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1
“Stratt. Your new security detail is here.”
Ryland halts mid-sentence when Carl speaks through the cracked-open door of the conference room. It’s only him and Stratt sitting together at the long table, hurriedly going over the new data Ryland is presenting in a half hour on behalf of the science team.
Stratt gets up, shooting Ryland a look that he knows by now means, give me one moment. He sits back in his chair and scrolls back through the presentation he threw together an hour ago, chock-full of PCR results and data from the updated breeder designs.
He’s not overly happy with this particular data dump. Research has been slow lately, and they’ve hit a roadblock with their investigation of astrophage metabolism. Ryland has a team of the world’s best biochemists working to crack the citric acid cycle enzyme super-complex, and so far they’ve drawn the singular conclusion that astrophage does, indeed, catabolize glucose.
Great work, everyone. Really earning your stripes here.
Stratt’s voice re-enters the room after a minute, alongside the light footfalls of a new presence.
“—and this is my associate, Dr. Grace. We work very closely together, so you will see a lot of him.”
Ryland turns in his chair. Stratt requested a new personal security detail after the whole court case thing, at Carl’s suggestion. He’d argued that if people were angry enough to serve her papers, they were probably also angry enough to send hitmen after her. Ryland had scoffed at the mere idea, but the look Carl shot him silenced him pretty fast.
After a few weeks of deliberation, Stratt agreed. According to Carl, the guy she’d ended up hiring was the best in the game, some ex-FBI agent. Or maybe military? Ryland couldn’t remember.
When he lays eyes on the man, there is a split second in which Ryland thinks he’s finally had a psychotic break. All the blood drains from his face as his eyes settle on a set of remarkably familiar features.
Truth be told, he hasn’t thought much about Courtland in the last few years. Each year on his birthday, sure, because he and Colt always fly out to visit his grave and lay down fresh flowers, then kick it for the afternoon at his favorite Italian place that is somehow still in business. But day-to-day, Court doesn’t really cross his mind anymore. He should feel guilty about that—and he does to an extent, but…
It’s been over twenty years since Ryland last saw him, and fifteen since he died. It’s a wound that never quite stopped aching, but it’s long since closed and healed as much as it probably ever will. It’s the same thing with his mom, her memory encased safely between Ryland’s eyes, the freckles he and Colt share splashed across their noses the last real reminder of her in the mortal plane.
(And Ryland doesn’t spare his dad a single thought if he can help it. The fact that he’s dead is the least devastating thing about his family.)
It’s a shock, then, when Ryland turns to greet Stratt’s new bodyguard and finds the aged face of his dead brother staring back at him. He spares one moment to think to himself, what the heck?! before he shakes his head sharply and stands on weakened legs.
Because he is imagining things. That can’t be Court, even if he looks so much like him and is around the right age. It can’t be, because Court is dead.
Ryland numbly shakes the man’s hand, his expression blank and impassive. If it were Court, Ryland reasons, he would’ve had some kind of reaction to seeing Ryland, not the stark display of cold apathy that he’s found common in these high-up government security types.
Ryland musters a smile, though he knows it doesn’t reach his eyes.
The man introduces himself as Jim, which feels like a kick in the nuts alongside the already stunning slap in the face. None of the Gentry boys ever ended up looking much like their father, thankfully, but Ryland thinks Court always looked the most like him.
So, of course his back-from-the-dead doppelganger has their dad’s name. Because the universe is a cruel force with a penchant for irony, evidently.
“Are you alright, Dr. Grace?” Stratt cuts in, sounding more annoyed than concerned. Ryland tries again at a smile, and this one is at least a bit more convincing.
“Yeah, all good. We should probably get back to it.” He motions back to his open laptop still sitting on the conference room table.
Stratt returns to her seat and they resume their work, nit-picking every little thing in the science team’s data and valiantly ignoring the ghost standing by the door.
2
Jim the security detail follows Stratt around basically all the time. Since Ryland spends eighty-five percent of his day in meetings with Stratt, he spends a lot of time around Jim.
He’s sure the guy is nice, or whatever. He kind of seems like a brick wall most of the time, vigilant but unresponsive to anything that’s not a potential threat. But Ryland doesn’t know anything about him, and he can’t shake the nagging feeling that there’s something off about this whole thing.
Sure, the guy looks exactly like Court, give-or-take a couple decades. But Ryland has convinced himself that it’s something else.
“Hey, Carl!”
Ryland corners Carl at the end of a long hallway near the back of the ship one afternoon. It had been a long day stuck listening to engineers drone on about deadlines and ‘speeding up the scientific process’ while Stratt twitched at his side, clearly just as annoyed as him at the brusqueness of the under-qualified industry suits.
Carl turns, nodding to Ryland in acknowledgment. “Dr. Grace,” he greets. Ryland usually rolls his eyes at the forced professionalism—he and Carl are certainly well past that by now—but not today. Right now, he’s on a mission.
“Can I ask you about something?” Ryland knows Carl used to work high-up in the FBI before being hand-picked for the Petrova Taskforce, presumably by Stratt. Ryland doesn’t know much else, because of the whole ‘confidential government secrets’ thing, but he can assume that Carl knows his fair share of intel, particularly that pertaining to the other security details on the ship. More specifically, that pertaining to Jim the mystery man.
“Sure.” Carl leans against the wall, glancing briefly behind Ryland’s shoulder. Ryland doesn’t even bother to check what caught his eye. He trusts that if there’s anything endangering him, Carl will take care of it.
“What do you know about Stratt’s new detail?”
Carl goes a bit stiff around the shoulders, a tick Ryland only notices because he’s spent so much time with the guy. “Jim?”
“Yeah.”
Ryland watches as Carl visibly hesitates, almost looking uncomfortable with the topic. When he speaks, his voice is low, and he leans in close. Ryland follows suit, shuffling forward a couple of steps so that they stand closer together, primed for secret swapping.
“Look, I don’t know anything for sure,” Carl starts. “But I’ve heard whispers about this guy. Ex-CIA who vanished to the private sector after he got a bounty placed on him a few years back. Stratt must’ve cleared his name to get him to work for her. He’s the best of the best in the game.”
Ryland takes in the information. “So, he’s like… American James Bond?”
Carl shakes his head, leaning back in disbelief. “Man, James Bond isn’t real.”
“But aliens are?”
Carl considers this. “Alright, fair enough,” he mutters. “But seriously, this isn’t some kind of action flick. If what I’ve heard about this guy is true, he’s the most dangerous man in the world. Just be glad he’s on our side.”
Ryland feels ice-cold fear drip down his spine. Where the hell did Stratt find this guy? “Do you know his real name? Surely, it’s not Jim.”
Carl shrugs. “I don’t think anybody knows. The guy’s a damn ghost.”
Ryland feels the way all his muscles lock up, how the hair on the back of his neck stands to attention all at once. Carl notices, and he takes a half-step forward, expression rewritten with anxiety.
“Grace? You okay, man?”
Ryland tries to shake the feeling off, but it doesn’t totally work. A ghost.
“Yeah, fine. Sorry, just a chill.” He scratches his bare arms, the thin hallway too small and freezing cold. Ryland can suddenly feel every ounce of warmth being sucked out of the sun aptly, like he’s standing right beside it as it dims too fast for him to stop. “I think I’m going to go lay down, actually,” he says. “Just… long day, y’know?”
