ryland loves to read you to bed. it doesn’t truly matter what he reads that night; a novel half-finished from the bed table, a paper from his students he had took home to note or even something you don’t truly understand from some of his studies. what ryland loves to see is your droopy eyes, face crushed against his bicep as he read slowly, softly, tenderly to you. a pause, a glance to the side to see you still awake but half into morpheus’ arms and he decides to keep going just for you. it’s soft, loving in a way ryland only knows with you.
it’s the brush of a hand on the crown of your head and pushing baby hair away from your forehead just to press a kiss to the soft skin. “tell me more about it?” you’d whisper to him when he tries to push aside the book or paper and you bring him back to you. he’d smile, nod his head at you before picking up the reading. “you should sleep, though. you need it.” he would still reply after a moment, but you’re already asleep against his shoulder and he doesn’t even dare moving or thinking about it. you look peaceful. you look beautiful just like that.
he’d hum, take his glasses away and turn the light off before bringing your body along as he lays down. you hum, he pauses; scared of waking you up but you just snuggle closer and he sighs. his arms wrap around your warm body in a tender embrace and there’s nothing better than being in your arms at that moment. saving the earth can wait a bit more.
fluff & slice-of-life small blurb!!!! gn!reader. pre-project hail mary. established relationship. domestic fluff. hair playing. soft teasing. academic / research talk. gentle intimacy.
reblog is a creator’s best-friend, thank you!!
It’s somewhere past two in the morning when Ryland finally says, “Okay, no, listen—this is the part people keep misunderstanding.”
You’re not even sure how the conversation got here.
One minute the two of you had been brushing your teeth side by side, half asleep already, and the next Ryland was digging through stacks of papers in his apartment while explaining something so complicated it probably required three separate degrees to fully understand. Now he’s sitting cross-legged beside you on the couch in plaid pajama pants and an old MIT t-shirt with a hole near the collar, glasses slightly crooked on his face. His hair is sticking up everywhere, like he’s been running his hands through it for the last hour.
Which he probably has.
“And if the data is wrong here,” he continues, pointing vaguely at one of the pages spread across his lap, “then the entire model falls apart because it changes the energy output which changes literally everything after that, so—” You hum softly at his words, barely pretending to follow.
The apartment is dim except for the warm kitchen light and the desk lamp near the couch. Outside, rain taps steadily against the windows. Ryland’s voice has gone slightly raspy with exhaustion, but he keeps talking anyway, animated despite the sleepy look in his eyes. You’re curled against his side in mismatched pajamas and thick socks, fighting sleep while he rambles.
Then, absentmindedly, you lift a hand and slide your fingers into his hair.
Ryland pauses for exactly half a second. “Anyway,” he says, trying very hard to continue normally, “if you compare the projections from last month to the current estimates, there’s this huge statistical inconsistency—” Your fingers scratch lightly against his scalp and his voice falters again. You bite back a smile at that. He keeps going, determined now. “So the problem is that nobody’s accounting for… for…” He squints at his notes. “Hang on, I had this a second ago.”
“You got distracted,” you murmur at him. “I did not.”
“You absolutely did.”
Ryland turns to look at you with sleepy offense written all over his face. His glasses have slid crooked again, and there’s a crease on his cheek from where he’d apparently been lying against the couch cushion earlier. “I’m explaining very important science right now.”
“Mhm.”
“You’re mocking me.” You can’t help but smile softly at those words coming out of his mouth. “A little.” He sighs dramatically, but when your fingers move through his hair again, all the tension visibly melts out of his shoulders.
That’s the thing about Ryland: he’s always moving, always thinking. His brain runs at a speed most people can’t keep up with, and even now, exhausted at two in the morning, he’s still trying to solve problems bigger than himself but here, like this, he softens. His words slow and his head gradually tips closer to your hand. “You know,” he mutters after a moment, quieter now, “this is biologically unfair.”
“What is?”
“The hair thing.” You laugh softly. “The hair thing?”
“Yes. This.” He gestures vaguely while leaning further into your touch. “I’m trying to explain astrophysics and you’re out here weaponizing affection.”
“You make me sound evil.”
“You are evil,” he says immediately, eyes half closed now. “You’re using cozy tactics.”
