Work Text:
You are contemplating whether death by a thousand paper cuts is actually possible when there’s a quick tap-tap-tap on the door to your trailer, followed by it swinging open immediately.
“You know, coming in without waiting for a response sort of defeats the whole purpose of knocking,” you say to the floor, because you are currently resting your forehead on the edge your desk, wondering how much trouble you would be in with Eva if you simply set all of these papers on fire.
Ryland simply plops down in the chair across from you, then abruptly stands again before dragging it next to you and then sitting down again. “You haven’t been leaving it open.”
“Yeah. That would be due to the fact that we are in the middle of Kazakhstan. In October.” This is only part of the reason. Really, this is just another way that the two of you get to mess with each other. You leave the door closed. He knocks and comes in without waiting for an answer. Every time, he drags the chair around your desk, because you put it back each time he leaves. It is, possibly, one of the most romantic things that you have ever experienced, which you think you should probably find a little strange, but you do not.
He doesn’t say anything in response, simply propping his feet up on the desk and producing his own stack of paperwork to fill out. This makes you start thudding your head against the metal edge instead. “You’ll give yourself brain damage,” he remarks idly.
“I hope so.”
You are so bored. Paperwork sucks. The project was almost over. There were no more creative problems to solve, no one for Eva to sic you on; there was nothing but the never-ending mountains of documents and the restless energy as the launch slowly approached.
This continues for a little while, until you slowly raise your head and open one of the desk drawers. “I got you something.”
“Hm?” He does not look up from the form that he is filling out. You cannot tell if this is an interrogation tactic. Ever since karaoke, it has become increasingly difficult to discern this, which is simultaneously extremely troubling and deeply, deeply thrilling.
You throw a Twinkie at him. “Here.”
It hits him squarely on the nose, skewing his glasses and making him jump in surprise. Any annoyance he might feel is quickly forgotten when he sees the wrapped junk food and gasps. “They still make these?”
“Uh, yeah?” You watch as he tears into the package and immediately starts stuffing the Twinkie into his mouth. “I think that whole thing about them being discontinued wasn’t real. And also, even if it was, that would not stop me.”
“Oh, I know,” Ryland says, but he is also still cramming the entire thing into his mouth, so it comes out completely garbled. A drop of cream falls onto the form he was just marking up.
An idea strikes you, then, like lightning, and suddenly you know how to solve your boredom crisis. A slow smile creeps onto your face. “Hm. I should have known you liked cream filling.”
This makes him pause, mouth still full, and then he turns his head slowly to look at you. After a few blinks, he swallows. “Everyone likes cream filling.”
“Yes, but some people really like it. Are you one of those people, Dr. Grace?”
You see his fingers twitch. Something curls in your gut, something like anticipation and desire and excitement all intertwined into one. “Depends on the type of cream,” he finally says, and he brings one of his fingers to his mouth to lick off the filling.
Oh, this is going to be so much fun, you think.
--
There is now a secret document on your computer with the name “ENDURANCE TRAINING.” It is fairly well hidden, but the title gives an extra layer of security, as if it were a file about the crews’ preparation for space travel. It is a clever double entendre, and you are very proud of yourself.
You are less proud that it is taking you so long to jot down your ideas. On top of the fact that Ryland is almost always in your trailer and vice versa, you are quickly realizing that this will need to be carefully planned in order for it to be fun. This is not about getting the results quickly and efficiently, as your strategies are normally oriented towards; this was about the process, the thrill, how long you could keep it going for. You cannot default to cliche tactics, like short skirts and suggestive poses (though these will be mixed in; they’re cliches for a reason), because they are too obvious.
It is also not about how long you can keep him unaware of what you’re doing. He’s too smart for that, but beyond this, it will be that much more fun if he does know what is going on, because then the game will be about seeing how long you can keep him interested in playing before he cracks.
It takes multiple days of planning until you are ready to set it all in motion. Technically, it started with the Twinkies—and is still happening, because now he has added digging through your desk and grabbing one to the little routine the two of you have going—but that was merely the foreplay to the real foreplay.
