Chapter Text
Ryland hiked up the hill, silently bemoaning the way his old knees clicked. Not that he was that old, but Erid’s gravity had really done a number on them.
Speaking of, Rocky had some great designs earlier for an improvement on the biodome that would maybe lessen the effects of gravity on them. It did involve the biodome being attached to the space elevator, so that was a concern, but really, the blueprints he sent were genius. He needed to pester Simon about looking through those actually.
Despite his partner’s reluctance to actually be called an engineer, he had a way about machinery that Ryland had never quite gotten the hang of. Paradoxically, the biological just made more sense to him.
He didn’t realize how in his own head he was until he glanced up from his walk to see Simon, kneeling down on the cliffside.
Ryland smiled, taking a moment to catch his breath before walking up a little closer. He had no doubts that the man had heard him the second that he crested the peak of their little trail they took every morning, but he stayed stock still, looking out to the glowing yellows and pinks of the artificial sunrise.
His hair was done up in a half-up ponytail, prosthetic arm gently carding through the clover they had managed to grow. Simon’s skin glowed in the first rays of light, eyes closed into the breeze.
He had never looked more beautiful.
Ryland felt his heart predictably squeeze in his chest as he settled in next to his partner, sighing and leaning his head on Simon’s shoulder.
“You’re up early,” He murmured through a yawn, twisting his head to not-so-subtly rub an eye against the other man’s shirt.
Simon gave a quiet huff of laughter.
“Yeah, couldn’t sleep again.” He turned his head to press a soft kiss into Ryland’s bedhead.
He hummed, wrapping an arm through one of Simon’s.
They sat there for a moment, watching until the sun came up fully over the digital horizon.
It lasted longer than a normal sunrise would, same with the sunsets. Rocky had caught onto Ryland’s love of them, and despite offering to make a perpetual sunrise or sunset, had settled for just lengthening the time he got to enjoy them.
Finally, Simon shifted under him, and Ryland took his head up, worried that he had leaned too hard on his collarbone or something, before catching Simon’s equally restless expression.
Simon had been…jittery, over the last couple of weeks. Ryland had yet to figure out why, figuring that the other man would come to him when he was ready. He always did. In the meantime, Ryland was quick to offer his support.
It seemed like now was the time, as Simon opened his mouth.
“I, uh.” He started, then stopped, then wrinkled his nose. Ryland waited patiently with a smile on his lips. Adorable. “You know I’ve never been good at this kind of thing.” He started, offering his hand to Ryland and turning fully to face him.
Ryland knit his eyebrows together. “What sort of thing?”
“Just the whole…romance thing. I guess.” Simon said again, ducking his head out of instinct before seemingly catching himself and looking back up at Ryland.
“I would beg to differ.” He said, squeezing the offered palm tightly, only mildly embarrassed at how defensive that sounded. Listen, he didn’t like it when anyone badmouthed Simon, Simon included.
“Wait, wait,” Simon smiled, cutting off a likely extremely sappy tangent before it could get started. “Just… let me get this out, yeah?”
Ryland’s jaw clicked shut from where it was about to start flapping. He nodded for the other man to continue.
“I’ve never been great at romance,” He started again, and Ryland narrowed his eyes, still not loving the slight degradation he heard there, but keeping his word. “You were really the first person I ever did this with.” He gestured back and forth between them. “And uh, I know that I’ve definitely screwed up along the way, hell, it’s pretty much impossible not to screw up when your entire basis for what healthy relationships looks like is a cult and movies.”
He sighed, running his prosthetic hand through his hair like he did when he was nervous, pulling a few strands loose from the bun. Their new design was working like a charm, and he was pretty sure that they could get one with some sensation up and running soon even. Ryland leaned forward to tuck them carefully behind his ear, delighting in the blush he saw bloom up his partner’s neck even after all these years.
“You’re a good person,” he whispered, the need to say something fighting out of him. “That did most of the heavy lifting.”
“Sure,” Simon snorted, ducking away from his hand, and Ryland drew it back with a pout. “You are far too distracting, just let me get this out, damn it.”
