Chapter Text
“If you don’t stop staring at me like that, you’ll see what happens.”
It was a completely empty threat, since Colt Seavers was not the type for bar fights (except that one unfortunate instance in Sydney but — in his defense — they had drugged him). He couldn’t really blame the guy either. But the constant stares were already getting to him during the day and he’d hoped to at least be able to get drunk in peace. The nights were usually more manageable. Most of the people he encountered in Hollywood at this hour were either too drunk or too preoccupied with themselves to remind him that he shared a face with the savior of mankind.
“Sorry,” the other guy mumbled, turning away to stare awkwardly at his beer.
“Bad day, huh?” the bartender chuckled, clearly adept at keeping the peace. Colt didn’t care. He just kept sipping his whiskey. In the background Asleep by The Smiths played softly and the sounds seemed to roll off the yellowed 70s wallpaper that decorated the dimly lit bar. The bizarre music choices of the evening felt like the sad cherry on top of the huge, pathetic cake that was Colt's life.
The universe had a very strange sense of humor, and Colt wasn't laughing.
When he got up to take a leak, the cheap whiskey he had been gulping down like water all night took its revenge. Deciding it wasn’t that urgent after all, Colt wobbled back to his seat.
“You should go home, man,” the bartender said. “You’ve had enough.”
Colt ignored him, tapping his glass with two fingers. “Another.”
For a moment he was worried the guy was gonna cut him off but after a second of staring Colt down he sighed and poured him another drink.
The alcohol wasn’t working. Or rather it was, just not in the way he’d hoped. Jody would kill him.
Somewhere at the periphery of his awareness, Colt vaguely registered that the song had ended. The last few notes of The Smiths faded away and for a few wonderful seconds the bar was silent, except for the idiot next to him, who still stared at Colt out of the corner of his eye whenever he sipped his beer, apparently thinking he was being inconspicuous. He wasn't, but Colt was too tired and too drunk to argue.
Apparently the universe wasn’t done with him yet because just as Asleep had ended and Colt had time to get his hopes up for a less depressing song, the first few notes of Purple Rain began echoing through the room.
Colt barely suppressed a groan and downed his whiskey in one go. Yeah, Jody was definitely going to kill him.
And then she would pull him into her arms and hold him, right there in the hallway, with him still reeking of cheap booze, sweat and cigarette smoke. He tried not to make it a habit, for her sake if for nothing else, but every once in a while he needed this. It was a bad coping mechanism but all things considered, he thought he was handling… everything… remarkably well. Better than last time, at least. Though, he supposed, that was not a very high bar.
Jody helped. She was his ray of shining light in a world that was quite literally getting darker each day. To call her his rock would’ve been the understatement of the century. Again, he tried not to make it a habit. God knew she had been through enough with him.
But she was someone to lean on on nights light these, when the memories got too much and it was his brother’s face he saw in the mirror instead of his own.
Colt downed the next glass before the barkeeper had even left and the alcohol burned in his throat as he set it back down on the counter harder than necessary, gesturing at him. The guy eyed him carefully as he poured him another. “Last one,” he finally said, putting the bottle back up on the shelf. “I’m cutting you off.”
The night air that hit him as he left the bar was colder than expected and helped him sober up a little. Maybe it was a good thing he'd been kicked out, because from inside he could hear the first notes of Cat Stevens' The Wind play. Seriously, it was like the guy who'd made tonight's playlist had it in for him personally. In any case, he was glad to be out of there.
“Cigarette?” a voice interrupted his thoughts.
The guy that had sat next to him at the bar walked up to him and offered him a Marlboro. Maybe a peace offering? Or maybe he was a tabloid journalist trying to get some juicy details out of him about that twin of his. The press interest in his brother had increased exponentially in the past few months. Sacrificing oneself to literally save the entire planet and its civilization from impending doom tended to do that. Colt took the cigarette.
If the man was offended at him not taking a single drag, he didn’t let it show. Colt had to admit there was something meditative about watching the embers flicker in the darkness of the night, slowly consuming the cigarette until almost nothing was left. They said nothing. The man smoked in silence and Colt watched as $1.33 slowly burned down between his fingers.