Carl nods slowly, though his concern is still evident. “Sure. I’ll walk you back to your bunk.”
Ryland doesn’t bother shaking him off; the guy’s paid to make sure he doesn’t slip on a spot of wet metal flooring and crack his head open or something equally as ridiculous. Far be it for Ryland to get in the way of his sworn duty, even if it can be annoying to be followed around everywhere.
As he lays down in his bunk in a secluded corner of the ship, he closes his eyes shut and tries not to think about blue eyes and brunette hair and a confident, crooked smile he hasn’t seen since he was eight years old.
3
One second, Ryland is hurling insults across the lab at Dr. Devitt, and the next, he’s pinned against the wall with a fist barreling directly toward his face.
It’s really not an uncommon predicament for him, either. Ryland just wishes the apparent majority of the scientific community wasn’t full of overconfident idiots with only half of their brains functioning at any given time.
Seriously, they’ll just give anyone a PhD these days.
The impact doesn’t hurt as much as he expects. He hears rather than feels the crack of cartilage between his own skull and Devitt’s knuckles, the warm spurt of blood dribbling down his chin the first sensation to register to his ticked-off brain.
Then Devitt is gone, and Ryland doesn’t even think he blinked, but there’s Jim, the mystery security detail, grasping Devitt by the lapels of his white coat and throwing him to the ground. He’s on him in a second, pinning his arms behind him and spitting something vicious in his ear that Ryland can’t hear through the tinnitus symphony playing in his head.
He remembers pain, and blood, and squinting through the misery, feeling half-dead. He remembers a body slumped on the ground in a pool of slowly growing red, and a too-short figure standing victorious over them, a dark weapon clutched in one hand.
Ryland remembers the cut of Court’s gaze as he stood over the lifeless form of their father, and the scream that tore from his own throat. He remembers the blood, more of it than Ryland could possibly conceive of. He’d known the average human adult contains approximately five liters of blood, but that knowledge couldn’t have prepared him to see it spilling out of his dad’s skull onto the bathroom floor.
It’s only a split-second of panic and terror before Ryland snaps back to reality, to now, where his nose is bleeding sluggishly and Jim is handing off Dr. Devitt to some other security detail, stoic as ever. Nobody seems to have noticed Ryland’s momentary loss of sanity, except for when Jim glances over and takes a couple steps toward Ryland, uncharacteristic worry in his gaze, and all the breath leaves Ryland in a whoosh because he looks so much like Court.
“Are you okay?” Jim asks, stuttering slightly at the start of his words. Ryland stares at him, unable to respond except for a tiny nod. Those are Mom’s eyes, he thinks, half hysterical.
He knows his traumatized brain is just searching for any comfort to latch onto right now, that the thought holds no merit at all, but he can’t help clinging to the idea that it’s really Court back from the dead, for just a moment.
“What the hell is going on over here?”
Ryland and Jim turn to face Stratt in tandem, standing in the doorway with disapproval written across her face. Her arms are crossed and her scowl is colder than the darn arctic—and Ryland would know, he was there just a few months ago to drop a nuke on it.
“Your pet scientist is an asshole, that’s what’s going on!” Devitt screams, half hysterical from where one of the army guys has him handcuffed. Ryland wonders for a moment why he’s not cuffed as well.
“Well at least I’m not an uneducated half-wit. Seriously, did you get your doctorate from a crackhead hitchhiker? Those aren’t accredited, you know!”
“Dr. Grace.” Stratt’s voice is unyielding and frigid, a warning. Ryland doesn’t stop glaring at Devitt, even as blood drips down his chin and onto his t-shirt. “You are professionals. You are here as humanity’s last chance to avoid complete eradication, and you are fighting like schoolchildren! If we fail, everyone on this planet dies. Do I have to explain to you why that is a bad thing?”
Ryland rolls his eyes, raising a gloved hand to his nose to stop up the blood. It doesn’t work very well, but it’s better than nothing.
Devitt looks a bit sheepish when he shakes his head, but he doesn’t stop glaring at Ryland, either.
Stratt pinches the bridge of her nose. “Get them out of here. This will not happen again.” She affixes her gaze on Ryland, who scoffs.
“I didn’t even do anything—”
“This will not happen again,” she repeats. “Jim, please take Dr. Grace to the infirmary. Chen, escort Dr. Devitt to the flight deck. There will be a jet here to return him to the mainland in an hour.”
Devitt immediately starts to argue with her, but she cuts him off with a look.
“As much as I disagree with Dr. Grace’s choice of words, I trust his scientific opinion. If he has deemed you less than capable of helping us carry out our mission here, then you are no longer a part of Project Hail Mary. Have a safe flight.”
With that, she turns on one heel and marches straight out of the room. Chen, the sailor who’d cuffed Devitt, starts to lead him out of a separate door, toward the deck. Devitt throws one last insult at Ryland, but now that the adrenaline is fading, he hardly registers it. His head pounds and he feels the sudden urge to start crying, which he swallows down with a strength he didn’t know he possessed a minute ago.
He lets Jim lead him to the infirmary, neither of them speaking. Ryland keeps his hand pressed to his nose to ineffectually stem the bleeding. When they arrive, Dr. Lamai looks over from her laptop, expression instantly falling when she catches sight of Ryland.
“Ryland Grace,” she says flatly. “Welcome back.”
“Hi, Hira,” Ryland greets, offering a sheepish smile. He feels some of the blood dribble into his mouth and stain his teeth. Lamai sighs and gets up, reaching for a fresh pair of gloves and the drawer with gauze.
“What happened this time?” she asks as she carefully removes Ryland’s hands from his face and tries to stem the bleeding herself. He winces when she pushes the gauze not unkindly into his left nostril. The blood stops flowing freely down his face, but the slow fade of adrenaline means the pain is slowly racking up in intensity.
“Would you believe me if I said I tripped?”
“Usually, yes. But you sound guilty. So, no.” She palpates his nose bridge and he flinches back, sucking in a sharp breath. He’s painfully aware of Jim standing near the door, watching this whole thing unfold. Ryland can’t look at him right now, because he’s pretty sure it’ll set off another flashback.
He wants to kick himself. He hasn’t had one in years at this point. He spent so long in therapy working through his PTSD symptoms. He thought he was finally free.
He remembers something his old therapist once said to him, after a particularly rough couple of weeks had 20-year-old Ryland Grace prepared to drop out of college altogether: With work and time, it will get easier. But it will never go away.
“You’re not going to tell me?” Lamai prompts, after Ryland is silent for too long. He pulls himself back to the conversation at hand, leaving his old psychiatrist and his too-bright office walls behind in the past where he belongs.
“I called out Dr. Devitt on his bull-crap,” Ryland says, more than a bit defensively. Lamai tuts as she reaches for another square of gauze.
“And he punched you?”
“Yeah.”
Lamai shakes her head. “You couldn’t keep your mouth shut?”
Ryland feels the anger he’d thought had all burnt out rise up anew in his chest, diminished but still very much alive. “If you’d heard him, you’d understand. I bet he couldn’t even recite the central dogma if you asked.”
Lamai chuckles and finally steps away, doffing her gloves and recording something on her laptop.
