Work Text:
Ryland Grace was particular, to say the least, but there’s no one you’d rather be stranded amongst deep space with. At times, it was irksome to see how he borderline obsessed over the little particular aspects of daily routine: be it writing equations, measuring food, calculating fuel. Sure, mathematics requires the utmost accuracy, but his incessant mumbling while he frantically wrote was at first irritating. His pacing was odd, how his glasses were constantly askew across the bridge of his nose - it was all just…vexatious.
Until, it became endearing.
You tried to define if your tolerance stemmed from your (unfortunate) circumstances bringing you both closer, or if it was because he was genuinely kind of…cute. That’s what he was; the cute nerd.
While sipping on a thermoplastic polyurethane bag absolutely packed with vodka, you watch Ryland pacing before a whiteboard, the cap of the marker between his teeth. You found yourself staring longer than usual. His blond locks are tussled, glasses of course were lopsided, cardigan flowing in his wake of manic circles.
Welp. He’s now the hot nerd.
“Yu’ve been sdoing that forr ten minsutes.” You speak around the straw, the alcohol burning sharply against your tongue as it simultaneously warms your chest.
“I’m thinking.” He counters, not glancing at you while he’s clearly engrossed in…whatever the gibberish is scribbled across the board’s face. You lean on your hand, slowly sipping on the plain vodka - it's disgusting but it gets the job done. That said ‘job’ being getting you so elatingly inebriated while you let your thoughts run wild. Did this attraction to Ryland roll about because you genuinely were magnetized to him? Is it the solitude of interstellar space forcing you to take a fairly average man and paint him as your knight in shining armor? Perhaps the more foul brew you sipped, the farther you fell into this rabbit hole of conflicting emotions?
Blinking slowly, you slide away from the lab table, toting your beverage bag with you. When Ryland doesn’t ask where you’re headed, you slightly slur your announcement:
“‘M goin’ to the…room…pictures..” you wave your hand, rolling your fingers as the term escapes your fuzzy mind. “yeah…” a heavy sigh escapes your lips as you awkwardly overthink putting one foot in front of the other while toddling your way down the junction corridor. Still maintaining a slow sip on your drink, you plop to the floor while turning on the scenery images in the dome-shaped room. The sight of Earth lights up your world; in front, to the sides and all around. You’re immersed in the image of midnight within the Sierra Nevada, millions upon millions of stars above your head; you’re enrapt within the desert’s embrace. It’s true you could look out any window aboard the Hail Mary and visualise clusters of galaxies beyond the glass, but those sights weren’t familiar. Those sights weren’t of home.
But, this was.
You lean back on your hands with the vodka reservoir on your lap, straw toying between your teeth as little shooting stars dart from various points of the ceiling. Wild calls from various arid inhabitants fill your ears with a soothing lullabye as you watch the slow rotation of Earth through the night. Time seems to stop here; your worries dissipate with every steady swallow and study of the scene before you. When your elbows twinge with pain from remaining extended too long, you opt to lay flat against the floor, the plastic bladder slipping to the floor aside your hip - at this point, you gnaw on the mouthpiece more for comfort than using it to consume the drink. Your fingers trace the remote as you decide it’s time to change the view. The roar of the ocean was too overstimulating, the sunlight through the forest was too bright, the contrast of the cerulean sky to neon orange Grand Canyon made your eyes sting. But finally, you stumble on a scene that soothes in a manner you haven’t felt in a long time.
Beautiful ribbons of aurora streak across the dome in abstract patterns, wafting this way and that with a stunning archaic profile. Brilliant greens squirm against the black sky, reflecting off the snow laden trees at your feet. Your mind replicates the cold air you’d feel standing there as a low whistle fills the room; the sounds of winter wind as she whispers softly. Everywhere you look, there’s a mesmerizing pattern for your eyes to digest.
This perspective is almost heavenly.
It only gets better when Grace walks in.
“You’ve been holed up in here for a long time.” He observes, his footfalls on the grate echoing slightly. Tube still locked between your teeth, you loll your head to the right, looking at him.
