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Synopsis: Ryland wants to kiss you really badly. It's embarrassing-- but what sucks more than waiting for something is once he does get it, he doesn't have it for long without interruption. You're too good to pass up, though, so he'll take it with at least a little grace.
WC: 5k.
AN: Wrote this in one sitting... yes it took me all day... yes my brain is fried... yes I will do it again tomorrow.
No pronouns mentioned, but, like usual, it was written with Male reader in mind.
Whining lowly, Ryland rolls over onto his tummy, mindlessly reaching over to pull himself closer to you so he could leech from your heat— but all he palms are the empty blankets, devoid of both your body and your warmth.
He's not sure which he mourns more.
"[Name]…" He grumbles, his voice muffled from his pillow, but it becomes clearer and normal as he flips himself over onto his back. For a minute, all he does is lay there, stretching widely and groaning at the pleasant ache.
He disliked when you'd get out of bed before or without him. It felt alike a betrayal— moreso the fact that he couldn't cuddle up to you and attempt to convince you to stay in bed a little longer with him, than anything you'd actually done.
Calling your name again, he lets his arms fall onto the bed beside him as he yawns, letting the silence of the lack of response blanket the room. He can't hear the shower on, either, so he sluggishly lifts his head up, squinting slightly as he glances around the room.
What he notices first are your dresser drawers are still open — you had a habit of not closing them to avoid making more noise when he was sleeping — so you must've at least already showered… or changed.
Were you going out to do something? He can't recall you saying anything about doing so.
Kicking his blankets off, he climbs out of bed, stumbling as the comforter stays coiled around his leg— It takes a second, but he gets it off before tiredly snagging his glasses off of his bed-side table, finally making it over to the door without any further troubles.
Sliding them on to rest along the bridge of his nose, he pulls the door open, blinking slowly and letting his vision clear as he walks down the hall; he can hear music playing, so he follows that rather than just meandering destination-less.
So you hadn't gone anywhere.
At the thought, something in his chest eases, unfurling what he hadn't even realized was tense.
Jeez.
Maybe the "Always within close proximity of you for over a handful of years," truly did do more to him than he'd realized… aside from not being able to sleep unless he was near you, anyway, but he knew that was a normal side-effect of being in close quarters to someone, alone (mostly), for years. It was natural, but he held only a little shame over it.
Over how needy it made him feel.
Rounding the end of the hall, he peers around the wall and into the kitchen; and upon finally spotting you, his body stops him in his tracks without his permission, keeping him near the wall just beyond the threshold of the kitchen.
You've got your spine to him, blissfully unaware of his staring as you mess with something in a "pan," on the "burner." An organized mess lays spread out on the counter— the tub of butter with a butter-knife (not really, but it's one of the ones Adrian and Rocky created as a substitute) stuck in it, a cutting-board slick with cut "strawberries," (again, an Eridian substitute) and their juices…
"Are you making breakfast?" He blurts, feeling the words tumble tiredly out of his mouth before his brain even registered the fact he was talking.
Your shoulders lift just faintly.
When you quickly turn around at the sound of his voice, he's graced with your surprised but stupidly pretty face— his heart jumps in his chest as his gaze flits between you, a random object, and back to you, stuttering in its usual rhythm as he fights the urge to stare.
Just… you look great. Annoyingly great for the time of the morning; you look as if you could've been an ageless, celestial being, while he's just… him. Messy, exhausted, with a likely chance of sleep-lines still indented into the fat of his cheeks.
Just Ryland.
Just yours.
It takes him a minute to get out of his head so he can focus on the face you're talking.
"Mmn. Rocky 'n his cluster dropped some stuff off pretty early," You respond, and he watches the way your head tilts just slightly, then the way your eyebrows draw together in subtle concern. "I told them to come back later, so you could sleep. Did I wake you up?"
He swallows, breathing in slowly through his parted lips.
Does he look as ruffled as he feels? He can't tell.
"No— no, you didn't, so… don't worry." He fumbles, shaking his head as he adjusts on his feet, then he reaches up, running his hand through his sleep-tussled hair to try to straighten it out some. "What'd you get up so early for?"
As his voice cracks from left-over sleep, he winces.
After a second, he finally urges his feet forward and steps into the kitchen, lifting himself up onto his toes so he can see what you're making— and within the pan looks like a stranger version of pancakes… if they were dark, blue, and a lot thicker.
He continues. "Are those pancakes?"
My god, I haven't had any of those in forever.
Between Me-burgers and Rocky's Erid version of vaguely shaped coma-sludge, he'd almost bid anything that didn't taste slightly metallic good-bye.
"Maaaybe," You drawl, and his gaze flits quickly between your face and the pan— though it slows its switch when a smug smile pulls upon your mouth. "Robert, Balboa, Junior, and Rocky were knockin' on the door pretty hard this morning. Woke me up,"
"I'm going to take a guess and say this was why?" He pipes up, raising an eyebrow curiously as he shifts on his feet. "Seriously, this is amazing stuff— smells good, too, surprisingly."
You laugh as you turn back to what you're cooking, and he watches over your shoulder as you flip the make-shift pancake, feeling curiousity nag in his brain rather incessantly; he was eager, sue him.
"Bingo," You muse, "They were pretty excited to show me. They wanted to wake you up so you could see it too, but… I figured you could use the sleep."
"Yeah," He murmurs, stepping back to lean against the counter— the edge is cold against his back, so he pulls away pretty quickly and with a shudder. "You're probably right."
It's true; getting used to and settled into Erid has definitely taken some tolls on his general function. The gravity, the "food," the new-found space, the bio-dome (he always got jittery with excitement when he'd look at it, and their creations)…
He hasn't slept that well anymore lately, unless you'd…
Actually, he probably shouldn't think about that now. It was way too early.
Nonetheless, he did last night, and he feels pretty good— or maybe that's just the idea of trying this new formula of food.
Okay, listen…
He was going to try to wait, but he can't anymore.
The idea is too appealing.
Pushing away from the counter, he slips behind you and over to the plate of already-done pancakes, ignoring your snicker and the side-look you give him.
"What?" He questions (rather cheekily), before tearing a piece of one off, then tearing that into two, "Are you trying to say you're not just as excited to try this as me? I mean, come on, it's space pancakes! Who doesn't want to try space pancakes?"
"No, no," You laugh, shaking your head with a smile he catches even through the corner of his eye, "I didn't say anything. Continue, please."
"Uh-huh, that's what I thought."
Humming a low, confident noise, he hands you your piece before shoving his own into his mouth, falling quiet and trying to desipher the taste the moment he does so. You do the same, and for a moment, only the music you're playing keeps the room from true silence.
Until he breaks it.
"It's kind of sweet," He announces, his eyebrows furrowing curiously as he swallows, "In a weird, almost tangy way. It's also very thick. Do you know what they made it out of? Did they say?"
Lifting his gaze, he looks over to you, his focus roaming over your expression to see what you're thinking— of it, of the experience, of his opinion.
You nod slowly, swallowing. "Some group of stuff, but I don't know of what. They didn't have a word for it." You pause, running your tongue along the front of your teeth. "I agree, though. It's pleasantly odd."
"It's better than coma-sludge," He muses, snickering to himself. "Anything is better than coma-sludge."
Tearing another piece off, he tries it again, attempting to find anything he didn't the first time about it— whilst he does so, you turn the "burner," off, pulling the last pancake from the pan and setting it atop the others on the plate.
It's tasty, again, in a weird, unfamiliar way. It's enjoyable— he could get used to this pretty quickly.
You, breakfast every morning, trying new things…
"Coffee's back in stock, by the way," You pipe up, breaking the short bout of quiet between the song changing. "They dropped more off for you."
His eyebrows twitch upward, and he follows the rough gesture of your hand to the tub of the aforementioned Coffee, sat over in the corner counter-top. It wasn't quite like earth Coffee— in the way that he could only have very, very little. Any more than that, and he'd be up for two straight days.
He's speaking from experience here.
He'd rather avoid a repeat offense.
"Thanks," He murmurs, shoving another piece of pancake into his mouth as he moves across the kitchen, quickly getting himself some— at the sight of the leaves being radiation green instead of yellow, he pauses. "Why is this one green? I don't remember the last one being this vibrant. Or green."
"Different plant subspecies, I guess," You shrug, moving within the kitchen to get yourself your own drink. "You can ask 'em when they come back— they said they were supposed to, anyway. Robert really didn't want to leave the first time."
"Really? It's usually Junior that hates to leave."
"Mhm," Your voice softens just faintly, and a breath of a laugh tumbles from your mouth right after— his brain latches on to the noise, and he suddenly wishes you weren't playing any music so he could've heard it better. "Heard some notes from him I hadn't ever heard before when Adrian was nudging him away from the door. It was kind-of cute."
Picturing the image in his head, he nods slowly, feeling a small smile pull the corner of his mouth upward. "…Yeah, that does sound cute. Wish I could've seen it."
He moves on with a curious sound, pushing the little container a bit more back and away from the edge — he'd knocked it over twice just like this before — before he reaches upward, pulling the cabinet above him open and snagging a cup from inside.
And for a moment, neither of you say anything; the only reason he's not rambling and asking you all sorts of questions about what notes Robert made and what they could've meant was because he knew you liked the song playing; Lorraine, by The Excellents.
It was a good song. He liked it too.
Closing the cabinet, he exhales slowly, getting his coffee made as you hummed lowly to the song behind him— the sound kept him from getting too far within his thoughts, from soiling his own mood dwelling on things he knew he couldn't fix.
He had quite the habit of that.
Characteristically, he can't hold his tongue for long, even with his hands busy. "Did they say when they were coming?"
"Mm-mm."
Grunting a lazy form of acknowledgement, he closes the container of coffee, nudging it back into its typical spot before he grabs a spoon and his cup, moving over to the island counter beside you. You're idly eating one of the pancakes, fiddling on the laptop— as it was your day to have it. It got passed between the two of you and Rocky like a tennis-ball; you'd have it for a few days, then Rocky would come to the door and demand it was, quote, Rocky's day for the human technology again.
It usually wasn't.
He stirs his drink in a lazy, broken rhythm before lifting it to his lips, more caught up on staring at your hands as you type than anything else.
What you'd done with those exact hands; from fixing the Hail Mary on the trip here, to logging all of the little Pebbles' questions so he'd remember them for their next class, to sinking your fingers in his side while he'd—
He chokes on his sip, quickly pulling the cup away from his mouth like it burned. He covers his mouth with his other hand, coughing into his fist before bringing his arm up and continuing to into his elbow, turning away from you both to hide the heat in his cheeks, and protect you from his germs.
"Wha— Are you okay?"
Your voice, as concerned and gentle it is, helps nothing good at the moment.
All is does is remind him of how it sounds similar whilst doing other things, just more broken and out-of-breath— how he affected you then, that he could make you sound like that, how good you made him feel during…
Yeah? You're sure?
"Yes!" He blurts, voice raised and a lot louder than he meant it to be— he clears his throat, shaking his head rapidly. "I— I mean, yes. I'm okay. It was just… a lot, uh, warmer than I expected it to be. Sorry, hah."
He laughs awkwardly, keeping his gaze focused on anything but you, even when the heat of your hand seeps into his shoulder as you place it there. He has to wrestle the instinct to not sink into your touch, to lean back and stop pretending he didn't want to be all over you, all the time.
His cheeks have never felt hotter.
"Ryland," You call, the underbelly of your voice easing just slightly around the syllables.
His name sounds almost holy when you say it like that.
"W— What is it?"
Rocky and Adrian are coming later, he reminds himself, there's no time for anything. Focus on… quite literally anything else, for the love of science.
"You're sure? It didn't burn you or anything, did it?" You pull on his shoulder just slightly, and his brain crumbles almost instantly— finally letting you turn him to face you, even when he feels ashamed about the fact he's getting worked up over you just existing around him.
That's embarrassing— that's what teenagers do. He's passed that age twice over.
"…Yes," He mumbles, "I'm sure. It was just a common, humanly mishap. Everyone makes those… on Earth."
In his peripheral, he can see your eyes as they flit around his face, as if checking for any damage anyway. After your shoulders ease, your hand slips from his shoulder and to his bicep, making warmth bloom all the way down everywhere you touch and his breathing kick up a notch.
Now he's getting really distracted.
"See?" He continues, clearing his throat softly as he looks away, back to you, away again, then back to you. "Just clumsy, like always."
I want to kiss you so bad.
He wants to kiss you so badly.
Humiliatingly badly.
You seem to notice it, too— the inferno and the embarrassment in his stomach twist and tangle strangely as he glances up, catching the way your expression changes from worried to… something else. He feels like he needs to talk about something, anything, to distract himself from his own emotions; his want to touch you, his need for you to kiss him at least once right now, just to stave it off for a little while.
"You know, um, we— we should probably eat," He laughs, but it's strained and airy, almost shy. "You know, before Rock and his family get here?"
Attempting to force his brain to want you to let go, he steps back, and when your hand falls and the bottom of his spine bumps into the edge of the cold counter-top, he swallows. Loudly.
He misses your touch almost instantly, and he's the one who made you stop.
He was a coward.
You say nothing, but the amusement on your face is leaving enough hints that he can put together.
Your silence makes it all the worse; you're just staring, letting himself run around in circles like a dog chasing their tail. It makes him feel exposed, bare— though you make that feel good. Weirdly good.
Before the Hail Mary, when someone made him feel this way, he'd just shut down and run away screaming internally. But he doesn't want to do that with you, no. Instead, all he wants is for you to draw him closer, warm him up with yourself, make his brain turn off for a little while.
You don't make it feel like a bad thing.
"You, uh, you know how Rocky gets," He continues, each of his open-mouthed breaths coming in quicker and quicker the longer you stare— his heart is beating so fast, he can hear it in his own ears. "All annoyed and grouchy for how— how long we take to finish."
Again, you just raise an eyebrow, just slightly, and say nothing. Not even a single one of your typical hums, or casual grunts of acknowledgement.
He gives up.
Hanging his head, he presses the heels of his palms into the cool edge of the counter, aiming for a physical distraction from his own slew of embarrassment and shame; but his body feels so hot he barely registers it, his focus being yanked towards you and your presence no matter how hard he tries to pull it away.
You were like his North Star, constantly drawing him towards you no matter where he was or what he'd try.
"I give up," He announces lamely, picking his head back up and licking his lips. "I give up. Just—"
He doesn't even know what he wants to say; what he was going to say. Instead, he finally shuts up, looking at anything that isn't you. The wall, the cabinets, his shoes, your throa— the flooring, the pancakes sitting on the counter that are probably cold by now.
Sucking in a long, steady breath through his mouth, he glances back to you, staring at the expression on your face as you just stand there, fingers curled into your palm like you were waiting for permission to do something.
"Just…"
He still doesn't know— but something in his chest claws at the cage of his ribs, just waiting for him to figure it out, to say it.
You weren't the teasing type; playful, yes, but not in moments like these, where he was fumbling over himself. He's not sure if your silence or the teasing would be better now.
"Just…?" You question, giving him time to figure it out, but also trying to help him along to whatever that truly was.
He shakes his head, letting his gaze drop back to the floor. "I don't know what I was going to say."
He can hear your clothes ruffle when you reach up, but what you do is out of his peripheral. "Do you know what you want?"
Does he?
Does he really?
He thinks he does. He just never had the chance to really think about it— on Earth, he didn't want to. On the Hail Mary, he never had time, never thought he'd live long enough to ever figure it out. But here, with you, he's got plenty, and he still… has no clue. He was emotionally aimless.
He knew what he loved doing. Teaching his students, talking with them, helping them learn and figure things out. He knew he liked it when you'd lay in bed together and he'd just ramble his brains out. He knew he always felt the most confident about himself when he was around you, that you soothed his random bubbles of insecurity and failure. He knew being around you felt good, an instant gratification for whatever stress he was having then.