“The good news is, I don’t think your nose is broken. The bleeding should stop after another few minutes, and you’ll be good to go back to insulting your peers.”
“You wouldn’t happen to have a morphine shot lying around I could borrow?” Ryland knows from the look Lamai shoots him that the answer will be no, but it was worth a try.
She hands him a couple ibuprofen tablets and a water bottle, and he takes them with only a little complaining. She turns to Jim next, reminding Ryland suddenly of his presence. “Keep a close eye on this one,” she says. “He likes to get himself into trouble.”
Jim nods, the small smiling curling across his face too familiar, and Ryland looks away, still too raw. “Will do.”
They walk back to the lab side-by-side, Ryland resolutely staring at his feet. He hears the distant hum of radio chatter coming from Jim’s earpiece, though he can’t make out the words. Jim rumbles out an assent and takes a sharp turn down a hallway, one hand wrapped around Ryland’s arm, tugging him along.
“Hey!” Ryland yelps, though he knows better by now than to try and fight him off.
“Stratt wants to speak with you,” Jim says, and Ryland slumps forward and lets Jim pull him through the belly of the ship.
“Figures,” he mumbles. He thinks he hears Jim snort out an amused breath of air, but it’s equally as possible that he imagined it.
They pause just outside the door to Stratt’s ad hoc office. Ryland steps forward to open the door, but Jim stops him with a gentle tug on his arm. Ryland turns back toward him, raising a brow, the smallest jolt of fear shooting through him.
“Just… be careful, Dr. Grace.” Jim swallows, almost appearing nervous. Ryland stands before him, unsure what to do or say in response, and more than a little confused. The guy sounds worried.
It must show on Ryland’s face, because Jim straightens up just slightly and adds, “The project needs you.”
Ryland nods, turning to enter Stratt’s office and face the music. He can’t help how Jim’s explanation felt more like an excuse than anything. Sure, Ryland is a good scientist, and he knows his stuff, especially pertaining to astrophage. But it’s not like he’s one-of-a-kind. There are hundreds of other microbiologists that could take his place if something happened to him. It’s not a thought he relishes, being dispensable, but it is an objective fact.
Maybe Jim is some secret softie, Ryland considers, cracking the door open as Jim takes his position outside, stoic as a brick wall.
He doubts it.
Ryland pushes away thoughts of Court, straight-laced and commanding, even as a kid, but always so soft with Ryland and Colt. It’s not the same, because Jim isn’t Court. Uncanny resemblance doesn’t mean anything in the fact of twenty years of radio silence and six feet of dirt.
“Dr. Grace.” Stratt does not look happy to see him. He steps the rest of the way into the room, letting the heavy door shut behind him with a hollow clang.
“Stratt. Wonderful weather we’re having.” There have been heavy rain clouds just waiting to break hovering over the Southern Ocean for the last three days, premonitive and dense.
“Sit down, Ryland.” She rarely uses his first name, and when she does, it’s either out of a rare show of affection, or a particularly sharp flare of annoyance.
Ryland takes a seat, fidgeting with his hands in his lap.
“What happened?” Stratt asks. He notices that she sounds tired more than anything, the weight of the world heavy against her eyelids.
“For what it’s worth, I am sorry it escalated like that,” Ryland starts, mellowed by the emptiness still howling in his chest and the exhaustion he notices clinging to Stratt’s gaze. “But if you’d heard Devitt, you would’ve agreed with me.”
“Would I?”
Ryland huffs an annoyed breath. “He won’t let go of his inane, unsupported hypothesis that astrophage are non-mitochondrial eukaryotes, despite the fact that we have the last twelve months of research to prove just that. Last month, we got the first cryo-EM images of complex five! Readily dimerized, with dual peripheral stalks, might I add. It’s clearly mitochondrial. The pre-print is hanging on the wall in the lab.”
Stratt stares at him blankly. Ryland sighs.
“He’s wrong.”
“There is no doubt you believe that.” Stratt leans forward, placing her elbows on her desk and leveling Ryland with a severe look. “No matter how right or wrong Dr. Devitt is, or any of the scientists on your team, it is your job to lead them. I placed you in charge of astrophage research because I believe that you can direct the world’s brightest minds to the answers that will save our planet. However, your actions today have not made me confident in that assertion.”
Ryland feels suddenly childish, small in his seat as Stratt sits across from him, the picture of disappointment.
“I’m sorry,” Ryland offers. Even his voice is tiny.
Stratt softens, leaning back and watching Ryland with more weariness than before. He would label the emotion on her face as concern if he didn’t know any better. “Are you alright, Ryland?”
First name again, darn. Batting a thousand here, Grace.
“I’m fine,” Ryland insists, and he knows it’s too quick of a reply.
Stratt taps one finger against the wooden surface of her desk, eyes narrowed. “You’ve been… off, lately. Distracted. I have noticed a pattern.”
Ryland raises a brow, entirely unsure where this could be going.
“I placed Jim in the labs today because I wanted to test my theory. You behave differently when he’s around. Shorter temper, jumpier, more anxious. Carl agrees.”
“You guys talk about me?” Ryland is pulled from his panic for just a moment, feeling caught. The word mortifying floats through his head.
“If you are not comfortable around him, if you do not feel safe with Jim as my security detail, for whatever reason, I would like to know. I can have him replaced by the morning.”
Ryland shakes his head slowly. “No, that’s… It’s not that.”
Stratt waits for him to continue. He sighs heavily, slumping down in his chair. He rubs one hand over his face, swallowing down the sudden urge to cry.
“He reminds me of someone,” Ryland says. “That’s all.”
“‘Someone?’” Stratt asks, clearly unsatisfied. Perhaps she cares more than she lets on, Ryland thinks to himself. Maybe she is worried about him, the way friends tend to.
“My brother.” The word sticks like taffy to the roof of Ryland’s mouth, gumming his tongue and making it hard to swallow, to breathe.
“Colton? The stuntman?”
Ryland shakes his head. “You’ve read my file.” Ryland motions listlessly toward the cabinets behind Stratt, the ones that contain detailed personnel files for every member of the taskforce, Ryland included. “You know about—about Court.”
Stratt stills. Ryland laughs a bit to himself, humorless.
“Obviously, it’s not… He’s dead. He’s been dead for fifteen years. It’s just… Well, it’s frankly uncanny.”
“Dr. Grace…”
Ryland shakes his head. “It’s fine. I’ll get over it. You don’t need to replace your security guy, or whatever. Carl said he’s good. You deserve the best of the best.”
Ryland and Stratt lock eyes, then, and something passes between them. Yeah, Ryland thinks, the way friends do.
“I’ll try to avoid getting into more fights.” Ryland offers her a smile, knowing it falls short. Stratt clears her throat, straightening in her chair, and the moment is over.
“That would be much appreciated, Dr. Grace.”
When he steps out of her office, Jim is still standing vigil outside the door, one hand resting on his hip, the other stiff at his side. Ryland nods at him before setting off down the hall, valiantly ignoring the way his chest tears open all over again, hollow and windswept.
4
“You look cheery today, Dr. Grace.” Dr. Lamai greets Ryland with a small smile as he steps into the conference room. All the big hitters are there; Stratt and her favorite team of scientists, the primary and secondary crews, as well as assorted security. Carl trails after Ryland, per usual, and Jim stands in the corner behind Stratt, his gaze locked on the far wall, solid as steel.
