, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.

"Look at me," You commanded, Your palm coming down in a firm, heavy slap against his clothed thigh. The sharp crack echoed through the sterile bay, sending a jolt of pure electricity straight to his groin. "I didn't say you could close your eyes, Grace."

Ryland’s eyes snapped open, his pupils completely blown out, reflecting the emergency red lighting of the bay. He was flushed a deep, brilliant crimson from his chest to his ears. “I’m looking,” he gasped out, his voice cracking with a vulnerability that embarrassed him. “I’m looking. Please...”

You didn't rush. You reached over, grabbing a tube of medical-grade conductive gel from the lab supply rack. Ryland watched in a daze of anticipation as You flipped the cap with Your thumb and squeezed a generous, thick pooling of the clear fluid over Your fingers.

When Your wet, gel-slicked fingertips first touched the tight, un-stretched skin of his entrance, Ryland violently bucked off the table.

“Ah—wait! Wait, that’s—”

“Easy,” You said, Your voice calm but completely unyielding as Your free hand pinned his hip flat against the steel with inescapable force. “You’re too tight, Ryland. If I don’t take my time opening you up, I’ll end up hurting you.” Your hands stayed steady at his hips, grounding him as You leaned in slightly. “Breathe... and relax for me.”

Ryland bit his lip so hard he tasted copper, his knuckles turning white as he clawed at the edges of the metal table for purchase. You pushed one finger inside, testing the resistance, and Ryland let out a ragged, choked sob. It was an overwhelming, invasive fullness. His internal walls convulsed around You, desperately fighting the intrusion, but Your touch was patient and firm. You began to stroke inward, Your thumb pressing against his perineum, deliberately seeking out the hyper-sensitive bundle of nerves inside.

Anatomy, Ryland’s brain scrambled, trying to cling to clinical facts to stay sane. The prostate gland. Approximately two to three centimeters inside. Surrounded by smooth muscle. Oh, great, he was doing biochemistry during a hookup, brilliant—

Then Your finger hooked upward, striking the exact spot, and all scientific thought dissolved into a high, broken wail.

“There it is,” You whispered darkly, watching the way Ryland’s head tossed back, his throat arching elegantly as fresh tears leaked from the corners of his eyes. “You like that, don’t you, Grace? You’re already slick.”

You added a second finger, then a third, stretching him with a slow, agonizingly thorough rhythm that turned his insides to molten liquid. Ryland was weeping openly now, completely undone by the preparatory torture. His lower body was entirely loose, weeping precum onto his own stomach, primed and completely hollowed out for You.

By the time You withdrew Your fingers with a wet, heavy slide, Ryland was shaking from head to toe, completely dependent on Your hands to keep him from sliding off the table.

You didn't give him a moment to recover. You lined Your thick, rigid length against his dripping entrance. Ryland stared down at the sheer scale of You, his breath completely stalling in his lungs. You were thick-veined, heavy, and stretching him open visually before You even entered.

With a slow, deliberate lean of Your hips, You began to sink inside.

“Oh, God… ███—!” Ryland shrieked, a desperate, breathless cry tearing from his lungs as his body was forced to accommodate Your massive girth. It felt like being split open from the inside out, an impossible, suffocating fullness that buried deeper and deeper until You bottomed out, Your hips locking hard against his.

Ryland let out a long, trembling sob, his eyes wide and glazed with a mixture of shock and sheer, unadulterated ecstasy. You were so deep he could feel the throb of Your pulse against his internal walls.

“You took all of it,” You muttered, Your chest rising and falling as You secured Your grip around his waist, holding him firmly against the table. “Now we’re staying right here until you’re completely ruined, got it?”

You didn't rush the climax. For the next forty-five minutes, You subjected Ryland to a brutal, agonizingly prolonged demonstration of human stamina. You locked into a slow, heavy, punishing pace—withdrawing until almost the crowning tip left his hole, only to plunge back in to the hilt, deliberately crushing his prostate with every single stroke. The lab filled with the explicit, wet sounds of Your coupling. Ryland was completely reduced, a sobbing, whining mess under Your weight.

Every time he felt the explosive wave of a climax building in his lower stomach, the desperation became too much to bear.