The first tactic is innocent. The two of you are brushing your teeth together, and you are very purposefully in nothing but a sports bra and short pajama shorts. This is the more obvious ploy, but it is, ultimately, a misdirect. The real move comes when you let a little bit of toothpaste drip onto your midsection. This is something that you have been practicing to get just right, and you are overjoyed when you look in the mirror and see that it has traced a line just above your navel. (This is a very normal thing for a well-adjusted human being to practice.)
“Oops,” you say around your toothbrush. He looks at you in the mirror and then drops his eyes down to your stomach. You tighten the muscles in your core, slightly, so the dribble of toothpaste undulates and slides down a little further. He watches this and then turns to actually face you, as if seeing the reflection of this happening was not enough.
Next step: you take the toothbrush out of your mouth with one hand, and with the other you slowly gather the minty saliva on your fingers, purposefully looking down the entire time, though you do not need to glance up to know that he is watching intently. Then, you lick the paste off of your fingers and smile, letting a tiny bit leak out of the corner of your mouth.
The wide-eyed stare that gives way to careful consideration is enough to make your thighs squeeze together, just slightly. He sees this, too, which is good, because you wanted him to see it. “Don’t want to let it go to waste,” you offer as an explanation. “It’s hard to get toothpaste out here.” It does not sound entirely suave, because your mouth is still kind of full, but really, this just adds to the effect.
“It is really not. We’re in Kazakhstan, not on the moon.”
You simply shrug and finish brushing your teeth, slowly spitting it out into the sink when you’re done. “Waste not, want not.”
His fingers fidget around the handle of his toothbrush as he turns over what has just happened. You watch him while he does this, because it is simply exhilarating to see him work through something in real time. “Sure,” Ryland finally says, and you can almost imagine the texture of the word in his mouth, the careful edges of it, the way it signals that he is deciding to wait and see your next move before he settles on how to respond.
--
You take him in your mouth, later, while he sits at his desk—the plan was never to stop sex entirely, you’re not a masochist—but instead of swallowing, you stand and kiss him, letting it drip into his mouth. The groan he chokes out and the way his hands squeeze your sides simply proves to you that this is all going to be a very, very good way to pass the time until launch.
--
“Someone asked me about trivia the other day.”
“Really?” You take a sip of your coffee, gazing at the launch tower in the distance. Construction was going smoothly, though it meant that the paperwork was still steadily growing. It is no longer a chore, because it is another excuse for the two of you to spend time together, more opportunities to advance your so-called endurance training. Yesterday, you had one of the Twinkies yourself, and the way you had eaten it could probably be classified as pornographic. “What did they say?”
He shrugs. “They wanted to know if there would be another event. No clue why they thought I was the person to ask.”
“You did win every single time you showed up,” you point out with an impish smile.
“I had a bit of a thing going on at the time.”
Ryland looks at you, then, and grins. It does not have the slightly maniacal tinge that yours has, but there’s a gleam to his eyes. “If I did, you know,” you say airily, “hold another trivia night. Would there be a certain Dr. Ryland Grace in attendance? Back to defend his title?”
He hums noncommittally and lifts his coffee cup to his mouth. “Not sure. He’s a pretty busy guy, from what I hear.”
“Of course. Paperwork.”
“And science,” he adds. “Lots of very important science. And such.”
“And such.”
The ‘and such’ does not need to be explained.
--
The two of you spend three hours putting together categories and their respective questions. This, unfortunately, disqualifies him from playing, but you now have the leverage to force him to help run the event. You even have him start making the flyer, but when you see he has put everything in the Papyrus font, you take that over immediately. As much as you enjoy messing with him, you will not have your graphic designs skills slandered by proxy.
Instead of just tilting the monitor and sliding the keyboard and mouse over, you sit on his lap to fix the visual monstrosity he has created. “What’s, uh, what are you doing?” He asks, moving his hands to rest on the top of your thighs.