Ryland turns his grin to Lamai, feeling a bit ridiculous. They’re all going to die, probably, and he’s over here beaming like Tau Ceti.
“My brother got engaged last night,” he says, by way of explanation. The room breaks out with scattered congratulations and acknowledgements.
“We are invited to the wedding, yes?” Ilyukhina asks, leaning forward on her elbows. Beside her, Yáo smirks for a split second before catching himself and returning to his usual dour, focused expression.
“I mean, they haven’t even set a date yet,” Ryland says, taking his seat beside Stratt near the head of the table. He doesn’t notice the way Jim is watching him, nor the new tension pulling his shoulders taught.
“Are you best man?” Shapiro asks. Ryland nods.
“Important job,” DuBois cuts in sagely. “I take it you are in favor of the marriage?”
“Oh, yeah! Jody’s the best. No clue why she’s marrying my idiot brother, but”—he shrugs—“they seem happy.
Dmitri laughs, loud and cheery, and slaps Ryland on the back with one large, heavy palm. “All congratulations to the happy couple!” he announces, and Ryland shoots him a grin.
“As nice as this is, we do have important matters to discuss,” Stratt cuts in, pulling the room back to focus. Ryland nods, flipping open his notebook to the next empty page and grabbing a pen from behind his ear.
In graduate school, he took a class on cellular metabolism in which he had to recite the entirety of the glucose catabolic pathway from memory as part of his final. He’d studied for hours leading up to the exam, and to this day, could still give the entire thing in his sleep if prompted.
Stratt’s meetings are the mental equivalent of seventy of those oral finals in a row, and this one, with a runtime of a whopping three hours, is no different.
Afterward, it’s well into the evening. Dmitri approaches Ryland as he heads for the exit and offers to buy him a drink. Ryland agrees, and they, as well as a handful of the other members of the high-clearance meeting, amble through the ship to the impromptu bar the crew set up a few months ago.
Ryland isn’t much of a drinker, at least not anymore. He lived a bit wild in undergrad, but he’s since tightened up his act. These days, he’s a single-beer-on-occasion kind of guy. This is not sufficient for Dmitri, however, who buys round after round and keeps successfully coercing Ryland to join him.
The evening starts to swirl, Ryland drunker than he can remember ever being in recent memory. Someone (DuBois?) silently hands him a glass of water, which he gulps down like a man depraved. He waves goodbye to the few remaining in the makeshift bar and stumbles back toward his room, head floaty and stomach pleasantly warm.
He’s not sure how he ends up on the deck, rain pummeling his head and shoulders as he plops down on a large coil of rope thicker than his entire midsection. He leans back, tipping his face up to the sky. Droplets scatter across his cheeks and his glasses, his clothes drenched wet and shoes squelching in the downpour.
A few crewmembers amble about, but none of them pay him much heed. He closes his eyes and lets the stinging cold torrent cool his too-hot skin. Something starts to shutter under him, and it takes him a full minute to realize it’s his own body shaking.
“I wouldn’t sleep there if I were you.” A gruff voice speaks from a few feet to Ryland’s right. He doesn’t open his eyes, just waves a hand vaguely in the direction of the stranger.
“’S nice,” Ryland argues. “Comfy.”
“It’s pouring rain and we’re in the middle of the Southern Ocean.”
“Comfy,” Ryland repeats, a bit petulant.
A warm arm suddenly wraps around his shoulders, jostling Ryland from his very comfortable sleeping position. He finally opens his eyes and finds a man in all black hovering over him, reaching out to hoist him up. Ryland stumbles, leaning heavily into the stranger’s side, legs weak.
“You’ll die of hypothermia if you stay out here.”
“No, I won’t.”
The man tries to walk, but Ryland’s feet drag behind them, hindering the movement. Ryland clings to the man, feeling the hard paneling over his chest and shoulders. His brows furrow.
“Why are you hard?”
“What?”
Ryland raps his knuckles against the man’s pec, and a hollow, plastic-y sound echoes back at him.
The man responds, “It’s body armor.”
“Oh.” Ryland leans even heavier against him. “Do I get some?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“You don’t need it.”
Ryland sighs. “You don’t care if I die.” He speaks without emotion.
“Of course I—! You are very drunk.” The man sounds surprised. Ryland laughs.
“Duh.” He slumps his head forward, suddenly too tired to keep holding it up. “’M sleepy.”
“Alright.” The man suddenly grunts with effort and starts to move away. Ryland begins to fall, his arms pinwheeling out to catch himself as the floor approaches. Then, the world flips around and Ryland is floating, caught on a cloud of something warm and soft and rumbling with… laughter?
It takes a moment, but Ryland eventually registers that he’s being held. Bridal style, might he add. He hasn’t been held since he was a little kid.
In fact, the last person to hold him like this was Court. Ryland, too drunk to feel embarrassed, habitually burrows into the man’s shoulders as if searching for comfort. Something familiar, at least. Suddenly, he feels very, very cold.
Ryland starts to drift as he’s carried back to his room, only waking up once he’s placed, dripping wet, on the floor of the bunker. Gentle hands towel off his hair and wipe down his face, removing his glasses and softly dabbing at the skin under his eyes. Ryland can’t help but lean into it, unable to recall the last time somebody took care of him like this.
He must change at some point, though he’s a bit foggy on the details, because finally he’s tucked into his tiny bunk in a ratty old t-shirt and a fresh pair of boxers. He’s stopped shivering, and the warmth permeating from all angles is like a balm on the sudden anxiety thrumming through his veins. He’s not even sure what he’s anxious about, but it burrows under his skin and threatens to keep him awake.
A hand ghosts across his forehead, pushing rain-damp hair from his eyes. Ryland snuggles into the touch, his whole body loosening at the comfort.
“Good night, Ryland,” a voice says, familiar in the vestiges of Ryland’s memory cortex. It’s pure instinct that he clings to, age-old muscle memory, his tired brain clicking together pieces that will fall back apart come morning.
“Night, Court,” he mumbles, and then he’s out like a light.
5
It’s pure happy coincidence that Stratt drags Ryland to Vancouver for a summit during the same week that Colt and Jody are filming for a new movie in the same place. They make plans to grab dinner one night when they can, and Ryland is so excited by the prospect that he practically sprints onto the plane that will get them off the ship.
The first few days of the summit are long and exhausting, and Colt is stuck on set during them anyway, but Thursday evening ends up open on both their schedules, by some miracle. Ryland gets permission from Stratt to head out early so he can meet up with Colt and Jody on set, though she insists on sending Jim with him. Ryland glances at the man uneasily.
“Uh, Stratt—”
“I know,” she interrupts. “He will trail you. Your brother won’t even notice him. It’s just in case.”
Ryland is skeptical, but it’s the only way she’ll let him go for the evening, so he agrees.
He misses Carl. They had to leave him on the ship for the week, so Jim has taken over as both Stratt and Ryland’s security detail. It’s been more than a little stress-inducing, but at least there’s been no reason thus far for Jim to jump into action. Since he met him, Ryland hasn’t seen the guy do much more than stand outside doors and glare menacingly at onlookers.
Jody greets Ryland when he arrives on set, wrapping him in a hug that steals all the breath from his lungs. He coughs as she releases him.
