Ryland wants to be your real life husband, statement.
He’s sooooo nervous about crossing professional boundaries or something, like actual jittery about making it obvious how much he likes you and wants to spend time with you outside of work hours but doesn’t wanna fuck things up and make it awkward.
This man is just so damn helpful around work, always picking up your printing if he swings by the staff room and it’s there, maybe he brings you coffee on spare periods or during lunches.
You’d totally eat lunch together, probably do your supervision duties together too- some things are better with company. He also totally gets roped into playing with the kids when he’s on duty at the basketball courts.
He would see some of the kids doing the ‘this is for you meme’ and would a hundred percent dribble the ball towards the hoop, when the kids aren’t defending because they want to see the incoming disasters, and point a hand to you.
“This one’s for you.” And do a proper jump shot. He’d miss though. It's a close call, but it would bounce off the rim and bounce off sadly towards the side of the court. He slinks back to stand beside you, a little sheepish when he admits “okay I was always better at defence.”
The rest of the duty, and even for months afterwards, the kids would attempt to badger him into another try or point at you and copy his words with varying degrees of success.
You guys definitely chaperone each other’s school excursions. Like, they need a female and a male teacher by law, and every year when he takes his students to the planetarium for the astronomy unit, he asks you first, having already filled out the paperwork saying that you’re going to be attending.
Teachers are the cliquest mother fuckers around so best believe that everyone has just sort of accepted you and Ryland as one unit. The teasing in the staff room kicks it off, coworkers joking about Ryland being husband material. Then the admin girls calling him your work husband when he starts walking in with you in the morning (which totally isn’t intentional- he definitely doesn't time his morning commute so he’s chaining his bike up when you’re walking past the bike racks each day. He’d laugh, sunny and bright from the morning light, a little rosie flush high on his cheek. “Guess we’ve just got good timing”).
And once the students catch wind of this? Oh it’s over for you two.
If there’s one thing pre-teens love, it’s getting their grubby hands on a teacher’s personal life- especially their love life.
Your students joking about finding you a boyfriend is nothing new, you always laugh and evade the prodding, but maybe your friends with one of the kids mum’s or their older sibling, someone who’s just close enough to find a way to glance and your private social media, and gets the word around that you are single.
It starts simple, whinging in the morning while you read the daily announcements saying “But Miss, Mr Grace is perfect for you.” and then on Mondays they hit you with the “Did you and Mr Grace do anything over the weekend?”
They start referring to your supervision duties and ‘dates’ and during free time, when you let the kids pick music out, they play that one Raye song ‘where is my husband’, turning the chorus up loud enough that it lures Ryland in from a few rooms down, for a noise complaint.
Still, the music volume is nothing compared to the screeching a class of thirty-odd eighth-graders make, when the lyrics: Baby, where the hell is my husband? What is taking him so long to find me? play while Ryland rounds the corner of your classroom doorframe, leaning up against it with an amused smile at the sight of your rampant students.
His glasses low on his noise bridge as he looks at you over the rims, arms crossed as very obvious laughter threatens to spill past his lips.
You’d just hold your left hand up, mouth the lyrics to him. I would like a ring, I would like a ring I would like a diamond ring on my wedding finger. I would like a big and shiny diamond that I can wave around And talk, and talk about it. Maybe you’d wriggle your ring finger for emphasis. He’d raise his eyebrows, mouth ‘wow’ at you before reminding the students that there are other classes around and to keep the screeching to a minimum. He’d saunter back to his own class and the kids in yours would fawn over the whole thing- maybe asking if you’re already secretly married (a conspiracy that does its rounds every six months or so).
But the next day, you’d walk into your class room before the day really kicks off, a little wrung out from marking and last minute lesson plans, fully prepared to put on some lofi and have the kids do independent assignment work, go through the drafts you’d finally finished giving feedback on.
Your desk is tidy, as it usually is before the sheer mass of everything from your work bag is dumped on it throughout the day. But right when you’re about to chuck your bag in the middle of the wooden desk top, you pause. There’s a ring pop, in the center of your desk. No note or anything, but it’s early, and your room had been locked- only teachers with rooms in this block had a key, so there’s no need for a sticky note claiming the ring. There really is only one option.
And during recess, when you lean up against the fences at the basketball court, warm under the summer sun, watching Ryland chatter with the students. You note idly, that he keeps glancing over at you, cheeks as red as the ring pop you’re sucking on, as rosie as the candy has left your lips.
Sooo can we have somthing about Lars Lindstrom from Lars and the Real Girl?
Something like a secret office romance, where it all starts with Lars being a secret admirer, and then the reader joins the fray, leaving post-it notes with compliments and little gifts that Lars absolutely loves. And even though they're both head over heels for each other, have they never had a real conversation?
What do you think? Can you cook with that…?
i can so cook with that. I’m a firm believer that Lars is not really a man who does things subtly, i think reader would be able to deduce pretty quickly that it’s him leaving notes/gifts on her desk. i'm imaging neurodivergent!reader who also needs explicit confirmation from lars that it's romantic so she starts leaving notes and gifts back, fishing for confirmation so she can confess/make a move.
it will totally end up as a longer fic- probably around 5k or so.
i just looked through your whole blog. papa me want more movie.
mmmm, so my master google doc for Goose fics has 32k words sitting in there- and at least 10k of those are for my project hail mary oc.
more will be coming, but i am moving literally tomorrow, so long fics might be a while.
BUT please!!! send me asks with ideas or requests, i'm actually insane about these characters, i love yapping about them.
I read your Ryland fic on ao3 and it was genuinely so good. I was glued to the screen and the way you characterise him is so good!!! Keep doing the lords work
chat- you guys really know how to give a girl an ego boost!! I'm so happy you all liked the wedding fic, i wrote it like a woman possessed.
