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The little coffee shop is bustling around Simon, filled with life. Friends are chattering, people are plucking away on laptops, baristas are filling orders. It’s a nice, relaxed, happy atmosphere. One that Simon does not belong in. He’s been nursing the same black coffee for an hour now, watching the ice melt in the drink across from him. He shouldn’t have gotten it at the same time, he’d just been excited to finally meet him in person.
Simon taps the screen of his phone for the hundredth time, seeing no new messages. It’s a herculean effort, not picking it up and sending off another message. He’s already sent four since about fifteen minutes after 1:00 pm, asking if everything is okay, if he got lost, if they need to reschedule. Nothing since a text at noon that simply read ‘See you soon :)’
God, he feels pathetic. Why did he suggest meeting up? They had an incredible thing going for the last year, he should have let that be enough. But Simon has always been greedy, it was one of his biggest sins, and when they found out they lived in the same city he just couldn’t stop himself from asking to meet up.
Simon met him in a gaming Discord server he’d joined on a whim. Ava had been trying to get him to talk with more people after they defected from Eden, and he’d figured that would be a low stakes way. The server had a bunch of different channels, everything from gaming specifics to a proof of touching grass channel. He didn’t say much, at first, content to just watch the messages roll in. But then one day he opened a channel titled ‘info-dump’ and was greeted with a massive text about the Tau-Ceti star and its role in Science Fiction media by a user called SourSkittleEarth.
Curious, Simon clicked on the profile. Their photo was a drawing of a fox jumping over the earth, he wondered if SourSkittleEarth drew it themselves or had it commissioned. The roles they’d selected for themselves were ‘he/him, ask to dm, game watcher, queer’. Simon swipes over to his own role profile, comparing, ‘he/him, no dm, game player, gay’, a picture of a blood moon as his profile photo. It’d taken him a while to come up with his Discord name, whether or not he should use his gamer tag. In the end he decided to keep it simple, it had taken him longer to settle on a gamer tag, why would he do extra work for this? BloodyFoxglove worked just fine.
He remembers reading through what was basically an essay, each message at word limit before another one pops through. SourSkittleEarth really knows what he’s talking about, he’s clearly passionate about it. The way he types makes Simon think he must be a professor or something, maybe he works for NASA, actually. He has questions, wants to know more, but remembers an earlier warning from a mod about clogging up channels so he just reads. Finally it comes to a conclusion and he just can’t stop himself.
BloodyFoxglove: @SourSkittleEarth can I dm you? I have a lot of questions about Tau Ceti
SourSkittleEarth: sure! Always up to talk about the stars!! ✨
They’d spoken every day since. At first it started out just talking about space or botany, sending articles or interesting things back and forth. About three months in Skittles (what he’d taken to calling SourSkittleEarth because they just hadn’t decided to share government names yet) had made and invited him to a private Discord server for just the two of them, with channels dedicated to space and plants and memes and video games. He’d called it ‘Besties 5Ever’ and to Simon it felt like everything, because yeah, Skittles was his best friend. One of his only friends, but even if he had a thousand he’d consider Skittles his best friend. Then a AAA space game came out and Skittles was bemoaning the fact that he couldn’t afford it. Simon had pre-ordered it, so he offered to stream it over a call.
The first time he heard Skittles' voice he knew he was in trouble. He didn’t even know the man's name and yet he was blushing so hard from the moment Skittles greeted him. God, who knew he had a thing for voices?
“Hi Fox!” His voice was light, airy, excited, “I’m so excited to watch you play this! Thank you for doing this!”
“Sure thing,” Simon’s voice sounded a bit strained to his ears, but he cleared his throat and started sharing his screen, “Any time, Skittles.”
That ‘any time, Skittles’ turned into almost nightly calls. Sometimes Simon would play, sometimes they would just talk. Simon got to learn all about Skittles’ research, how he’d just graduated with a degree in molecular biology and he was trying to apply for a phd. In turn, Simon spoke about his job at the florist shop, how he was trying to finish a GED so he could apply to a college for botany. By the time Skittles had mentioned he was moving to San Francisco because he’d been accepted to a program Simon was in love with him.
Simon thought Skittles was excited to meet him too, nothing in their conversation about it leaned to hesitancy.
Now though, an hour and half of sitting alone in this fuckass coffee shop filled with happy people who aren’t having to re-evaluate their whole lives because they were stood up by a guy they’d stupidly fallen in love with without even knowing his government name, he’s wondering where it went wrong.
He opens his phone and checks Discord one more time, hoping to see a message or even an online status from Skittles. Nothing. All right then. There goes a year of his life and his heart. It’s fine, he didn’t need those anyways.
The sound of the iced coffee hitting the inside of the trashcan isn’t as satisfying as he would have liked. He was hoping for a more final sound, like the closing of a book, or the end credits of a movie. Instead it just sounds like wet plastic hitting more wet plastic.