“It’s good to see you!” he says earnestly. “I hear congratulations are in order?”
Jody shows him the ring—which he helped Colt pick out, months ago—and excitedly tells Ryland about her plans for the wedding and the picket-fence house she wants to buy. Ryland listens as his chest swells with pure, concentrated joy. He has to blink away budding tears a couple of times to keep from crying thanks to the overwhelm of emotion. Jody thankfully doesn’t comment, though there’s no doubt that she notices.
“We’ve just got one more scene to finish up, and then we can head out.” She marches up to the cameras, dragging Ryland along with a hand wrapped around his wrist. He can’t help but glance behind his shoulder in search of Jim, innocuous in a hoodie and a snapback amongst the crowd. He really does blend in well, Ryland thinks.
Jody gets Ryland his very own chair right next to her own, and before Ryland can so much as wave hello to Colt, standing a few feet away and all dolled up for his scene, they’re rolling.
Ryland has been on set while Colt was filming a few times before. Once, Colt even invited him on as a consultant for a sci-fi film he stunted for. It’s not like he’s never seen Colt at work.
But he hates it.
He doesn’t hate seeing Colt in his element, so clearly in love with what he does. And some of the stunts are really cool, especially those that are dangerous but not enough to be overly frightening. It’s the really intense stuff that Ryland can’t stand.
He shuts his eyes as the coordinators set Colt on fire and toss him around a bit. Jody, unconcerned beside him, throws out directions as the crew scrambles to make sure everything is perfect. When Ryland opens his eyes again, nervous, it’s to Colt’s grinning face standing in the middle of the set, his clothes and face blackened with soot, but otherwise unharmed. Ryland releases a breath, slumping in his chair with relief.
“Ry!” Colt shouts, noticing him, finally. He barrels over, nearly knocking Ryland backward off his chair as he wraps him up in a bear hug. Ryland returns it at first, but then the scent hits him. He shoves Colt away, coughing with a bit more drama than necessary.
“You smell horrible,” he says.
Colt laughs loudly and punches Ryland in the shoulder, hard enough to bruise. “Good to see you, too!”
“You do smell, love,” Jody interjects, before turning back to the camera crew and continuing her direction. Colt rolls his eyes.
After Colt showers and Jody wraps for the day, sending the crew home, they all load into the rental truck Stratt supplied Ryland for the evening and head into town. Ryland glances periodically into the rearview, catching Jim’s stoic face in the car behind them, trailing at a safe following distance.
The restaurant they end up at is a Mediterranean place recommended by one of Colt’s fellow stuntmen who filmed in Vancouver last summer. They stroll in, and Ryland smiles at the hostess that greets them.
“We have a reservation,” Ryland says. The girl’s brows knit together.
“I’m sorry, we don’t do reservations here, sir—”
“The name is Stratt,” Ryland finishes. The girl’s eyes go wide and she nods.
“Yes, of course. Right this way.”
Colt stares at Ryland, bug-eyed. Once they’re seated, he leans forward and pins Ryland with a disbelieving look. Jody, beside him, looks equally as impressed.
“What was that?” Colt whisper-shouts. Ryland shrugs.
“After a while, you get used to it.”
Colt scoffs. “What, do you have bodyguards, too?”
Ryland intends to deny it, but the lie doesn’t make its way into his throat quickly enough. Out of instinct, his gaze darts across the room for a split second to where Jim sits, solitary in the corner, with a perfect view of Ryland and all the exits. Colt notices, because of course he does, and before Ryland can dissuade him, he spins in his chair and follows the condemning line of Ryland’s traitorous gaze.
Colt turns back around and points behind his shoulder with his thumb. Jody smacks his hand out of the air, at least attempting to be discreet. “Mr. Shady in the corner?”
Ryland suppresses a wince. Hopefully, Colt didn’t look close enough to notice any of Jim’s resemblance to—
“Wait.” Colt spins around again, this time to scrutinize Jim, who happens to look up from his coffee at the exact same instance. Ryland watches them meet eyes, notices the slight, inexplicable panic in Jim’s gaze that is quickly covered up. Colt spins back around, face ashen.
“Colt?” Jody asks, sounding worried.
“Holy fucking shit,” Colt mutters. Ryland sighs.
“It’s not—”
“Holy fucking shit, Ry.” Colt’s eyes are wild, bright blue and terrified. “Why the fuck does your security detail look exactly like Court?”
Ryland shrugs, a bit helpless. “I don’t know. Coincidence, I guess?”
Jody looks confused. “Sorry, who’s Court?”
Ryland looks between her and Colt a few times before something clicks into place. He blanches at Colt, who shrinks down a bit in his seat, face rosy with guilt. “You’ve never told her?”
Colt instantly goes on the defensive. “It never came up! And it’s not like it’s a fun topic, okay?”
Jody looks like she’s on the verge of anger, missing just enough information to hesitate at committing to the feeling. “Never told me what?”
“I’m Louise, and I’ll be your server tonight. Do you all know what you would like to drink?” A bored-looking teenager with a thick Canadian accent appears beside their table, cracking the tension hung taut in the air like a cheap phone screen against concrete. Ryland swallows back his own panic and offers her a smile.
“Just water is fine,” he says.
“You wouldn’t happen to have whiskey, would you?” Colt asks, and Jody elbows him sharply. The waitress looks a bit surprised at the question, slowly shaking her head.
“Um. We have Pepsi products… I could get you a wine menu, if you’d like—”
“He’ll have water, as well,” Jody interjects. “As will I. No ice. Thanks.”
The waitress scampers away with their drink orders, and Colt stares resolutely at the table.
“What aren’t you telling me, Colt?” Jody asks. Ryland sighs.
“It’s… a long story,” he says, trying to dissipate some of the tension.
Colt laughs humorlessly. “It’s really not.”
“Do you want me to…?”
Colt shakes his head, waving Ryland off. “Nah. I got it. I guess I should’ve mentioned it sooner, but… I don’t like talking about it.”
Jody softens, placing one hand over Colt’s forearm, tensed from where he’s gripping his hand in a fist. “What is it?” she prompts.
“We had an older brother,” Colt says, motioning between himself and Ryland, who has fallen silent. “Courtland.” He chuckles a bit. “Yeah, I know. Stupid ass name. Dad’s idea, big shocker. Guess he wanted something important sounding.” Colt takes a deep breath. “He went to juvie when we were eight. First degree murder. Got thirty-six years.”
Jody gasps softly, squeezing Colt’s arm tight. Ryland mumbles under his breath, “It was self-defense.”
“It was murder, Ry,” Colt cuts in.
Jody furrows her brow. “Your saying Ryland’s detail looks exactly like him?”
“Yep. It’s uncanny,” Colt says.
“You don’t think… I mean, is it possible…?”
“He died in a riot fifteen years ago,” Colt said, voice flat. “So, no.”
Jody breathes out slowly, pushing the air between her teeth. She glances between the boys, her eyes sad. “I’m so sorry,” she says. Colt shrugs.
“Yeah, well. Me, too.”
Ryland takes another chance to glance across the restaurant. Jim is watching them again, his eyes sharp as an eagle. Ryland holds his gaze for a count of three before looking away, back to Colt and Jody.
Uncanny really is the word, he thinks to himself, watching Colt’s identical gaze sweep across the menu.