“Sorry about earlier,” the guy finally said when he had finished, flicking the cigarette butt onto the empty street. Colt did the same and hummed to let him know he had heard him.
“I didn’t mean to stare. Can imagine you get enough of that already.”
That finally served to get a laugh out of Colt. He did, in fact, get enough stares. “It’s okay, man,” he managed. Even to his own ears his words sounded slurred. God, he really needed to get home.
Jody was going to kill him.
“Your brother, I assume.”
“Yeah.”
“Fuck. That sucks, man.”
“Yeah. It does.”
Another heartbeat of silence.
“If you don’t mind me asking — What did he say? Before… you know.”
Colt swallowed. Slowly, trying not to fall over with the whole world spinning, he turned around and began making his way back. “Nothing,” he said, lifting his arm to wave the guy goodbye. He wasn't sure if the gesture came across correctly, as he had hardly any control over his muscles left, but he was sure context would sort it out. “He said nothing.”
Colt was putting band aids on the scratches he had sustained when he received the news.
Hollywood's streets were empty. No tourists, no locals rushing to work, no productions. And it wasn’t just LA. The whole country stood still, the whole world.
“The most-watched televised event in history”, they called it. More viewers than any World Cup final, wedding, concert, or Super Bowl, more than the moon landing or Diana's funeral.
Like many others, the crew had gathered to watch the launch of the Hail Mary together. Jody had ordered a tent to be set up, complete with the biggest flat screen they could find on short notice. Two of the new producers, still wet behind the ears and eager to be liked, had sponsored drinks and snacks. A few of the PAs had made a huge banner that read "Godspeed, Hail Mary" and hung it at the end of the tent. Almost the entire cast and crew had turned up, many even bringing family and friends. The whole thing was like one giant, crazy public viewing of the world’s weirdest sports event.
Half an hour left and Colt had decided that was more than enough to change the band aids already peeling off of the fresh scratches on his arm.
Despite the end of the world, environmental catastrophe and economic crisis, Hollywood held up remarkably well. If you disregarded the layoffs and production cancellations. Ironically, it was space operas and sci-fi films that were still doing well. It was as if humanity had learned of the existence of extraterrestrial life and been immediately disappointed it was just small, boring single-celled organisms instead of the cool stuff. Colt couldn't help but agree, but he generally kept that to himself. He bet his nerdy brother was blown away by the space dots. Good for him. Colt still would have preferred Mr. Spock.
Either way, it made Metalstorm 3 one of the most anticipated movies coming up and the crew technically didn't have time to pause production for two whole days. But what else could they do? Three people were launching on a one-way trip into space to maybe — or maybe not — find a cure for their dying star, 11 light-years away. This was literally a once-in-a-lifetime event. Colt didn't want to be 90 and have to explain to his grandchildren that he'd been too busy with work to witness the event of the millennium.
Well, grandchildren... assuming humanity could hold out that long. Colt generally tried not to think about it. No, he left that to people much smarter than him.
It had been a shit day, if he was honest. The coffee machine had broken, and his back had been complaining about the dropping temperatures for weeks now. He had landed wrong during one of his stunts and, despite protective clothing, scraped his right arm on the asphalt cheese grater-style. Oh, also he’d lost his phone. Shit day.
He was grateful for the few minutes of peace in his trailer away from the crowd. He didn't like being reminded of the inevitable end of the world, or the idea that three people were sent up there and forced to face the consequences of it while the rest of humanity sat around comfortably, waiting for the astronauts to do their job.
It seemed like a really ungrateful job. And Colt knew all about ungrateful jobs.
He had just placed the last band aid on a smaller scratch on his shoulder when he heard a familiar pair of footsteps running up to his trailer. Dan and Jody didn’t knock, neither of them ever did, but what was new was how hard Jody slammed the door open. It was so much force that the door hit the wall behind it and left a dent there. Colt jumped up. “Jody!” he shouted. “What-” He shut up the second he saw her face.
His girlfriend stared at him with wide eyes and was so pale that for a moment he worried she might faint. Dan, standing behind her, didn't look much better.