He knew that…
He's found it.
You.
He wants you.
"You," He says finally. "I— I know I want you."
In a bout of strange self-assuredness, he tilts his head back up and fixes his gaze to your face, bouncing between making very intimate eye-contact and staring off somewhere at your collarbone so he doesn't have to watch your expression shift in the ways he knows it will.
It's almost odd; you've been together (At least technically, saying so felt nearly awkward) for a good while already. You've gone through the hoops, the near-deaths of finally getting here, all of the scary parts, but… saying a complexly simple I want you felt more big a jump than anything else.
Maybe it's how plain and sure it is. I want you. It's blunt; it doesn't need to be pulled apart for him or you to know exactly what it means at its core, as it's just as deep at its surface.
"O… Kay," Your voice sounds almost unsure for a second, but he's not sure if that's of yourself or him. Either way, it doesn't feel pleasant, unlike what tumbles from your mouth right after. "You've got me. All the way. I'm yours."
Your response repeats in his head once, twice, trying and failing to catch and sink in multiple times— he can feel his heart beat in his throat, in his fingertips, in his tense stomach.
I'm yours.
Your words finally register completely, making the tangle in his chest ease as his shoulder droop.
"Okay," He repeats, nodding once, then twice, like he was trying to convince himself of something. Of what, he's not one hundred percent in the know of. "Okay, okay, okay. Cool. Yeah, this is great, um… I should probably stop talking now— and preferably before I say something else really embarrassing… again. Sorry. I'm done now."
Instead of brushing him off, all you do is smile and step closer; steadily and slowly enough to give him ample time to decide what he wanted.
But he knows it now.
Standing up a little taller, he inhales shakily, looking down at your lips multiple times in the few seconds it takes you to be standing right in front of him. You're close enough he can feel your warmth, imagine the way you'll touch him next.
Should he be doing that? Probably not, but you don't look like you mind all that much.
You don't touch him like you do, either.
Your hand curls loosely, gently around his left wrist— he stares at you face, but you're staring at where you're touching, slowly dragging your fingers upward and ghosting your touch over the burn scars there. Your fingers press lightly into his underarm as you keep going, your thumb taking in a careful, rhythmic back-and-forth motion over the worst part of the scars.
He swallows.
"They, uh, they don't hurt anymore," He says, staring at your face, then watching the motion of your thumb. "If you were wondering."
You hum a low, affirmative sound, though your focus is clearly not pulled away from what you're doing with your hands. It feels strange— he couldn't sense the heat of your hand, or the feather-like pattern of your thumb, but his brain still acted like he could. It was more alike a phantom sensation, knowing he couldn't feel it, but his mind behaved otherwise.
What he feels almost completely is how intimate the moment is.
"I can't really feel anything there, either," He admits, voice lowered. "It's kind of weird."
"Should I stop?"
God, please, no.
He stops himself a split-second before those exact thoughts tumble from his brain and out of his mouth; a rare event for someone like himself. He's not sure if he should be grateful for this being the first time, but it takes the title nonetheless.
"No, you're, um, you're alright."
What's not alright is how badly he still wants you to kiss him— it's like it's all he can think about. Most days, the interest came sporadically, rather than any certain time (outside of the obvious), and rarely this intense. His brain tacked it as a physical need; like breathing, it physically ached that you weren't as close as he wanted.
It's half his fault, though. He knows it. He could man up, tell you himself, but he doesn't.
The feeling of your hand drifting upward pulls him from his thoughts, forcing him back into the present and to look at you. You look as focused as ever, but where a blank slate of an expression would typically lay, an intense, concentrated one takes its place this time.
"You look focused," He murmurs, a small, amused grin forming along the curves of his mouth. "Really focused. More than normal, you know."
Is he talking just to distract himself?
Maybe.
Can you tell?
Also maybe.
"Yeah?" You muse, gaze downcast and following the trail of goosebumps your hand carves into his skin— you slowly go up his arm, to his shoulder, then back down. Were you teasing him? He was unsure if you were doing it on purpose or not, but that mattered not to the slew of butterflies in his stomach.
"…Yeah," He agrees, swallowing quietly. "You do."
As your hand pulls from his wrist and slips over to the low of his hips, his breathing jumps almost instantly as your touch truly registers, making his stomach twitch and his mouth part. You caress him like he's something worthy, someone you're reverent of— at the thought, an unidentifiable emotion coils in his chest, suffocating his lungs like a disease.
"You, uh— You don't have to take your time or anything," He stutters, "You're not gonna break me… I think."
The jest comes out strained and slightly stiff, and the same goes for the shy, awkward laugh that trails it; he wasn't used to someone taking this much time just to touch him. It creates a strange but also pleasant concoction of emotions in his stomach.
Nerves, warmth, comfort, shyness, attraction…
You make him feel all sorts of funny ways, and most he's never felt before. At least not all at once.
"Mmn, I know," You mutter, your hands pulling his sleep shirt up as you splay them out over his ribs, "But rushing isn't any fun. Doesn't feel as good, either."
The cool air of the room laps at the bare parts of his stomach, a violent opposite to the blatant heat of your fingers as they curl around the curve of his side. You finally flit your gaze away from his stomach and up to his face, making him all of a sudden be aware of how hot his cheeks feel.
Is he blushing?
He's probably blushing.
You tilt your head. "All good?"
"Yes," He blurts, nodding almost immediately. "Yes. Absolutely."
"Can I kiss you?"
"Dumb question."
The kiss that comes after is heated.
He leans into it instantly, hands reaching out for your waist, his fingers tangling in the fabric of your shirt as he gasps into your mouth, letting his eyes close. You're so warm. And everywhere. His brain faintly registers the feeling of your hands tightening around the meat of the low of his hips, but what is accepted in full clarity is the groan that falls from your mouth and into his.
Tilting his head, he chases after your lips— getting what he's wanted has never felt so good. It's nearly euphoric, the need for more and more and more swallowing his shame and absorbing it whole. Even whilst he's losing oxygen and needs more, he doesn't want to move away.
And in doing that, you're forced to.
The second he senses you're about to pull back, his hold on your shirt tightens, wanting you close even as the burn of him losing his breath aches into his lungs, shooting warning signals to his brain he ignores until what feels like the last minute.
This time, he lets you move back without complaint, gasping for air the second your mouths disconnect— his brain feels almost fuzzy, like it's stuffed with cotton as you pant against him, your desperate breaths syncing for a split second before they fall out of rhythm again.
You nudge your forehead against his, the cold of the counter pressing into his back as you press against his front; he tilts his head back as you dip your head down, groaning as you mouth at his throat and press the tips of your teeth where you lick.
Your hands slide up his spine underneath his shirt, making a shudder drip down the notches of his spine as he leans into you more, wanting to tuck his nose into your pulse point and never move again.
"I love you," He breathes, resting his head against yours as he attempts to catch his breath. He only opens his eyes when he feels you plant kisses upwards, along his jawline and dotted around the corners of mouth— the way you do so, the way you kiss in general, is enthralling.
"I love you," You murmur, pressing your lips to the underside of his jaw as you catch your breath, too. "So much."
Before he gets to say anything else, the doorbell rings once, twice, three times…
He loses count after the tenth time.
He's never wished Rocky was late more in his life.
In which the government (Eva Stratt) shows up at your door and gives you no choice but to join the Petrova Taskforce. The reason? Ryland Grace recommended you, your old friend (or whatever you were) from college. And for some reason, you said yes.
or
the tether tying you to earth was always very thin, but now it seemed ready to snap.
word count: 10.7k (lol)
content warning: some (a lot of) inaccurate science (I hate to say it but I would not be on the Petrova Taskforce), some plot alterations for my convenience, cussing, slight (very slight) references to sex, mention of parental death, mention of needles and going under, miscommunication trope (yasss) and someone tell ryland grace to just say something!! ( as always, lmk if I missed anything)
a/n: wow this has been sitting with me for a while! this is like my passion project, I have been so excited to get this out and I hope you all enjoy it too! this is my first time writing for Ryland (and writing in a while so give me some grace...see what I did there?). excited to be back and hopefully writing some more!
ANYWAYS, I would happily write a part two of if the people want it! (or just rant in my inbox about headcanons)
If there was one thing you knew it was that Ryland Grace and you perfectly orbited each other, even when he was far off in San Francisco teaching the next generation of young scientists. It had been that way since you met him in college and it just never stopped. Part of you thought it was written in the stars that Ryland Grace and you were meant to do great things together.
Even after everything that happened with his research paper, even after your lab group dropped you post college from lack of funding, it was still the two of you. Science Partners, pen pals, best buds….among other ambiguous unstated things. You stayed in contact over the years, frequent calls, letters, the stupid punny e-cards he would email you on your birthday every year. There was a time, in college, when the two of you were together almost every day. And your excuse was always that we just work well together.
You knew Ryland Grace, you would say it was your next best subject. However, in this specific, very rare instance, you had no idea what the fuck Ryland Grace was even talking about.
Have you ever considered helping save the planet?
You must have reread the email a thousand times. Enough where your brain eventually shut off from confusion and your head met the keyboard in place of a pillow. Only when a loud thudding rattled through your dingy apartment did you finally realize that you had even fallen asleep. You blinked at the screen, lifting your head from your keyboard, the sun shining through the windows onto your desk. Reaching up, you peeled a small sticky note off your face, rubbing your eyes.
BANG, BANG, BANG. The sound rattled through your thin walls again and only on the second time did you realize it was coming from your front door. You paused for a second and glanced at your small digital clock, it was only six in the morning. Shooting up from your chair you made your way to the door, grabbing an umbrella on the way over, just in case.
You peered through the peep hole, only relaxing for a second when you saw a woman…then her two, what you could assume were body guards, behind her. Right about now you would have called Ryland but he had been off the grid, that email being the first sign of life you had gotten in days.
Shit. Shit. Shit. What do you even do? You glanced back out, seeing them talking amongst themselves before knocking again, the woman calling your name through the door. Quickly turning to the mirror on the wall near the door, you let out a groan at what you saw. There was mascara smeared under your eyes from sleep and your hair stuck up in fifteen directions, all completed by the oversized t-shirt you had on reading “This gal believes in aliens”.
Fuck it!
You threw the umbrella to the side, brushed some hair out of your face and opened the door, casually leaning against the frame like everything was under control.
“Hi,” you spoke up, voice rough from not sleep, quickly clearing your throat in response, arms crossed over yourself to hide the stupid shirt. “Hi…uh is there anything I can do for you?”
The women did not look amused, only offering you a nod, slightly peaking into the small studio apartment behind you.
“Yes, actually, you received an email,” she spoke, sharp, straight to the point. It wasn’t a question really, more like a confirmed fact she was repeating. Her eyebrow quirked ever so slightly at your silence. “Am I wrong?”
You shook your head quickly.
“Yes or no? It is really that simple”.
“Yes, yes, sorry…” you hesitated for a second, coming to the quick realization you had no idea who these people were. And yet, you were so scared to see what would happen if you lied. “Yeah I got an email”.
“Not my decision. Dr. Grace thought however that it would be most efficient,” she continued. “He has spoken very highly of you and from my own research, I can understand why”.
Dr. Grace? Ryland?
She gestured past you which you could only respond by moving to the side. Her presence commanded space and you respected it, or feared it, there was a lot to unpack. She stepped past you, turning to give a nod to the two men with her who remained outside.
“I am sorry,” you began, closing the door, turning to face her. “Maybe you got the wrong person-”
“That is not possible,” she replied. “He was very insistent that we must contact you in order to move forward”.
For what? Contact you for what?
You watched as the woman moved around the room like it was her space, picking up books and skimming through old pages of notes you had written. Then she turned to face a white board you had mounted messily in your kitchen, scribbled with notes and doodles that surrounded three big words: THE PETROVA LINE.
“Seems we are on the same page,” she mused, the first time you had heard any significant change in her tone.
The space and the stars and the idea of infinity above had kept you up late into the night as a child. Your parents should have expected your world was one far away from the grounds of Earth, that you would live your life with your head in the stars. Your father used to have to drag you inside from your backyard, you set up with a blanket and a small telescope that they had bought you for your birthday that year. Each night would end the same, your parents calling you to come inside and you asking for five more minutes, which turned into ten, which turned into hours. But your little sixth grade self could not fathom how school was more important than the world above, the possibilities of the stars.
And when you went to college to study that world it was the easiest decision of your life. Then the stars turned on you and you could not understand why.
The Petrova Line kept you up at night.
“You studied the Tau Ceti System, yes?”
The name of the planet system sent a shockwave through you in a way you didn’t even know was possible. Tau Ceti was your whole life, or it had been in a distant past, it was a system you believed to have more potential than people truly gave it credit for. Yes, you knew Tau Ceti, however you had let that ship sail a long time ago.
“Yeah,” you spoke up, quieter than before. “Yeah I did some work on Tau Ceti”.
And you could not help the wave of disappointment that hit you at those words. You had been recruited to a lab group after college that was specifically dedicating funding to researching the Tau Ceti System, and when it fell through, so did all your plans. You had dropped every other offer for the one that, it was everything you had wanted. It was a risk, and it fell through. No one really prepares you for post college as an Astrobiologist, no one ever tells you that you will end up working as a waitress at the Extraterrestrial Eatery near your house. At least you got to wear a cool space suit there. Tau Ceti and your other research had been benched, pushed to the side for evenings when you had nothing else to do.
“Perfect. Now that is cleared up, grab anything that might be important and we can be on our way”.
The women turned to move past you back for the door and you felt like your feet were suddenly glued to the ground. You opened your mouth to speak, before closing it, then opening it again. Yet no sound seemed to come out.
“What is this?” she asked, turning back, gesturing to your face. “I do not need the fish impression right now, this is a serious matter, we do not have the time”.
You immediately shut your mouth, then took a breath.
“Who are you?” you finally cried out. “What is this? No one is telling me anything!”
You felt insane, like you were living in some simulation where everyone knew what was going on but you. Where were the cameras? When were they gonna jump out and say it was all some weird, honestly unnerving, prank?
“I am Eva Stratt, head of the Petrova Taskforce” she began. “And you have been selected by Ryland Grace to help solve the Petrova Line”.
“I have work tomorrow,” you breathed out, a loss for words. The Petrova Taskforce, some of the world's most brilliant minds coming to you…a waitress at an alien restaurant. The email came back to you, the ominous words from Ryland, saving the world. This was news that a long time ago would have been everything you had ever wanted to hear…now you felt like some imposter, out of place.
Why you? Why now? Why after years of beating around the bush did Ryland Grace need your help to solve one of humanity's greatest emergencies. Why was Ryland Grace solving one of humanity's greatest emergencies?
“That will not be a problem,” Stratt countered. “We have already contacted your place of work and put you on an indefinite time of leave”.
“You can’t just do that!” you fought back, even if you knew that was the least of your worries. It was all so much, all at once. Ryland and Tau Ceti and the Petrova Line and saving the fucking planet.
You remained still glued to the floor, grasping at straws, scared of saying yes…maybe even more scared of saying no. You glanced around the room, the books, the hours of work, the pictures of Ryland and you scattered around the room from college. It had been years since you saw him and maybe that scared you too, seeing him again, reopening feelings you had sworn to bury too deep to ever reach again.
Your curiosity for the world remained, your love for space had never quite gone away, that would be impossible. It was just more of a hobby now, you looked less like someone with a PhD in Astrobiology and more like a crazed conspiracy theorist. You weren’t the same scientist from college, bright eyed and ready to fly into space if she had to.
Dr. Stratt spoke your name from the silence, your eyes snapping back to meet hers, “the sun is dying.”
The word settled heavy, lingering in the air between the two of you.
“Dr. Grace is my last hope,” she continued, honest, blunt. “And you are his”.
And that was all it took as you nodded, a loss for words, moving in a sort of trance to gather your things.