+1 - Courtland
Court makes the sniper before the first shot pings off the metal of the foremast, not ten feet away from where Ryland and Stratt are standing, caught in deep discussion with Captain Yang. It’s not quick enough to do anything but shout a warning and dive for Ryland, a fierce protective instinct rising up in him like a wounded dog, howling and driven by a terrified kind of calm.
Carl—who’s supposed to be Ryland’s security detail, though he and Court have gotten pretty used to swapping roles based on who’s closest to who, when it comes to protecting the Grace-Stratt dynamic duo—goes for Stratt a split second after Court moves into action. The scattered Chinese military return fire, but they’re clearly blind.
Court only feels a little guilty at how hard Ryland hits the deck, sequestered behind a shipping container from their most recent supply, out of range of the sniper. Court is careful to keep a hand wrapped around the back of Ryland’s head to cushion the fall, but it still clearly knocks the wind out of him. Ryland blinks up at him behind his wireframes, eyes wide and terrified.
The split-second Court takes to check Ryland over is just enough for him to notice the shift in Ryland’s gaze from petrified to shocked. He watches as recognition registers, dawning like the morning after D-day, a death knell tolling in the back of Court’s head.
Oh, shit—
“Court?”
Court hardens his expression, locking away any vestigial panic at the revelation, ignoring the breathless wonder-fear mixture of Ryland’s voice.
“Stay down,” he growls, unhooking his sidearm from his thigh and pressing it into Ryland’s hands. He knows Ryland knows how to fire it, and Court doesn’t want to ever leave him in a position where he has to, but it’s better safe than sorry. Ryland’s eyes grow impossibly wider as the cold metal makes contact with his shaking palms. He nods, and the tremble of his lower lip, childish and familiar, is the last Court sees of him before he’s darting out from behind the container.
They docked yesterday afternoon at the PLAN Yulin base for a quick resupply, mostly weapons and precise instrumentation for the science team that they didn’t trust to air-lift onto the ship. One of the many people pissed at Stratt must’ve caught wind and was taking advantage of their brief time near the mainland to make even. Court had expected this, as had the rest of the security team.
He’s not surprised by the attack. Pissed, absolutely. But not surprised.
For most of his assignment with the Petrova taskforce, Court hasn’t had reason for a scoped rifle. The middle of the ocean on a lone vessel isn’t exactly a location primed for long-range combat. That isn’t to say he wasn’t supplied with one upon boarding.
He’d anticipated this exact scenario. So, the moment they’d docked, he’d dug the AMR-2 out of his supply pack and slung it across his back.
He’s singularly focused amidst the chaos, eyes never straying from the sniper’s location, atop a nearby communications tower. He positions himself behind a coil of rope, half-hidden and tangent to the sniper’s line of fire. He finds the man easy enough through his scope.
Amateur, he scoffs to himself, and fires a single shot straight up into the tower. The man vanishes, and the assailing gunfire halts. It takes a couple of seconds for the newfound calm to wash over the rest of the deck, but the noise and chaos does quiet. Court stands, wipes off the barrel of the rifle absently, and slings it back around his shoulder.
One of the military officers that Court recognizes (but not enough to remember his name) walks up to him with a wide grin and claps him on the shoulder.
“Good man!” he says. Mandarin is one of the languages Court has spent the most time learning, thanks to its ubiquity. He nods at the man, stoic as ever.
“Casualties?” he asks, scanning the deck for any sign of felled men.
“A couple of my boys got nicked, but nothing they can’t walk away from.” The officer pats Court’s shoulder again before walking away to no doubt help his crew recover.
Court is already making his way back to Ryland, panic thrumming under his skin, when Carl catches his eye and shoots him a quick thumbs up. Court returns the gesture, relieved at least that his actual client is safe. Although, a part of him couldn’t give less of a shit at the moment.
Ryland is right where Court left him, curled up on the ground and huddled next to the shipping container, Court’s pistol cradled close to his chest. Court clears his throat, and Ryland’s eyes snap open, landing on him immediately.
“Is it over?” he asks, voice rough with slowly ebbing terror. Court nods.
“The threat has been neutralized.” He scoffs. “Idiots only sent a single hitman.”
Ryland’s mouth falls open in the most cartoon-looking gawk Court has ever seen. Despite the circumstances, it’s almost enough to make Court burst out laughing.
Ryland scrambles to his feet, glancing around nervously before taking a halting step toward Court. He’s still holding the gun with both hands, angled at the floor. His form is perfect, and Court can’t help the bit of pride that weasels through the general sense of oh, shit.
“It’s really you, isn’t it?” Ryland asks. “All this time, I thought I was crazy, just seeing things, but—” He laughs, a tad hysterical. “I can’t believe it. How are you—What are you—?”
Court decides there’s no point denying it now. Ryland is too smart for that, anyway. Court steps forward and grasps Ryland by the shoulders, cutting him off. He has to look up a bit to meet Ryland’s gaze, and isn’t that an awful thought? His baby brother is taller than him now.
And he missed it.
“Ryland,” he says, almost choking on the name. He hasn’t so much as said either of his brother’s names in nearly twenty years, except for that small slip the other night, which he still curses himself for. The consonants scrape against his throat, familiar in a way that chafes, like an old shirt he didn’t expect to still fit.
“Holy moly,” Ryland breathes, and Court almost laughs again at the ridiculous censoring.
“Look, I promise, I’ll tell you everything you want to know, but… not now.” Court glances around at the busy docks, sees Carl trying to wave him over to where Stratt is having an angry discussion with Captain Yang and the ship’s chief military officer, Admiral Liu. “Right now, you have to pretend I’m just Jim, and we don’t know each other outside of this job.”
Ryland snaps out of his shock long enough to turn a half-hearted glare on Court. “How’s that fair?” He argues, petulant as the day he was born.
“Just—I need you to trust me, okay?” Court can feel that he’s pleading. It’s unfamiliar enough to him, but that instinct to do anything to keep his family safe is as old as the heart beating in his chest.
Ryland nods after a long moment. “Okay,” he agrees. “Fine. But I’m holding you to that explanation.”
Court can’t stifle the smile in time, the corner of his lips quirking up involuntarily. “Alright.”
They make their way over to where Carl and Stratt are standing. Sure enough, Stratt is giving Admiral Liu and Captain Yang a piece of her mind on the strength of their security. Ryland, who handed Court his sidearm back almost as soon as he could, has deflated significantly in the short walk across the deck. Evidently, Stratt’s adrenaline crash hasn’t hit yet.
She catches sight of Ryland’s approach and cuts herself off mid-sentence, scowl firmly in place as she stalks over to where he stands beside Court. For a moment, Court thinks she’s going to attack him, and he tenses to counter, but then she throws her arms around his shoulders and squeezes him tight.
Ryland’s eyes nearly bug out of his head, and he tentatively raises his arms to return the hug. Almost as soon as he does, however, Stratt steps back, the anger still bright in her eyes.
“Uh,” Ryland says. Stratt nods.
“It is good you are not dead,” she says. “That would have been… inconvenient.”
A small smile finds its way across Ryland’s face. “Inconvenient?” he asks. If Court didn’t know any better, he’d say Ryland almost looked charmed.
Hell, maybe he doesn’t know any better. Not like Court is any good at this stuff, anyway.