Shrugging on his jacket, he starts heading home, deciding to take the scenic route through the park. It’s a nice day, if a little chilly. Maybe the fresh air will clear his head, will make him feel like the world isn’t ending around him.
He’s about halfway through his trek home when he sees a man sitting on one of the benches, head in his hands, absolutely sobbing. He’s shaking a bit and rocking back and forth, maybe trying to self sooth? Simon stops a little down the path, weighing his options. He could continue walking, pass by the man, and keep going home, or he could stop and see if he was all right or needed help in any way. The man seemed to be around his age, with unruly blond hair that reached to his ears. He was holding a pair of gold wired glasses in one hand, wearing a yellow rainjacket, and light washed jeans. He didn’t seem hurt from where Simon was standing, but who knows.
Ultimately he decides to approach, not getting too close, coming to a stop at the other end of the bench, “Hey man . . . you okay?”
The guy shakes his head, voice muffled by his hands, “No, I fucked it up, I fucked it up! I’m such an idiot, so fucking stupid.”
Simon takes a step closer, the guy sounds distraught, like the world was caving in on him. He knew the feeling, “I bet it’s not that bad.”
“I’m a coward, a stupid fucking coward,” The guy moans, lifting his head and looking at Simon, his voice husky from how much it looks like he’s been crying, “Who just . . . stands someone up like that?? Because I can’t get over my own anxiety?? Because I knew if I saw him I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from blurting out that I loved him??”
The first thing Simon thinks when he makes eye contact with the man is that he has the bluest, prettiest eyes he’s ever seen. Like the ocean on a calm day. Next he thinks that in fact, all of this man was the prettiest thing he’d ever seen. The light stubble on his face, the curve of his pink lips. The tears on his face were even pretty.
“You uh . . . stood someone up?” He asks, taking a seat next to the guy. For some reason he seems familiar, but he just can’t put his finger on it right now. Maybe it was because he was so pretty, he looked like a movie star. Get it together, Simon, now is not the time. Worry about attractive men later, when you can piece your heart back together and get over Skittles. Well, at least try and get over him. Hopefully.
The question brings a fresh wave of tears to his eyes as he nods, “Yeah, my best friend. We were supposed to meet for the first time in person today, but I . . . how do you tell someone you love them and you don’t even know their real name?”
“Kinda sounds like my situation honestly,” Simon sighs, looking up at the sky, thinking about how he felt in that coffee shop, the way he was so happy and excited when he first walked in and purchased the coffees, the way it felt like his chest was tightening as the minutes dragged on, as his phone stayed silent, as he came to terms with being forgotten, “I was supposed to meet this guy for the first time in person too . . . he stood me up. I waited for like, an hour and a half and he doesn’t even text me or anything to give me a heads up or an explanation. I would have even taken a lie as long as it was something.”
“I’m Ryland, by the way,” The guy sniffles, starting to pull a messenger bag up from where it’d been stashed between his legs, “Sorry for . . . I don’t know, being in your path.”
“Simon, and you’re good. I think I needed to talk to another human being for a moment.” Simon shrugs, glancing at his phone. Still nothing from Skittles. Should he send another message? Was it worth it? What if he did only to find out that he deleted their private Discord server and blocked him? Then it would be his turn to sob next to a stranger in a park.
He’s so pre-occupied with the beginning of the spiral that he doesn’t register the green wrapper in front of him until its contents are shaken gently. It takes him a moment to figure out what it is as he instinctually opens his hand, watching the little dusted, multicolored candies drop into his palm. They were sour skittles. His heart clenches in his chest painfully and he just lets the skittles sit there in his palm.
“These are my favorite,” Ryland says, voice still a bit watery, but starting to lighten in tone and pitch, “they help when I’m spiraling. Unfortunately I was too far gone earlier, but I think it’s okay to break into my stash.”
Simon doesn’t say anything, just nods and stares. He’d never been a big fan of sour skittles before, but he’d taken to collecting items that featured the green bag in hopes of one day giving them to Skittles. He actually had some of them with him now in his backpack: a keychain, some stickers, a big bag of them. Maybe he should give them to Ryland, be done with them. He’s not sure he can look at that color green ever again.
“You uh . . . wanna talk about your? Thing?” Ryland prompts, shaking a couple more skittles into his palm and tossing them in his mouth, “It might help.”
“Not really,” Simon sighs, closing his hand around the candy, “I just . . . I don’t know, there wasn’t any indication he didn’t want to meet me.”
“Is this like . . . a like like situation? Or just a friend situation?” Ryland asks. Simon feels the other man freeze next to him, when did he get so close he could feel Ryland’s shoulder press up to his? He continues, “You obviously don’t have to tell me anything.”