“Cozy tactics?” He nods at your words. “Mismatched pajamas, warm socks, head scratches.” He points at you accusingly. “Psychological warfare.” You can’t help smiling at him then, at the sleepy seriousness in his expression.
“And yet,” you whisper, brushing his messy hair back from his forehead, “you’re still talking.” Ryland opens his mouth like he’s about to argue, then he stops. Because somewhere during his rambling, he’s shifted close enough that his shoulder is pressed fully against yours now, his papers abandoned in a messy pile beside him. His eyes drift shut for a brief second. “…I forgot what I was saying,” he admits quietly.
“That’s okay.”
“No, it was important.” He yawns immediately after saying it, ruining the effect completely. You laugh under your breath and keep playing with his hair, slower now and Ryland lets out a long sigh before finally giving in, leaning his head against your shoulder with sleepy reluctance. “Five minute break,” he mumbles.
“You said that half an hour ago.”
“Scientific break, then,” he corrects weakly.
His voice fades softer after that, words slurring together as exhaustion catches up to him. Still, he keeps trying to explain bits and pieces of his research between yawns while you card your fingers through his hair, both of you warm and sleepy beneath the dim apartment light. And honestly? You understand almost none of the science.
But you could listen to Ryland talk forever anyway.
Ryland is half asleep beside you on the couch with his glasses crooked on his face and one sock missing (he threw it away earlier, saying that one foot needed to breathe). You smile down at him from where his head rests against your chest. “You know,” you murmur, threading your fingers through his messy hair, “normal people usually sleep in beds.”
Ryland lets out a sleepy noise that might be a laugh. “Counterpoint,” he says without opening his eyes, voice rough with exhaustion, “beds don’t have you on them right now.”
“That’s the smoothest thing you’ve ever said.”
“I’m very charming when I’m sleepy.”
“You’re drooling on my shirt.” You voice back at him, tone amused and eyes sparkling at the slight damp patch on your shirt that he did create by being half-asleep. “I think we can call this intimacy.” You laugh quietly at the words leaving his mouth, careful not to jostle him too much.
The TV has long since stopped playing whatever documentary he insisted the two of you watch earlier, the screen now dark except for the reflection of the lamp beside the couch. Ryland had made it about fifteen minutes before he started drifting, his commentary getting slower and slower until eventually he’d just leaned against you and stopped talking altogether.
Now he’s warm and heavy against your side, one arm loosely wrapped around your waist like even asleep he wants to make sure you’re still there. You tilt your head down to kiss his forehead gently. His skin is warm beneath your lips, curls soft against your fingers. He immediately stirs at your touch. “There it is,” he mumbles, half-asleep voice soft. “There what is?”
“The nightly forehead kiss.” He cracks one eye open just enough to look at you lazily. “Thought you wouldn’t give it to me tonight.”
“You’re impossible.”
“You love me anyway.” Unfortunately for your dignity, he says it with complete confidence (and he’s right about it too). You sigh dramatically. “Yeah, I do.”
His expression softens instantly, that sleepy little smile appearing on his face that always makes your chest ache. Ryland has never been particularly good at hiding his emotions; everything he feels tends to show right across his face. Right now he looks so unbearably fond that you can’t help leaning down again.
This next kiss lands properly against his mouth; all sleepy and soft and exactly how he is used to. Your kisses are always so gentle and warm like the sun in summer.
Ryland hums into it immediately, one hand lifting to cup your jaw as he kisses you back with lazy affection. There’s nothing rushed about it, nothing heated, just soft mouths and lingering touches and the comfortable familiarity of someone you could kiss a thousand times and still crave.
His thumb brushes across your cheek. “You taste like tea,” he whispers against your lips.
“Is it supposed to be romantic, now?” You almost laugh at him, but not in mockery, no. In awe at how his brain works. “It is romantic.” Another kiss and he adds. “Like I’m dating someone from a bookstore commercial.”
You snort into his mouth. “That’s such a weirdly specific compliment.”
“I’m a weirdly specific person, didn’t you know?”
“That’s true.”
Ryland smiles again, eyes still closed, and pulls you a little closer. His hair sticks up in every direction from your fingers messing with it earlier, and there are faint shadows under his eyes from too many late nights grading papers and getting distracted by research articles at two in the morning.