-----------
If there was something you would be fine never doing again it was that fuck-ass fighter jet. But now, standing in front of the door to the conference room, you think you might rather go back and ride the jet a few more times to stall. You hadn’t seen Ryland Grace in years…and now you were there, feet away from him and the idea overwhelmed you more than you thought it would.
The ride over had been a bumpy, hazy mess. Anyone you tried to ask about what was happening would ignore you as if you were a ghost…which only left you with more questions. By the time you landed on a boat your brain was too tired to even try to make sense of it all.
You had met Ryland in college. You both ended up in the same class, ‘The History of Extraterrestrial Life’...better known on campus as That One Alien Class. It filled both of your general education requirements, or at least that’s what you told him was your reasoning. It had taken him weeks to get you to admit that you believed in Aliens and even longer to admit that the class really wasn’t a joke to you.
The two of you were paired up for most of the semester, spending time whispering in class and making jokes about how deranged the content was. Even if it did open your eyes up to the whole Tau Ceti system.
You remember the last day of class so vividly. It was your final presentation and Ryland had taken it upon himself to get you these dumb matching shirts reading, “This gal believes in aliens” paired with “this guy probably is an alien”. It was stupid. And it was so perfect.
The thought made you smile, only for a second, before the nerves of it all settled back in.
There was too much there, floating, left unsaid. And it scared the shit out of you.
Before you could even fully prepare, the doors opened, your body moving in autopilot as Eva Stratt led you into the room. There you were, suddenly standing in front of what felt like a million eyes, all looking to you like you had answers. You had to remind yourself not to do the whole fish thing again as you just awkwardly gave a small wave, trying hard to keep your mouth shut. What am I doing? You were a waitress at an alien themed restaurant, not a scientist…at least not anymore.
Stratt introduced you to the room, briefly detailing your credentials to be here. You had kept your gaze straight, scared to look in either direction, straight was safe, straight was easier. You had imagined what it would be like seeing him again, more times than you would ever like to admit, and this was nowhere close to what you thought it would ever be. In a room surrounded by some of the world's most important people.
“This is Dr. (last name),” you hadn’t been referred to as that in a while…and you could not lie, it felt kinda good. “She has researched the Tau Ceti system most of her career and will help us identify why exactly the Tau Ceti star is the only one not losing energy”
Great. They really loved leaving out the important details. You knew the star, probably more than the back of your hand but there was still immense mystery to it.
“Anything you want to share, Doctor?” Stratt finished, turning the room over to you and you made the one mistake, moving your head. There, at the left end of the table was him, Dr. Grace. Not an email, not a letter or postcard, not a lingering memory…no it was really him, looking at you. Every emotion you had ever felt about him hit you at once in a way that made you want to grab on to the nearest wall so as to not crumble to the ground. Ryland, your Ryland, the same one you remember, albeit a little older, a little more tired. Your heart stuttered for a moment, actually stuttered, like it too had forgotten how to function. And all you could do was muster a small wave. Nothing could have prepared you.
You had spent years pretending that he wasn’t the sun of your own personal solar system. It turned out that was much easier when he was not standing feet away from you, his glasses practically falling off his face.
You swallowed, mouth running dry. And funny as it was, after all the years, after all the anticipation and wondering, your body eventually went back to the familiar state it always did when it saw him. You softened. Your heart beat steadied and your breathing returned to something much more normal.
Stratt cleared her throat, your eyes snapping back to hers.
“Um…Tau Ceti is… pretty dang cool,” you finally choked out, the people around the room sharing looks between each other. “...Thank you”.
Sporadic, unsure claps filled the room as you took a step back, ready to smash your head through the nearest wall. You did not lie, Tau Ceti was pretty freaking cool. But you were sure that was not what the Patrova Taskforce really needed to hear from you at that moment.
“Thank you,” Stratt said, a slight shake of her head, before she gestured towards the empty chair in the one section of the room you had planned on avoiding for at least a little longer. You tried to ignore her before one of the men in suits began to guide you there himself.
Each step you took felt heavy, like your body was trying to stop you. But there was the other part, your heart racing in anticipation, in want. This was what you had wanted, your work hadn’t been the same without him. You two brought out a fire in each other, seeing the best in the mess of crazy ideas the two of you brought to the table. The two of you.
As you walked down the table, a few of the other scientists took turns shaking your hand, welcoming you on board. Maybe your speech was not a total mess afterall. You hadn’t even realized you had made it to the end of the table, his hand reaching yours before your brain could catch up.
“Tau Ceti is pretty dang cool,” the familiar voice spoke. Your eyes immediately met his and you felt like the world had stopped for just a second. Every version of him you remembered and every version you didn’t hit you all at once. Then you felt him squeeze your hand, his head slightly tilting. “Earth to alien girl?”
It was an odd feeling, seeing someone after so long. The memory of him was hazy until that very moment. You had tried so hard to remember the shade of his eyes and the way they kinda squinted up when he laughed. You had tried to commit those things to memory, tried to live through the pictures, but nothing compared seeing them in-person, in front of you.
You tried to form words, frozen in place, only coming back to reality as Stratt began to talk once more. You quickly sat down, pulling your hand from his and forcing your attention forward.
There were a few seconds where neither of you spoke, ignoring the weight of his eyes on you. You were supposed to be professionals…since when were you ever professionals? You were on a boat, with the world's best scientists, saving the planet…next to your best friend. And somehow, that felt like the most overwhelming part. You were sure your brain would eventually catch up one day, the shock fading with every minute that passed.
Then he slightly shifted in his chair, “Pretty dang cool?” he asked, just loud enough for you to hear, just like the two of you used to do in those alien class lectures. A smile grew on your face, one you tried to bite back.
“I panicked,” you whispered back, eyes still focused forward on Stratt, nodding along to words you weren’t even hearing. You didn’t have to look at him to know he was smiling too.
The silence again, the silence of years of pushing off visits and ignoring the hard questions. It made you twitch slightly, racking your mind for anything to ease it.
“So, are you the one responsible for the U.S. government pretty much knocking down my door this morning?” you whispered from the quiet, a slight quirk of your brow, gaze still set forward.
“Guilty,” he said, seeing him lift his hands in mock surrender in the peripheral of your vision. You could almost roll your eyes at how predictable the response was, slightly nudging his foot with yours under the table. He let out a quiet, breathy laugh, one you wanted to be the reason for forever.
“I didn’t think you would come,” he spoke again, his words softer this time, real.
Those were the words that broke your focus, your head turning to meet his gaze, really meeting his gaze, for the first time.
“Kinda didn’t have a choice,” you replied, half-joking, the other half completely honest, thinking back to the morning and the woman who was now commanding the room. Then you smiled, looking back at him, “But I would have come regardless”.
Even if you still weren’t exactly sure what all this was, what you had somehow signed up for. Even if it made you question who you were, why you were here…what you were to him.
You looked down to your lap. You were among the greats because Ryland Grace said you should be. You were not quite sure yet if that was reassuring or terrifying.
“It’s gonna be like old times, huh?” he added, as if it would make it all easier. “You know, you and me, figuring things out, putting the pieces together”.
Fuck. That did not make it any easier.
The meeting breezed by in a blur, words flying all around you as you tried to catch up to speed with what exactly was happening. You could pick out Petrova Line, Astrophage, Tau Ceti, among several other things you weren’t quite sure on.
And then it was quiet. Just you and him, alone, in a room that now felt much too big. You both started talking at the same time-
“So-”
“Hey-”
You stopped, laughed, apolgized…tried again.
Then you did the exact same thing once more.
“Out of sync,” you joked, a quiet laugh, as the adrenaline wore off and gave way to a feeling you could not describe. You knew him but then again, it had been years. It was finding the balance between an old friend and a stranger.
“It’s been a little bit, huh?” he added, hands digging into the pocket of his jeans. You finally got a glimpse of his shirt, a science pun you were sure he was so excited to show his class of middle schoolers.
“Yeah, just a little bit,” you added, feeling exposed now without the other people in the room, the slightest bit bitter that it had taken all this to see him again. But then again, who really was to blame for that? You looked down at the ground for a second, shuffling your feet against the floor, racking your brain for anything.
“So…saving the sun?”
You barely got the words out before he stepped forward, closing the space between the two of you, pulling you into a hug. So tight, like you might disappear. You stood there for a second, air caught in your throat before you caved into the feeling. Your arms looped around him, head rested against his chest, as if this was something the two of you just did.
“I missed you,” he said, honest, real.
You stayed there, just together, quiet in the chaos of the day.
“I missed you too,” you finally let yourself say, quiet as if the whole world was listening and you wanted it to be just for him. “Why me?”
He quickly pulled away, as if he was shocked into motion, a wild look on his face, you almost started laughing.
“What?” he gasped out, dramatic as ever.
‘What do you mean ‘what’?” you countered, slightly shoving him in the chest. “Why am I here, dumbass?”
“Hey, so first, we are not cursing anymore,” he scolded, his voice morphing into something you only imagine came from years of teaching. “Second, you are the only person I know who would be crazy enough to show up here”.
He shrugged as if it all was nothing, that dumb smile on his face, as he began to move towards the door. “And you would kill me if I got to research Tau Ceti and you didn’t get the invite”.
You wanted to interject, fight it, but you knew, deep down somewhere, that Ryland never stopped knowing you and you never quite stopped loving him.
“You just gonna stand there?” he asked, already at the door, holding it open. “Or are we gonna do some science?”
It really was like no time had passed between college and now…well if you ignored the millions of dollars worth of equipment now at your complete disposal. It’s funny, the way the body reverts back to old habits. The way Ryland and you moved in the lab was your own sort of rhythm, brains connected in a way that seemed almost superhuman. You needed to grab a tool, he dropped it on your desk before you could even move. He had a question, you were answering it as the question left his mouth…then he would smile at you and roll his eyes and go back to his work. It should have felt different after all this time…and it just didn’t. It was dangerous. And it was so wonderful.
The Vat, or Stratts Vat as everyone began to call it, was a hodgepodge of every science you had ever dreamed of. You could talk to a biologist from across the world and then suddenly meet an engineer who happened to be from your hometown. For a while you pretended that this wasn’t what you wanted, you ached to go back to what was safe and comfortable. But as you stood there, another day on the boat, you realized that maybe this is what you had been waiting for. You were researching again, being curious, all the things your younger self could have only dreamed of.
Your days were mostly spent with Ryland, the two of you poking at astrophage while you dug through old research papers you had on Tau Ceti. Your presentation was coming up, only revealed to you a few mornings ago by Dr. Stratt. She had come into the lab early, you had just woken up, believing it to be a perfect time to tell you that you would be addressing the taskforce with any details you had on the planet system. You sat there, swiveling back and forth in your chair, your sidekick on the other side of the room jumping up and down about a new development in Astrophage breeding.
“I wish I had your energy right now,” you groaned out, shuffling through your notes.
“Tau Ceti not treating you well?” he asked, peaking his head around a shelving unit that slightly blocked your view. “Did you try taking it out to dinner first?”
All you could do was flip him the finger, scribbling notes at the same time. “You think I haven’t tried that yet?”
He let out a laugh, coming around to stand behind where you were sat working. You had been really trying, but there were some things that just needed to be seen to be understood…and one of those was Tau Ceti. You had theories, tons of them, hopefully enough to be of help.
“She is still my greatest mystery,” you admitted, turning your chair to face him.
“Well Rome was not built in one day,” he looked at you, a serious look on his face regardless of the word choice. “And Tau Ceti is not gonna be understood that quick either".
You let your head dramatically fall to rest on the desk, quietly groaning into the sleeves of your jacket. Then you felt Rylands hands on your head gently shaking it.
“Hey,” he began, a laugh already escaping him, you mentally preparing yourself for whatever he would be saying next. “Remember they used to call you the brain!”
“Uh, you used to call me the brain,” you retorted, lifting your head up and shoving his hands away. “and it was and still is stupid”.
He grabbed your head once more, shaking it around, “C’mon use the brain, I know it is in there somewhere”.
You turned to glare at him, his lopsided smile making it hard for you to be upset at anything. The energy settled down, the man leaning back against the desk across from you.
“Do you think this is all gonna work out?” you spoke up, looking back to your notes. “Tau Ceti and the Astrophage and all of it?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted, blunt and honest. “But beats sitting around and waiting for it to solve itself…ar at least that it what I choose to tell myself”.
You just nodded, letting him fade back into his work as you faded back into yours. If Tau Ceti wasn’t enough, the constant push and pull between Ryland and you was. You told yourself to keep it easy, to ignore it, all those dumb feelings squashed down from college that threatened to bubble over any second. You buried yourself in your work, that was easiest. But there would be nights where you would fall asleep at your desk and wake up to a blanket thrown over you. Or mornings when the mess you left in the lab were cleaned up…and there would be Ryland, a small wave and a smile, doing a ‘cheers’ with his coffee mug. You could not let yourself read into it, because then it would be all the much harder to eventually pull away.
The presentation day had come in a blur, you now standing once again in the front of that room, papers gripped so tightly in your hands. You were never good at the presenting part of it all. In the bustle of the room you were able to find him, him waving his hands above his head to get your attention. You smile, he shot over two giant thumbs up, and all you could muster was one half as enthusiastic one back. You turned to look through your notes when he caught your eye again, pointing at his head and mouthing “the brain”, which you could only roll your eyes in response, a quiet laugh fighting its way out of you.
“Alright everyone,” the powerful voice of Eva Stratt entered the room, coming to stand beside you in front of the projector screen. “As you know, Dr. (LAST NAME), has been working hard gathering information on Tau Ceti, which will be our final destination for this trip”.
Everyone around the room turned their full attention to you as the women gestured to you and took a seat. Deep breath.
Your heart was jumping in all sorts of directions, as you fidgeted with the clicker, trying to get the presentation to flip to the next slide.
“Hi,” you began.
“Tau Ceti, it is pretty dang cool!” Ryland called out from the back, heads turning to him, him once again shooting the thumbs up.
“Uh, yes…as Dr. Grace put it, "Tau Ceti is really ‘dang cool’,” some of the scientists laughed at that, the stress easing the littlest bit off your shoulder. You began clicking through slides, diagrams of the systems and the potential planets in its orbit. “Thank you for your enthusiasm”.
You took one last deep breath before diving right in, trusting yourself and the years of work you had put into this already.
“What makes Tau Ceti so interesting, while not an exact match, is that it has the potential to be the closest relative to our own solar system,” you began. “Which means, there is a great likelihood of it supporting life or even already having life within it.”
“Now we know that the Tau Ceti sun is the only star to have not been impacted by the Astrophage, however what is harder to understand is exactly why,” you continued, switching to the next slide, getting into a rhythm. It was easy when it was your whole life's passion. “Which is why our mission is going there, to better understand it…however I have some theories that could be useful to prepare our travelers for what exactly might be going on”.
There was first, the idea that the spectral output on Tau Ceti did not match that of what Astrophage was looking to feed on. However the spectral output is very similar to the Sun so it would have to be significantly off to be a problem, which was unlikely. Along with this, there could be some sort of natural defense, like dust specific to that atmosphere. However, the most exciting idea was that of evolutionary pressure…another lifeform that could be eating away at the Astrophage to keep it in balance. While so extremely far fetched, it was the one that made you the most excited to get the data back from the scientists on the Hail Mary. It could change everything that scientists know about that system.
“But the honest answer is, we don’t know until we get up there and bring back some samples,” you closed out. “Now we do have to be aware that this planet is around twelve lightyears away from us”.
You were in a rhythm now, comfortable enough to really look up and around at the people in the room, several of them taking notes and nodding along. “Which means we are kinda looking at it in the past. The light we are seeing right now left Tau Ceti twelve years ago. Which is incredible, but there is the risk that this system is already gone or changed and we wouldn’t know until we get there”.