“Taking over. You are not very good at this.”
“I think it looks great. Amazing, even. My students always loved my slideshows for class.”
“Your students were either blind or lying to you.”
Ryland shifts underneath you. “This is slander. Or defamation. I can’t remember which is which. And your chair wasn’t good enough?”
You smile and adjust your own position. “Nope.”
It’s quiet for a few minutes while you change the font to something less garish and adjust some of the visual elements. Then, finally, he repeats, “What are you doing.”
Your hands still on the keyboard. “Um, are you an amnesiac all of the sudden? I already said, I’m fixing the flyer.” You gesture toward the screen for emphasis. “It looks much better now.”
“No,” he murmurs, grasping your thighs, “that’s not what I was asking about. What are you doing?”
You blink. This is new. Normally, one of you will obliquely acknowledge that the other is up to something, but not typically in the form of a question, and never so blatantly. He squeezes again, urging you to answer. “I’m…sitting on your lap?”
He nods and presses a kiss to your shoulder blade. “Thank you.” He reaches forward, then, and opens one of the drawers before pulling out a blue permanent marker. You watch as he uncaps it and wraps his arms around you to gently hold your forearm before writing ‘GREAT WORK! :)’ on your skin.
This is. You don’t know what this is, you think, staring at the blue letters. This thought is deeply unsettling to you, because you are not accustomed to not understanding what someone is doing and why they have done it. “…Thanks?” You finally say, weakly.
“Mm-hm. Are you finished with the flyer?”
The flyer is not even on your mind at this point. You are still looking at your arm. “Am I—yeah, sure, it’s fine.” Alarm bells are going off at this point. You take your flyers very seriously.
You think about it for the rest of the day, glancing at the lettering approximately every ten seconds. This is some kind of tactic, obviously, but you don’t know what the goal is. You stare at the blue ink so often that you start to see ‘GREAT WORK :)’ when you close your eyes.
He doesn’t write anything else on you when you’re together that night, but you can tell that he is noting every single time that you look at it.
--
Trivia is, of course, a massive success.
There are less people than there were on the carrier, but that has nothing to do with your marketing and charisma; there are simply fewer people that stayed on at Baikonur. The questions are going over really well, too. You find yourself thinking how much better the trivia nights on the ship would have been if Ryland had been helping you. But that might have changed the results, and those results have been so enjoyable that you shake the thought away.
Someone at one of the tables raises their hand. Ryland goes to stand, but you put a hand on his arm. “I’ve got it,” you smile. He sits back down while you rise out of your chair, walking over to the table and adjusting your shirt. This is one of the cliches, but you are still a little rattled by the permanent marker event, so this is all you could come up with for tonight.
When you walk around the table to look at the team’s answer sheet, you very deliberately place yourself where Ryland can see you and then lean down with your hand braced against the table. You do not look up, but you know that he is staring at your cleavage, because he likes to look at things very, very thoroughly. He calls this ‘rigorous peer review.’
He’s reading through the answer key when you return. His cheeks are a delightful shade of pink. “What did they need?”
“Oh, they just wanted to make sure we could tell what they wrote. They weren’t sure about the spelling.”
“I see. And what was the little move where you leaned over and almost flashed me?”
You whip your head towards him. He is still looking down at the paper in his hands, and his face is still flushed, but he is otherwise entirely stoic. “Sorry, what?”
Ryland repeats himself, slowly, and doesn’t look up until he’s finished speaking. Then he stares at you, expectantly, peering over the lenses of his glasses and raising an eyebrow. “Did you catch it that time?”
“Yep, yes, I got it.” You fidget a little. What is happening right now? “I was, well—I was just looking at their answer sheet.” This is a test. You want to see what he’ll do when you give him the wrong answer.
All he does is nod and take a red permanent marker out of his jacket pocket. You didn’t even know it was there. He slides your sleeve up, the one on the arm that does not bear ‘GREAT WORK! :)’ in slightly fading letters, and then writes, ‘NEEDS IMPROVEMENT.’