“Nah, just slike…ten minutes.” You half-assedly shrug with arms folded under your head. Ryland takes in the sight of the aurora borealis momentarily before stepping closer.
He chuckles softly. “Try almost fourty.” Ryland takes a seat beside you, glancing at the vodka pouch. “Is the bar open?”
You remove a hand from behind your head, pulling the flexi-tube from your lips.
“Have at it.” You offer.
He takes a few sips, making a strangled noise from the intense burn. “God,” he coughs. “That’s awful.”
When you nod, it feels like your head swirls the same way the borealis does high above.
“Yep.” You concur, following the flowy path of the light. “Thanks, NASA.”
For some time, the two of you sit in silence, observing the recording’s beauty. You’d been staring at it long enough you questioned for a moment if the recording was looped, but you didn’t care. If you could view this in real time, you’d be there in an instant; bundled up and laying in a pile of soft snow, being willfully hypnotized by Father Sky painting such glorious scenes for Mother Earth.
“You know why this happens, right?” Ryland asks, voice gentle.
Eyes flicking to him, you beckon for the straw. “I think I knew, at one point but…I forget.” Your words are a little more coherent, but then the object returns to your mouth. “Enlighten me.”
Ryland cards a hand through his hair, adjusting his glasses. “Aurora appears when charged particles from the sun collide with various gasses in Earth’s atmosphere; mostly nitrogen and oxygen.” He explains, eyes cast upward. “The sun always has particle paths leaving from its surface, but when there’s a flare or solar wind, that increases the chance of a reaction, the aurora, most noticeably seen at the north and south poles, where Earth’s magnetic field acts like a funnel; hence the name ‘Northern Lights’.”
“Science rules.” You smile around the mouthpiece, before a thought probes your mind.
He nods along. “It does indeed.”
Considering for a minute, you sit up, taking the straw out of your mouth before offering the last bit of vodka to Grace. He accepts, and probably saves your liver in doing so - if there’s anything left to save, that is. Whatever, it was less than a litre anyway. Oh god, is that why you feel like you’re wading through syrup? Why the warmth radiates from your chest through every nerve in your limbs, casting a warm flush under your skin that cooks you from the inside out? And probably why-
No. You rub your face. No. Do not go there.
“You alright?” he ducks his head to look at your face more easily but ends up tilting your face upward to assess you. Your head feels like a 13 pound bowling ball and his touch is akin to a searing burn against your flushed face. No, this is humiliating. You’re drunk - absoluytley plastered by all definitions; you cannot fuck up your ‘workplace’ relationship, even if the two of you have trauma-bonded over many moments, and become close. He’s the only human in this entire galaxy - if you alienate him, you condemn yourself to a life of solitude, should he so wish.
“No.” You mutter. Blinking, you pull away from his hand. “Yeah.” You correct. “I’m just–”
You’re having a hard time discerning if the blush on your face is courtesy of the alcohol or the path of his gaze, but you’d wager it’s an amalgamation of both.
“You’re holding something back.” Grace observes keenly. “Just say what’s onn your mind.”
Oh no. Now he’s getting what he asked for. Would he forgive you if this went sideways and you blamed it on being drunk? Is this infatiouation you’ve been marinating in something he wants to know of? You shake your head and swear you can feel your cerebral fluid slosh.
“It’s better than keeping it bottled up.” His encouragement only unearths more dread. God, did he think you were depressed? What if he was trying to comfort your sadness and then got blindsided with your horniness instead? You felt beyond humiliated.
The risk is so high and your muscles are beyond tense. The sight of him next to you; those soft eyes, the way the emerald lights glint across his lenses, threading through his dirty blond locks. Jesus fucking Christ you are whipped, and you suddenly feel a wave of reckless abandon tilt your conscience.
“You’re beauotufl.”
Well. Cat’s out of the bag.
Your tone falters, partially by design in case you need to backpedal, partially due to the excessive amounts of vodka in your bloodstream.