“However,” you flipped to your final slide. “The data we are able to gather from here points to strong evidence that this system is very alive and this trip will not only open doors for Astrophage but open up a world to an entirely new solar system that could be inhabited by human life”.
You clicked again, the slideshow coming to a close, “And, uh, yeah that is it from me…thanks guys”.
The sound of applause filled the room and you finally felt like you could actually breathe again rather than having to remind yourself to. Your face hurt from smiling, looking around the room, taking it in. You imagined your younger self, sat with her big telescope and book of constellations in a chair in the back. She is smiling, the biggest smile you have ever seen. She knew all those late nights would eventually pay off. Even after your original Tau Ceti lab fell through, even when you couldn’t find a job and ended up at an alien restaurant, even when your door got busted down by Eva Stratt…all those days led to this moment, right now. You wished you could go back and tell the girl in college that it would be okay, that she was enough, that one day she would do big things. But eventually she would learn and that made it all the more worth it.
And there was him too. You found his eyes in an instant, it seemed to be the first thing your body did. It was an old habit, one you could not break, nor really wanted to. He was beaming, an ear to ear smile, waving at you like you had just accomplished something so incredible and not just given a presentation. You made your way towards him, your bodies drawn together like magnets. However with each step you took, you felt like you were being pushed further and further away as people began to come up and shake your hand or ask you questions. Further and further until he faded away in the back of the crowd, now a lone hand stuck up above the crowd trying to get your attention. A thumbs up and you knew everything was gonna be okay.
----------
You were sitting at the bar, hot off the mic with Ilyukhina, who had forced you up against your will. The slight buzz in your head was enough to make you cave, you were sure that was the whole reason Ilyukhnia had insisted on getting you a few drinks at the start of the night. All of it leading to a horrific and yet kinda beautiful version of “Space Oddity” by David Bowie …it felt fitting.
She had bought you a final drink as a thank you, one you were nursing now, looking around the room. Grace had stayed late in the lab, normally you were there too, but the others in the lab had started to joke that you hated fun and you were determined to prove them wrong. You were fun! Very Fun.
You hadn’t been down to the bar before, didn’t quite understand how people could celebrate knowing what was approaching. You weren’t even on the ship and you could barely get your brain to settle at night enough to fall asleep. The room was full of people, singing, laughing, leaning into each other and finding comfort. It made you smile, maybe made this whole thing feel more real. It made the pit in your stomach worse.
Your eyes caught on DuBois, a drunk Shapiro leaning against his arm, the two of them laughing together, in their own world. Your gaze lingered, unable to pull away. The way they could laugh togethering knowing that DuBois would be gone, not set to return. They had people here, people they were leaving and for the first time that really hit you. You tugged your gaze away, looking back down to the bottle of beer in your hands, half empty…it would stay that way. You couldn’t help it though, like it was a piece of art, you found yourself looking back at the two of them. She looked at him with a quiet kind of intimacy, like the two of them could know what the other was thinking without speaking a single word. They moved in a perfect rhythm, a messy, beautiful rhythm. They weren’t just leaving behind Earth, they were leaving behind their people…a chance at a normal life.
You were gonna be sick. Quickly you set your beer on the table and left the bar pushing through the groups of people singing until you were finally out onto the deck of the ship, cold wind smacking you in the face. You gasped for air, but no matter how much you took in, it still didn’t feel like enough.
The ocean was dark ahead, it was like an abyss and as you looked up, you were met with the bright stars, their shine almost too bright with no other lights around to dim them. You felt so small, and in the grand scheme of things you were, and it both terrified you and brought you some peace.
Your grip was tight on the railing, it almost hurt. You needed to be stable, grounded, anything-
“Hey,” a familiar voice approached from behind, your body tensing before slowly relaxing. You didn’t have to turn back, just slightly nodded your head, an invitation.
“Hey,” he repeated himself, this time softer, as he came around to your side, gripping onto the railing next to yours. “Earth to alien girl?”
“I thought you were working late?” you spoke up, anything to take your mind off earlier, get rid of the image of people who would never see each other again.
“The lab gets kinda lame without a certain scientist analyzing everything I do,” he joked, but you could not get yourself to laugh. “I love your analyzing…that’s uh, that’s what I meant”.
It was almost a compliment, a small smile crept on your face that quickly faded out as another gust of wind hit you, the waves crashing below you. The two of you sat there in silence for longer than you ever had before.
“You okay?” he broke from the silence, turning his head to look at you.
You nodded, “Just cold”.
He nodded back, unconvinced you could tell, as he began to reach for his jacket regardless. You did not fight him on it, you were cold, maybe it would help. The chunky fox cardigan draped over your shoulders as he absentmindedly buttoned the top to keep it from falling off of you. You mumbled a quiet ‘thank you’, bundling into the thick yarn.
“So are you gonna tell me what is really wrong?” he spoke again, him still standing in front of you, adjusting the sweater so it covered you. You met his eyes, his head slightly tilting.
“Have you seen Dubois and Shapiro?” you finally allowed yourself to speak your thoughts into the air.
He nodded, returning to stand next to you, leaning once again against the metal rails, "Yeah, they are definitely hooking up”.
“No,” You shook your head, “There’s something more, you can see it in the way they look at each other”.
The silence met the two of you again, the waves below you getting louder and louder, them in their own conversation. You wondered if the waves too had problems like this, if they thought about the world and what they were meant to be. You felt nauseous, you chose to blame sea sickness. It hurt even more because maybe you wished he would look at you like that. You supposed that was your last tether to Earth, last tether from making you lose your mind…it seemed to be him.
“I just cannot imagine knowing the person that you loved was gonna be gone in a few days, just out in space, floating…and you just never see them again. And you can’t even do anything about it” your voice slightly quivered, it was all too much. The several drinks in your system did little to ease your worry, you actually think it made it worse. “After I lost…after my parents, I mean, it took so long to be okay with not getting a goodbye. But they, I mean Shapiro gets to say goodbye. How do you even say that kind of goodbye knowing they are out there and will die, alone?”
You hadn’t realized how blurred your vision had gotten until you looked up, finding Ryland’s gaze, his eyes scanning your face. He had been there, in college, when your parents had passed, had sat up with you for weeks on end keeping you distracted, helping you stay on top of work when your world felt like it was ending.
He carefully reached to wrap his arm around your shoulder, pulling you close to his side, a silent kind of comfort, the kind you liked. You rested your head against his chest, melting into his touch, allowing him to be strong for you for a little. It made your head hurt, all of this and him…there was always him.
You weren’t sure how long it was before he spoke up again, you had counted at least twenty crashes of the waves against the boat. It seemed to be the only thing you could think about without falling apart.
“Where do you see yourself after all this?” he asked, pulling you the little bit tighter against him. You were not in the headspace to dig into that, nor the question he was asking. Because where did you go? You were doing the thing you had worked your whole life for and then what? Back to the restaurant? Back to serving punny dishes named after planets and pretending you were fulfilled?
“Probably go home,” you began, your voice thin, a little shaky. “Can’t keep the Extraterrestrial Eatery without their best server for too long”.
It was supposed to be funny but it came out dejected. A quiet laugh escaped him at your words.
“That’s not-”
“That’s exactly what it is,” you cut him off, sharper than you meant it to be, gaze set down at your shoes, at the hem of his sweater, at anything that wouldn’t make you think so much. “That’s my life, Ryland”.
Before this your life had been small, so miniscule…your dreams seemed so far away. Now you were here, it was all right in front of you. You didn’t even think you would ever get this close to studying Tau Ceti, all the resources right there for you to use.
“This…all of this is everything I ever worked for,” you continued. “Being here, doing things that actually matter, and then it’s just gonna be over”.
The lab, Tau Ceti…him. You had grown so used to it, too comfortable and the feeling of it being torn away felt weird. But that was life, you would adjust, or you would try.
“It doesn’t have to be over,” he offered, trying to comfort the ache in your words. And it hit you, with a force that could have sent you overboard. Your head snapped up, looking at him, you opened your mouth to say something but stopped yourself.
“I gotta go,” you spoke, in a daze of sorts, his words replaying over and over in your head.
“Hey, no. Come on” he too stood up, no longer leaning against the railing. “Talk to me, I am here! We could go sing karaoke or something, be stupid, forget about it”.
“You hate karaoke,” you countered, already edging towards the stairs back down into the boat.
“Maybe I could like it?”
“I am gonna go to bed,” you turned back to him, lying through your teeth. You searched his face once more, took a mental picture of him standing right there, breeze blowing through his hair, glasses slightly tilted. He looked perfect.
“It does not have to be over,” you repeated, more to yourself than to him, before ducking down into the stairs and back down the hall. You were sure he called your name but your body could not turn around. It could have been the alcohol in your system. Maybe you were losing your mind. Maybe it was a little bit of both, but your feet carried you right to Dr. Stratt’s office.
You didn’t even knock, pushing open the door, her head snapping up from the silence. Her eyes slightly narrowed, you standing there in the doorway, trying to catch your brain up to your movements.
“Take me instead,” you blurted out, desperate.
The woman did not react right away, just studied you, like she was weighing something you couldn’t see.
“I have nothing keeping me here”.
At least, almost nothing.
“I have worked my whole life for this,” you continued, words spilling out of you before you could even really think them through. “Tau Ceti is my everything and now I am here. And I can do it, I want to do it”.
You swallowed, a shaky breath, so loud in such a quiet room.
“I need to”.
You stood there, feeling so small in the doorway, waiting for something, anything that would confirm that you weren’t making a mistake. Doctor Stratt just nodded her head, short and direct, like she always was.
“Go get some sleep Doctor,” and you just nodded back, your brain going completely silent for the first time that night.
--------
When the explosion happened a few days later, it was all the justification Eva Stratt needed. The day had been a mess, the loss of those doctors devastating, the power of Astrophage even more extraordinary . There was no time to even process though, as just as quickly as it had happened, Dr. Stratt had pulled you into a conference room. The plans moved fast, there was no time to delay with launch day approaching. You agreed as quickly as it was proposed, Ilyukhnia sending you small thumbs up from across the table.
The explanation was a blur. The coma, the four year trip, the three hours until you would have to be ready. Three hours before your life changed forever. That was all it took for everything to become real. But you nodded along. You had a duty now, not only to yourself but to Dubois and Shapiro and all of humanity. For Ryland Grace and his students, for the young girls out there dreaming of studying the stars. It would all be worth it, for them. It had to be.
You made your way back towards the lab, moving in a sort of hazy trance. You were allowed a few personal items to bring with you on the ship, most of the ones you wanted to bring were stored on the shelves of your desk. A picture of you and Ryland at a weird alien museum your class had gone to. A photo of you with your parents on move-in day at college. Your favorite book. A journal of your personal notes. And that stupid alien shirt.
You smiled, piling the items into a box you kept in the lab, when the door came rattling open.
Ryland Grace came stumbling into the lab practically lit on fire, out of breath, a million emotions on his face. You knew it before he even spoke the words.
“What are you doing?” he asked in a panic, searching your face, his eyes shooting in every direction, him taking steps closer to you.
“I don’t-”
“No, you aren’t doing this,” his stopped you. “What are you doing? They can’t just take you?”
“I volunteered,” you countered back, simple, straight to the point…it would make it easier. You turned back to the box, finishing placing the items, scared what looking back at him would do. He was quiet behind you and that hurt the most. Maybe it hurt because of the quiet, maybe it hurt because he didn't have more to say.
“This is it for me,” you said, still facing the box, busying yourself with organizing and reorganizing the objects, anything to keep from facing the truth. “I have studied Tau Ceti my whole life and now I am going to see it, I am going to help save this planet”.
“You don’t know that,” he bit back. “I mean we can hope but you have no idea if this is even gonna work-”
“Beats the alternative,” you countered.
“And what's the alternative?”
That made you turn, you finally facing him. He looked so tired, a mix of confusion, anger, sadness… somehow all at once.
“This,” you admitted. “Going home to that apartment, living through pictures of a better time while I work that shitty job. That’s not living, that is not how I am going to live!”
“So what, now you are just going off to die?” he was upset, you hadn’t seen him like this in a while, not since his theory about water had not been received well in college.
“I am saving humanity”.
“Oh wow, yes, real courageous of you,” he retorted, shaking his head in disbelief.
“Fuck you Ryland,” you said, quiet, cold. “You’re the one who brought me here”.
His eyes snapped to yours, the two of you just looking at each other, breathing.
“And it was supposed to be a temporary thing,” he bit back. “Empahsis on the whole temporary part of this all. I mean, just a couple of days ago you were saying how you couldn’t imagine people having to say goodbye like this.”
You didn't have the heart to tell him that you hadn't planned on saying goodbye to him at all. It was wrong, you knew that, selfish, but you couldn’t get yourself to do it. He was your last tether to Earth and it was growing thinner and thinner.
“I have nothing here for me,” you spoke from the silence.
“You have-” and then he stopped himself and your head once again snapped up to meet his eyes.
“Say it,” you spoke, quietly, pleading for him to say the one thing that could make you stay. “Please Ry, just say it”.
Everything hung there, floating in the air and he couldn’t, his head just slightly shaking in disappointment. The tether snapped right there.
“Okay,” it was so breathy, barely even a word. You had no more fight left in you, no words left to say, nothing he could do that would change your mind. He was too stuck in his ways, too stubborn. You grabbed the box, looking at him once more, before you shoved your way past him and out the door of the office. It was quiet, too quiet down that hallway and when you looked back he was looking at you and you just gave him a smile, a small one…I will learn to forgive you.
You felt no regret.
Not when Eva Stratt thanked you for your sacrifice. Not when the doctors came in and prepared the injection that would put you under. Not even when the needle pierced your skin. You only did, just for a second, when you heard your name. When his voice called through the room, faint but desperate. It was muffled, your vision growing thinner and thinner, fading at the edges. The voice just grew quieter and quieter. A hand gripped tightly onto yours, shaking you more and more until you felt nothing at all.
----------
The first thing you realize is that you cannot open your eyes, like they are glued shut. You squeeze them a couple times, blinking over and over until they finally force themselves open.
So bright!
You should have just kept them close. You blink a few more times.
Then you realize that you can’t move, and not because your arms are stiff…no, there is a giant, what you could best describe as, plastic bag wrapped around you.
“Eye movement detected,” you practically jump out of your skin at the sound disrupting the silence. The voice is clean, almost inhuman, as it once again repeats its previous statement.
You try to move your arms, nothing. Your legs, nothing. Your fingers…just a little bit. The feeling of helplessness crashes all over you at once as you come to the slow realization that this was not just a bad case of sleep paralysis.
Before you could even begin to make sense of it, a giant robotic hand swept across your vision, reaching down to unzip the human sandwich bag you were being trapped in. Now was your change, you shifted your weight as much as you could side to side until you rolled and made contact with the hard floor. A groan escaped you, the only sound you could really get out.
What the actual fuck?
There are tubes, connected in places you didn’t even know were possible. But nothing was as alarming as the realization that you had no idea where you were…no idea who you were. You looked around in a panic, trying to worm around off the ground, the robot hand stopping you in your place, lifting you off the ground and placing you back onto the table. You left out a mix of muffled objections, the most you could muster…your vocal chords were somehow still waking up. The computer acted before you could even protest, removing all the tubes, sensations you had never felt before and hoped to never feel again. At least, you assumed you had never felt them before.
You saw it as your chance, the robot hand busy putting the tubing away, you jumping off the table and immediately crumbling to the ground.
“Fuck!” the sound surprised you…you were making progress. Using the little strength and feeling in your limbs that you had, you scooted and crawled across the floor. Where was the door? Your head snapped back and forth, up and- There it was, on the ceiling, of course it was. The ladder connected to it seemed daunting but what choice did you have.
The robot spoke again, speaking a name, or you assumed it was, “detected, alive”.
It must have been your name, huh, you didn’t completely hate it. You continued to move across the floor, slow, scared that the robot arm might just yank you right back into the air.