"Colt," she gasped. "You have to come with us right now! On TV , they-"
“A spokesperson for the project just said that there was an accident a few days ago,” Dan continued. “With those astrophage things. Something exploded.”
Colt frowned. “So?”
Jody swallowed hard, leaning heavily against the doorframe. “The entire science team died.”
Colt felt his body freeze up. “So, what does that mean? Is this it? Is, is the ship not launching?” Does that mean we’re doomed after all?
Dan shook his head and Jody took a deep breath, although it seemed to get caught in her throat. “No, a scientist working on the project volunteered. Did-” Jody suddenly eyed him very carefully. Colt didn’t know what to make of the look on her face. “Did you know?”
“Know what?”
Dan and Jody's eyes met for the briefest of moments and Colt couldn't help but feel he was missing something vital. “That Ryland is working on Project Hail Mary.”
Colt felt his spine grow rigid.
The name itself was an old ache, a phantom of something that had once been there and then been ripped away. It reminded him of the ache caused by the scar on his back — pale and ghostly but ever-there.
The biggest mistake of Colt Seaver’s life he had made in a hospital room.
On the grand scale of things, he supposed, there were worse places to make big mistakes: A church, or a court room, or an intergalactic space ship sent to find the solution to a problem endangering their entire planet.
But he had to admit, his seemed far worse in hindsight. Because there was no reason for it. But Colt hadn’t needed a reason for anything these days.
He just snapped.
In a happier story, like in a movie, maybe they would have made it.
Usually Colt believed in happy endings, he really did.
When he woke up, Colt didn’t even know whether it was day or night. The last thing he remembered was Jody's distraught face. The paramedic had sent her away.
Colt knew he was probably on the strongest cocktail of drugs allowed under California law. The relief of being able to feel his entire body vanished as, strapped to that uncomfortable hospital bed, he realized what had happened. He hated himself. He hated Tom. He hated the entire cast and crew, hated the industry, hated his job.
At the same time a cold fear gripped his heart at the thought of never being able to do his job again. What if he was paralyzed for the rest of his life? He had met more than enough stunt colleagues whose careers had been cut short because an accident had taken something from them that no modern medicine in the world could give back. What if he had to endure this unbearable pain for the rest of his life? He wasn't sure he could, and the thought terrified him.
He wanted to see Jody. He really, really wanted to see her, wanted her to come to him and sit with him and hold his hand, tell him everything would be okay and the pain would stop. He wanted to smell the scent of her shampoo instead of the stench of disinfectant. He realized he'd never told her he loved her.
“Mr. Seavers?” someone asked him but he was too busy silently spiraling to answer. He didn’t remember the test she ran on him after, but he did remember her telling him that his brother was here to see him.
Colt had never been more grateful for Ryland than when he came stumbling into that sterile, white hospital room with his orange cardigan and baggy beanie. It was as if the sun had risen.
Jody and him weren’t married and so she technically wasn’t allowed to see him yet. Ryland had smuggled her in nonetheless, and then, after she’d gotten caught sobbing into Colt’s shoulder, convinced the staff to let her stay until she was officially put onto the visitor’s list in Colt’s file.
The weeks passed and with every passing day it had gotten harder. Colt had pushed them all away — Jody, Dan. Ryland.
To this day Colt wondered how and why Ryland had held out as long as he did.
He wasn’t proud of it, but he had wanted to be left alone. While his treatment of Jody and Dan had been gentler, for some reason his brother's presence had begun to make his skin crawl. Despite Colt telling him to repeatedly, Ryland had refused to go back to San Francisco. And so Colt had figured he needed to be more direct. When silent treatment hadn't worked, he'd tried to drive his brother away. Words didn't work. They'd grown up together. There were very few things left they hadn't said to each other in a meaningless fit of anger or annoyance before.
And so, on a particularly bad day, at a particularly bad moment, Colt had taken the little cup of pills that was still sitting untouched on his tray, and hurled it across the hospital room.
