Chapter Text
A knock rang in Grace’s ears like someone was being shot outside his front door. He waited for it to end but it sped up, going from a shotgun to a machine-gun pretty quickly. He grunted and sat up, only to instantly land back on his mattress due to the nausea that built in his stomach.
The knocking was coming from the door, so he did his best to summon a response.
“H-gh-Hang on o-one second.” It stopped briefly, long enough for him to look down and realise he was, in fact, still naked. He pushed himself out of bed, staying as horizontal as possible long enough to slip on a hoodie and shorts. Finally standing upright, he looked in the mirror. A disheveled, washed out version of himself stared back. He swallowed back a memory of Simon’s lips on his and just tasted tequila and shame.
Pushing it out of his mind long enough to confront whoever was assaulting his door, he moved through to the kitchen.
He pushed the door open and there was Rocky. Like a 90s pop star he was leaning on the frame, sunglasses on, coffee in each hand.
“Finally. I was worried you’d died.” He let himself in, placing the coffee in Grace’s hand. He accepted it with a nod and watched his friend sink into the sofa. “You look how I feel.”
Grace wiped his eyes and took a sip of the drink warming his hand. He was very basic - latte with one sugar- and Adrian had been doing their best to convert him to drinking oat milk so he was giving that a go. The drink was slightly lukewarm, telling of how long Rocky had been standing outside or, more likely, how long it took him to get to Grace’s place from the nearest cafe he deemed ‘appropriate’.
He joined him on the sofa, curling his legs up and sighing into the drink.
“Do you know what time it is?” Rocky smirked after a couple of seconds.
Ryland looked up. “No… You woke me up, I didn’t check my phone.”
“It's 1:53.” Rocky yawned.
Ryland stared blankly back at him, “Shut up.”
Rocky nodded, pointing his phone in the shocked blond’s face.
“Fuuuuuu”
“-ck” Rocky finished for him, knowing he was going to bail out in his teachery way. Rocky was a good teacher, getting very passionate about Physics and always rambling a bit too far past the bell, but he was pretty much the same teaching as he was in any other context. Try as he might to deny it, Ryland had two different ‘personas’ for teaching and being around his friends and family. Most teachers have this, talking to kids takes a certain tone and behaviour and it’s one of the things that makes it so hard - you have to act in a way that shows you understand the kids, and more importantly that they understand you, without patronising them. Rocky didn’t need this. He never swore in front of his students, but he didn’t replace the swear words with fudge or sugar, he just didn’t say them. He talked to them in the same way he talked to everyone- plainly, with a respect that said ‘I know more than you, but we both know that so I’ll explain myself in detail.’ It's what made him such a good teacher, Grace believed.
“Are we going to talk about what happened after I left last night?” He said, moving his long hair out of his face.
Grace finished processing the chunk of the day he had wasted and looked away from his friend, face in hand.
“I- it was okay? And then it wasn’t. Then it really wasn’t.”
“You got home at 2:37.” Rocky replied, matter of factly.
“I did? How do you know that?”
“Find my iPhone.”
“Sure.” He wasn't surprised that Rocky had some sort of tracker, a bit surprised he’d never been informed.
“So what happened?” Rocky pushed, always one to pry. Ryland swallowed and looked down into his drink. It wasn’t going to help.
“We kissed.”
Rocky tried to keep his composure, but the excitable college student inside him made it difficult, “FUCK OFF!”
Rylands face found his hands again. “I know, I knoww”
“So? Why wasn’t it okay? You did want him to kiss you?”
He nodded in response as a lump formed in his throat and he tried to form a sentence. A sentence that explained that he had wanted it, he hadn’t been able to take his mind off how much he wanted it since it happened, but the disgust that had followed from one horrible, evil person had soured the whole experience. A horrible, evil person that Simon had left bleeding on the floor. The same Simon that cared for his niece with so much love and had kissed him with so much care. Tears were falling down his cheeks before he realised, silent and effortless.
Rocky, always slightly unsure how to deal with emotion, leaned forward and wrapped his arms around Ryland’s neck. He collapsed into his best friend, being held for the first time in a while.
“Sorry, I’m sorry.” Ryland sniffed after some time, wiping his nose on the back of his hand.
“It’s fine man, really.” Rocky patted his knee and stood up, walking over to the kitchen end of the room and returning with a tissue. “Do you want something to eat?”
27 minutes later, an angel in the shape of a delivery driver arrived at the door. He handed Rocky a large brown bag and disappeared into the afternoon. Taco Bell had been the pairs’ go-to hangover cure for as long as they’d known each other. They ordered burritos and nachos and churros - enough carbs to repair their systems and anything that could have gone wrong the night before.
Ryland had replaced his shorts with a pair of joggers and the two found themselves under a blanket each, ripping open the bags and devouring the food in front of them wordlessly.
“I - I haven’t had Taco Bell in … maybe 2 years?” Ryland said, mouth half full of burrito.
“Me neither.” Rocky replied, taking a sip of Sprite. “Not since you moved in with-”
“Oh god.” Ryland remembered, watching Rocky’s face crack and a laugh begin to emerge.
“And you got so stressed out you-”
“WE! You definitely did not help!”