He looks at it for a little longer and then adds a frowny face.
--
Your plan is unraveling faster than you can put it together.
You put on a very explicit movie. For a while, you enjoy watching him fidget, but then he asks if that is something you would like to try, gesturing at the TV. You say no. The red marker is back. This time he writes ‘LACKS CLARITY’ on your leg.
He asks if you’re going to get any more Twinkies, because your stash has just run out. You reply that you’re not sure, that it really depends on how necessary it is to have something cream-filled. He shrugs and says whatever you can get is fine, he just has a bit of a sweet tooth. Are you sure, you ask, because you would really like him to enjoy something with filling, because like he said, everyone enjoys cream filling. Ryland just looks at you and conjures a pink permanent marker before writing ‘CLOSE ENOUGH’ on the back of your hand.
One night, your back is pressed against his bed, his head between your thighs, and he makes you say exactly what it is you would like him to do three times before he makes you come. Then he pulls a purple marker out of his nightstand—where is he getting all of these—and scrawls ‘AMAZING JOB’ on your stomach, complete with a little star.
You are in hell.
--
There is more paperwork. There is always more paperwork. Ryland’s desk is covered in it, and you stare at the numerous piles of documents from where you sit across from him. There is a gold permanent marker laying in the center of it all. This is a new color. He has not used gold yet, and you would know, because your body is basically a testament to every other color under the sun at this point.
You have been rubbing his leg with your foot for the past fifteen minutes or so, because that was the whole point of sitting on this side of the desk, and he is still just filling out all of this fucking paperwork.
You have had enough.
“Fine. Fine. I will bite. What is going on with the markers and the asking and the ignoring? Why isn’t what I’m doing working? Is it not good? Am I bad at it now? Am I bad at the only thing I have ever been good at?”
Ryland looks up at you and blinks. Fair enough, you think, that sort of went off the rails a bit there at the end, but you have been getting increasingly frustrated, and you don’t know why he suddenly doesn’t want to play this game with you anymore, because you thought that was the whole reason he liked you in the first place. (This is the first time you are admitting this to yourself.)
He sets his pen down and says your name quietly. “You are not bad at it.”
A frustrated noise comes unbidden from the back of your throat. “Then why isn’t it working?”
“You mean—why haven’t we, well, had sex without a condom yet?”
“Yes!” You put your face in your hands, because you are really hating having to come out and admit that that was the whole point of everything, and also because it is a little embarrassing to hear him word it like that. You wonder, distantly, if this is some product of being forced to teach sex ed at some point. “I had a whole plan and everything.”
“I did figure that part out.”
“Then—then—why?”
He sighs a little. “Have you, possibly, considered the fact that it is slightly insane for you to ask me to do that in the way that you have been?”
You raise your head at that. His glasses are now hanging below his chin, providing you with an unimpaired view of his eyes and the look he’s currently giving you. “No?” You offer in a small voice. Ryland raises his eyebrows. “Okay, I mean, I guess, but I just—I thought you would find it fun. I thought…well, I thought it was the whole reason you liked me.” (It feels even worse to say it out loud.)
He looks positively dumbfounded. There is a very small part of you that stirs approvingly. Maybe you are insane. “You thought. That the only reason I like you. Is because you are frighteningly good at manipulating people.”
Well, alright, you think, when it’s put that way, it does sound a little weird. “It’s. Possible.”
It’s quiet for a few moments while he considers this. He looks at you for so long that you are starting to squirm. You do not like being on the receiving end of all of this. It’s the worst. It is why you always ensure that you are the one dishing it out.
Finally, he simply says your name again, slowly, gently. “I cannot believe I am having to say this right now. That is not the reason that I like you.”
“Then why?” You ask, because now you are incredibly confused, because you thought you had this whole thing figured out already, and now it is becoming apparent that you do not.