He looks stunned but in the most muted of ways. Ryland blinks. “Did you just call me beautiful?” His tone doesn’t reflect negativity, but rather curiosity - seeking clarification, you feel that he hopes to confirm what he just heard tumble from your lips. Every throb of your heart drowns out any words coming from him, your fingers ache to touch his shirt, but skin would be better. You’re anything but discrete as your thirsty eyes beg to see what’s below that fuckass (albeit humorous) periodic table shirt he’s wearing.
“You just called a grown man ‘beautiful’?” A smile tugs at his lips, and that sends you overboard. “Because the last-”
“Fuck it.” You slur before grabbing his collar and pulling him into you, crashing your lips to his.
Ryland’s taste makes your mind spin and your muscles melt when your mouth slots against his as you feel his muscles tense below your hands at the sudden movement. You stay still as glass, fearing if you separate too fast, you’ll lose this feeling forever. He’s like sour vodka and dried ramen against your tongue but you’ve never been happier. Every pulse of your heart propels more blood and alcohol across the map of your body, drowning you in a sickeningly sweet vat of arousal. If this was a mistake, you’d pay more in the morning when your sober self recognized the magnitude of your actions.
Pulling back, your eyes center on his, panting as panic spreads across your features.
But, Grace doesn’t break away from you. His expression is soft, as if it's full of…relief? Fuck a penny for his toughts; you’d pay millions to know what’s running through that pretty brain of his. Yet he stuns you with a desire for more.
“Kiss me again.” His whisper is ever so soft, plea that brings relief and desire gushing into your heart.
You don’t need to be told twice.
In an instant, you’re all over him. His kisses are messy and deseprate while his hands cautiously rove over your body. Never have you yearned to be naked more, to feel his skin against yours.
The alcohol mulls doubt into courage, and the vodka works in your favor of confidence. Sliding into his lap, you caress his face with both hands as he nibbles on your lip; a silent request to slip his tongue in. Who are you to deny your hot nerd?
His palms rub the warm skin of your waist below your shirt and it’s a sensation that sends you into a frenzy. You forget how to regulate your breathing and reluctantly turn your head, gasping for air as a glittery string of saliva connects him to you. You’re like a cat being stroked along the base of their tail, your spine bows and your thighs squeeze around his hips.
His glasses are crooked and his hair is disheveled; Ryland leans back on his hand as it’s his turn to drink you in. His fair complexion has seven shades of scarlet scribbled across his cheeks and his eyes brim with an emotion you don’t quite recognize.
“Does this mean you like me?” He murmurs.
You lean forward, adjusting the frames on his face. “You’re a scientist,” you kiss along his jaw. “Draw your own conclusions.”
Ryland shifts under the path of your kisses, a soft moan pulling from his throat; it’s rich enough you feel that slick heat gathering between your thighs. Just by his sound alone… God, you are so greedy for more of those sweet noises.
“Like,” his breaths are uneven. “An experiment?” A smile twitches at your lips when he translates your situation into something more familiar to him.
“Something like that.” You murmur, tugging at his shirt. “Except tonight, I’m not the guinea pig.”
Your hand plasters to his chest and pins him to the floor, though you take caution to not slam him too hard or risk knocking his head. Ryland’s eyes widen and if his pants weren’t stiff before (they were) then they most certainly are now (except harder).
“Even though you’re drunk?” He asks with a bite of amusement. “Not drunk, just bold.” You whisper, kissing back up to his ear. “I’m gonna ride you till you see stars.”
If this were a perfect scenario, you’d share more kisses - be underneath him while he murmured sweet nothings into your ear while he fucks the common sense right outta you. Maybe his hands would thread through your hair, guiding you going down on him or vice versa. But in this moment, you’re full of vodka and ambition - now, you’d like to be full of him.
The thought of it makes you clench around nothing - the cruelst of sensations, to a woman. Lucky for you, the vodka has done a great job of not only drenching your guts in a hot heat but moreso now, your pussy.
His ribs swell and contract more noticeably when your fingers drift to his zipper. Through the liquid courage and kiss covered face, there’s a flicker of apprehension that crosses your expression.
“Is this-” You swallow. “Is this still okay?”
Your verification is appreciated by Grace; to know you’re this far gone in your own desire but still break free for a moment to make sure he’s still on board is worth its weight in earth-rare ore to him. Though he nods, he croaks: “Yes.”