“Movement detected in the dormitory," the robotic voice spoke once again, causing you to speed up. It was trying to blow your cover, ruin your plan. Who knew, there might be a whole army of robots up there ready to get you. With each scoot across the floor, the feeling in your limbs began to find itself again. By the time you reached the ladder you were able to somewhat pull yourself up, each step getting harder and harder. You were tired, even if it seemed you had just woken up from some coma-like situation. You reached the top, banging the door over and over until it eventually popped up.
Reaching the top, standing on solid ground again was a feeling you had a new respect for. Then you turned your head…and you came to the jarring realization that you weren’t on solid ground at all. A giant window looking out into the great plane of stars…you were in space. You took slow, cautious steps towards the window, scared that you might somehow get sucked out.
It was beautiful, you were at a loss of words for a reason other than your inability to talk.
“Holy shoot,” a voice spoke from behind you, you stumbled slightly turning around, throwing your hand up in defense. “You are awake”.
“Am I?” you asked, genuinely…you wouldn’t have been shocked if you had died and were now in some weird waiting room.
The look on the man's face was one of relief and that was enough to slowly allow your hands to fall back to your side. He seemed slightly more put together than you were, except for the glasses titled slightly on his face…though he made no move to readjust them. Maybe he was an alien and that was how they wore their glasses? Were you an alien too?
“Where am I? What is this? What…” you trailed off, once again catching a glimpse of the stars. The feeling was hard to explain, like you were floating in your own head, nothing there but faint blurry glimpses of something that you knew came before this. But no matter how hard you fought, you could not get yourself to decipher the memories. “I can’t remember what…”
He nodded as you spoke, and you knew he understood. You couldn’t understand, but your body softened slightly, your heart beat became steady and your breathing returned to something much more normal.
“I, uh, I woke up a couple days ago…in that room,” he tried to explain, looking as if he too was piecing it together in real time. “Where do I even start…”
You stood there, helpless, waiting for something.
“We are in space,” you rolled your eyes at his words, pointing out at the window next to the two of you. “Oh right, well, just clarifying”.
“Anything else genius?” you didn’t mean to come across as on edge but you were confused and hungry and annoyed that your brain could not do what it was meant to do.
“We aren’t in our own solar system,” he spoke again, finally with some seriousness to his tone, you perking up and meeting his gaze. “We are, according to the map in the control room, in the Tau Ceti system about twelve lightyears away from Earth”.
He trailed off on the last word, giving you a second to absorb…but you were not a sponge and your brain was rejecting all of it. It made no sense, it was insane…but so was the giant robotic arm that picked you up earlier.
“We were sent here for a reason,” he finished. “I just am not sure what exactly that is yet”.
He then paused, a long pause, like he was choosing his next words carefully, “we were sent in a group of four”.
“Oh,” you looked up at him, a feeling of relief washing over you, maybe they knew more, maybe they had been awake for longer. “Well, let’s just go pick their brains?”
“They didn’t make it,” he added, the words sitting heavy in the air.
You just nodded, unsure of what to say, scared of how it would all feel once your memories began to trickle back like his were.
Would they have been your friends? Would the grief hit you later? The words sat weird in your stomach, even weirder knowing that there was a time where you knew everyone on this ship, there was a time where you knew why you were there. People who were your friends and now it was just you and strangers, chosen by some sort of fate to survive.
“What happened to them?”
“What am I? Your magic eight ball,” he joked, a weak attempt at trying to lighten the mood…you hated that it made you smile the way it did. “Don’t fight it, I know it was funny.”
“Oh wait, the memories are coming back…” you pretended to think, before letting a blank look spread on your face. “You’re an asshole”.
He threw his arms in mock defense and you weren’t sure why but it all felt so natural.
“I found some vodka earlier,” he offered up, a shitty solution, a temporary one for sure, but a solution nonetheless.
“We brought vodka?” you paused. “At least we know we had fun”.
He laughed and you laughed too, anything to keep you from thinking about what this all was, what this meant and how exactly you get back to Earth from twelve light years away.
The man, who you learned was named Ryland Grace, took you around the rooms he had already spent time exploring. The labs…so you were scientists? Then the controls, and the space suits and the shelves of equipment that you could not even begin to understand. He eventually showed you a small closet, one containing boxes labeled with four names, pulling the one with yours on it down.
In yours were some pictures…one of the two of you, so you were friends? Maybe? You should go with friends for now. Then a picture of two older individuals stood next to you, in front of the sign of a college…they must have been your parents. Did they know you were up in space? Did they send you up here? The thought made your head hurt so you stopped, tucking it away, it was for another day. There were too many questions floating as is. Then the shirt, a giant shirt that confused that shit out of you even more. You took it out of the box, holding it up to show him and the two of you just burst out laughing.
“So I have bad taste in clothing?” you asked, trying to regain your breathing, him wiping away the tears from his eyes.
“You should see some of the other clothes people brought,” and those words were just the start. Too much vodka flowing through your system, the two of you found comfort in trying on stupid hats and shirts packed throughout the ship. At some point you found yourself collapsed on the floor with him, laying there, the bag of alcohol laying between the two of you.
You talked for hours that night…well you assumed it was night, trying to hypothesize about who the two of you might have been. Were you smart? Where had the two of you met? Were you friends? Somewhere in your mind you felt like there was something else there. But you did not want to dig there, when you tried your head would just pound right back. So you laid there, accepting the silence of space, accepting that none of it made sense.
“I am glad I am not alone,” he spoke up from the silence, so quiet you might have missed it.
“I am not sure why, but I feel like we were meant to do this together,” you replied, turning your head to the side to look at him.
He was already looking at you with a soft smile on his face. Tomorrow you would wake up and it would be overwhelming all over again. But for now, you were wearing an alien shirt and laying beside a man with a beautiful smile and titled glasses. Floating absently among the stars and you felt like you have never felt so at home.
summary: out of sheer need for a place to stay, you decide to move in with a friend of a friend. considering you're sort of attracted to ryland makes your living arrangements a little complicated. (part 1/???)
pairing: ryland grace x gn!reader
word count: 4.5k
tags: (set in grad school, ryland and reader both in their early/mid-20s!) fluff and humor, domestic fluff, mutual pining, roommates-to-lovers, friends-to-lovers, developing feelings, rom-com logic, reader partially nude (body type unspecified), will they/won't they, really bad flirting if you can even call it that, unresolved romantic tension, cocky!ryland, gn!reader
cross-posted to ao3
He’s not a complete stranger. That’s an important distinction, because if you were looking to room with a complete stranger, you’d be a lot more hesitant to sign the lease agreement. But, Ryland is a friend of a friend, which conceivably makes this more okay. You’ve gone out to dinner with him when he’s tagged along with your going-out group; you’ve seen him at the local bar five minutes out from campus—great at trivia, especially in the pop culture and science categories. You’d even be brave enough to say that you’ve noticed Ryland walking around campus and from afar watched him walk with his brown-leather shoulder bag and his morning cup of coffee.
The roommate talk had only begun in the last couple of weeks or so, when you’d been asking around for anyone who was looking to fill a room. Your first few attempts to secure an apartment—in time for the beginning of the next academic school year—had been a bust. There’d been a lead on a cheaper studio that never followed up, a four-roommate situation that ended up signing somebody else, an option for a dorm room (you’d opted yourself out of that choice)… To say you’d been desperate to find a room is an understatement.
The text you sent Ryland—number acquired from your mutual friend—had read: “hey! heard you were looking to fill a private room. keep me in mind if you haven’t found anyone yet :)” And Ryland’s simple response, “Let’s go for coffee. Free tomorrow?” was what sparked that initial, albeit premature belief, that you might make good co-habitants for one another. And his offer was simple. $1000 a month, flat-rate, for your own private room in a two-bedroom apartment. His apartment, which used to be occupied by both him and his old roommate, who’d left the state in pursuit of a good job with the CDC. It made sense. He had an empty room and you needed a place to stay. You’ve both said “hello” and “see you” in passing enough to call each other acquaintances.
So, now, you’re rooming together and have been for the past week. It's a decently sized place, certainly big enough for the two of you save for the tight hallway leading to the bedrooms. It’s perfect, really. It should be perfect. It was perfect when Ryland helped you bring all your cardboard moving boxes up the stairs of your complex and into your private bedroom, glasses askew and arms given a decent pump from the heavy lifting. And it was perfect when Ryland showed you around the apartment for the second time—with his tidy, two-bookshelf living room and his almost lab-esque arrangement of a kitchen. It was proving to be a perfect setup.
—
The second you start to worry about your rooming situation is at the end of the first week. You have reason to believe that Ryland will be out working at his summer research lab, on something related to microbial ecology. When he explained it all to you the first time, you hadn’t been completely able to understand him; there was a lot of theoretical jargon that he hadn’t cared to parse out for you. You couldn’t bring yourself to tell him to slow down, considering how passionate he was getting just talking about the research.
It’s a series of shower thoughts that carries you to think about how attractive Ryland is when he’s talking about his research. There’s something fiery in the way that he talks science-y. He wants to be right. It might piss you off a little, how right he wants to be, but it’d piss you off more if you were his colleague. It isn’t like he’s trying to prove you wrong. He’s just passionate. It’s a little hot. You twist the shower knob quickly, and the water begins to trickle out of the showerhead. You just moved in; you can’t be thinking like this. His shampoo and conditioner and his body wash are in front of you on the shelf. You look away.
Once you’re able to grab your towel off the rack and wrap it around you, you’re in a hurry to get out of the shower. You’re already starting to get that cold, wet feeling on your back, and you’re dying to get into your bedroom to change into a fresh set of clothes. The sun’s starting to go down and you’re just about ready for dinner—so you’re stepping onto the bathmat and making a run for the door, and out the door into your room.
That second-long sprint from the bathroom, down the hallway to your bedroom, is when you realize the apartment isn’t empty. You nearly drop the towel, hands all shaky, when you realize that Ryland’s sitting on the couch, a good few feet ahead of you, reading through a stapled stack of papers. His faded red 49ers shirt stands out bright against the gray couch. You were just thinking of him, and now he’s here, and you’re here with almost nothing on. He jumps at the sound of you shouting a soft “Fuck!”—and you don’t know how much he sees before you’re able to pull the towel into a more solid wrap around yourself. He’s looking at you over the frame of his glasses, eyebrows raised.
He glances down at your towel for only a second, before flashing down to your all-too-visible, bare legs—before finally taking his glasses off and tossing them down on the coffee table. You can feel yourself burning up at the mere sight of him, training his eyes down on the folder in his lap. Ryland’s cheeks seem to have a reddened tint to them, and he’s ruffling his hair back and forth. You’re fumbling with the doorknob to your bedroom, not quite sure what to say to him. Finally, you stammer out, “Sorry, sorry. I thought you were going to be working later—”
“It’s fine,” he assures you. He’s still looking straight down as he waves his open hands around. “No, this is great. We’re breaking down the hard barriers first.” You find yourself staring at his discarded glasses. It’s not like taking them off would’ve made much difference. He’s farsighted, and you’re a little bit down the hall. He must’ve taken them off in an exerted effort to make you feel better.
“I’m just gonna… put something on. Okay.” The second you shut the door, nearly slamming it behind you, you’re slapping your palms over your eyes. It’s taking a lot to rationalize the past minute. He’s right: hard barriers first. It had to happen eventually. It was going to be him or you. All you need to do is act maturely about this. You’re both grown-ups here, and it isn’t like either of you are unaccustomed to nudity.
—
Now, you’re sitting at the dining table together hot-faced. In the forty minutes that you’ve been hiding away in your room, taking the utmost amount of time to get dressed, Ryland has made himself busy in putting together a meal for you both. There’s a set table for you both—a plate of pasta out for you, for him, and glasses of water to match. It takes lots of effort not to shift in your seat with the events of this evening, even more so when Ryland sits across from you.
You think you catch him glancing down at your pajamas before he looks you in the eyes. Your hair’s still damp, as if you’ve only just come out of the shower. The thought of your body being imprinted into his mind makes your nose want to crinkle. “So, you came home early,” you say sheepishly.
Ryland nods, hands clasping together in front of him. “Professor let us go early to yell at an undergrad. They dropped a sample, it was a whole thing.”
You both pick up your forks, ready to eat. But neither of you seem to want to dig in. Ryland’s waiting in silence, probably watching the unsettled look on your face. You stutter, “Right—I should… did you see—?”
Ryland purses his lips, pushing his glasses up higher on the bridge of his nose. “...No.” His hand goes straight for the glass, tossing back a large gulp of water. This seems to relieve him a small bit, because when he places the glass back down, he seems slightly more composed. Ryland sits up straight in his chair, more relaxed to look you in the eyes. You don’t buy it.
“Are you lying?” you ask him, fork hovering over the pasta. It’s still welling up steam; you might as well keep prodding until your meal cools down.
Ryland sucks in a deep breath, before giving you a strangled, “Maybe.” So, he did see. He was only trying to save face just now, feigning cluelessness. You knew he was too slow to look down; you could tell as soon as you dropped the towel.
Finally, you’re dropping the form down onto the plate and looking straight down at the table. It’s difficult not to slam your head straight down into the bowl. You’re seething with embarrassment. “Oh my God!” You don’t know what’s worse—Ryland seeing you naked, or the fact that you’d been thinking about him just seconds beforehand.
He’s being a good sport, raising his palms up. “It’s fine! It’s fine,” he says to you. “I’ve taken general physiology. A naked body isn’t going to put me off. It’s natural.” The thought of Ryland comparing his viewing experience of you to a textbook diagram, professorial tone and all, is only making this worse. He realizes his mistake rather quickly, and tries his best to amend it as smoothly as possible. “I was also a teenage boy with Internet access.” Not any better. He tries to adjust one last time. “And I’ll text you next time I get out of lab early?” That calms you down, which calms him down.
For the time being, you’re both able to pick your forks back up and start eating again. You’re able to get a better look at Ryland as he pulls the marinara-drenched pasta up to his mouth. He cooked for you both. That’s nice. It’s more marginally comfortable now that you’ve both resolved the little road bump from earlier. Your mind returns back over to the initial conversation: Professor v. Undergraduate Student. “So, is it really that serious about dropping the samples? I’m assuming there’s contaminants, or—”
He nods, “Well, we only have so many palettes. It’s really reckless to drop stuff, and if we were in a professional setting, and this is more pseudo-professional than anything else, it’d be…” Ryland tries to select out the right word “…catastrophic.”
You give Ryland a gasp, nothing but sarcastic: “Like, World War Z?”
“It would be exactly like World War Z,” he affirms dryly. Ryland chews quietly at his food, a small, satisfied grin on his face. It’s a success; he thinks you’re mildly funny. This is a better dinner than it started and, awkwardness aside, you think that it’d be difficult to get tired of evenings like this. You have to wonder how many dinners you’ll have with Ryland like this, especially when the summer ends and you’re both busier. He won’t always get home early, and neither will you. It’s rather unlikely that you’ll sync up often.
When the two of you are finished eating, you’re getting ready to stand up and collect the dishes together. Ryland is quick to beat you to it, grabbing your plate, then his. Your half-full glasses are still left there on the placemats to drink—and he’s already making large strides over to the sink. “I don’t mind doing them,” you tell him, “—the dishes, I mean. You cooked, so it’s only fair.”
There’s a gentle clatter in the sink as Ryland places the plates and utensils at the bottom. You take your glass into your hand, trying to chug down your water so your glass can join the rest. Ryland’s shaking his head, leaning against the counter as he watches you tilt the glass up higher. “I can do them. I figure you probably want to turn in early after your little accident.”
You nearly spit out your water, dropping your glass down on the table with a huff. “You can’t call it that,” you say, “You’re making it sound like I peed myself on the playground.”