Ryland felt a ball of butterflies erupt in his chest.
“I know this is dumb,” his partner continued, “because we’re the only people around and everything, and it's not really… well shit. Fuck. I had a whole speech planned and everything.” Simon shook his head, and Ryland had to bite really hard on his cheek not to laugh. A speech? Why in the world would Simon have a spee– holy shit that was a ring in his hand.
Everything in his brain swerved and crashed as his eyes zeroed in on the small piece of gold in the other man’s hand. He should have brought his glasses up, oh no, what if there was an engraving in there that he couldn’t read? Oh no Simon was saying things.
“-u’ve been my constant, my saving Grace, my hope, my will to do better.” Simon’s eyes were filled with tears, and Ryland felt like he was right behind him, only able to tear his eyes up to the other man’s for just a moment before the pull of the ring in front of him led them back down. “I’ve cherished that for every second I’ve had it, but I want you forever. In this life and whatever comes next, I want you to be mine.” He finished, voice wobbling and unsteady.
Ryland felt like a single raw, exposed nerve ending. The well of emotions that crashed over him in waves were nearly painful. With shaking, hesitant fingers, he reached out for the ring in Simon’s hand.
He brushed it gently, cool and small in his hands, and picked it up. Tears were streaming down his face freely at this point, and he tried to blink them away to no avail.
“Shit I shoulda thought about your glasses-” Simon started, leaning forward to point at the inside of the ring. Of course there was an engraving. He squinted and held it further away from his face to try and bring it into focus. The tears weren’t helping.
Simon laughed then, a full, beautiful thing that started as a shaking in his shoulders and travelled down to his belly, making him curl forward with the force of it. Ryland couldn’t help but join in, smacking his head into his hand and resting it on his knees, letting some of the emotion bleed out with the chuckles.
“It- hah,” Simon tried, biting his lips to try and keep the giggles down in vain. “It says My Angel on the inside.”
Any other laughs that the man had were promptly smothered out by the crushing kiss that Ryland surged in for.
With an unusual amount of deftness, Ryland slid the ring onto the correct finger, a surge of fresh tears clouding his eyes as he felt the cool, foreign weight resting there.
Simon was right, the traditions of a planet they would never return to meant nothing here. But still, he couldn’t help but feel like this was it, part of their souls entwining irrevocably.
He couldn’t be happier as he licked into his partner’s –fiancé’s?– mouth, crawling forward to straddle his knees, determined to pour every ounce of love and affection he had for the other man into it. Determined to say yes in every way he knew how.
They didn’t move until the artificial sun was high in the sky.
~~~
Simon stared incredulously at the small sapling sitting in front of him.
Despite the overwhelming odds, the seed that Colt had given them was viable. A small oak tree sat in front of him, its first unfurling leaves tentatively reaching out toward the carefully calibrated grow lights in the greenhouse.
Based off of the shape of it and Colt’s description of the tree he had picked it up from, this would grow into a southern live oak. Tall, majestic… if cared for properly, it would even outlive Rocky.
This one small piece of Earth, so fragile, so resilient, spreading its roots into a close approximation of its home soil.
Simon breathed out gently, feeling like he could see the carbon dioxide he expelled getting snapped up by the plant, even though that would be ridiculous. He reached out a tentative finger, and traced along the underside of the leaf’s vein, not wanting to shade it for even a moment.
Ryland would want to hear about this, of course. They had planted this last season, and there was honestly little hope of it actually sprouting, much less making it so far along. His spouse would love to take as many measurements as humanly possible as Simon flitted nervously around him, begging him to be careful.
According to his research, it would be about twenty years until they got acorns from this, so they would need to be achingly careful with the only specimen they had.
Fuck, twenty years…Ryland would be in his mid sixties then.
Simon had a sudden flash of them, gray hair and deep wrinkles, sitting quietly under the oak tree as Rocky pioneered a pollination operation. He smiled, drinking in the sight of the small plant in front of him that would outlive every human on this planet, and slowly got to his feet. He took a glance at the small, intricate watch Ryland had gotten him for “christmas” a few weeks ago, and his smile only grew. Perfect timing.