“Fine, WE drank an entire bottle of tequila going over the pros and cons of you moving in with her and you ate so much Taco Bell that when you did move in with her, you painted your new front door with burrito.”
Rocky was laughing very hard, Ryland’s face hidden in his hands as a small smile crept out.
“And you went home and forgot that Adrian’s parents were coming over for dinner and had to fake food poisoning so you could hide in your room!” he retaliated.
“Hey! It was technically food poisoning!"
“Drinking all night then eating crap food is NOT food poisoning!”
They lay on the sofa for a while, finishing off what they could of the food and remembering drunken adventures they’d had when they were significantly younger. They were both very aware of the teacher-y things they should have been getting on with on this fine Saturday, but 5pm rolled around pretty quickly and they hadn’t moved from their pit of greasy food and nostalgia.
“Shit I really should get home.” Rocky sighed.
“Oh what, family dinner you forgot about?” Ryland laughed, until a cushion was swung at his head.
“Aaand my phone’s dead, could I grab a charger?”
“Sure, hit me in the face and I’ll help you out!” Before Rocky reached for anything else to smack him with, Ryland stood up with a chuckle to retrieve his phone charger.
He unplugged his phone, which he had found dead on the floor in the bathroom a few hours prior, and unlocked it. He found a number of notifications and swiped through them quickly, landing on one from 3:36
[Unknown number]
Please do
He assumed it must be someone from school - another teacher he hadn’t saved the number of asking for something. He opened the message as he went back into the other room, swinging the charger in Rocky’s direction.
The message before was sent by him, but he had no recollection of it. A faint memory of swapping phones with Simon so he could save his number reappeared as he stared at the message ‘he’d’ sent.
Ryland
This is Simon’s number. Text him whenever.
“I’ll head off in a sec,” Rocky yawned, looking over at Ryland, who was staring, puzzled, at the phone in his hand. “You alright?”
He could have brushed it off. He could have told Rocky it was nothing and kept it in a little longer. Kept the shame and disgust inside and not have to address the elephant that had found itself taking up the majority of the room they were standing in. But this was his best friend and if he didn’t tell him, who would he tell?
“After me and Simon kissed,” he sighed, “a man from the bar walked past and… and he called us- um- he called us ‘fags’”.
Rocky opened and shut his mouth, his face growing red and screwing up with anger. “I swea-”
“But then Simon punched him,” Ryland interrupted, “He punched him again and again. It was so scary, Rock, the whole thing.”
He took a deep breath and Rocky let him continue, “But it just got me thinking. Is this it? I have only just let myself address the fact I mi- I might be .. gay. A bit. Or bi or something.” He shook his head and waved his hands, “Whatever, but if that was my first experience with a man? If that’s what is out there for me? I- I don’t think I want it.” He exhaled fully, slumping onto the edge of the sofa.
“I- First of all,” Rocky made sure Ryland was done before speaking up, “First of all, good for you. To even start to figure something like that out about yourself is not easy, and some dickhead does not get to take that away from you.” He sat down next to his friend, “And second! That guy is a prick and a drunk idiot and his world view is so tiny and small and should have no impact on your identity, and if that ever happens again I’ll knock him out!” They both chuckled at the idea of lanky Rocky beating anyone up. “Although it sounds like you already have someone to do that for you.” he added, a little more solemn. “That must have been terrifying, to see someone you clearly care about being so aggressive.”
Grace nodded and wiped his hand over his face, looking up with a small, pained smile.
“He texted me last night. Or this morning, I guess, when he got back. He said to text him. Whenever.”
Rocky smiled back, gentle and caring, “You don’t have to. That was an awful experience and if you don’t want to see him again there are ways to make that happen,” Ryland nodded, slowly and thoughtfully, “But. Given Simon’s past, defending someone with violence is probably a second nature you don’t leave behind easily.”
Ryland’s brow furrowed, “His past? The cult?”
“Well I guess you could call it a cult, I think it was a bit more radical than that.”
He looked at him, even more confused. Ryland had very little knowledge about Simon and Evie’s past, and assumed it was the same for all of the teachers- especially those who didn’t even teach her.
“How do you know that? I thought the teachers were just told about it briefly, some kind of doomsday cult?”
“Sure but I saw the news- it was everywhere when he escaped.” Rocky shrugged, “I thought I recognised his name when you told Adrian you did, so I double checked. I assumed that’s where you knew it from.”
Of course. It all fell into place. Simon Fisher. The Brotherhood of Eden. That’s where he’d seen his name before.
“I think I can get an interview with him! He’s the first person in years to have successfully left ‘The Brotherhood of Eden’ and an interview with him would be perfect for my first article on this website. I really think this could make my career!”
She’d been so excited to interview Simon all those years ago and he responded to her emails at first but never successfully organised a proper interview. She wrote the article anyway and it was fine, but not the break out she had expected. They fired her the next year. That was the reason they stayed together. Because they were supposed to promote her and it fell through and she stayed in San Francisco, with Ryland, for 4 more years. 4 more years of ignoring how she treated him and the money troubles and the feelings he was starting to feel towards men and the depression- and- and
And. Head spinning. He threw up Taco Bell over the side of the sofa.