Chapter Text
"Whatcha doing?” Tom asks.
Ryland is so engrossed in his reading that he doesn’t notice Tom sneaking behind him, making him jump startled at the voice. Tom purses his lips to stop himself from chuckling, he can tell Ryland is flustered by the red tinting of his ears and cheeks, no matter how much the other would try to blame it on the desert heat. He slowly turns his head towards Tom.
“Nothing you'd understand anyways.” Ryland answers with playful indignation, hanging his glasses under his chin in an almost automatic motion.
Tom scoffs and rolls his eyes, although he isn’t sure if Ryland can see, squinting his eyes as he is because of the sun. He then lays his hand on the other’s shoulder (definitely not worsening his blush situation) before circling and stopping right in front of him. He looks down with his eyebrows raised, clearly amused.
“And you keep complaining about how dirty they always are. Is that even comfortable?” Tom adds, gingerly picking up Ryland's glasses and placing them on top of his nose, careful not to poke him in the eye.
“Wouldn't you like to know, weather boy?” Ryland answers, looking away feigning insult, which gets another scoff out of Tom.
He sits down next to him on a foldable chair under a parasol.
“That's why I bring you to my shootings, so you can read boring nerdy stuff in the shade?”
“You know I'm here for Colt's stunts.” Tom rolls his eyes dramatically, he knows Ryland’s able to see now by the small smile he tries to hide. “Why would I watch you doing a take over and over again if I'll have to watch it again when the movie comes out anyway?”
“Because you love me?”
Ryland squints his eyes, a playful pout on his lips, and looks away feigning indignation.
Tom laughs lightheartedly and wraps an arm around Ryland’s shoulders.
“So? What's so interesting that’s keeping your attention from your amazing, super-cool, and even hotter boyfriend?” Tom asks, leaning into Ryland’s space to look at the tablet resting on his lap.
He rolls his eyes and scrolls to the top of the document, slightly turning the tablet towards Tom. The other still has to tilt his head to be able to read the title. He squints his eyes.
“Revisiting Aquatic Determinism: Water Activity as a Constraint on Prebiotic Microbial Complexity…” He reads aloud. “That means nothing to me, babe.”
Ryland chuckles and scrolls back to where he was reading. Tom notices how several passages are underlined and accompanied by several interrogation signs in bold red. He raises an eyebrow at that.
“It's Dr. Scythers’s latest publication.” Ryland starts. “A paper in response to my own paper, which I published years ago and that he cannot seem to fudging let go.”
Tom raises his other eyebrow.
“Seriously,” Ryland continues, clearly pissed. “He has already made it clear that he doesn't agree with my thesis. As if making me the laughingstock of the whole scientific community wasn't enough. You would think that having an original idea on the ‘Let's talk about our original ideas’ community would at least give you acceptance, but of-freaking-course not, bunch of pompous a-holes.”
Tom has to bite his lip to stifle a laugh. It's not unusual for Ryland to spiral into a rant, but it is for him to get this worked up, and he must admit it's a cute look on him. He is also usually pretty secretive about his days before becoming a teacher, so that’s new too. Regardless, he can tell that this is a sensitive topic, so he cuts the ranting short before it can end in a full-blown spiral.
“They do sound like pretentious twats,” Tom starts, and he can hear Ryland muttering ‘You bet they are.’ under his breath, making him widen his smile. “I mean, why do you need such a long-ass title that no one can even understand? Not that it's an issue for you and that smart brain of yours.”
The actor leans closer to Ryland and drops a quick kiss on his soft blonde hair.
“But,” Tom starts, slowly pulling away. “As much as I would like to keep talking about your science-y thingy, I have to get back to work. I'm pretty sure your brother is doing a stunt later or something; you can drop by.” He shrugs, faking modesty, a cocky grin giving him away.
“Sure. Maybe if he sees you with me, he’ll start a fight, and this day will get a bit interesting.” Ryland matches his energy, leaning back into his chair and going back to reading with a sly smile on his lips
Tom scoffs and playfully rolls his eyes. He then turns around and walks over to where Dan, Jody, and Colt are staring at a screen. The actor imitates them, crossing his arms over his chest, ignoring the dirty side-eye Colt directs at him. He tries to focus on the screen, especially since they are supposed to be checking if one of the stunts looks good or needs retaking.
The stuntman clears his throat, his side-eye anything but subtle. He can see from the corner of his eye the glance Dan and Jody throw at each other, but he doesn't pull his gaze away from the screen.
“You having fun with my brother?” Colt says sharply after a while, breaking the uncomfortable silence, although arguably making it worse.
He doesn’t initially look at Tom, his eyes fixed on the now frozen image on the screen, but when the actor turns to look at him, the stuntman throws him another side-eye.
“Hmm, I guess so.” He replies nonchalantly, which, for his amusement, only enrages Colt further.
