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Ryland Grace always felt like he moved too fast. Sometimes it felt like he was in the back seat of a car, his brain driving twenty over the speed limit and asking him to count sheep as they whizzed by. It is impossible to count sheep at that speed- they just look like little fluffy blurs. But his brain would still demand he tried, and then guilt would seep in when he couldn't.
That's all to say- Ryland Grace knew he moved too fast. It was why he fidgeted and bounced his knee and sometimes seemed like he might vibrate all the way out of his skin. It was why he rambled. It was why people thought he came on too strong, was too excited, too intense. The moment someone asked him about a topic he cared about, it was all over. He couldn't get his mouth to stop, even if in the background his brain begged for him to shut up.
But, to Ryland's dismay and frustration, he always felt he was playing catch-up in one aspect of his life.
Sex.
It wasn't like he didn't want to have sex. He did! Well. Okay. Maybe it was more that it wasn't like he didn't want to have sex. It kind of was a take it or leave it sort of thing. There wasn't this pull that he heard other people talking about. This animalistic urge to get down and dirty, or whatever. He never found himself meeting someone and having the first thought that crossed his mind be, "Dang, I want a piece of that."
And it wasn't like he was touch adverse! Grace loved physical intimacy. Having someone lay across his lap, or pulled to his chest. He could spend hours running his fingers through someone's hair, gently tracing muscle and sinew, cataloguing every freckle or scar. He always was down for a cuddle, always would be up for holding hands, never would deny a head on his shoulder or a kiss to the cheek.
But… sex.
It felt like a chore. It felt like a task with insurmountable expectations and even more complicating factors. It left him feeling anxious and self-conscious. It felt like too much.
It wasn't like he was a virgin. He had… done it a few times. Felt obligated when a relationship progressed to the appropriate point, knew the metaphorical chickens had come home to their metaphorical roost and sucked it up and-
Well. It was fine. It wasn't like he ever put himself in a situation where he felt like he was… assaulted. Never felt coerced or forced. But, nine times out of ten (or in Grace's case, five times out of six) he sort of felt like sex was more akin to cleaning out a fridge than this world shattering sigh of relief.
A chore. A task that needed to be accomplished. Another thing on his to-do list before he could return to things he really wanted to do.
And that one time that it wasn't? Well. It hadn't mattered in the end, because Ryland Grace moved too fast. And it was just his luck that the one person he eventually had those feelings for…
But, that didn't matter anymore. Because Ryland Grace was light-years away from Earth. And was the only human on Erid. And never had to worry about moving too fast or being too much ever again. And he especially didn't have to worry about his weird hang-ups with being slow when it came to sex.
Simon's bloody body was pulled from a crumbled iron death trap. His mangled form laid bare in stark crimson contrast on the white sheets of Grace's bed.
Ryland Grace always felt like he moved too fast. But his brain screeched to a halt the moment he laid eyes on the man covered in gore, black hair clinging to his forehead and neck, wounds littering tan skin on a muscled frame.
He couldn't tell you how long he stood there, useless in the face of the medical emergency now staining his linens.
But he could tell you this: Ryland Grace was terrified. Because he moved too fast. And now he had to worry about it again.
The brain is a weird thing. How crazy is it that there is a lump of water and fat and protein cradled in bone, driven by electricity, that is capable of complex calculation and devastating imagination? And how frustrating is it that its neural pathways are such fickle little things, capable of taking one awful moment and twisting it into an ever present issue.
Grace knew that what happened to him with Project Hail Mary was traumatic. He wasn't dumb. He didn't need to have a PhD in psychology to know that.
The thing was, no matter how aware of his trauma he was, that didn't mean he could just… fix it. There wasn't an easy off switch. It wasn't like there was anyone trained in EMDR on Erid. Grace was kind of on his own when it came to his recovery journey.
Which meant he was of little use when it came to Simon's.
He could try- and jeez did he try- but that wasn't his field of expertise.
Ryland Grace always felt like he moved too fast, but he couldn't move fast enough when it came to Simon. Trying to make Simon feel safe. Trying to prove that Simon didn't have to worry about scarcity and survival. He knew he couldn't speed run his own recovery but he desperately wanted to speed run Simon's.
Which, unsurprisingly, led to a lot more frustration and misunderstandings in the beginning than actual recovery.
They eventually got there, but, holy moly, it took a while.
And it didn't exactly help that Grace was touch-starved and lonely and screwed up from years of isolation even if he wanted to pretend he wasn't.
But, thankfully, they got there. 'There' being friends, being casually intimate. Having a general understanding and appreciation for the only other flesh and blood being on a planet of aliens.
And yeah, maybe on any given night one of them might wake up gasping with tears streaking down their face, scrambling away from some unseen horror that lump of water and fat and protein conjured up in their sleep.
