✮⋆˙ city of stars ˙⋆✮

∘₊✧ Lars Lindstrom

Lars worries, but tries his best not to let it show. So instead, he talks nonstop to keep your mind busy in another direction, telling you stories and smiling and asking you questions. We’ve seen how he saved Margo’s teddy bear, so expect the same level of commitment with any random object nearby; he’ll do something cute and silly just to see you smile, even if he blushes at the sight and then replays it a thousand times later wondering if he did it right or said anything weird. If you have a beloved object he will focus in on it, using it to his advantage to get you feeling better asap.

∘₊✧ Ryland Grace

Ryland will put on your favorite record and hold out a hand to you, no matter how long it takes, to get you up and dancing with him. He will spin you around, move your arms for you if you’re not really feeling it yet, and pull some silly looking moves to get your mind and body out of their sadness. When you start to smile and join in a bit more willingly, he will move in and slide his arms around you, holding you close as you slow dance together (no matter the tempo of the current song) and he whispers in your ear that everything will be okay.

∘₊✧ Sebastian Wilder

Seb uses what he knows best: music. He will drag you to the piano, have you sit beside him, and serenade you with your favorite songs. There’s a twist though; he will change up some of the lyrics to make them silly and will occasionally do impressions of the artists. They’re terrible, but he’s a musician, not an actor and it doesn’t matter anyway. You end up laughing together and sharing a soft kiss as the piano falls into silence.

∘₊✧ Driver

Driver takes you somewhere quiet. It’s nothing much, just a spot he goes to think sometimes, but he knows it calms him, so it might help you. On the way there, he stops off to get your favorite fast food and sits on the hood with you while you eat it. He didn’t order anything for himself, but he’ll accept a bite of yours if you’re sharing… so he ends up with sauce on his nose and wonders why you’re giggling at him. When he realises, he dips his finger into the sauce and wipes some on your nose too.

∘₊✧ Ken

Sebastian had noticed Ryland Grace long before he decided to speak to him; Though, he supposed the teacher would have noticed him first.

He stood out in the audience of the jazz club, always preferring a booth if he could get one, out of the way of everyone else— And always working through piles of paper.

That’s what had piqued Sebastian’s interest initially, outside of the pretty face. People don’t come here to work, unless of course they work there for him. Working where you drink is more a café situation, and he’s sure that’s true for most places in the country outside of LA, if the guy’s not local.

“On the house,” Sebastian tells him as he delivers a fresh drink, taking a few minutes’ break from playing on stage with his musicians. “A little thanks for coming back so often.”

And the rest is truly history.

They hit it off right away; Ryland sharing with him that the work he’s doing whenever he comes is collecting his 8th grade class’s science tests, and Sebastian sharing in turn that he was always terrible at science as a kid - Aside from astronomy, given that his head was in the clouds along with the stars and galaxies.

That had earned an understanding laugh from Ryland.

Sebastian wanted nothing more than to hear that sound every day for the rest of his life.

They went home together that night, surprised to learn they were only a few doors away from each other in the same apartment building, and then there were the dates - Visits to the observatory to stare up at the sky together through one of telescopes, Ryland with all his facts and Sebastian with his wonder of everything out there…

They had touched very briefly on the recently discovered Petrova Line, but nothing in depth; The issue was still a very new one, and even Ryland wasn’t sure what to make of it back then.

It was a surprise to both of them when Eva Stratt entered Ryland’s classroom less than a year later, talking about samples that he could study— Of course, Sebastian had encouraged him to do it.

“It’s exciting! I never get to see you do science outside of lessons with the kids!”

“You will also not see this, Mr…?”

“Wilder. Sebastian. Why?”

“Are you a scientist?”

“I’m a pianist.”

And that was the end of that. Fair enough.

What wasn’t fair in his eyes, however, was Stratt swooping his boyfriend away on a boat to continue with their world saving science and meetings with global superpowers and God knows what else, because Sebastian certainly didn’t know!

No, he was only allowed to visit on holidays, their birthdays— And even then, he was under strict instruction to stay in Ryland’s room. Which would have been much easier, if they paused Ryland’s meetings when he was there, but they didn’t.

Still, he’s not a complete idiot, he tried to understand.

Sebastian could wait on the sidelines while Ryland helped save the Earth.

For three years. Then they married.

For two years. Then Ryland insisted Sebastian stay with his brother, Colt, after he broke his back in a freak accident on a movie set.

For another year.

Then four months. Four weeks.

Four days until launch, Sebastian was back on the site, and even allowed to play music for the people there - It was time for celebration, the last chance for the astronauts to breathe before they were sent off.

It was, he thought, the second beginning of his and Ryland’s relationship. He could come home soon.

“I’ve never been more glad you aren’t an astronaut,” Sebastian says once he’s left the piano to join Ryland at the bar.

He’d wait a thousand more years if he had to, just for the laugh he gets in return.

“I know, right? Can you imagine?”

Sebastian’s on a jet back to LA the next morning.

He sees the news when he lands - Two science experts dead after an explosion on the Hail Mary’s launch site - And breathes a sigh of relief when Ryland isn’t listed.

Until he sees Stratt’s name on his phone.

“He’s the only one who can work in their place.”

… That can’t be real.

“Turn around, you’re coming back. You’re welcome.”

Many decades later, in a world far colder than it should be, Sebastian hates himself for hardly being able to remember those last three days outside of constant tears and frightened whispers, his hand on Ryland’s as they put him into a coma and wheel him out to the Hail Mary.

Nobody ever calls him Ryland anymore - They only ever call him Grace.

Something… larger than life, Hail Mary, full of Grace, Earth’s saving grace—

They don’t know him like Sebastian had.

How big his heart had always been, even before they met Stratt, how terrified he had been in his final days, how he hadn’t wanted to go.

The official story is that Ryland had been volunteering from the start.

Sebastian finds himself too exhausted to argue with it - It wouldn’t change anything, anyhow. It wouldn’t bring his husband back, and it wouldn’t magically make Stratt more imprisoned, even if she did save the world in breaking his heart.

He doesn’t have any songs left, doesn’t have his galaxy, his universe anymore - Just the observatory they used to visit on some of their earliest dates, the telescope that they would look at the night sky through.