birthday!!!

He was a kid again. He was back home. His and Colt’s bunk bed was there. His drawings of stars were there. Colt’s drawings of animals were there. Ryland yelled in confusion and fear, because what the hell, he’s a kid again! That’s impossible!

Two people ran over at the sound of his cry. Colt, ever the worried twin, also a little kid, and… Court. Grace’s tears grew in number as he stated choking on his own breaths. That’s Court, fifteen and alive, with bruised hands and legs, but alive and panicking because just a second ago Ryland was okay and now he was shaking in hysteria. He carefully pulled Ryland closer, hugging him with soothing humming, while gesturing to Colt to bring some water.

Ryland can’t think, can’t understand what’s going on. He’s back home. But… How? He was on Erid, he was 11 light years away from Earth, he was years older than Court ever got the chance to grow. How it was possible?

For a second Ryland accepts it all as his dream. A terrifyingly vivid one, born out of pain of loss and missing his brothers and everything on Earth. But time went and went and Court didn’t disappear, he was still sitting on the harsh floor, hugging Ryland and trying to get him talking. He asked questions, he rubbed Grace’s back and spoke softly, looking confused and worried.

Colt returned with a glass of water, sitting next to Ryland, tilting his head a bit. He miss one tooth, just like… back then…

Ryland suddenly realized that this is not a dream. This is real. And that despite all this mess in his head he needs to act fast. He needs to get Colt and Court away from the house, away from this part of city…

Away from their father. He can think about it all later, firstly, he needs to prevent a murder.

There used to be this meme about how students ask their teachers personal questions to distract from the boring lesson and after the lesson ends, the students don't care anymore, but I was actually so interested in what my teachers were like outside of school. There's no way HIS little devils aren't interested in Ryland "I put up a wall up in my relationships anyway" Grace's personal life too because he's probably super professional all the time and doesn't talk about himself at all, ever.

So they google him, only to discover that he has an identical twin who sets himself on fire for money (yes, I'm talking about Coltland like it's canon, and what about it!), that he has an older brother who murdered their father and "died" in prison (yes, also talking about Coltland Gentry like it's canon), that he's had a tragic past, AND that hollywood superstar Tom Ryder is down bad for him (they found an obscure instagram post of Tom Ryder that strongly implies being about Grace, so they try to bait him into talking about it by asking what he thinks about him, and he just waves it off like "Ehhhhh he's an alright actor I guess" and Oh my god, does that mean their TEACHER has rejected TOM FREAKING RYDER?!) (Also can I just say, I love that we all agree that Tom fell first AND fell harder while Ryland is on a spectrum between "god he's so annoying I hate him" to "Oh yeah, Tom, I could date him I guess, he's cute :)")

And then, a few years later, he gets kidnapped by the government and shot into space to save the world. Like. What??

I'd be the most obnoxious person in the world if Ryland Grace had been my teacher, I'd be telling everyone about it, make one "I was Ryland Grace's student. AMA"-post after the other, try to find ways to bring it up in conversation constantly.

And he partly fears it for Ryland's sake, and partly looks forward to it for his own ego.

Only to then realize that times have changed, modern fandom culture works differently and fans nowadays are more mature than they were ten years ago.

Instead of hating on Grace, they all just adopt him immediately.

Whenever Tom shows a photo of Grace and himself on instagram, he expects comments like "I'm soooo jealous of Ryland" and "Break up with him Tom, he's not good enough for you".

Instead he gets comments like "It's so nice of Ryland to give a platform to lesser known creators <33" and "Watch out, Tom, I'm gonna steal your boyfriend". On all his social media platforms he sees his fangirls, HIS fangirls (!!!!!) post pictures of Ryland and gush over how handsome he is.

It becomes a running gag in the fandom to act like Ryland is more famous than Tom is.

And Tom totally goes crashout.

"I need to write this", I say for the hundreth time today while millions of other WIPs rot in my drafts.

Ugly ass dude but he's my ugly ass dude