“Why do I—are you actually asking? This isn’t a game?” This is, somehow, the most upsetting thing he could have said, and Ryland reads this in your face immediately. “Sorry, sorry, I realize that was not the best way to word that. I like you for so many reasons that it is, honestly, incredibly overwhelming.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Oh.” You pause for a moment. “Like what?”
He huffs a little but smiles. “You are so persistent, you know that?”
“I’ve been told. Once or twice.”
“Well, that’s one reason, actually. I don’t think I have ever met someone who pursues something so intensely. It’s a little scary.” In any other context, said to literally anyone else, this could probably be classified as an insult, but it makes your heart swell a little. “You are also very smart, and funny, and you have the absolute worst taste in cocktails—”
You gasp, but the corners of your mouth are already turning upward. “Not true!”
He keeps going despite your attempted interruption. “And you are weird. You are so weird. You have been letting me write on you with permanent marker for weeks, and you keep Twinkies in your desk because I like them, and you somehow always know when I’ve walked into a room even when you’re not looking.”
“The Twinkies were kind of for a different reason,” you mumble. “And with the markers thing, I just really, really wanted to know what you were doing. The third thing is—I don’t really know how that one works either, to be honest.”
“And,” he presses on, “I was playing along. With the markers. Just. Maybe not in the way that you expected.”
This hangs in the air for a few moments until you speak again. “Alright. You can’t just say that and not explain.” Then you think about it for a little longer, reviewing all of the different instances he wrote something on your skin. “You. You only left positive notes when I actually answered a question. With the truth. You were—were you trying to Pavlov me?”
A grin slowly creeps onto his face. “It’s possible.” He rubs a hand on the back of his head. “I’m surprised it took you this long to catch on.”
You look at the gold marker, then, still sitting there in the middle of the table. “They were color-coded,” you murmur. “What is the gold one for?”
“When you actually ask me for the thing that you want.”
Suddenly, all you want to know is what he will write on your skin if you do this, if you abandon the game and come right out with the thing that you have been egging him on to do for weeks. “Ryland.”
“Yes.” He is still smiling. You do not care that this is technically another win for him, because it feels like a win for you, too.
Finally, you look up to meet his warm gaze. Blue, just like that first marker. “I would really love it if you fucked me, right here, without a condom, and came inside me.”
The effect is immediate, and it makes you wonder why you haven’t just been blatantly asking for things like this the whole time. The tips of his ears turn red, and he slowly raises his glasses to rest on his nose again. “Yeah. I can do that.”
It is unclear who moves first. He stands from the chair at nearly the same moment that you do, but while he simply stays there, you walk around the desk and sit on the top of it, spreading your legs so he is between them. The two of you look at each other, then, until he brings his hand up to cradle your neck and leans down to kiss you, all tongue and teeth, and you gasp into his mouth and wrap your legs around him.
“See how nice it is,” he breathes into your lips, “when we just ask for the things we want?”
You nod, sliding your hands into his hair. “It’s great, really great,” and then you gasp when he drops his head to nip at the side of your neck, “it’s—it’s going in the document as another strategy.”
“No document, no plan, no strategy,” he mouths against your throat. “This is it.” Ryland, apparently, is already impatient, because he drops to his knees and starts tugging down your pants. You squirm against the desk, which causes him to look up at you sharply. “No games, not here, please, tell me what you’re thinking.”
It takes you a moment, because you are not used to simply saying the things that you want and trusting the other person to give it to you, no strings attached. “I don’t—I just want to feel you.”
“You sure?” He looks up at you, leaning his temple against your knee. You do not have the words for what that is making you feel right now.
“I have been attempting to work up to this for almost a month. If you don’t fuck me right now, I am going to subject you to so much trivia and karaoke that—”
You do not get to finish your threat, because suddenly he is standing up again and kissing you, leaning you back against the desk until you are fully laid out on the top of it. “I know,” he says, kicking his own pants off, “I know you have.”