He was glad this greenhouse actually had some room. They had moved the temporary garden from just behind the house to a full xenonite enclosure up the shore in between the house and Ryland’s classroom.
He glanced up to the stairs of the house out of habit as he pushes open the door, surprised to see a shock of blonde hair glinting in the sunlight as the other man stepped onto the pebble beach at the same time. Punctual as always.
They met in the middle, as they did most days, and stalled there, standing side by side and facing the ocean.
“Ry’s gonna lose his shit,” Simon started off without preamble, peering out over the fog Adrian had recently perfected. They were mandated to have at least one single sunny day per week, so they could get an ‘adequate amount of vitamin D’ or whatever, but Simon really did see Ryland’s love for the fog.
“Oh yeah?” Colt raised his eyebrow, taking a sparing glance back at the greenhouse. “Good or bad?”
“Good,” Simon nodded, “really good. The Tree put out leaves.”
Simon wondered if anyone could hear the implicit capitalization he gave to the Tree. They probably caught on that he was especially protective about this one plant over all the others, but that could be a lot of things, really.
Even he was having trouble coming to terms with the odd reverent feelings he had toward the plant. It wasn’t a deity or anything, he knew that, he didn’t worship it like he used to back in Eden.
“Guess this’ll be the First Tree, huh.” Colt hummed, looking over to Simon with a small smile. “First one on Erid here anyways. Yeah, Ry’s gonna lose his fucking mind.”
The First Tree. Like a new beginning, like hope and rebirth and living by the skin of your teeth. Like reaching toward a sun that wasn’t yours but that fed you anyways.
He liked it.
“Always keeping us waiting,” he groused instead, shoving the tide feelings aside for when he could unpack them later.
As if on queue, Ryland came out of his classroom, bringing up a hand to wave at them before promptly tripping on nothing and stumbling slightly. Simon sighed, starting to walk forward and grumbling something about not being able to trust him with even walking.
“Hey, you married him,“ Colt said, a bright smile on his face that Simon couldn’t help but mirror.
“Yeah… I did.”
The thought stuck with him throughout the week. The First Tree. As its leaves unfolded and Ryland predictably lost his goddamn mind over getting readings of legitimately everything he could without actually harming the plant, Simon found himself growing ever more protective of the little sapling.
It made sense, he told himself sternly as he carefully measured out water, he had a bit of a complicated history surrounding trees.
But it wasn’t just that, was it?
He felt almost… fuck. He was one-hundred percent assigning a religious role to a plant again, wasn’t he.
Simon clenched his teeth as he shut off the water.
He didn’t know this would be such a bad habit to break. Hell, he didn’t even know it was an instinct he had until just now. He wasn’t even one of the people that took care of the Last Tree, for fucks sake!
But he had wanted to be. He hadn’t bought into everything that the Father had spouted, sure, but there had definitely been some deeper-than-normal feelings for the Tree.
And here was another one, in an impossible situation, trusting him to keep it alive.
It made sense, he had to remind himself.
And yet… it still made his stomach twist uncertainly.
When he turned back to the sapling, it was with a touch of apprehension along with the intense need to provide. He watered it slowly, making sure that it saturated the soil well, and then made a quick exit, up to the house where he knew that Ryland and Rocky were playing chess.
It was one of Ryland’s days off, thankfully. As much as he didn’t want to interrupt their friend time he… he really didn’t want to be alone right now.
Something was knotting up inside of him the longer he sat with the realization. He had done it again, fuck he thought all of this was behind him.
The door banged open a little louder than he meant it to, and he winced at the startled jump it elicited from his husband.
“...Sorry.” He offered, looking to the chessboard Rocky and Ryland had between them. Ryland was losing badly, as per usual.
“It’s alright!” Grace assured, cocking his head when he processed Simon’s expression. “Is everything okay?”
“I think I’m developing feelings for the Tree.” He said, a little lost, then shook his head. “Fuck, wait that came out wrong. I’m starting to look at it… uh… religiously? I think?”