“You-” Colt starts, taking a step towards Tom, raising his hand as if to grab him.
The actor steps back and raises his palms, faking surrender, although the smirk on his face doesn't really align with the emotion. He knows he shouldn’t, for Ryland’s sake, but he finds poking fun at Colt too much fun to let go. The two are mostly cordial to one another, but for some reason everytime Tom approaches Ryland, Colt fumes. Whatever, he turns his head towards Ryland, and upon seeing him, his smile falters.
Instead of looking in their direction, annoyed at their banter, as Tom expects, Ryland is deeply engrossed in his reading. But not in his usual, adorable, kind of way. Instead, his fingers are deeply carded in his hair; Tom knows there's some painful pulling going on there. He also guesses it must be painful the way Ryland is chewing on his bottom lip, hard enough to draw blood. And, to top it all, his eyebrows are fully furrowed, almost blocking his blue eyes from view, which he can see are slightly watery.
“Hey, can't you get your eyes off him for-” Colt starts again angrily.
The stuntman gets to grab Tom by the shoulder and shove him slightly before he abruptly stops, probably after the actor didn't show any reaction. Colt follows Tom's gaze with skepticism and, realizing the state his brother’s in, his grip falters for a second.
“What did you do?” He growls, tightening his fist.
At that, Tom turned his head quickly enough to get whiplash, a look of outraged offense on his face.
“What did I do?” He parrots. “Control yourself, Seavers.”
He pulls himself free from Colt (maybe with a bit more violence than necessary) and strides towards his boyfriend, who doesn't notice him even when Tom is close enough to hear his shaky breathing.
“Hey…” He mutters softly, laying a hand on Ryland’s shoulder as he crouches slightly to get a better view of him.
The other flinches violently, clearly startled. He looks up confused at Tom, who moves his palm to cup Ryland’s cheek, softly caressing his face with his thumb.
“Huh? Wha-?” There's genuine confusion in Ryland’s teary eyes.
Out of nowhere, he seems to realize the anxious state he is in and brings it to a halt. His frame stops shaking as he sniffles slightly. He shakes his head, making Tom remove his hand from his face, and wipes his tears with the back of his hand after disentangling it from his hair.
“Hi.” Ryland answers with a shaky voice and a quivery smile.
Tom frowns, worriedly looking from his boyfriend’s face to the tablet still on his lap. Ryland sighs.
“Sorry, I think I overreacted a bit… You can get back to work. I'm fine.” He widens his smile and offers a timid chuckles, but Tom can see right through him. He opens his mouth to reply but doesn't get to.
“Hey Ry?” Colt speaks next to him. “Everything alright?”
“Yes.” Ryland replies, rolling his eyes dramatically.
“You sure make a great job hiding it.”
“Can't you just trust me?” He groans, slumping his shoulders. “I'm a grown man.”
“Sure.” Colt and Tom speak at the same time. They look at each other with a matching raised eyebrow.
“Come on, Ry.” Colt pushes, getting an annoyed glance from his twin, who has been avoiding meeting both men’s eyes. “What's on a science-y paper that can be so bad?"
Ryland huffs, clearly irritated.
“It's just Dr. Scythers dragging my work through the mud again.” Since the two men just blink at him, he adds, looking directly at Colt, “Staggering waste of carbon?”
“Oh.” The other twin answers.
“Yeah. Oh.” Ryland shrugs. “It's fine; I should be used to it already.”
He gets up with a jump and stands in front of the other two, grabbing Tom’s hand, much to Colt’s distaste. The actor glances between the twins, clearly lost. They don’t pay him any mind as they start walking towards where Jody and Dan are talking animatedly about something. The twins have started to discuss some stunt Colt has to pull off later when Tom interrupts them, suddenly stopping following Ryland and letting go of his hand.
“Wait. Stagg- huh? Who?”
Both twins look at him, comically blinking twice at the same time, before briefly side-eyeing each other.
“It's a long story… Wouldn't want to bore you with-” Ryland starts, cheeks tinted a light pink color.
“You haven't seen the video?!” Colt interrupts him, shoving his brother aside and staring at Tom with an open-mouth grin and crazy eyes, all animosity seemingly forgotten.
“What video?” He asks, taking a step towards Ryland and taking his hand again, who intensely stares at his shoes.
Colt’s grin widens and he promptly takes his phone out of his pocket as he resumes walking. Tom follows, with Ryland being pulled by him, muttering something under his breath.
“Am I about to introduce you to Doctor Ryland ‘Asshole’ Grace?” Colt quotes, handing Tom his phone.
Tom throws an amused raised eyebrow at Colt and a quick glance at Ryland, whose blush has worsened and seems to be trying to burn a hole in his shoes from how intensely he's staring at them.
He clicks play on a video titled ‘Denmark UNESCO Conference 2018’.