“I don’t know what you’d rather me call it,” Ryland replies, a grin starting to grow on his face. It’s far too easy for him to do this kind of thing—teasing you to entertain himself, and making you all the more antsy. “A… whoopsie? Or, surprise! That might be more fitting.”
“Nothing. You can call it ‘nothing’ because it didn’t happen!” you tell him. Full denial. It’s your own ego speaking, a meager attempt to make up for some of the dignity you’ve lost in the past hour. You can already hear him mumbling under his breath, “kinda hard to forget,” before you’re standing up to drop your glass into the sink with the rest of the dishes.
Getting closer to Ryland isn’t doing you any justice, despite how strong-willed you’re trying to act. His blonde hair is casting a soft shadow over his forehead, dark-blue eyes lowering to scan your face. He’s looking down at you with a curiosity to him that’s nearly on-par with how he reads over research findings. Stubbornly, you tell him, “If you tell anybody, I’ll move out.”
“Ouch. I wouldn’t even think of telling anyone,” Ryland affirms, “...My eyes only.” You’re about to pinch his arm, but he’s already putting his hands up to stop you. “Okay, sorry, kidding.” Before you can berate him any further, he turns back around to face the sink, grabbing up the sponge and dish soap with hurried hands. He’s starting to bunch up suds on the plates as he tells you, “Seriously, I wouldn’t blab.”
Satisfied enough with his placation, you begin to pad away back down the hall to the bathroom. Once there, you find yourself heaving in a deep breath. To the right of the sink on the counter, your toothbrush is neatly next to Ryland’s in a tall ceramic cup. It’s so difficult to get away from him when he’s everywhere in the apartment. You don’t hate it, necessarily; it’s just… more than you’d expected to take in. Slowly but surely, you peek your head out the doorway, trying to catch a glimpse of him in the kitchen. Ryland’s focus is still dead-set on the dishes, but he’s still wearing a small grin on his face. Still dwelling on the hour. God, he’s the worst.
—
Ryland has his nose buried in his laptop, doing a little searching for fellowships in time for the Fall semester. While he’s on the couch figuring out financials, you’re right beside him, looking through his collection of Blu-Ray DVD’s. He really does enjoy his sci-fi classics. You’re trying your best to stay attentive to the older style graphic designs of these DVD cases, and not Ryland’s rapid typing. It doesn’t take much resistance for you to bring up your lingering thoughts. “We should have ground rules, you know,” you tell Ryland. “To ensure that we’re not hating each other before the start of the semester.”
Ryland’s nothing but agreeable—but he hesitates a little in his response, with a reticent “...Okay.” His hands pull up from the keyboard, and he shuts the lid of his laptop just slightly to give you his attention. “Is this about the…?” It’s clear that you’re both still hung up about your little accident from the other week.
“No. A little, maybe,” you utter with a half-shrug. “Did you not have that kind of thing with your last roommate?” You pull your legs up into a criss-cross atop the couch cushions. He’s a little sheepish about this question, digging his fingertips under the band of his digital wristwatch.
“I don’t know. He was always either a hermit studying or he was out doing field work,” Ryland replies. “What were you thinking?” He doesn’t know what to expect—but you don’t seem very strict, which is a good thing.
You rub your palm into the back of your neck, trying to mull over a good list for Ryland. “Like… chores, for example. We can rotate to make sure that we’re both pulling our weight. Making sure to turn all the lights out to save on electricity. And, like, no hook-ups in the apartment.” That last line punches out of you in a clumsy manner.
Ryland gives you a funny look, something like a pout. He nods, “That one’s easy. I don’t sleep around.” You aren’t surprised. He doesn’t seem the type.
Still, you find yourself sighing out a “Great. Cool.” You don’t know why you feel so relieved about his particular response. Or, you do, and you just don’t want to bring yourself to admit it. He’s not seeing anyone, and it makes you feel a little fuzzy inside. You have to push it down
Ryland raises a brow: “Do you?”
“No,” you reply curtly. He nods. And you’re both sitting there on the couch with a prolonged stall in conversations. You don’t know how you’re supposed to recover from this, aside from continuing straight onward from expectations. “About habits—obviously, we’re both going to be working a lot, schoolwork and part-time. So—”
“I might stay up late a few nights a week to work on my thesis. It’s a lot of writing, editing, more writing,” Ryland explains. “I’d use my desk, but it’s easier if I’m right next to the coffee pot. And I… tend to pace around when I’m having trouble ironing things out. If it’ll bother you—” He’ll probably tell you that he can go to the library or an open-late diner, but it’s the last thing you want.
“No! Definitely not,” you shake your head. You’re maybe too shy to tell Ryland that you like that he’s on the more driven end of things. “I’m not a bad study partner if you ever want to do work sessions, either. And, uh, one second—” He watches closely as you take your phone up off the arm of the couch to tap across your phone screen. On the coffee table, right beside his laptop, his phone pings. The notification comes up wide on his lock screen. He picks up the phone, pushing his glasses up to get a closer look. Location shared.
Ryland blinks. “Oh. Are you sure?”
“It’ll let you know if I’m here or out on campus. Good for emergencies, too,” you tell him. As transactional as you want it to sound, there’s something vaguely personal about handing your whereabouts over to him. “You don’t have to give me yours back but—” Your phone buzzes. Ryland’s savvy, already having tapped away at his touchscreen to share his location with you.
“Handy,” he hums, “And it’ll make it a lot easier for me to not walk in on you.” That’s the goal, you think. Ryland places his phone back on the table, face-down. Then, he’s leaning back against the couch, tapping his palms rhythmically on his knees. It’s simpler than you thought it would to arrange the finer details with him. It’s oddly endearing how this is panning out for the two of you. It’s starting to look a little bit more smooth for this year.
Ryland starts up again, “Good we’re doing this now, ‘cause I’ve been meaning to ask you on a grocery run.” You tilt your head. Ask you on… a grocery run? “So I can see what you like,” Ryland explains, “That way, if you ever need a refill, I’m not wandering about the aisles like a lost dog.” You can picture it in your head, him collecting your favorite foods off the shelves dutifully with his earbuds playing some ongoing science newsfeed.
“That’s kinda sweet.” It’s really sweet. Boyfriend sweet—but you need to keep yourself away from that train of thought, avoid it like the plague. The semester hasn’t even started yet, and you’re fending off that terribly high chance that you might start growing feelings for your roommate.
—
By the end of month one, the two of you are starting to get the hang of things—smoothing out house rules, acclimating to each other’s summer schedules. By now, you’ve graduated co-habitating and actually started living together. It’s not without the occasional roadbump. Your next time going out with friends is disgustingly exhausting. Home at the apartment by midnight, you find yourself shrugging your coat off in a lightly tipsy attempt to get un-ready. You throw it on the coat rack with a huff, kicking off your shoes. Ryland’s right behind you, tossing his house keys into the ceramic bowl you’d bought for the both of you; you think now that he gets more use out of it than you do. Since getting dropped off, the two of you have been dead quiet.
It’s comfortable being silent with Ryland, with no grand expectations to keep talking to one another. Especially after a night out like the one you’ve just had, you’re grateful for it. There were just so many questions. “What is it like living together?” “How are you two getting along?” “Have you fought yet?” Good, yes, sort of. He was better than you at handling all the interrogation, full of clever comebacks and topic changes. You were… less adept. You love your friends, you do, but their egging both on was all too obvious.
You toss your bag on the couch and collapse down on the cushions with a groan. Ryland joins you a minute later, after tossing his hoodie on the back of a dining room chair. His knees bump against your own as he crashes on the couch, and you can tell he’s giving you a glance a few seconds at a time. You stare up at the ceiling, neck resting comfortably on the couch cushions. “Our friends think we’re hooking up,” you say. You don’t have to beat around the bush. You know it, and he knows it, too.
“Well, we live together. They’re going to think what they think,” Ryland says, taking his glasses off and tossing them on the coffee table in front of you both. “For some reason, they’re just… fixated on the thought of us shacking up. I tried to tell them, we’re only living together. It’s totally utilitarian.”
“Right. We’re doing this because it’s convenient—I keep on saying this,” you tell Ryland. It’s an impossible allegation to fend off, especially when the two of you are so undeniably single. Maybe, your mutual friends have picked up on some prolonged looks you’ve given him here and there—but they really are jumping to conclusions.
“All things considered, it’s better for me than it is for you.” He’s saying this like it’s the most straightforward logic in the world. You don’t know what to make of it.
You tilt your head a bit to see Ryland massaging his temples. After this much time out, he always gets a little bit restless. “...How’d you figure that?”
“Well, because I’d be dating up.” Until now, he’s been totally distracted by the lingering migraine in his frontal lobe, and now Ryland’s flinching at the sound of you shooting up on the couch. He practically jumps a foot in the air, realizing how worked up you are about it.
“Dating up?” you guffaw. There’s no chance in hell that he’d be able to think that up on his own accord. “Who came up with that bit?”
“I don’t know. Marissa. Marissa’s new guy-friend. Everyone,” Ryland admits easily. Of course. “They were saying all kinds of stuff when you went to the bathroom.” You find yourself groaning at the thought of them bombarding Ryland with dating advice.
“Why would they say that? God, it’s terrible.”
“Well, it’s not what I think.” Ryland backtracks, “I mean, I would think that because you are objectively attractive. You’re like, you know,” he gestures haphazardly towards you, starting to mumble more inaudibly, “—the hot roommate.”
You have to double take. “What?” It comes out more stern than anything else, like you’re trying to get him to plead guilty for saying it.
“You’re attractive. It’s not an outrageous thing to say.” This time, he’s a little bit more confident in the assertion. He said it once, he can say it again. Ryland gets this tone, you think, when he’s talking about scientific theories. It’s always so argumentative with him, so logically snide. He’s using that tone now, with you—about you. You’re not mad about it. In fact, it’s a little bit flattering. He thinks you’re the hot one.
“You are blowing my mind right now,” you murmur, eyes feeling like the size of saucers. Ryland seems to pick up on your stunned disposition and tries to amend his words as quickly as possible.
“I made an observation. You really shouldn’t let it get to your head.” Rude.
You scoff, “You obviously meant it, and you so can’t take it back.” As much as you’d like to giggle like a teenager, but you’ve got to keep it together at least a little bit. Something like courage brings you to lean over on the couch and give him a soft kiss on the cheek. It’s supposed to be a little “thank you,” just like you’d see in the movies, but it feels a lot more genuine than you’d like. Too friendly. You’re regretting it as soon as it happens—your lips brushing against the side of his face. Your breath stalls in your chest, and Ryland’s dead quiet. As soon as you’re off of him, the two of you are face-to-face with the same mortified look in your eyes.
Ryland is throwing his glasses back on, but by the time he can get a second look at you, you’re in a hurry to stand up off the couch cushions with a hasty fumble of your arms and legs. Once standing, you feel yourself clasping your hands together politely behind your back. Ryland’s hand is hovering over the spot where your lips hit his cheekbone, and he’s looking at you dazed. “I’d better go get ready for bed. I, uh… goodnight,” you stutter out, before pivoting on your heels and making sweeping steps towards the hallway. You slide in and slam the door shut behind you, mind running too quickly for you to keep track.
It’s difficult not to dramatize it all. It was so easy for him to admit you were attractive, and so easy for you to take the compliment. You don’t have to read into it, and neither does he. But, whatever’s running between the both of you—that high-strung, antsy feeling that you’re unable to get a good grip on—is impossible to ignore. You have no idea what you’re going to do about it, considering there’s another ten months left to the lease. Two semesters to go and you most definitely feel something for Ryland that exceeds what you should feel about a roommate. You're going to have to sort it out quick, or your school year's going to be much harder than anticipated.
Summary: When the Hail Mary reaches the halfway point to Tau Ceti, only two crew members remain: you, the mission's pilot-commander, and Ryland Grace, the chief scientist who doesn't remember being appointed chief scientist.
# # TAGS: Semi-Canon-Adjacent, Long Form, Male!Pilot Reader, Eventual Rocky (No Rocky Here Yet), Surprisingly Domestic Space Fluff, Ryland Falls First, Reader Falls Harder, Slowburn-ish, I'm Still Bad at Tags, Part 1 of ???
# # WARNINGS: Canon-typical Space Dread, Mentions of Dead Bodies, Mentions of Isolation, Nothing Too Crazy, Author is Nowhere Near An Astrophysicist And Most of the Science in This Fic was Either Googled or Ripped Directly From the Book
NOTES: A dash of book-canon here and there, some minor divergence from the film timeline. There are no specifications of reader's height nor form. Reader's pronouns are he/him. No use of 'Y/N'. 5.6k words.
“What’s two plus two?”
Thinking shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did, but the cold feminine voice — once it broke through the ringing in your ears — heralded a throbbing headache and an instant stinging behind your eyes. You couldn’t remember the last time you had felt pain like that. And to your concern, it didn’t seem like you remembered anything at all.
“What’s two plus two?”
You groaned. The second thing you identified was the desert that was your throat. You shifted in place, only to be restrained by both fatigue and what felt to be a myriad of plastic wires and tubes.
“What’s two plus two?” repeated the persistent voice. A machine’s, you deducted.
Though your tongue felt like a dry stone in your mouth, you felt your lips move. The action resulted in a hoarse voice that you later registered to be yours.
“F… Four.”
“Correct.”
You heard a shuffling beside you, like someone was trying to scurry away.
You groaned again. Your face was scrunched up into a pained frown. It took a worrying amount of effort to pry your eyes open. And when you did, it wasn’t much help. White blurriness blinded you and elicited a hiss.
“Eye movement detected. What’s the cube root of eight?” the machine asked.
As your vision and hearing properly adjusted, you caught sight of one robotic arm. It spun and whirred as it attempted to touch and pry at your body. You regained control of your head and neck, which was achieved by your evasion of its metal claw.
“What’s the cube root of eight?”
“Fuck. Off.”
“Incorrect. What’s the cube root of eight?”
After a few harsher blinks, your eyes seemed to return to their functional state. You breathed through your dry mouth as you observed the space around you. LED lights, cameras, more robot arms. A monitor next to your bunk began to beep as your heart rate elevated. You couldn’t recognize anything. And when you searched your mind for some semblance of a name, none made itself known.
The voice kept at it, desperate to know the cube root of eight. You were about to raise your hand to smack it away when another voice said,
“Just try to answer it. It’s not gonna stop until you do.”
Your breath hitched. That voice was no machine. It was entirely human, shy and hesitant and far away. You furrowed your brows. ‘What?’ you wanted to ask. Instead what came out was a confused,
“Huh?”
“What’s the cube root of eight?” The machine again.
You groaned. Though you felt like you’d just been run over by a semi-truck, the answer came easy to you.
“Two.”
The robotic hand backed off. The answer seemed to satisfy both the machine and your disorientation. For all the agonies your body housed, you felt the strength to sit up. It was exhausting to do so, but you managed. You raised your hand to touch your forehead. Tubes followed uncomfortably. You lifted your eyes and took the rest of the room in. It was as foreign as it was familiar.
In the corner, a man was on his knees, hiding behind a desk. You frowned as you made the mess of his sandy blond hair and bespectacled blue eyes. He looked ridiculous, cowering like you might get up and punch him.
“Are… Are you awake?” he asked.
You looked at yourself, at your half-dressed body, the machines and monitors you were hooked up to, then back at him.
“What’d’ythink?” Responding with more than one syllable was apparently difficult. Your words, though clearly sarcastic, came out slurred.
The stranger sighed in relief.
The rest of the process was odd and obtrusive, but you had managed to retain some of your dignity; which was a fragile thing in that cold and sterile room. The robotic arm continued its methodical work, its movements precise and impersonal as it detached the last of the monitoring straps from your chest.
The blond stranger — no longer hiding behind the desk — anxiously waited for the procedures to finish.
“What is your mission designation?” the synthetic voice asked.
You hesitated. The words felt slippery, buried under layers of drug-induced fog. Remembering proved troublesome, but an answer came regardless.