Even that hadn’t worked immediately. His brother was very obviously near tears, ever the softie, but he had stubbornly refused to let them fall. As if he could hide anything from Colt. (As if Colt could hide anything from him.)
Ryland had gathered his things, nodded quietly to himself and begun picking up the pills. With wetness still shimmering in his eyes, he gently put the cup down on Colt’s tray table.
“If you really want me to leave and never bother you again, I will. After you take your meds.”
Colt had angrily stared him down as he swallowed the pills and then helplessly watched his brother leave the hospital room and his life.
Ryland never stopped trying, despite what he promised that day. But every day that passed, every day that Colt saw his name appear on his mobile phone until the navigation bar indicated a missed call, seemed to add another meter by which the gap between them grew.
During the Sydney incident (as he, Jody and Dan liked to call it) he had actually briefly considered calling him. But by that point they hadn't spoken to each other in a year and a half. Or rather — Colt hadn't spoken to Ryland. Ryland had never stopped calling. And Colt had more than 100 voicemails from his brother that he'd never listened to.
In the end he had just opted for faking his death. Seemed easier than returning his brother’s call. And what was he supposed to say anyway?
“Hey man, sorry I pushed you and everyone in my life away! Just wanted to let you know I'm currently wanted in Australia for murder. But don't worry, I didn't do it! How are the kids?”
By the time he and Jody had rekindled their relationship and she had finally convinced him to call Ryland, his brother couldn’t be reached for some reason. His phone went straight to voicemail. Colt figured he had simply changed his number. Or blocked him. He certainly would have deserved it.
Several times Colt had considered driving up to San Francisco to do it face to face. That probably would have been better anyway. He never did.
In a happier story Colt wouldn’t have been such a coward. He would have made that trip and knocked on his brother’s door and they would have had the most beautiful, corny reunion after Colt held a heartfelt apology speech. It would have brought audiences to tears.
But this wasn’t a happy story.
The first thing Colt smelled was bacon and coffee, which meant Jody was making breakfast in hopes of cheering him up. Colt stretched out over the mattress, disappointed that the sheets had already lost the warmth of her body. He pressed his face into her pillow, inhaling her scent and forcing the memories of the dream down. Ryland’s face already haunted him anywhere he went these days. Couldn’t his brother at least leave him alone in his sleep?
“Good morning!” Jody sang effusively when she entered the bedroom with a tray of food, which made it perfectly clear to Colt that he looked terrible. He barely remembered anything from last night and that could only mean it must have been rough. Jody had undoubtedly had to hold him while he, drunk off his ass, cried himself to sleep. He was glad he couldn’t remember that.
“You awake?”
Colt groaned and hid his head under the pillow.
“Come on!” Jody hummed gently, which at least served to coax Colt’s face out from under the pillow. Lowering herself back onto her side of the bed, she carefully balanced the tray on her knees until they had both settled. “I made you coffee.”
Despite his excruciating headache, Colt couldn't help but smile. "Breakfast in bed?"
“I am the best girlfriend in the world,” she smiled, handing him his mug.
Finally Colt managed to sit up, kissing her in hopes it would bring across his point better than words would.
For a while they sat side by side in peaceful silence. Because of his hangover Colt didn’t dare touching the bacon but he was grateful for the plain toast and black coffee to bring him back to the land of the living.
Jody took a shower first and while he waited for her, Colt turned on the TV and zapped through the channels in hopes of finding something that would get his mind off things. Just as he had expected, it didn’t help. It was the three-month anniversary of the launch, which meant there was practically no other topic of conversation. Dan assured him the media frenzy would die down. It would be omnipresent for the first few months. But Colt knew the media cycle, Dan had said. Eventually, it would become uninteresting. Instead of every day, it would only be a topic once a week, then once a month, and eventually, the major media outlets would only dig up the Hail Mary yearly: “Give it time, man. Give yourself time.”
Easier said than done, Colt thought as he took another bite of toast.
It hadn’t hurt, the day of. At least not as much as he had expected.
Colt had sprinted back to the tent, Dan and Jody hot on his heels. He could feel a few hundred eyes on him the second he pushed the flaps to the side to enter the tent and came face to face with a giant photo of his twin brother projected onto the huge flat screen.