“Ah... nn-nh, no, please…” Ryland whimpered, his voice dissolving into a broken, high-pitched whine of pure sensory frustration. It wasn't a shout, but a pathetic, breathless plea, completely ruined by the heat. “Don’t stop… ███, please, I’m right there… let me, please let me…”

Beneath You, Ryland's hips bucked frantically in tiny, useless twitches, his internal walls constricting in a desperate, weeping search for friction. He was teetering on the razor-thin edge of a helpless climax, his chest heaving as a soft sob caught in his throat.

But You weren't about to let him off that easily.

With a low growl, You suddenly halted Your rhythm. You buried Your massive length to the hilt, pinning Ryland flat against the desk to freeze him completely in place.

"Ah, ah, puppy," You purred darkly against his ear, Your hot breath making him shudder. "Who told you that you could cum?"

Ryland let out a tortured, wet whimper, his entire body shaking as the sudden lack of movement left him stranded and agonizingly close at the absolute peak. He tried to squirm against Your thickness, a quiet, desperate sob spilling past his lips. But You locked him down, reaching around to wrap Your fingers securely around the base of Ryland's rigid, leaking length—completely blocking his release.

Ryland’s eyelids fluttered open, his blue eyes completely drowned in tears of sheer overstimulation. He looked at Your dominant, unyielding expression and completely fractured. “███,” he wept, his fingers clawing at Your shoulders, pulling You down into a messy, wet kiss. “I’m all yours. M-Move… please, please… move.”

You stopped him once. You stopped him twice. You stopped him a third time, stretching the encounter out for nearly an hour until Ryland’s mind was completely blank, his intellect entirely burned away by the kinky, agonizing denial. He was nothing but a weeping, trembling instrument for Your pleasure.

Only when his internal walls were violently spasming around You in an involuntary, desperate rhythm did You finally release Your grip on his length. You picked up the pace to a blinding, savage blur, hammering into him one final time, driving Ryland over the edge into a messy, cataclysmic release that left him squealing.

Epilogue: The Equilibrium of Rest

Two hours later, the science bay was quiet again.

The sterile lights had been dimmed back to a soft, ambient glow. The data screens were still blinking silently in the background, tracking the course of the Hail Mary through the infinite dark, but for the first time since the mission began, the ship didn't feel like a tomb.

Ryland was lying curled on his side on the narrow examination bench, his head resting securely on Your bare chest. His jumpsuit was loosely pulled back up to his waist, his skin still flushed, breathing in slow, exhausted drafts. Your arm was wrapped securely around his shoulders, Your fingers mindlessly tracing small, soothing circles into the bare skin of his back.

Oh, wow, Ryland thought, his brain finally functioning at a normal, non-panicked baseline. We actually did that. I just got completely unmade by my crewmate on a sterile lab counter. Very professional, Grace.

But as he felt the steady, heavy thump of Your heartbeat beneath his cheek, the lingering spark of anxiety completely evaporated. The suffocating loneliness that had been weighing down on his chest for months was just... gone. Replaced by a profound, heavy warmth.

"Hey," You murmured quietly, Your voice a low rumble against his ear that made his stomach do a pleasant little flip.

Ryland shifted slightly, a soft, content sigh leaving his lips as he snuggled closer into Your side, his nose pressing into the crook of Your neck. "Hmm?"

"You're not overthinking the physics of what just happened, are you?"

Ryland let out a faint, sleepy chuckle, his fingers reaching out to lightly trace the line of Your jaw. "Actually," he whispered, a tired, dorky smile touching his lips. "I was just doing the math on our proximity. And I think the co-efficiency of friction between us is... absolutely perfect."

You smiled, leaning down to press a soft, lingering kiss to his forehead. Out here, in the cold, unyielding void of space, the universe was vast and terrifying. But inside the tiny metal walls of the Hail Mary, tucked securely in each other's arms, You both had found exactly what You needed to survive.

Hey, Writer San here. I’m pretty new to writing on Tumblr, so this is one of my first attempts at a fanfic. I really hope you enjoyed reading it and that it was to your liking…

If you have any thoughts, feedback, criticism, or even some suggestions, I’d genuinely appreciate it. Don’t be shy. Please.

Thanks so much for taking the time to read this. Bye-bye!♥︎