With that, you’re boundless atop him. Never in your life have you wrestled your pants off faster than tonight, hastily yanking his boxers to knee height. You’ve barely any time to assess his manhood as the vodka possesses you to act fast to feel the desired pleasure quicker. Your hand slides against his tummy, up his chest, bunching his cotton shirt the whole way. Neither of you need prep anyway - you’re wetter than you’ve been in years and his member’s so stiff it could stop a door.
“Been a minute-” He breathes, feeling your heat against his rigid cock. “-since I’ve done this.” You move your head, agreeing. “Then enjoy the ride.”
When you sink down onto him, your jaw wrenches open and your nails scrape Ryland’s chest while his stomach dips and his head tilts back in a sweet cry. He’s deep like this, reaching that spongy spot inside you that will give you aches for the next couple of days, should you abuse it. But who gives? Because that’s exactly what you’re about to do.
That dominant facade fades when you rock your hips, your own soft moans mingling with his as the sweet sex noises roll off the walls. He angles his eyes down, watching you bounce on him mercilessly before his pretty eyelashes flutter and throws his head back again. You’re not much better - your head falls forward, hair over your face as you set a pace that lets his cock kiss your cervix, which forces your thighs to jerk with every punch it so blissfully takes. Ryland fits inside you perfectly, like a missing piece of your puzzle you’ve ached to solve. You never want to be without this feeling ever again.
It’s so much better than you’d have imagined, but your drunken wobbles atop him were difficult to control. No way in hell you’d stop now, though. Ryland’s moans were so melodic; how can a man sound so pretty? This was a new turn on for you. And that blush on his face? You felt yourself clench around him.
“You sound s-so beautiful.” You murmur, pushing the hair from your face, leaning over slightly.
His glasses remain askew across his nose. “I’m n-not bea-beauti-ohh!” His eyes roll back slightly when you rock your hips in a new pattern, making his core tremble. He’s crumbling beneath you and you adore every second of it.
“Shut up.” You murmur without malice; more like a reminder to just lay back and relish in the feeling. The sight of him lost in such mind blowing sex makes you feral to see his eyelashes flutter and his muscles quiver from how good you ride him. Bouncing atop Grace, you don’t know if you’re chasing his release more or yours. Probably his, given how power hungry his little whimpers make you.
And, boy howdy, he delivers.
“Don’t s-stop, please don’t stop!” He babbles incessantly as you ride his stiff cock to the point you’re almost seeing stars. Your mouth is open as goosebumps wash up your skin from each dizzying twinge your cervix feels; everything feels sickeningly warm in the most mouthwatering of ways. “Ryland–” You cry, shifting your hips with a furious pace that nearly makes you sweat. You watch his ribcage contract with each sharp inhale, how his belly quivers and the muscles stretched across his hipbones twitch as words betray him.
Ryland growls a strangled whine, bucking his hips before you feel his hot cum deep inside, spurting in smooth ropes. Your cries harmonize with his as you ride him through his orgasm, effectively fucking his load deeper into you. He squirms. He twists and his biceps peak when his hands ply at your soft hips, rocking you atop him in a way that threatens to make you scream.
“O-ohh f-f-ff–” You knew Grace didn’t curse but it sounded like he was about to. You tremble atop him, still bathed in the soft green glow from the simulated aurora as he reels from toppling over that high cliff he fell from, gasping when you slow against him.
You make a borderline pathetic noise and he slides the frames from his face, the glasses clattering to the ground.
‘C’mere.” Ryland mumbles, pulling you into the crux of his arm. Wearily, you oblige, collapsing into his arms, now the sound of panting fills the space around you. His quaking fingers find solace in threading through your hair - an action that helps ground both of you.
“Next time,” he glances at you. “I’m on top.” His smile - along with the fact he wants a next time - infects you with mirth. You brush a loose strand of hair away from his eyes. You shake your head, laughing breathlessly. “Ryland?” He toys with your hair, eyes full of adoration. He raises a brow.
“Shut up and kiss me.”
Grace doesn’t need to be told twice.
—