Simon glances at Ryland from the corner of his eye, “Nah it’s okay. I realized I was in love with him about six months ago. We’ve been friends for about a year now.”
“How did you meet?” Ryland asks, digging back through his bag and pulling out a phone. He looks at it like it’s going to explode in his hands.
“Gaming discord server.” Simon tries not to eye the phone, but he can’t help but watch as Ryland turns it over in his hands a couple times. The phone case is star themed, but there’s a sticker of a fox on the back, weathered from the length of time it’s spent affixed.
“That’s how I met my Fox, too.” Ryland sighs next to him, it’s a weary sound, a heartbroken sound, “I just really hope he doesn’t hate me. I’m honestly afraid to check my messages. I just . . . I didn’t want to mess it up, you know? I can’t lose him . . . But I think my inability to get my shit together might have cost me the love of my life, which sounds dramatic I know but I really think he’s my soulmate.”
“His name is Fox?” Simon asks, brows furrowing, turning fully to Ryland now. The sour skittles, the phone case, the sound of his voice. Could it be . . . ?
“Oh, uh, well his discord handle is actually BloodyFoxglove but-”
Simon’s moving before his brain can rationalize what he’s doing, grabbing Ryland by the face and smashing their lips together. Ryland makes a shocked noise against his mouth, hands on his shoulders, trying to push him away. Simon quickly pulls back, realizing his mistake.
“What was that???” Ryland splutters, his whole face a pink tinged blush. His glasses askew now, and Simon thinks he’s so, so pretty.
“Skittles, it’s me!” Simon smiles wide, breathless, “I was waiting for you at the coffee shop, I thought you didn’t want me!”
Ryland’s eyes grow wide and he puts his hands on top of Simon’s, which are still framing his face, “Fox???”
“Yeah, yeah Skittles it’s me, your Fox.” Tears are pooling in Simon’s dark eyes, and at least he isn’t crying in front of a stranger. At least his heart doesn’t have to stay shattered on the floor. At least he’s holding the man he loves in his hands.
“What??” Ryland whispers, his eyes quickly roaming over Simon’s face in quick strokes, “Are you . . . are you messing with me??? Please don’t be messing with me . . .”
Simon rubs his thumbs over Ryland’s cheeks, shaking his head, “I’m not, I swear it’s me. You’re favorite color is yellow, you love space because there’s always something new to learn and you love to learn, you like watching me play Resident Evil games even though they scare you and we talk for hours after I finish a session because you don’t want to go to bed and I would trade my life to hear you talk forever. I got art commissioned of a fox in foxglove because you said you were thinking about getting a new profile photo and I wanted it to have a piece of me in it because I love you so much. I love you, Skittles.”
It’s Simon’s turn to be surprised when Ryland rushes forward and kisses him, throwing his arms around Simon’s neck and almost knocking the two of them off the bench. Simon holds firm though, moving his hands from Ryland’s face to wrap around his midsection, holding him so close Ryland almost gets pulled into his lap. This kiss is no less frantic from before, but this time he can feel the love and desperation in it. Simon had thought often about what kissing Skittles would be like, it’s nothing compared to his imagination. Especially when Ryland swipes his tongue over Simon’s lips, begging for entrance, and Simon could taste the sour candy.
They reluctantly come up for air, both breathing heavily, staring at each other.
“Can we,” Ryland starts, swallows, then speaks again, “Can we try the coffee shop again? This time as a date?”
Simon gives him the biggest smile in response, “Yeah, I would really, really like that.”
—--------
One Year Later:
“One second, Ava.” Simon pulls one of his earphones to the side, listening. The front door shuts softly and he smiles, “Yeah, Ryland’s home. I gotta jump off, okay? Thanks for listening, wish me luck.”
He ends the call and pauses his game, waiting for Ryland to walk into the gaming room. Ryland has a routine when he comes back from classes, and Simon knows it well. He listens for the sound of the backpack to hit the floor, then his chucks, a soft sigh as the day's worries slide off his body and disappear in the comfort of their apartment. Then Ryland fills his water bottle, grabs them a snack, and heads into the gaming room.
Right on cue, Ryland walks in, a tired smile on his face, his water bottle under his arm, a bowl of grapes in his right hand, and a bowl of strawberries in his left.
“Hey you,” Ryland smiles, setting the bowls down on Simon’s desk and giving him a kiss, “How was your day? You streaming tonight?”
“Not tonight, I figured we could have some time for ourselves tonight.” Simon had gotten into streaming and recording Let’s Plays at Ryland’s insistence when they first got together, and Simon’s channels had blown up. It was still strange to him, the attention, the influx of money. He’d been able to quit his job at the flower shop and he was starting botany classes next semester at Ryland’s college. All in all it was the perfect life. But something was missing.