“Ms. Stratt,” Yang says, interrupting the moment. “We are terribly sorry for the security breach, but you must understand, this instance was an anomaly—”
“An anomaly that almost cost me the life of my best scientist?” Stratt looks about ready to throw a fist, her usually short patience clearly run as dry as the paved-over Sahara. Ryland glances nervously between her and Yang, clearly not understanding a word of Mandarin.
“I assure you, we will be looking into this instance with the utmost scrutiny,” Liu cuts in. “It will not happen again.” Then, he turns to Court. “Thank you,” he says, in English. “You have good aim, for an American.”
Court replies in Mandarin. “I was expecting some action while we were aground.”
He notices the way Ryland shoots him a surprised look, but he ignores it. Court kind of wants to whack him over the head and teach him a lesson about subtly, but he won’t risk the hypocrisy.
Stratt’s phone rings, shrill in the tense air. She picks up, terse. “Stratt.”
Court glances over at Carl, nodding toward Stratt. Carl shoots him another thumbs up, nodding in turn toward Ryland. Court gestures his assent and grabs Ryland gently by the arm, pulling him toward the bunks below deck. Ryland is still a bit too shell-shocked to protest, and Stratt is too busy on the phone with someone important to worry about Court dragging her favorite scientist away. Carl takes over the conversation with Liu and Yang, their voices softening with distance.
Court pulls Ryland into the private bunker he’d been assigned to store his gear and nab the very occasional shuteye. He locks the deadbolt with a sharp twang and is halfway through turning around when a pair of deceptively strong arms wrap around him. Court startles, almost thrown off balance, and stands stock-still while Ryland hugs him within an inch of his life. It occurs to Court, somewhere in the back of his mind, that hugs are meant to be returned.
Ryland’s face is burrowed in Court’s chest, despite the couple of inches he has on him. It can’t be comfortable, what with the body armor and the various guns strapped to his abdomen, but Ryland doesn’t seem to notice. He just squeezes Court as tight as possible and sniffles, the sound muffled into Court’s tactical vest.
“Hey,” Court says, surprised that his voice can still come out that soft. “Ryland.”
He isn’t sure what else to say. It occurs to him that he would actually really like to hug his brother back.
His arms come up tentatively, hands resting lightly against Ryland’s shoulder blades. He offers a small squeeze, and Ryland returns the gesture tenfold. Court feels the air wheeze out of his lungs. Damn, Ry, what the hell are they feeding you? he wonders, smiling to himself.
Ryland had always been the smallest of the three of them, and the gentlest. He hadn’t built up muscle quite at the same rate as Court and Colt, had always fallen behind them in physical strength. He’s never been weak, but Court always got the impression that he felt he was. Court wonders if he kept in shape as a way to combat that fear, an attempt to never be weak again.
“You’re alive?” Ryland asks, breathless. His voice is softened, words spoken into Court’s chest.
“Somehow,” Court replies, dry. Ryland finally releases him, stepping back to glare. There’s not very much heat in it, though.
“You were alive this whole time,” Ryland says, with the cadence of an accusation. “And you never thought to tell me?”
“I had to keep you safe—”
“By letting me believe you were dead? What have you been doing all these years anyway? Government security? Pretty sure they don’t put you into witsec for that.”
Court cringes internally, realizing the weight of everything he’ll have to tell Ryland. He won’t take ‘it’s classified’ as an answer for all of it. Even if Court tries to sugar-coat it, Ryland is too smart; he’ll read between the lines, know what ‘top-secret CIA operative’ really means.
Court is slightly assuaged by the fact that Ryland is now technically also a high-clearance government employee, thanks to Stratt. It’s the only reason Court doesn’t immediately drop off the map to avoid the conversation altogether. This is probably the closest thing he’ll ever get to an excuse to hang out with either of his brothers ever again.
Court gestures toward his small bunk, still mussed from the last few hours of sleep he’d caught. Ryland huffs at him but does sit down. Court lowers himself onto the mattress beside him.
He gives an abridged version. The eight years in prison, the SAD and Golf Sierra. He glances past the SOS directive and explains that he ended up in the private sector, omitting the ‘why.’ He tells Ryland that there was a family he was asked to protect, and a dark-haired girl he left in the care of a trusted friend in London while he took on the job for Stratt.
Ryland takes it all in with a mostly blank face. He breathes out slowly.
“So,” he starts, and pauses. “Let me get this straight. You faked your death to join the CIA as a contract assassin, and have just been… what? Running around, blowing people’s heads off for the better part of two decades?”
Court ticks his head to the side. “I mean, I wasn’t on contract until after I left the agency—” He cuts off at the look Ryland is giving him, eyes wide and mouth twisted in an odd mixture of confusion and something darker. “Yeah, pretty much.”
“And you have a kid.”
Court makes a choking sound in the back of his throat. “I don’t have a kid—”
“Oh, right, just a child you happen to take care of and look after and would do anything to protect.” Ryland’s voice drips with sarcasm, and Court can’t help the way annoyance twinges in his chest. Jesus, was Ryland always this fucking annoying?
“I see you never grew out of being a pain in my ass,” Court grumbles. Ryland snorts, and the tension dissipates. Court is kind of impressed at how well Ryland is taking the whole thing. His best guess is that the shock of the day’s events is buffeting the emotional impact a bit. Once Ryland gets a shower and a few hour’s rest, Court imagines he’ll be a bit more reactive.
“Does Colt know?” Ryland’s voice is soft, nearly a whisper. Court shuts his eyes.
“No. Neither of you were ever supposed to know.”
The anger returns. “You think we’re just better off thinking you’re dead?”
“Yes!” Court finally loses his composure, turning to Ryland with something desperate clawing at his chest, panicked and terrified. It’s like that animal, wounded and small with bared teeth, that always drives Court to keep going, to survive, but this one is less practiced and more afraid. It trembles and cowers behind Court’s ribcage, and he wants to start crying at the pain of its scrabbling claws against soft tissue. “You’re both safer not knowing about me.”
Ryland glares, and his next words come out low and dangerous. “You don’t get to make that choice for us,” he says, and Court thinks he sees the very same animal reflected in Ryland’s eyes, just as scared to lose somebody it cares for.
“Yes, I do.” Court turns back around and stands, unable to look into Ryland’s eyes any longer. “I’ll tender my resignation tomorrow first thing, once I’m sure the ship is secure. And you will go back to pretending I died in that riot fifteen years ago.”
“What the heck is your problem?” Ryland demands, stomping to his feet. Evidently, the adrenaline is back.
“I’m trying to protect you, Ryland,” Court is practically pleading, but Ryland is just as stubborn as ever.
“I didn’t ask you to,” Ryland spits. “Not then, and not now.”
Court squeezes his eyes shut. As a general rule, he tries not to think about the night he killed their father. He’s usually successful, has always had a penchant for compartmentalizing. He’s never had it thrown in his face like this before, though. Sure, he gets called a murderer all the time, but it doesn’t bother him. It’s true.
Sometimes, Court wonders if he leaves behind a trail of bodies a mile long so he doesn’t have to let that first one define him. He’s not a murderer because of what he did that night, he’s a murderer because that’s who he is, who he’s had to become to protect the world and the good people he knows are still left in it.
He does what’s necessary, to protect the good people from soiling their hands.