He barely heard the reporter explaining the details of the accident, barely noticed Dan’s hand on his shoulder. The icy dread that had gripped him when Jody and Dan had asked him about Ryland and his involvement in the project subsided to make way for crushing numbness.
There it was — right there in 4k UHD was the confirmation of the horrifying sense of foreboding that had followed him here.
Jody took his hand and even that he didn’t feel.
She and Dan led him to the very back of the tent where he was somewhat protected from the curious gazes of the rest of the crew. Dan procured a chair and a bottle of water from who-knew-where, and the two of them spent the remaining 20 minutes until launch trying to bring Colt back down to Earth. It barely worked.
When the engines ignited, Colt felt as if he was being launched into space with his twin. He felt nothing.
“I don’t understand why he didn’t call,” was the first thing he said, hours after launch. From the corner of his eye he could see Jody and Dan share a look.
“Maybe he wasn’t allowed to,” Dan finally offered. “You heard what they said about the accident. It killed DuBois and his backup. And it was classified.”
Jody nodded. “I’m sure he wanted to, Colt.”
Colt, staring at the sandy ground under his boots, felt himself shake his head on autopilot. “I’m not.”
Jody sighed, sitting down next to him. Her hand on his knee suddenly felt like the only thing tethering him to the Earth. “No matter what happened, he’s your brother. And what he is doing… I doubt he planned for you to find out through the news.”
“Probably no phones allowed,” Dan mused. “You guys haven’t been home in a while, maybe he sent a letter or something.”
Numbly Colt lifted his head to look at his friend. Dan had his hands buried in his pockets and was staring into the distance. Next to him Jody nodded.
“Yeah. Yeah, come on. We’ll drive home and see if there’s anything from him there. I’m sure there is.”
Colt shook his head. “No, no, you don’t have to do that, the production-”
Jody clicked her tongue, but her gaze was gentle. "Oh Colt, forget about production!"
“But we already lost two days-”
“So what’s a few more?” Jody chuckled.
“Don’t let your producers hear that.” Despite the situation, he couldn't help but bask in the smile she gave him.
“These are crazy times anyway,” Dan agreed. He held out a hand to pull Colt up and onto his feet.
Jody and him drove straight home. There was nothing in the mail.
Jody suggested that something might still come. Like Dan had said, these were crazy times, and the whole country had come to a standstill. Perhaps the letter would arrive in the next couple of days. Colt doubted it, but she was trying so hard, he didn't have the heart to say it out loud.
It had been a long day, and Colt was too tired and in too much shock to feel anything. Mechanically, he got ready for bed and burrowed himself under the covers until tiredness overtook him. He heard Jody talking quietly on the phone in the kitchen, but it was far away, as if he was only perceiving the world through cotton wool. He didn't know how much time had passed before Jody lay down beside him, but it wasn't until her arms wrapped around his torso from behind that he finally managed to drift off to sleep.
When he woke up the next morning, the world seemed a whole lot emptier.
If not for Jody, Colt wasn’t sure how he would have survived it.
She was the one who dragged him out of bed every morning, ordered him to shower and take his medication. She was the one who drove him to set with her, thus providing at least some semblance of a routine. Dan gave him just enough tasks and stunts to keep him occupied. At the same time, Colt realized how his friend kept him away from the truly dangerous stuff, something completely out of character for him. That alone told Colt he must look terrible.
But either way, if not for Dan, if not for Jody-
Colt had proven in the past that he didn't cope well with adversity, to put it lightly, and his friends were clearly determined not to let him slip back into the terrible hole he'd fallen into after his accident. It was exhausting, but he was grateful.
For three whole weeks after the launch of the Hail Mary, Colt had watched his mailbox like a hawk. Jody and him had also turned their entire apartment upside down and searched the whole set late into the night, hoping to find his lost phone. Colt didn't really expect to find anything on it, but Jody had even offered a reward in front of the entire cast and crew to anyone who found it. He loved her so much.
A month passed. His phone remained lost. The mailbox remained empty save for a parking ticket.