But even if neither of them had a degree capable of psychoanalyzing and whipping up a treatment plan, both of them figured out how to hold the other. How to whisper or hum what the other needed to hear. How to crack themselves open and pour themselves out in the unbridled desire to make sure they both knew that they were safe.
If that was all Grace ever got, he would have been happy. Overjoyed even!
But the brain is a weird thing.
And that amount of proximity? The fact that he and Simon were forced to break themselves open again and again in the pursuit of comfort and a sense of safety? Well, it only made sense that eventually they would end up here.
Here being pressed against each other, Simon's hand bracketing Grace up against the kitchen counter, Grace's hands curled possessively into Simon's hair and the fabric of his shirt. Grace whimpered- gosh how pathetic- against Simon as teeth nipped the soft skin of his bottom lip.
Ryland Grace always moved too fast. A leg slid between his thighs, pressed up against his groin, punching a gasp from his chest. Simon's lips were pressed against the junction of his jaw and throat. His body felt taut, like he might shake apart and disappear.
Ryland Grace always moved too fast. Simon's teeth scraped along the jut of Grace's clavicle. He knew tomorrow there would be a mark.
Ryland Grace always moved too fast. His lungs were on fire and his brain couldn't catch up to what was happening in his body and and and-
Ryland Grace was playing catch-up. Simon sat across from him on the couch, eyes understanding but soft with guilt that Grace knew was so horribly misplaced. This wasn't Simon's fault. This was Grace's. Whenever it came to sex it was always Grace's fault.
In the past, trying to explain it always seemed to make it worse. It led to confusion, disappointment. Who wanted to be with Grace when he was so broken? Always moving so fast until he wasn't. Until it was something the other person wanted instead of what he wanted.
Simon sat across from him on the couch, and was patient. What an awful thing to ask of someone; patience in the face of someone who always moved too fast.
"You could have just told me."
The words were low and gentle and they made it harder for Grace to meet Simon's eyes.
"Grace."
Fingers curled under his chin and softly moved his gaze up. Dark eyes framed by dark waves framed by soft artificial dusk, all too gentle and too real and-
"It's okay if it was too fast."
When someone has some hang-ups when it comes to sex, adding trauma on top of it can make things even more fiddly.
Ryland Grace was finding that little fact out in real time.
In the past, for most of his life, sex felt like a chore. Now it felt less like a Sisyphean task required for basic human maintenance, and more like the chore that he kind of looked forward to. Less having to do the dishes every day- more weeding out the garden at the beginning of spring. It was still a chore- but at least there was something to look forward to at the end of it.
Grace wanted to be close to Simon in that way. For the second time in his life, he actually felt the urge to do those things with another person.
However, that lump of water and fat and protein had some… reservations. Objections. Traumatic opposing viewpoints that it refused to have ignored.
Simon slowly picked Grace apart. Checked in every step on the way. Worked him open with gentle fingers and soft rumbled praise. Pressed open mouth kisses to his throat, his chest, his inner thighs. Let him whimper and whine and hide his face in the bend of his arm.
He told Grace how good he was doing. Told him how beautiful he looked like this- flushed and trembling where he was nestled into rumpled sheets and body-warmed blankets. Facts that Grace struggled to internalize when whispered from the lips of a man as beautiful as Simon.
It was all going so well. Of course that couldn't last.
The thought that what was happening might not be the best idea didn't even cross Grace's mind. There wasn't even a second where he considered that the awful things he experienced in his past could stain the way his body was melting into the soft mattress beneath him. Why would he think he should take pause while Simon carefully moved him to his stomach, let Grace stretch and settle and sigh with the fuzzy feeling of being held and cared for and touched and warm. He gasped and smiled as Simon kissed down his spine, taking his time, proving time and time again that despite what he believed about himself, Simon was capable of such tender benevolence. And it was so good and going. So. Well.
There was a flat palm between his shoulder blades. There was pressure of a body trapping his legs and holding him down. His cheek was pressed into grass and dirt, and the air was knocked from his lungs. Grace was begging. He was begging anyone who might listen, might be convinced. He didn't want to die. He didn't want to die. He couldn't do it. He didn't understand why no one was listening to him. Why didn't they care?
He wouldn't be able to tell you how long he was stuck in that moment, how long his brain trapped him within his last moments on Earth.
Suddenly Grace was on his back again, his chest heaving in a futile attempt to fill lungs that felt like someone poured concrete into them. His vision was blurry, from tears or the lack of his glasses he couldn't say. It was probably a combination of both. He didn't realize he was crying. Huh.
"Grace?"
Even with blurry eyes, Grace could make out the worried expression above him. He was so tired of making Simon look like that. Jeez, wasn't he supposed to be the more well adjusted of the two?
"Where did you go?"
Who was he kidding? When it came to sex, Ryland Grace was always the one who wasn't as well adjusted. Always making things difficult. Always playing catch-up.