“Hail Mary… Pilot-Commander.”
The blond man gasped. You frowned at him, but returned your attention to the machine.
“Correct. What is the destination star system?”
“Tau… Ceti.” The name came slower that time. You could picture the star charts from training, the long elliptical transfer orbit, the Astrophage-fueled spin drive pushing you to a fraction of lightspeed. But the details felt distant, like someone else’s memory.
The arm retracted with a soft whir, leaving you floating in the gel residue. You gripped the edge of the bunk to steady yourself, muscles, which were impressively intact, protesting the sudden demand for coordination.
The stranger bit his fist. “Careful, careful!”
You scowled. “Who the hell are you?” It felt slightly easier to talk then. Your words were cohesive, but the corners of your mouth were still relatively numb.
His name was Ryland Grace, and he had little to no idea who he was, or why he was there.
“I woke up two weeks ago,” he said. “Same coma situation, only Armando wasn't as nice to me. And I didn't wake up as well as you did. God, I thought you were dead.” His voice cracked near the end, like he was on the verge of tears. You looked up at him to realize that he actually was. “I-I was just waiting for you to wake up. Your monitors were looking after your vitals and keeping you in the coma because your body wasn’t ready.” He sniffled. “At least that’s what it told me.”
Ryland Grace wiped at his eyes with the heel of his hand, clearly embarrassed by the display. His shoulders trembled once before he forced them still. In the dim med-bay lighting, the tears made his sharp features look younger, more vulnerable than the brilliant scientist you were slowly starting to remember from pre-launch briefings. You didn’t intend to look as indifferent as you did, but you felt too exhausted to sympathize, still slightly drowsy from your years of sleep.
Your eyes drifted past him to the floor beside your bunk, where a haphazard pile of spare blankets and a single pillow made for a makeshift bed. A small tablet lay nearby, its screen still glowing faintly with medical readouts. Next to it sat a half-empty water bottle and a crumpled wrapper from one of the emergency ration bars.
He noticed where your gaze had landed. He shifted his weight and cleared his throat. “Oh, that. Yeah… I wanted to make sure I’d be here the second something went wrong with your vitals. I’m not entirely sure what half of the charts mean, but I figured it was smarter to stay close in case the robot glitched or your readings spiked.”
Your brow twitched. “Are you the only one here?”
Grace nodded slowly.
That wasn’t right, you thought. He shouldn’t be the only one. Wasn’t there supposed to be more of you? Four? No, three? You looked at his tired eyes and saw the restless nights he’d spent staring at you, listening to the constant drone of your machines, uncertain if you would ever wake up. He was alone, and lightyears away from home. He must have been so afraid. You knew you would have been. Finally, an emotion other than tired confusion surfaced from your chest; guilt.
“Olesya.” The name left your lips before you could think of it.
Ryland caught his breath. He knew the name, too. Except he didn’t know it because he knew the woman it belonged to— he knew it because it was the name of the corpse he hadn’t yet moved from the airlock.
Sensations flooded you without warning, the sharp sound of her laugh burning the brightest. Olesya Ilyukhina was the chief engineer of the Hail Mary. She’d snuck three bottles of vodka into the ship. You had spent a summer in Russia. She’d attempted to sneak into the Kremlin. You kept her from getting arrested. The sudden wave of grief told you that you knew her well, but you hadn’t the memory to support it. You knew her, and now, she was gone.
You stayed seated on the edge of your bunk for a long time, head bowed, fingers pressed against your temples while the med-bay’s low lights hummed overhead.
“It’ll come back,” Grace told you. “It just takes a while.”
For all his worries, it was clear that he was relieved. He might have been stranded on a ship in space with no clear recollection beyond his name, but at least he was no longer alone.
And what a wonderful thing it was, not to be alone.
Your recovery lasted for a few days. A good percentage of your strength was impressively intact, and it was mostly just a matter of relearning how to have it. You walked (or climbed) the expanse of the ship, familiarizing yourself with the areas, a good exercise for both your mind and body. And when you knew you could move without the numbness in your joints, you set out to give Olesya a proper burial.
Olesya’s body had remained in the airlock since Ryland’s own awakening. The state of her face, the deep circles under her eyes, and the hollowness of her cheeks, told you that she’d been dead for quite some time. Her body could not survive. The experimental hibernation had always been a gamble, even for the rare individuals who carried the gene that made it possible in theory. For years, the ship’s medical system had kept her stable, suppressing her metabolism to a fraction of normal as the Hail Mary burned toward its destination. But somewhere along the way, her body began to fail in ways the automated systems could not correct. There was only fate to blame.
You cycled through the inner door without thought. The airlock was cramped, utilitarian in the way its walls lined with emergency EVA suits and tether lines. Olesya lay secured against the far bulkhead. You had dressed her in her uniform. You took her calloused hands, held them together, and pressed photos of her family into her palm. You kept one to remember her by: a polaroid picture of her 28th birthday. Cake had been smeared across her grinning face, her eyes bright with laughter. You tucked the photo into your breast pocket.
Ryland stood just a little ways beyond the archway, silent, his hands clasped loosely in front of him. He feared to intrude, but then you invited him in. “She was your crewmate too,” you said, wiping a tear with your fist.
He took his place beside you, rueful.
You spoke no grand words, for there wasn’t any need to, and Olesya would have mocked you to death for ‘being such a cornball’. The memories of her that returned were enough: her laugh cutting through tension in the ready room, the way she’d sneak alcohol and call you “flyboy” with that sharp Russian edge. She had kept her promise to keep the ship singing if you kept it pointed true. Now it was your turn to send her on.
Together, you positioned her near the outer door. Ryland keyed in the sequence on the control panel. The inner door sealed with a heavy thunk. The airlock’s atmosphere vented in a controlled hiss, the sound fading to nothing as vacuum took hold. Through the small viewport, the stars waited, indifferent and eternal.
You gave the final command. The outer hatch slid open. Olesya drifted out slowly, pushed by the last puff of residual air, her shrouded form turning gently in the void. You watched until she became another point of light against the black.
Not even the worst medical-induced coma could take your intelligence from you, it seemed. While some memories were blurred, your skills came naturally. Instinctual, second-nature.
“This is the Control Room,” said Grace, who’d been trying not to appear obvious in his concerned hovering. He remembered how he felt the first few days since he’d woken up. He couldn’t fathom how you were moving so much.
You glanced at him with a quirked brow. “I know.”
You sat in the chair that was quite obviously yours. The ship lit up in response. ‘Pilot detected,’ it chirped. You leaned back and sighed. Even the arm rests seemed tailored to your size. It felt good to be there. Cohesive, in a way. Like sliding two puzzle pieces together. Finally, something unequivocally, and undeniably right.
And your memories did come back to you; better than Grace’s. It wasn’t perfect or entirely whole, but by the third day of your resurrection, you were showing him around. You walked Ryland through the control room, the lab module, and the narrow corridors, explaining redundancies and emergency procedures mostly just to hear them out loud— as though to check if it sounded right. The relief on Grace’s face was unmistakable. The tension in his shoulders eased with every system you named and every checklist you ran from memory. At least one of you knew what you were doing.
As Olesya was the engineer, you were the pilot; which left the role of scientist to Grace. You would have come to the conclusion regardless. He had an obvious knack for the field. And whenever he stood in the Lab, it felt as right as when you sat in the Control Room. Some things just happened to fit. But it took you a while to understand what to make of him. It felt odd that it appeared easier to regain memories of Olesya than it was of Grace. If the three of you were the designated crew for the Hail Mary, wouldn’t you have spent an ample amount of time pre-launch? The gap felt unsettlingly deliberate, and the thought of it often kept you awake.
There’d been other things you had to explain to him. He didn’t know how to access the ship’s confidential logs. Of course he had a passcode that would get him through, but he’d be damned if he could manage to remember it. The amnesia was normal, you assured him. Though it was slightly troublesome that it was taking him longer to recover. You gave him access to the specifics of the mission, the details of the Petrova Line, the trip to Tau Ceti, the need to understand what makes one star different from the rest. Ryland knew most of what you were telling him, but hearing it from another voice made it seem as though he was digesting it all over again.
“It just doesn’t feel right,” he said. “I’m not– I’m not that kind of scientist.”
You’d eat with him in the mess hall trying to resurrect his life on a small whiteboard. You wanted to remember him as much as he wanted to remember himself.
He told you the helpful details: he knew he was a school teacher, and that he had a PhD in molecular biology. He had bits and pieces of a woman named Eva Stratt. He knew the specifics of Astrophage. He knew the sun was dying, he knew the world was ending. And then there was the less helpful stuff: like his favorite icecream flavor, and why the Marvel Cinematic Universe should have stopped at Endgame, and how he ‘felt like a big Beatles guy’, which he’d topped off with a handful of fun scientific facts.
“Do you remember picking your shirts?” you asked him one simulated morning, ducked beneath one of the consoles and ensuring everything was operational. “I’m just trying to wrap my head around it. It’s the night before liftoff: you’re packing your things. You’re going to spend the next decade saving the universe and you think, hell yeah,these shirts will do.”
Ryland was drinking a cup of warm tea. He was sitting on the threshold that separated the Control Room from the corridor. “I don’t remember packing them,” he said. He looked down at the lame scientific pun printed across his chest. “But sadly, yes, these are very much my shirts.”
He liked having you around. He lingered in your space, finding excuses to sit on that same threshold or lean against the console while you ran diagnostics. His shoulders would loosen whenever you entered a room, like the simple sound of another human voice or another set of footsteps eased something tight in his chest. When a small alarm chirped (for something as minor as fluctuation in the thermal regulator,) he would whip his head toward you like a deer that heard a twig snap. It didn't matter if it was a weird noise, a loose panel, or a faint creak of the hull under deceleration thrust. His eyes would find yours every time. And in them, he'd search for the calm confirmation that it was nothing.
“Do we panic? Is that something we should be panicking over?”
“Even if a hole is blown through our fuel tanks, Dr. Grace, the last thing we should do is panic.”
You found it amusing. You were fairly certain that he was at least a little bit smarter than you. Yet there he was, the man who named and bred the star-eaters, looking to the pilot for reassurance over a rattling bolt.
You had a week before your arrival to Tau Ceti. There was time to kill.
You'd explored and catalogued every nook and cranny of the ship. Which, ideally, you would have recognized from the start. But with the amnesia you were still actively recovering from, you couldn't risk not relearning the Hail Mary like a forgotten mother tongue.
In your efforts, you discovered a couple of things. One: that Eva Stratt had somehow managed to supply the ship with an impossible amount of media. (from music, to films, to games, to electronic novels.) Two: that you had some involvement in the engineering of the ship itself. (Your name was credited on the lower-right portion of the main blueprint.) And three, that you had a polaroid of Ryland Grace wedged between one of your notebooks. The latter, you told him over dinner.
Ryland choked on his ramen, which he’d been having for the third night in a row. “You what?”
“Yeah, right here.” With no elevated emotion, you placed the photo on the metal table. “That’s you, isn’t it?”
Slightly creased in one corner, the polaroid was of a charmingly disheveled Ryland Grace, dressed in a lab coat over a faded university shirt, goggles pushed haphazardly against his hair. His glasses hung in a uniquely awkward way, clinging to his ear and jaw. He wasn’t looking at the camera and was instead beaming at the person behind it. It was candid and blurred in a way that made its edges soft; like it was taken without thought nor warning. He seemed to have been distracted from peering at a microscope. The photo caught him mid-smile.
Ryland’s cheeks turned pink. He had never seen a picture of him like that in his entire life. “W-Where did you say you found it?”
You showed him your notebook, that battered old thing. You raised it up like you were presenting your license to a patrolling officer. It was a navy-blue moleskine with the NASA logo embossed on the cover. It was decorated with a few tattered stickers of your favorite band. There was no one reason you kept it. Some pages had aerodynamic computations while others had your grocery lists. It seemed you had it for anything.
Ryland put his ramen cup down. “And what page was it on?”
You shrugged. You flipped it open, pages fluttering until your thumb pressed to a stop. You turned the notebook towards him to show a spread of what looked like an engine. It was covered in your handwriting, words and numbers scribbled about. It was an early concept of the ship’s cable separation system— which was the mechanism that allowed the upper section to detach from the fuel module and spin on Zylon tethers for centrifugal gravity. But it might as well have been written in Chinese for Ryland. And to his surprise there actually was some Chinese text in there.
“Huh.” Grace sheepishly scratched the back of his head. “So you've got a polaroid of me bookmarked on some sort of astrodynamic floor plan… why?”
You shrugged again, snapping the notebook shut. “Beats me, Doc.”
Grace cleared his throat. “You… don't remember taking the picture?”
“No.”
“Maybe we're closer than we remember.”
“Maybe.” You sat across from him. You tilted your head at his nervous expression. “Maybe you asked me to hold onto it.”
“Hold onto what?”
“The picture.”
“Oh.” He nodded. “Why would I do that?”
You shrugged a third time. “It's a good picture.”
A second whiteboard was born that day. It accompanied Grace's, housing its own questions, bulleted by fragmented facts. It was clear that there were plenty of things you were yet to remember yourself. You knew the flesh of things, the shape of them, but you couldn't see the bones. You'd spend hours staring at the board, chewing on the cap of your marker as though you could will those missing memories to return.
“Any luck over there?” You peered over to Grace's side of the room. His was messier than yours.
He whipped his head around so fast that his chair spun a little. “Huh? Oh. No, just the usual.”
You leaned over to catch a glimpse of his whiteboard. You'd unintentionally grown familiar of his handwriting. He had written questions about who you might be to him. He'd listed the possibilities in red ink:
Friend?
Neighbor?
Labmates?
Hung out with on Taskforce?
Always known as crewmate?
Then, at the very bottom, faint and hidden beneath a thin layer of erased ink, you could make out the ghostly outline of the word:
Boyfriend?
You turned back to your own board and smiled.
“Uh, let's try this.” Grace clapped his hands once. “How ‘bout we just throw rapid-fire questions at each other and see how well we can answer them? Theoretically that should jog our memories.”
You nodded your head. It beat staring at a wall. “Alright.”
Grace grinned. He didn't expect you to agree. “Okay, uh– I'll go first: where'd you grow up?”
You took a slow breath in. Your eyes narrowed like you were trying to see something far away. “Too long ago, can't remember.”
“Oh, sorry.” Grace nodded. “Okay, what about where you lived? Before launch, I mean.”
“I moved around a lot.” The faint image of bags and suitcases fluttered in your mind. Five different house keys, seven different addresses. “I went where the work took me.”
Grace raised his brows. “Okay. Good. That's something.”
You made a sound between a scoff and a laugh. “Alright, MacGyver. Your turn. Where'd you teach?”
He tapped the top of his whiteboard with his pen. “Grover Cleveland Middle School. Remembered that a little while back.”
You whistled. “Not bad.”
“Hold your applause. Where'd you graduate?”
You leaned back, arms crossed over your chest. “You're giving me the hard ones.”
Grace laughed at the accusation. “Am not!”
“I wanna say… MIT.”
“Is that a guess?”
“I'm saying what feels right. Do you play any sports?”
“No, and I don't need to be recovering from amnesia to know that.”
Your questions went on, quick exchanges tossed back and forth while you worked, ate, or sat in the dimmed mess hall. Some were easier to answer than others, some made your head hurt if you thought about it too long. But for what it was worth, it did help. Being prompted to think about things acted as a sort of trigger. It didn't matter how mundane. Were you a morning person or a night person? What was your favorite food? Favorite color? What shows did you like? What books did you read? Were you allergic to anything? Did you like coffee or tea? It went on for days.
“What do you miss most about Earth?” Grace's voice was soft and tired, muffled by the arm he leaned his cheek against. He was slumped over a table. You had accompanied him in the lab. He said he wanted to familiarize himself with the equipment.