“I like the sound of that,” Ryland smiles, wheeling over his comfy chair. They’d gotten it when Simon started to stream. Ryland didn’t like to be in the background of streams, preferring to keep total anonymity. Which was fine with Simon, he didn’t feel like sharing.
Simon switches out of the game he’d been playing while on the phone with Ava and loading up a new one he’d downloaded as soon as it was sent to him, “I got a new game for us.”
“Oh yeah?” Ryland asks, pulling a quilt around his shoulders, “What’s it called?”
“It’s called Sour Skittles, a developer sent it to me to try.”
Ryland leans closer to the screen, watching the game boot up, “That’s really cool!”
He nods, mouth suddenly dry from nerves. He’s been working with a developer on this simple game for three months now, he’d played it through earlier in the day and had to call Ava to calm his nerves. It was perfect, exactly what he was hoping for, but there was always that small part of him that said this wouldn’t go the way he wanted it to, that Ryland would hate it. Ava had happily knocked some sense into him, but now as the neon green loading screen rains sour skittles they’re back in full force.
“What’s the game about?” Ryland is settled back in his chair again, pulling a fidget out of his pocket and working it over. It’s one that’s comfortable in his hands, so his total focus is still on the screen in front of him.
“It’s a love/puzzle game, I think. You play as someone trying to find love and you have to answer questions and find the skittles.” The game starts, bringing him to a simple character creation screen. Whenever he plays games with this feature for just him and Ryland he always makes Ryland. It had been a joke, at first, when Simon had first started streaming games for just Ryland, but quickly became something they both just accepted as an immutable fact.
Ryland watches with a wide smile on his face as Simon creates him, telling him which shirt to pick, delighted that there’s one with a science pun on it. It was secretly Simon’s favorite shirt, the one with the periodic table that said ‘I wear this shirt Periodic-aly’. It had been a gag gift originally, but it was just so damn endearing. To be fair, everything about Ryland was just so damn endearing.
The game starts and it’s exactly what Simon was hoping for. He’d squirreled away enough extra cash from his streaming and videos that he was able to splurge on the developer, who had also been excited to work with him. It’s simple, but the art style is gorgeous, and the music created just for the game fits perfectly. Ryland is into it as well, excitedly giving him pointers and answers to questions and which way to go.
“Wow the developers must really like science, there’s so many science questions in this game!” Ryland says at one point after helping Simon answer a question about elements.
“I guess,” Simon shrugs, trying not to give anything away. They were nearing the end of the game now, the most important part of all of this.
His eyes flick to a lego chest that’s always sat on his desk, from even before he met Ryland. It was the first thing he’d bought with his own money he’d earned after leaving Eden, the lego set. It was an impulse buy, he’d simply wanted it and had the money. One of those little prized possessions that meant more than the plastic it was made out of could have ever hoped to mean one day. And now, for the last six months, it has held the entirety of his future inside.
Together they watch as the pc finds the last skittle, creating a package of them to seal. The game prompts Simon to knock on a door leading to a house. Simon wipes his palms on his jeans, then clicks the door.
The door opens to reveal himself, causing Ryland to gasp softly in surprise and confusion. Dialogue flashes across the screen, the pc explaining that they looked all over for these skittles to give to Simon, and Simon responds that he has a gift for the pc as well.
The real Simon waits a moment, letting Ryland absorb it, before grabbing the lego chest and pushing his chair back, just as the game Simon pulls out a ring from behind his back.
“What??” Ryland breathes, eyes immediately starting to water as they dart back and forth between game Simon and his Simon.
Sinking to one knee, Simon clears his throat and opens the chest, pulling out a simple gold band, “Ryland Grace, Skittles, I’ve been in love with you since the first time I heard your voice. I never thought I would find someone that I could listen to for hours and hours about anything, someone who loved me enough to let me listen. I spent a lot of my life feeling trapped, alone, forgotten. But you make me feel like I never experienced any of that, you and your smile and your love are the best thing that has ever happened to me. I want to spend the rest of my life waking up to your kisses and hearing your science jokes and basking in your light. Will you please make me the luckiest man in the universe and marry me?”
Halfway through the speech Ryland slid off the chair, crashing to his knees in front of Simon, tears streaming down his face, and the biggest smile on his lips. He’s nodding already, frantically, joyfully, “Yes, oh my god yes!! Of course I’ll marry you, Simon. My Fox, my heart, my love.”
They crash their lips together, much like that first time they met in person. What before was desperate, is now just pure, unfiltered love. Simon pulls back and slips the ring on Ryland’s finger, unable to stop his own tears from falling down his face.
“I love you so much, Skittles.” Simon smiles, running his thumb over the ring that sits perfectly on Ryland’s finger, like it was always meant to be there, put there by him.
“I love you too, Fox.” Ryland kisses him again.