Ryland blinked, eyes sliding to Rocky and then back to his. The Eridian raised his carapace in what was their best approximation of a shrug. Great. He still wasn’t making any sense.
“...Okayyy, come here, sit down.” Ryland gestured to the other chair at the breakfast nook Rocky clearly wasn’t using, and winced at the mess of papers that had accumulated on it. Simon started forward as Ryland cleared things off, sitting down somewhat stiffly between his husband and Rocky.
Things went quiet for a moment as Ryland turned his attention back to the board. Some music hummed softly in the background. Quiet enough that Simon hadn’t even noticed until now, probably for Rocky’s benefit more than anything. He shifted.
“So, you’ve told us the things that you did for the Last Tree,” Ryland started as he darted his hand forward, moving his pawn up, offering Rocky a pawn trade. It was a shit trade for Ryland, but Simon had been told off many times for his ‘back seat chess playing’, so he kept his mouth shut.
Simon nodded instead. The trip to Erid had been long, and Ryland had learned pretty much every nook and cranny of his psyche in that time and vice versa.
“Have you… thought about doing something similar for our little guy?” Ryland asked, tone painfully neutral as Rocky started the trade, taking the pawn he just moved. Ryland took that pawn with his knight, which Rocky quickly took with his bishop. Bad trade.
Ryland clearly hadn’t seen that bishop backing up his pawn, and pressed his lips into a thin line.
Simon shook his head vehemently.
“No, no not at all, I just noticed.” He flailed for words, aware that he was waving his arms around like a maniac. God, but this newest prosthetic they made was fucking nice, it was so close to moving like a normal arm that he forgot to take it off to sleep sometimes.
“I noticed when I was watering it the other day that I started thinking about it in capitalizations? And Colt called it The First Tree, and I think that just kinda stuck in my head, you know? And I’ve put this kinda reverence on it? And I just…” He blew out a breath, aware that he hadn’t breathed in far too long. The words that he had been limping along scattered at the interruption. “I don’t know.” He finished lamely.
“Simon think the tree is a [music notes]?” Rocky asked, they hadn’t needed to use the clunky translator in a while, and Simon inferred the last one meant God, or something like that. He would look it up later.
“Ugh, no, not…not logically, anyways. But I guess I’m just scared I’m gonna fall back into… worshiping…it?” He cringed, fighting the urge to hide the words away, but Ryland needed to know. Needed to look out for what signs he might give. Maybe he wasn’t as over all of this as he thought he was.
Ryland sighed heavily down at the chess board, seeming to come to the realization that he had lost about seven moves ago.
“Well,” he started, still stubbornly shuffling a –seemingly random piece– forward on the board.
“That is not how the knight moves, Grace.” Rocky said, stamping his feet in obviously overplayed frustration.
“Let me have this.” Ryland said with a grin, turning his attention back to Simon and letting Rocky fume over the now messed-up chess board.
“So,” he continued, “I’ll be honest Simon, I guess I’m not seeing much of an issue. Obviously it’s fine to take those feelings with a little bit of apprehension, but what is it you’re worried about happening?”
“Just…I think I’m done having some third party have total control over my life. I don’t want to get sucked into that again.” he said, hands coming to knot themselves together in his lap.
“Eden was bad, can new tree religion be better?” Rocky said, finally choosing to move his queen out of harms way of Ryland’s knight.
Simon shook his head. “No! No, it’s not… ugh. It’s not a religion.”
“Well, what are you wanting to do that’s got you so upset then?”
“I want to…oh this is so dumb. I know this is dumb, it’s just a Tree.” He spat out, “but I want to do some of the…relationship ritestheydid.” He trails off into a mumble, shame burning on his cheeks.
He couldn’t bring himself to look at his husband, aware of how weird that probably sounded. They were married for fuck’s sake, why wasn’t that enough for him? The second there’s a tree in grabbing distance and suddenly he’s wanting to cut their palms the Eden way.
“I didn’t grow up religious,” Ryland murmured, going back to staring at the chess board. “But my parents did. My mom in particular, she didn’t really go to church by the time I could remember, but she took comfort in some of the rituals still.”