You hadn't caught his question right away. You were leaning on the doorway, staring at one of the viewports. It was the night before your arrival to Tau Ceti and you were running calculations in your mind. “What?”
“Miss most about Earth,” he repeated. His eyes were closed.
You smiled. You thought long and hard for an answer, rummaging through memories as though you were searching for a wrench in a tool drawer. None came up.
“I think you should clock out, Grace.”
He hummed and mumbled what might have been a protest, but got up and dragged his feet back to your dormitory anyway.
You didn't have the luxury of getting your own rooms. The shared sleeping area was made to be efficient with space. With Ilyukhina's quarters vacant, you and Grace had three bunks between you. There was some privacy to spare, but it wasn’t often that you were present in your dorm together. The two of you slept in shifts, knowing it would be better if one of you was awake and could easily act on an issue.
“Good night, Captain.”
“Good night, Doctor.”
You spent the rest of the evening in the Immersion Node. It was a room of average size, wrapped in large LED screens that showed you virtually anything you could come up with. Grace had taken upon calling it the Don't Go Crazy Room, which was technically what it was. He spent more time in there than you did. He seemed particularly fond of the beach scene.
But you, you missed the fields.
The screens, in all their artificial brightness, projected a warm rural afternoon. A soft breeze passed over a long expanse of wheat. It didn't look like it would take long before they were ready to harvest. Clouds speckled the bright blue sky, moving in a gentle crawl, obedient to the direction of the wind. Your chest felt heavy. There was a lump in your throat. You took a deep breath. You sat on the ground with one knee propped up, your wrist resting against it.
When you woke, the field was gone. You opened your eyes leaning against one of the screen-walls. There was a sign blinking at you. Warning: Engine Cutoff. Action Needed.
“Cap!” It was Grace's voice. He was shaking you awake. His hair was a tousled mess and it looked like he'd just gotten up, too. “She's counting down!”
You shook your head. “What?”
“Mary! She's counting down! There's something about the engine shutting off? What do we do?!”
His frantic questions did not go well with Mary's cold and mechanical counting. You got up, wiping your eyes with your thumb and forefinger. Grace followed you with clumsy speed. You climbed up to the Control Room, where you sat in your seat, checking the screens.
“Ten, nine, eight… Pilot detected… seven, six…”
Your brows furrowed in focus. Grace anxiously took the seat next to yours, watching your face, waiting for you to give him permission to panic. “What's gonna happen at zero?”
“Calm down, this is supposed to happen. We're approaching Tau Ceti's orbit and the engine is about to stop.”
“W-What do I do?”
“You give me a minute to think is what you do.” You frowned at one of the gauges. “I'm making sure everything's in optimal condition. Sit tight, Grace.”
He did not sit tight. In fact, he had been freaking out so much that he didn't notice you buckle your seatbelt in. “I just feel like we should be–” Mary stopped talking. The counter had finished. There was a noticeable absence in the ship, like a fan had been turned off. The silence only scared him more. “Okay, what's–”
“You are now orbiting Tau Ceti.”
Grace started floating. He squealed an impressively high-pitched scream and started floating. He grabbed the closest thing he could, which had been the backrest of his seat, but his grip loosened and he was wriggling on the ceiling. The Control Room was thankfully small, and there were not many places he could float off to, but there were plenty of buttons for him to accidentally press.
“Grace. Alright– Grace, calm down.”
“What the heck! What the fudging heck!”
“Give– stop that. Look, breathe. Give me your hand–”
He managed to get himself spinning somehow. He'd kicked a stray pack of peanuts off somewhere and he was hovering further away from you. You clicked your seatbelt off, shaking your head. Grace helplessly called for your name. You pushed off your chair. You caught him, miraculously. But gravity was a tricky thing and the force sent you both spinning for a while. Like a pair of dancers on a music box. Grace clung onto you. He buried his face in your neck as you used your arm to brace yourself against one of the control panels.
“We trained for this,” you grumbled, straining to keep yourselves steady.
“I don't remember that!” His legs were floating up behind him, dragging you both. One of his knees bumped your thigh, then his elbow caught you in the ribs. He immediately tried to apologize and only made it worse by pushing off you too hard, sending both of you drifting sideways in a slow, lazy spin.
“God–” You were getting frustrated. “Grace!”
“I’m sorry, I'm sorry!” He yelped when his back bumped gently against the ceiling. “Mary, turn gravity back on!”
“Request unclear.”
“What? I want down!”
You managed to hook one foot under a handrail and pulled both of you closer to the console. You had bunched up a fistful of his shirt and grabbed him towards you. The motion swung Grace around and he ended up facing you, chest to chest, his nose only inches from yours. His blue eyes went wide.
“You’re doing great,” you said dryly, one arm looped around his waist to keep him from drifting away again.
“I don't appreciate the sarcasm,” he muttered, but his grip on your jumpsuit tightened anyway.
Grace swallowed thickly. There was barely any distance between you by then. He could feel the rising and falling of your chest. Were his ears getting hot? When was the last time he had gotten this close to anyone? It was a jarring feeling and an explosion of sensations. Grace didn't dare name them.
You braced your other arm against the panel and gently pushed off, guiding both of you back toward the pilot’s seat in a slow, drifting arc. Ryland’s legs kept trying to find purchase and only succeeded in tangling with yours. At one point his knee bumped your hip and he apologized so sincerely you almost laughed again.
“I'm gonna sit you down now,” you whispered, for he was so close that there was no need to raise your voice. You were unaware of the chill it sent down his spine.
You turned so that he was beneath you as you floated down. You sat him on his chair, one hand holding his shoulder as the other strapped his seatbelt in. Your eyes were focused on locking the buckles, but Grace was looking directly at your face. Your knee bumped his thigh as you anchored your foot against the deck to keep from drifting away. And when your hands snaked to the back of his waist to secure the strap, his breath hitched.
“Uh.” Grace blinked. He was safe in his seat then, no longer floating. To his horror, he was still holding your shoulders. “Thank you, Captain.”
You laughed. His heart stuttered. “Hopefully that pre-launch training kicks in sometime soon.”
Grace laughed too, but it was soft and nervous. He moved his hands from your shoulders to the armrests of his seat. “Yeah, I hope so.” He cleared his throat. He watched you move to buckle yourself into your chair with ease. “Can we turn the gravity back on?”
Your eyes were on the monitor. Your hands glided across the haptic interface, checking the parameters, one eye on readouts. The ship was still settling into its new path around Tau Ceti, the big main screen showing the slow, graceful curve of the planet below.
“Gravity's not something you turn on,” you said. Your tone was calm again and it soothed him. “We’re in microgravity now because the main drive cut out for orbital insertion. The ship has a centrifuge mechanism, but we only use that when we need stable conditions for lab work. And we need to conserve energy.”
You glanced over at Grace, then threw him a smile. “Besides,” you added, returning your attention to the panel as another status light blinked green, “we’re still adjusting to the new orbit. Spinning the whole section right now would throw off the stabilization thrusters. Give it a few hours. You’ll get used to floating.”
Grace let out a shaky breath and tried to nod, but the motion only made him drift a little in the harness. He caught himself on the armrest, ears flushing darker. “Right. Centrifuge. Cables. Lab work. Got it.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I think I do remember something about a centrifuge, actually. Did you know they used it to make butter in the Civil War?”
You laughed again, which pleased him. And for the shortest while, he thought dying in space might not be as bad as he thought.
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FLUFF(?) ft. — neteyam+mreader, shroom consumption, teenage drvg usage, they switch personalities after getting high
In honor of older siblings who always had to be the one with the responsibility🫡
“Tried these before, forest boy?” You grinned, sitting down next to him on the rocky area you always found him near. He looked at the shrooms you threw on to his lap with concern, eyeing you with a question filled face that asked ‘are these safe..?’
“Obviously not.” He bit back with an eye roll. “Do you think we can find this in forest?” Huffing, he grabbed the glowing plants that looked inedible and inspected it. “What even.. is this?”
“It’s safe..ish.” Neteyam looked at you with a glare. “I promise. You eat them, and i swear it feels like you hear eywa talking to you.”
He looked around with a hum— no lo’ak, no kiri, no tuk.. no mom, and most importantly, no jake. Just the two of you (you, with your stupid, boyish smile) accompanied by the ocean and the rustling of trees.
He let out a quiet sigh, shrugging as he mumbled out a quiet “Fine.” which you let a loud, happy trill to.
🍃
20 minutes later, the two of you lay flat on your backs, laughing at random things that weren’t even the least bit funny.
“Bro.. why does that yerik have a dick?” He giggled, pointing at a rock far ahead to the ocean. You squint your eyes to look at it in confusion.
“I don’t know..” mumbling, you closed your eyes, going back to lying down.
“Do you think lo’ak and tsireya will be mates?” He laid down on his side, eyes that were blown wide staring at your face. You turned your head to him and met his gaze, grimacing.
“You’re so weird,” he must have found the way that you said it so sincerely funny- or he ingested way too many- because he immediately burst out laughing as he clutched his chest.
You blinked before breaking into a lazy grin at the sound of his laugh. “You know.. you should laugh like this more.“
“Maybe bring some of those more often, and i will.”
The two of you spent the whole day comparing clouds to living beings, taking a dive to grab fishes and conversing with them like they could talk back, letting out the burdens your two families put on you until eclipse soon started to show. Just as the two of you called ilus to ride back home to, neteyam suddenly started to talk.
“Hey, bro?” He looked back at you with a soft smile that seemed free. The ones he let out when he was still back home. You stared at him, stunned for a moment before humming.
“Promise me. When this all settles down.. let’s do this again. Next time, we should name every fish in the sea.”
“Okay. I promise.” you let out your own smile.
He was the one who made that promise. So why was he the one to break it?
SMUT ft. — erwin smith+mreader, power dynamics, dom erwin *drool* & sub reader, degradation
can yall tell i really like oral🌝🌝 ACKKK i hope i did decent. Also, feel free to give requests! I do sfw works too
“Cadet.” Footsteps approach your kneeling form. “C- capo.... ‘m sorry” you whispered, throat dry and raw, your arms numb from the hours of being tied up. “Swear! I swear i didn’t mean to cause trouble..!” looking up, you feel tears start to fall from your eyes.
The footsteps stopped in front of you. “No.” Erwin gripped your hair and pulled it back, enough to cause discomfort to your breathing.
“I told you one thing yesterday, cadet. One thing. To let. me. handle. them.” He dragged his other hand across your neck, palm caressing your adam’s apple. “It was an order you disobeyed.” He brought the hand on your neck hand up in the air before slapping your cheek, making your head turn to the side.
“Ugh.. nhhn..” you sobbed, feeling heat crawl up your cheeks. “Open your mouth, boy.” He was still using that same eerie calm tone of his that made you feel secure when in battle, but for some reason, it made you shiver hearing it now.
Obeying him, your opened your mouth and he instantly let go of your hair, two of his fingers pressing down on your tongue. “Shorrry.. weally.. uhck—!” You gagged, his fingers ending up down your throat.
“Suck.” He murmurs, thumb caressing your upper lip. Mumbling unclear apologies, your tongue licked between his fingers, glossy eyes staring up at him.
“Fuck— boy.. making me crazy over here..” the curse slips out as erwin releases a shaky sigh, unbuttoning his pants. He pulls his fingers out your mouth and takes his cock out, slapping the hardening flesh on your lips.
“You don’t really think saying sorry’s enough, do you?” He raises a brow at you.
SMUT ft. — tsu’tey x gnreader (no specific gender mentioned.. i hope😓), blowjob w/ tsu’tey receiving, public sex but they don’t get caught
"Hggh-! Mmn- mmh!" The muffled noises were like fuel to fire. It was delicious listening to the great warrior Tsu'tey try to stay quiet as your mouth took his length skillfully.
The man suddenly whines as his thighs quiver, pushing his hips up into your mouth while he bites his palm as your choked attempt to breath air makes your throat tighten up around him. He pants as his body relaxes as you stop for a second. His body leans against the tree once again, hand gripping your hair.
Your eyes lit up, all too amused by this situation. Future olo’eyktan out here in the forest, trying to stay quiet as his comrade sucks him in open view? fucking hot.
You slowly let his member leave your throat, lips moving their way up to his tip before you released it from your mouth with a small pop.
"We stop this, now." He says, out of breath. You roll your eyes before removing your tewng, the inside of it drenched and clinging on to your skin.
"You say this all the time, but do not stay true to your words. Have fun, tsu'tey. Let loose."
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SMUT ft. — ronal+tonowari+gn!reader (no specific pronouns mentioned), cunnilingus w/ ronal receiving, pussy drunk tonowari.
"Ma'ronal." You warmly greet your Tsahik with a sweet smile and a peck on the forehead as you and Tonowari enter the marui where the three of you resided in.
Ronal manages to hum an acknowledgement at their return before giving them a look that causes the pair to show off their bodies.
"Good, good.. no injuries." The female lifts her lips an inch up while inspecting the body of the two Na'vi. It was a relief to her and the two that they hadn't sustained an injury from the hunt.
You smirk and slyly sneak an arm around her waist, burying your face in her neck. The Tsahik felt a shiver shock her spine at the sudden intimacy from her mate, and as she was about to scold you for the abrupt touch, a gasp leaves her precious lips at the feeling of hands going underneath her top.
Tonowari sets his spear down and walks towards them. As he nears, he goes to the front of ronal and removes the knot holding up her loincloth before his large fingers find their way to her pussy. Some of them plays around with her clit while the other teases her entrance, only entering the tip of it as he relishes in his mate's euphoric sounds of pleasure.
"Sound so delicious, yawnetu.." You mutter against her skin, eyes filled with hearts as you guided her to lay on the woven mattress filled with soft materials that you had gathered from your short adventures in the forest.
"You look pretty, Ma'ronal." Tonowari kneels infront her, whispering. His face neared her folds, giving a lick that instinctively made her close her legs, only to have you hold her legs still, letting Tonowari eat her out like a starved man.
"So good.." Tonowari dazedly mutters, sucking and licking inside her, letting his tongue flick and thrust inside her. You groan at this, Tonowari's face covered in Ronal's sweet juices while the woman just moaned and whined with her back pressed against your chest, unable to do anything but let it happen as you held her down.
You were painfully throbbing inside your loincloth. You wanted nothing more than to have you and 'wari pleasure her at the same time, stimulating her as she gasps for air while her hands flail around to search for something to grip, beautiful hair spread out on the ground while the two of you toy with her with different speed and roughness. Unfortunately, a child was inside her..
Your gaze snaps towards Tonowari, who's body grew increasingly hotter with your gaze on him. Your eyes wandered on his body, trailing on the tattoos that your lovely wife gave him before your lips turn to a grin, amused at the sight of your mighty husband reduced to a mess only by eating ronal's pussy. He was grinding his hips down on the ground, creating a friction against his hard dick.
A glint in your eyes shone, before they go back at the loud cry of pleasure escaping Ronal as she released, her body tensing up before they releaxed against your hold.
"Yawnetu?" You whisper as you feel her go limp in your arms before you loved aside and gently set her on the mat. Your eyes snap towards Tonowari. He had already taken off his loincloth, dick hard and pressed up against his thigh.
"So needy, Tono?" You said with a teasing grin that turns even wider as you saw the look he had on his face. He was basically saying Fuck me with his eyes alone. Dear eywa..
"Come." You beckoned him over to your lap and he comes rushing. He was about to sit infront of you before your hands grabbed his waist and made him sit on your thighs.
"I'm too heavy-" Tonowari tries to voice out before silencing upon seeing your sharp look towards him.
"Sit. now. or i will let you sleep without release." You warned him and he nods, relaxing in your arms. He whined beautifully, back arching as you palmed his erection.
"Please no teasing, Ma'[Name].." He begs as he lays his head on your shoulder, his arms hugging your neck. You laughed silently, looking at his twitching member.
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