You hate how hard he works sometimes and not because he doesn’t love it. Ryland genuinely lights up when he talks about science, about his students, about discoveries and possibilities and all the things humanity still doesn’t know. But he forgets himself in it too easily; he forgets to sleep, forgets to eat proper meals and forgets to rest unless someone reminds him. Usually, that someone is you.
“You’re exhausted,” you murmur softly. “Mm... Little bit.” He replies to you. “A little bit?” You raise an eyebrow. “Ryland, you fell asleep watching a documentary. You love those so much, usually.”
“In my defense, I had already seen this one before.” You laugh quietly again, and he grins at the sound before burying his face against your shoulder. For a moment neither of you speaks. Ryland’s breathing slows against you, his fingers absentmindedly tracing shapes against your side underneath your sweatshirt. You can feel sleep pulling at him again.
“You should come to bed,” you whisper eventually. “No.” He shakes his head at your words. “You literally are asleep.” You add to him, voice low.
“Nope.”
“You’re impossible to negotiate with.”
“I’m comfortable.” He squeezes you gently. “And if we move, the moment’s over.” Your expression softens instantly at that.
Sometimes Ryland says things that sound joking at first, but underneath them is startling sincerity. He loves moments, small ones especially. The all quiet ones. He notices them like treasures other people would walk right past. You brush your fingers along the back of his neck. “The moment won’t disappear just because we move to the bed.”
“You can’t prove that scientifically.”
“You’re a scientist, you prove it.” You express this to him to which he replies: “Too sleepy.” You shake your head and rolls your eyes fondly before shifting slightly beneath him. “C’mere.” Ryland opens his eyes blearily as you guide him upright just enough to stand. He immediately sways toward you like a plant trying to find sunlight. “You’re adorable right now,” you tell him.
“That’s humiliating, I’ll let you know.”
Still half asleep, he follows you down the hallway with one hand hooked loosely around yours. The bedroom is dim and cool compared to the warm living room, sheets tangled from this morning when the two of you left in a rush. The second Ryland collapses onto the mattress, he groans dramatically into the pillow. “Oh, this is nice.”
“Look at that,” you say while climbing in beside him. “The bed wins, uh?”
“Don’t get cocky, we both know you were right.”
He immediately reaches for you the moment you settle down, wrapping himself around you with sleepy determination. One arm drapes across your waist while his face tucks against your neck, curls tickling your skin. You run your fingers slowly through his hair again, earning a content little sigh from him. “There you are,” he murmurs.
“I was literally here the whole time.”
“Yeah, but now you’re properly here. Like… In bed with me. I think you’re right, the bed does win.” Your chest tightens painfully with affection. You tilt your head enough to press one more lingering kiss against his temple. Ryland smiles against your skin, eyes finally falling shut completely.
“I love you,” he says quietly, words already blurred by sleep. You hold him a little closer beneath the blankets before replying softly. “I love you too.”
Within minutes, he’s asleep in your arms, still clinging to you like he plans on staying there all night.
the bed creaks under ryland’s weight when he joins you to bed.
it feels like time had stopped for a moment and everything is so soft at the hour of the night. life is on pause, giving you the opportunity to relax and charge your batteries. for a second, you wonder if ryland is going to speak or if he’ll just wrap his arms around you and fall asleep like he often does (forgetting his glasses on top of his nose too)—but the silence is broken by the sound of his voice; quiet and soft.
“the stars are so bright tonight.” you hum at his words, eyes shifting to the open window. the stars are bright tonight, he’s right about that. one of his arms ends up wrapping around your waist just to bring you closer to his warmth. you shift, turn around to snuggle against his body before speaking too. “a theory on that, professor grace?” the words makes him smile and he leans his head to press a kiss to the crown of your head.
“i suppose they are closer to us, tonight? mhhhh, might be bigger too.” he says with a shrug, way too tired to go full expanse on the topic. but it’s enough to make you smile too and wrap your own arm around his body to get closer. the room falls silent once more but it’s a comfortable kind of situation.
you half-expect ryland to be asleep after a few minutes, but his voice echoes back into the room for one single sentence, one that makes your heart skip a little beat with how much love you feel.
“i think there’s one particular star that shines so beautifully tonight, and it’s you.”
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