It is difficult for you to describe what that simple statement makes you feel, and you decide that you are not even going to try, not like you normally would; you are simply going to let yourself live in this moment, the moment where he leans over you and brushes the tip of his cock against the wetness between your thighs, how his glasses hang off his face as he braces a hand beside you on the desk.
All of the goddamn papers are still in the way, you realize, and you do your best to push them all to the ground while he hovers over you. “Fuck all of this fucking paperwork, I hate it so much, I am going to light it all on fire and—oh,” you sharply inhale, because he finally pushes inside of you, and the feeling is so delightfully raw and stretches you out so viscerally.
“We should probably,” Ryland groans, gripping your waist and splaying his fingers over the faded purple ‘AMAZING JOB’ on your stomach, “not set any fires so close to a literal launch pad.”
You have nothing to say to this, both because he is probably right and also because the way he feels inside of you is finally enough to quiet the part of your mind that is always considering the next thing to say, the next move to make on the board. You are fairly certain that you don’t even care about whether or not you actually come, sprawled out on top of the desk, because you simply want him as close as he can possibly be, and that feels like the real reward.
Somehow, he senses this line of thought, just like you can tell whenever he enters a room even when you’re not looking for him. “This—this is not about me,” he gasps. “This is about you. What do you want?”
This feels like an incredibly unfair question, because suddenly there are so many things that you want blossoming in your chest: you want to be like this forever, you want him to love you, not just for what you can make other people do, but for all of the pieces that you have been neglecting in service of something larger than yourself. “A little slower,” you finally choke out, because all of those other things are a little too big to fit into the space in between the two of you.
Ryland immediately complies, even though you can tell it is kind of killing him to do so, and something inside of you curls deliciously at the sight of him struggling to keep such a slow pace. His thumb slides down to circle at your clit, matching the way he drags against your walls, and your eyes roll back. “That’s it,” he moans, gazing at the way your breasts bounce underneath your shirt, “that’s exactly—just. Let go. You can let go.”
You realize, in that moment, that you have never known how to simply let things go, not until he draws his other hand back to hold the crease of your knee, still carefully measuring the pace of his hips and his thumb, with no other thought than what would make you feel good. It is—there are no words. There is just you, and him, and the tension growing in between your thighs, and the feeling that you do not need to use yourself to make something happen, that you can let yourself exist in your body and simply want.
The break in the tension comes without warning, even though you are subconsciously waiting for it, searching for that peak as your hands grip the edge of the desk and your hips tilt upward to try and make it come faster. It simply happens, and as it rolls through you, you understand that you did not know before that it could be like this, that you did not have to search and manipulate and bend yourself to make it happen; that it was possible that there would be someone who would simply want to do it for you, just as you are.
When you come back to yourself, you look up at him, completely unguarded, entirely open, and you dig your heels into the small of his back. “I want—I need you to say it,” he roughly whispers. The timbre of his voice sends your head lolling back even further into the desk. “Please. Tell me. No games, no moves.”
“Ryland,” you practically sob, and his hand moves up to palm your chest. “I want you to come inside me. It’s not—I promise I want it, just for me, nothing else.”
He leans forward, then, nudging the collar of your shirt aside with his nose and biting at the first patch of skin he can reach. You find that you do not have the capacity to name the feeling that comes when he buries himself inside you, moaning against your skin; it does not fall in the category of winning or losing—it simply just is.
The room falls quiet, save for the sound of both of your heavy breaths, until you look to the side and see the gold marker, still lying in the graveyard of papers on the desk. “You didn’t—what was the gold for?”
Ryland laughs against you, pressing a kiss against your cheek before slowly lifting his torso up and grabbing the marker. He doesn’t say anything as he uncaps it. He is still inside you when he carefully lifts one of your hands up, prying your fingers from the edge of the desk, and draws a heart on your palm.
You hum. “I feel like I should have expected that.”
He simply smiles and lifts your hand, the same one now adorned with a golden heart, to lay against his chest. “You don’t need to,” he finally says.
There is no other explanation. There is simply the quiet knowledge that you can just exist, as long as he will have you.