Archive of Our Own

Ryland had a perfectly normal interest in Tom Ryder.

Scientific interest.

He was the actor who his brother stunted for. He was the guy on the posters. It was in fact perfectly normal for Ryland to be this interested in him. Whether Ryland had the man's contact and an open invite to text whenever, well, that wasn't anyone's business. Ryland knew a frankly obscene about Ryder now.

It hadn't started as problem. Nope. It was just… the algorithm. Youtube Algorithm. He had already watched every Tom Ryder film looking for Colt. What's another re-watch? And, while he was at it, everyone had done a hundred essays about how Tom's performance in strange, edge b-movie 'Cataclysmic' was indicative of his personal struggles with addiction.

Ryland had laughed. No. That was obviously a reflection on Tom's promiscuity. Get your problematic Tom traits right, people!

Tom Ryder was fascinating to Ryland. In the sense, he wanted to pin the actor to the wall and stab him with needles like a taxidermy moth on display in a glass tin. He was both beautiful and fascinating, dangerous and self destructive to himself. Ryland wanted to say, I can fix him, but also say, nobody is fixing that, and everything about it just did it for him.

Anyway!

Ryland Grace had a Pinterest folder containing all of his favourite Tom Ryder pictures. He had combed through the collection; he was not going to save disgusting paparazzi shots of the man in his personal home life. No, these were curated. A mix of movie shots, pictures from interviews, and extras from those movies. Beyond that, he was creating a DVD collection of Tom Ryder movies.

Did he have to eat instant noodles for two weeks straight?

It was worth it. Ryland felt more joy looking at his Tom Ryder movie collection (with a few movie posters Colt had given him) than he ever did eating dinner. In fact, eating dinner was an activity Ryland was commonly accompanying with commentary videos about Tom Ryder's movie catalogue.

The only place Ryland hadn't let Tom Ryder invade was his classroom. That felt like it crossed an internal boundary.

Ryland was laying back on his bed. Lesson planning had quickly turned dull and his brain was mush after the "bar incident" three weeks ago. It felt like a year ago, at this point, with how Ryland's brain had been taken over. He was even considering reading the RPF category for Tom Ryder on Wattpad.

The idea should have sounded a little more disturbing to him than it was at the moment. Ryland set his glasses on the table as his phone buzzed.

Probably a notification from one of twenty different Tom Ryder film critic channels he was now subscribed to. Without thinking or even looking at it, he pressed the notification box and sat up. When he finally tilted his phone, Ryland realised the notification had actually been from Tom Ryder.

Great.

Perfect.

Peachy, actually. Tom Ryder's face was on his wall and Tom Ryder was messaging him. The embarrassment swelling in his gut was almost enough to make him stand up and take it down, but it was expensive, and it still made Ryland happy. Did he need to unpack that? Probably.

Ryland had to lower his phone. Partly because he didn't actually know Tom Ryder's father was dead since he was never mentioned in interviews. New Tom Ryder fact, really. The other people in the Tom Ryder Appreciation Subreddit should be incredibly jealous of him, but Ryland wasn't telling anyone. This was a fact he was going to hold incredibly close to his chest.

Especially since Tom Ryder was texting him. While drunk. Apparently sobriety wasn't a part of their friendship.

Ryland was trying his hardest to not feel endeared by the conversation. He was probably supposed to feel concerned. Concerned and endeared, then. This was endearing. If Ryland had the money for a taxi, he'd get one for Ryder. Unfortunately, Ryland was poor. Very poor.

"Tom Ryder is hilarious and great at joking " was the new conclusion Ryland had about the man. Ryland coughed, trying to somehow rub off the warmth in his cheek that was definitely obvious in the mirror. He wasn't into that, he was just overheating in this heat. His air conditioning was broken (even though Ryland could still hear it) and he could feel a breeze in his hair. It was broken. That was his new, very logical conclusion.

Ryland exhaled, shakily. He was still mildly worried about Tom getting home, because what if someone went with him? He'd seen the type to hit on Tom. Out of style, irrelevant actors, trying to get a piece of something big. Or even worse, random actresses in his league. Ryland felt irrationally angry at the thought of someone hitting on Tom. He didn't deserve that! He was, he, Ryland could protect him. Ryland, who had never done a martial art course except for the year of karate that he hated so much that he'd fake sick not go go.

Whatever. Ryland was getting ahead of himself. Ryder would be fine. He was probably messaging every single last person on his contact list, anyway. Ryland knew what he got like when drunk. Overly social and clingy for attention, because he didn't have the confidence outside then to ask for the validation he needed. Ryder was probably that. Maybe.

Ryland stared at the message Ryder had sent, between drunken rambles.

i could lock you in my basement and marry you with a shotgun pressed to the back of your neck to make you comply.

God, he wanted it framed on his wall. Was that weird? Ryland didn't think it was weird. Maybe it was a little weird. What was the standard for weird, anyway? Surely everyone said stuff like that to their friends. His students always said weird stuff to their friends. Six-seven and, whatever. Skibidi. It was just a little joking between friends.

That, could still fit on his wall. Ryland considered it.

'Yeah, but what if Colt comes over?'

Ryland could not risk Colt seeing that on his wall. Nevermind. It was bad enough that all the movie posters he kept of Ryder in his rooms were coincidentally the roles where Ryder wore the tightest outfits. That could be coincidence. Since it was. Coincidence.

Ryland cleared his throat.

Ryland threw his phone across the room.

It clattered on the carpet. He screamed into his palms like a teenage girl having his first crush. Tom Ryder called him hot. Tom Ryder asked him to degrade him.

Or well, repeat an insult Ryland threw at an 73 year old biologist at him. Did Ryder need to be humbled? He could also have just been asking Ryland to degrade him. The high of that thought did things to Ryland, who wasn't even usually into that.

He stared at his wall.

Tom Ryder stared back.

Ryland mouthed the insult to the poster. He giggled. Oh, he could not do that. He was well past his prime. He was a grown man, single, in his mid-thirties, mouthing insults at his Tom Ryder poster because the actor was texting him randomly while intoxicated.

This was definitely just Tom Ryder being 'Tom Ryder'. Ryland was aware the man went through women like he went through spare pens at school. This was either a temporary fixation, or going on simultaneously with twenty other women and men and all those in-between. Even though Tom Ryder wasn't even out as bisexual.

Ryland just knew.

No straight man said stuff like that. Not a guy. Not to Ryland. Ryland, who wasn't that attractive and who wasn't that particularly outstanding. Ryder was most certainly just doing this to fuck with Colt, which, was pretty decent motivation in Ryland's eyes. Messing with Colt was pretty funny. Colt messed with him all the time. It was payback.

Ryder.

Tom.

Thomas.

Ryland stared at his phone on the floor.

He probably should pick it up. Ryland sighed and slung his legs over the side of his bed, and grabbed the phone. He plugged it into charge and specifically swiped Tom's texts away so he wouldn't be actively reading him. He needed to think. Properly. Ryland grabbed his laptop to work on lesson plans. Grade something. Do something not Tom related. He pressed play on the video tabbed in the background and opened his school's grading portal.

"…And, as we see with most of his roles, Tom is capable of portraying a deep emotional maturity that appears to contrast with the man we see in interviews. It's been long theorised that Tom is acting in his interviews, too. Which begs the question we're going to be answering in this… far too long, two and a half hour video, 'Who is Tom Ryder, Really?' Now before we get stuck into this properly, our sponsor for today is Hello Fresh, who deliver…"