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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.