He looked him in the eyes then, blue piercing straight to his soul over the rim of his hopelessly bent glasses. They would need to fabricate another pair soon.
“You got married my way, I would love to get married yours.” His husband whispered softly.
And Simon fell in love with him all over again.
~~~
Colt tapped lightly on the adjoining doorway, not really sure what the expectation was here. It was close enough to a shared living space that he felt the need to knock, but separated enough that it felt weird just walking in there unannounced. There was some shuffling from the other side of the door before it swung open to reveal Simon on the other side, smiling at him pleasantly.
“Hey, you know you don’t have to knock right?” The shorter man stood to the side and nodded for him to come in.
He hoisted the small housewarming gift he had made up, a small xenonite globe of Erid he had finished just that morning. It wasn’t the best in his opinion, but it was recognizable.
“I brought this,” he said, pushing as much bravado as he could into his voice. “To celebrate the house getting finished.”
Simon’s eyebrows shot up as he reached forward for it, taking the orb carefully in hand and twisting it about with a small grin.
“Ry’s gonna love this,” He said quietly, nodding his thanks.
He was led further into the house, and he glanced around, the first time he had seen it without supporting xenonite structures as it was built or the clutter of renovation around the place. Once Colt had decided to ‘move out’ aka move slightly down the hall from them, they had decided to go all out with redesigning the space to fit more what they wanted.
Now the dining room, kitchen, and living room were all significantly bigger. Places to host them all. For their odd little family to get together for game nights and movies.
“Looks great!” He said truthfully, looking through all the little trinkets that Ryland’s students had made him tucked into the window sill. A few of the more particular plants were set up near the window as well, presumably so that Simon could keep a closer eye on them.
“Yeah, Rocky did a good job.” Simon said fondly, turning into the kitchen to stir a pot of something that smelled absolutely divine. The Eridians had just figured out table salt and msg, and man did he forget how nice salt was on almost everything.
Where Ryland had a sweet tooth, his seemed to lean salty. Hopefully sugar was next on the fabrication list, because even he was starting to miss a sweet treat every now and again.
“Oh my god what is that?” Colt groaned, nearly lifted off his feet and over to see what was making that mouthwatering smell. A visual didn’t give him much other information, other than that it was a reddish brown.
“Chili,” Simon smiled, and Colt swore he felt a swoon coming on.
The months since they had landed had been…nice. Hesitatingly so. Colt was figuring out his place here on Erid, despite not being an engineer or a scientist, he was good at what he did on Earth because he was a bit of a jack-of-all-trades. Simon had seemingly taken on a full-time role as botanist anyways, so Colt was happy to pick up the slack in the engineering department. Rocky couldn’t have been happier about that interest.
Though he had a suspicion Rocky was just glad to have someone who wanted to learn xenonite fabrication and had five fingers.
Slowly, the rest of them filtered in. Ryland stumbled out of the bedroom with sleep lines on his face, mumbling about taking a nap that went on too long before attaching to Simon’s hip like a leech. Colt rolled his eyes and went about setting up the table.
Soon enough, the telltale sound of Rocky nearly breaking down the door rattled through the house, and Colt let them in with a smile.
They ate, Colt may have cried over chili, it was spicy from the peppers and salty, and quite possibly the best thing he’s ever put in his mouth.
After, when they were sitting on the couch, introducing Adrian to Top Gun, it really finally hit him.
Ryland was tucked against his side, Simon laying against Adrian with a leg slung over the two of them, Rocky nestled between Ryland and Colt’s knees, and suddenly a wave of overwhelming affection threatened to swallow him whole.
The ghost of the Hail Mary up in orbit, a decision he could hardly stand to think about, finally faded away. A purpose? He could find that, he would pry one out from the xenonite floorboards if he had to. He was never finding this sense of total belonging anywhere else.
He had a home here, his family here. Why would he give that up on a gamble that Earth might still be up on their own two feet? Jody deserved her peace. He had haunted her long enough. And… he deserved his peace too.
Colt squeezed onto Ryland’s arm, warm and solid underneath him. They were on this ride together.
And he was just starting to accept that maybe that was okay.