“Court. Cory.” Ryland’s voice comes out in a desperate rasp. He lunges forward and grasps Court’s shirtsleeve, trying to pull him back. Court lets Ryland maneuver him into turning around and meets his eyes. It’s then that Court notices that Ryland is shaking, terror and anger and exhaustion blending together in the slope of his shoulders and the cut of his sorrowed gaze. Court softens, and when Ryland finally, finally bursts into tears, he holds him close once again.
Shit, Court thinks. He’s not going anywhere, is he?
+2 – Ryland
Ryland wakes in an unfamiliar bed that smells of antiseptic, the bitter twang of metal, and a little bit of gunpowder. He sits up slowly and rubs his eyes, which have crusted over with sleep, and looks around. He’s in a small room, clearly still aboard the ship, surrounded by a few bulging duffle bags that he doesn’t recognize.
It doesn’t take long for the memories of the day before to hit, and then he has to slump back down into the mattress out of pure shock.
He half convinces himself that it was all a dream, that he’s imagining things.
But, no, he thinks. His dreams never make that much sense. Not that anything is making sense right now.
He stumbles out of bed—Court’s bed, he thinks, half delirious—and straightens his rumpled shirt. His glasses are sitting on a nearby shelf, which he can only barely make out in the blurry dark. He shoves them on his face and goes for the heavy door, shouldering his way into the hall.
He has to wander around a bit to find his way to a familiar part of the ship, but once he does, he bee-lines straight for his own bunker, sequestered in a communal room with a bunch of the enlisted men stationed on the ship.
He finds the trusty duffle he keeps stashed under his bed thankfully untouched, and quickly changes into fresh clothes that smell less like sweat and gunpowder. He swings by the mess on his way to Stratt’s office to shove a stale piece of toast in his mouth and down a scalding cup of coffee. Nobody pays him any mind.
He glances in the lab as he passes it, noticing that it’s mostly empty. Ryland’s watch blinks back at him with the ass-crack of dawn, so it’s no surprise they’re down to a skeleton crew. He passes straight by, not returning the greetings of any of the working scientists. They all already think he’s a jerk anyway.
Stratt’s office door is closed, but Court is standing outside of it, as pro forma. His usually passive expression goes through a few different emotions when he spots Ryland, eventually settling on distant concern.
“Are you—” he starts, but Ryland bulldozes over him.
“Shut up,” he says, and pushes past Court, who’s too stunned to stop him, and into Stratt’s office. She’s on the phone, which she hangs up as soon as she notices the look on Ryland’s face, and how he’s dragged Court into the room behind him, a white-knuckle grip around his upper arm.
“I will have to call you back, Mr. President. Yes, thank you.” Stratt sets the phone down and stares up at Ryland, a question in the set of her brows.
“Jim has something to tell you,” Ryland announces. Court turns to glare at him, and Ryland pretends he doesn’t notice. “Couldn’t have picked literally any other name?” he adds in an annoyed rumble.
“Dr. Grace—” Court tries, and Ryland elbows him in the side. It has basically no effect, but it feels satisfying nonetheless. Stratt glances between them.
“Is there a reason you two are fighting like alley cats in my office at three in the morning?” she asks.
“I don’t know, Jim. Is there?” Ryland prods.
Court glares at him full-on now, yanking his arm out of Ryland’s grasp. “I’m not doing this.”
“Fine,” Ryland says, turning back toward Stratt. “Your security detail has been lying to you.”
Stratt raises a brow, though she looks moderately more interested in the intrusion than she was a moment ago. She waits for Ryland to continue.
“His name isn’t Jim at all,” Ryland announces, smug. Court groans.
“Well, yes. Obviously, it’s a code name.” Stratt motions one hand toward Court. “He has a myriad of callsigns. Jim was most convenient for the purposes of this mission.” She looks back down at the papers strewn across her desk with a sigh. “If that’s all you wanted to tell me, Dr. Grace, I am very busy and—”
“His real name,” Ryland interrupts, “is Courtland Gentry.”
“Jesus,” Court mumbles. “Shout it a little louder, why don’t you? Don’t think they heard you back at Langley.”
Stratt goes still, looking between the men with even more scrutiny. “I see…” she says, slowly. “That is… a conflict of interest, to start.”
Court nods, looking satisfied. “I’m prepared to resign, effective immediately.”
“No!” Ryland cuts in, incredulous. “Nobody is resigning! Stratt, tell him nobody is resigning.”
“Are you serious?” Court hisses. Ryland cuts his gaze back to his brother, exercising the extra two inches he has on him in an attempt at intimidation. By the flat, unimpressed look Court returns to him, it’s not very effective.
“As a heart attack, Courtland.”
“Alright, enough!” Stratt cuts off their budding argument, cowing them both into submission with a sharp glare. She points at Court, who suddenly looks a bit sheepish. “You are the best security detail there is. Like hell I’m letting you go because of a small personal conflict. However, if this will impede your ability to work for us, then that is another discussion."
She turns to Ryland next, and he stiffens. Stratt is often annoyed with him, and he often wears out her patience, but she’s rarely genuinely angry at him. “And you are a grown man acting like a child, again. This is the real world, Dr. Grace. You do not get unanimous control over what other people do, regardless of your personal affiliation with them.”
She straightens up in her seat. “Now. I hope you will stay on, Mr. Gentry, as I will admit I’ve grown quite fond of you. But, I understand if you feel the need to depart due to the conflict of interest at hand.”
“The conflict of him being my dead brother?” Ryland demands. Stratt sighs.
“Did you hear none of what I just said?” she mumbled.
“Ryland.” Court’s voice is softer than it was a moment before, and Ryland turns to stare at him, desperation clawing at his chest like a wounded animal. He feels tears spring to his eyes, sudden enough to take him by surprise. His knees become weak, but he manages to hold back a swoon, standing his ground.
“What?” he croaks, voice breaking.
Court takes a step toward him, placing both of his hands on Ryland’s shoulders, halting the full-body tremors he hadn’t noticed rattling his chest and limbs. “I’m alive. You know that I’m alive. As much as I regret that, I can’t take it back. But that puts you in danger. I can’t—” He pauses, turning his face down for a moment. Ryland can’t shake the feeling that he’s gathering his courage.
Court looks up again, meeting Ryland’s gaze. His eyes are wet, but his voice comes out steady. “I will not put you in danger again. On my life, Ryland, I will never let anything bad happen to you, ever again. But that means I can’t be in your life. And you need to be okay with that.”
Ryland considers caving. He considers taking Court’s—albeit misplaced—concern as the act of care that it is and letting him walk away. But the thought of losing him again, of never seeing him again, of knowing he’s out there, alive, and probably in danger…
He can’t stand it.
“I’m never going to be okay with that.” Ryland’s voice comes out stronger than he expects, bolstered by resolve. He watches Court’s gaze shutter and fall before he steps back.
“Shit, Ry. Could never just make it easy on me, huh?”
Ryland doesn’t respond. He knows there’s nothing else he can do or say that will convince Court not to leave. The last twenty-four hours are starting to catch up with him, the adrenaline and terror and relief-heartbreak emotional whiplash that’s been putting his heart through the ringer.
He gives Court one final, grief-stricken look, and stalks out of the office, hoping that if he’s the one to leave first, it’ll hurt less.
It doesn’t.