Grace hid his face behind his hands. Every struggled inhale and exhale left his hands damp and made him want to scream from the sensory hell. He kept his face covered anyway.
He could still smell wet grass. He was shivering from a cold front he'd long since left behind. He knew the dirt he felt on his face wasn't real and he wanted to scrub it off anyway.
It was going so well.
Simon, oh Simon- always so patient with Grace, waited for gasping breaths to settle back to something resembling an average baseline, extending the luxury of kindness he was never afforded or taught.
It was a herculean task, removing his hands from his face, but Grace managed.
"What was that?"
Simon deserved an actual answer. But how does someone accurately articulate the complex experience of wanting something… or wanting to want something, and knowing that you want to want that something so badly, and despite it all, having a brain opposed to letting you have it? Grace wasn't sure if he could stomach that conversation or the fall out that was sure to follow.
Simon deserved someone less selfish. Someone who could give, not just take and take.
Ryland Grace always felt like he moved too fast. He once was accused of having no brain-to-mouth filter. He was self-conscious about that for years, would hear it repeated again and again every time he caught himself rambling. He wanted to say it wasn't his fault, his mind wouldn't slow down long enough for his mouth to get the memo.
"Would you believe me if I told you that is just how I sound during sex?"
Nice one, Grace.
Simon didn't laugh. Grace couldn't blame him. He knew it wasn't funny.
"If whimpering 'I can't do it' is how you normally sound during sex, that's still pretty fucked up."
Jeez. Grace winced. Okay, really not funny.
"Grace…" Simon whispered his name. There was a silent question tacked onto the end of it, quiet enough that it could have easily gotten lost in the sound of artificial waves crashing outside their window.
Ryland Grace was a teacher. He loved answering questions- truly believed there was no such thing as a bad question. He just hated when those questions were about himself. But, this was a question that he knew had to be answered.
He was so tired, and his brain was moving so fast.
The dam broke.
Grace always left out parts about Project Hail Mary. It was easy to say he didn't volunteer to go- it was much, much harder to dredge up the memory of being tackled to the ground and having a needle jabbed into his neck. It's one thing to admit to being selfish in the face of disaster. It's another to admit that he was a coward who tried to run.
Halfway through the thought, he laughed. A broken, cold, self-loathing squeeze of lungs.
Ryland Grace always felt like he moved too fast- but the one time he actually needed to run, he couldn't move fast enough.
He wasn't even strictly talking about the Hail Mary anymore. Because wasn't that exactly what he was doing now, too? Always moving too fast, right up until he needed to- it didn't matter that he did everything right. He could isolate the issue, come up with a plan of action. Double check his findings, and gain new insight, all while having the best lab partner this side of the Milky Way. But the moment he needed to act on it all, he found himself stuck. Like he said before- fiddly.
Silence filled the space after Grace finished recounting his last pathetic memories of what once was his home, and his even more pathetic sexual hang-ups.
He risked a glance up at Simon. Dark eyes framed by dark waves, haloed in artificial moonlight. A blank stare that made Grace collapse in on himself. He braced himself for the gut punch of rejection that seemed to always follow these sorts of conversations.
It never came. Simon reached out with a trembling hand, a hand that had known such violence but now cradled Grace like something fragile. Grace let himself be dragged into Simon's chest, pinned but not retrained, his cheek pressed against warm skin instead of grass and dirt and the ache of wanting to want but having a flight reflex trained to bolt instead.
He tried not to choke on guilt as Simon held him close and began the intricate ritual of cracking oneself open and pouring it out in the hope it might make someone else feel safe.
Ryland Grace always felt like he either moved too fast or was falling painfully behind.
But, Simon thought that was fucking bullshit.
Simon told him just that. Repeatedly. On multiple occasions, whenever Grace needed to hear it and sometimes when he didn't.
Between gasping breaths and cut-off whimpers, Simon whispered it in his ear.
With his knee bent over Simon's shoulder, his arms twisted around Simon's neck, fingers laced in wavy dark hair as he plummeted, falling falling falling, drowning in a release he hadn't thought possible, Simon pressed the words against the curve of his calf.
It was muttered in the language of unhurried fingers, of the slide of languid mouths, of Simon's hips flush with his after wanting and waiting and waiting to want for so long. Spoken with words, patient and caring, that spilled forth from lips in the shape of promises and prayer.
Sighed into sleep warm skin, hands brushing while making breakfast, a crooked smile that seemed genuine and real and as unconditional as a person could try to be.
A language that for all of Grace's life, he was sure that no one would want to translate, let alone understand.
It was sentiment made manifest, an act in proving again and again that Ryland Grace did not move too fast or too slow. He wasn't living his life plowing forward or playing catch-up. It was spelled out clearly for him every day.
Because now Simon was there beside him, and was more than happy to keep pace.