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When the front door of Ryland’s apartment swings open, it's not Ryland standing on the other side.
“Uh–” Colt blinks.
He doesn't recognize the man, but he’s…
…fuck.
That's the only word that passes through Colt’s mind.
Because he’s…honestly, it's unfair how good this stranger looks this early in the morning. Dark hair tied back with a scrunchie that's a shade of neon green that's, frankly, an affront on Colt's eyes, pale pink lines of pillow creases not quite faded from his cheek, round rimmed glasses perched on the crooked bridge of his nose (broken once, Colt imagines, and never quite set right before it healed), an old university t-shirt sitting just a little too tightly on his shoulders, sweat pants hanging just a little too low on his hips, just enough to show the sharp jut of bone and muscle hiding underneath.
It's…Jesus.
Colt snaps his eyes back up to the man’s face.
“--hi?” He finishes awkwardly.
The man blinks once.
If he noticed Colt staring–and he must have, surly, because Colt was many things but subtle was not one of them–he doesn't mention it.
He only wrinkles his nose, glances over his shoulder, and says in a sleep roughened voice that has no goddamn right sounding that nice, “Your brother’s here, angel.”
There’s a clatter of ceramic from deeper inside the apartment.
“What–?”
Colt hears the thudding of footsteps, a swoosh, a soft thump, a muffled aw, biscuits–, more footsteps that are slower and much more carefully taken than the last, and then there’s Ryland rounding the corner of the short hall leading to what Colt knows is the kitchen. Ryland looks genuinely winded from what must have been a remarkably small journey. His hair is more of a mess than usual. His glasses are dangling from his ear like usual. He is wearing his favorite cardigan over a shirt that is definitely not his. Dark circles underneath Ryland’s eyes have been a permanent feature of his complexion since he hit twelve, but right now they’re prominent in a way that Colt hasn't seen since high school, when Ryland was pulling all nighters without the steady aid of coffee and redbull.
“Colt!” Ryland fumbles with nothing, hands looking for something to do. Eventually they lock onto his cardigan, fingers tangling in the fabric as he pulls it tighter around his chest. Ryland smiles. It's tight. “I wasn't uh–expecting you.”
It shouldn't sting.
It's not like Colt texted or called, asking in advance for permission to see his brother and stumble into his home entirely unprompted.
Ryland's reaction is entirely justified.
And yet…
…Colt can remember a time where they would bust open the door to each other's rooms without preamble. Where they would waltz into one another's space without even bothering to announce themselves. They had no boundaries. They existed in each other's lives in a permanent stasis. Where one was the other was sure to follow. You couldn’t have Ryland without Colt, and you couldn’t have Colt without Ryland.
But now it seems as if you can only have Colt on his own, and Ryland with…whoever this other man was.
And it shouldn't sting.
But it does.
Fuck it does.
“Yeah, I–sorry, I should have…” Colt’s eyes drift away from Ryland and back to the man. This stranger who, apparently, isn’t a stranger at all. He’s already looking at Ryland, expression so soft and fond that it seems like it should hurt. “...called.”
Ryland glances at the man.
The man tilts his head, then steps back, allowing Colt permission into a space he hadn’t entirely realized he’d lost access to in the first place.
“No, that's okay!” Ryland says. His smile softens into something more genuine. It’s still one of surprise, but it’s more of an unexpected delight than the stilted forced politeness of before. Something in Colt relaxes. He can breathe easier. He hadn’t even noticed he was controlling his breathing at all. “Come in–I've got some coffee going right now if you want some.” Then, like it's a second thought, “Oh! This is Simon. My boyfriend.”
Colt blinks.
Oh.
Holy fucking shit.
Colt snaps his attention back to the man.
Simon.
The brief glance Colt got of him back at the coffee shop weeks ago did not do this man justice.
“Hi,” he says again.
Simon hums.
“Hi,” he echoes, then disappears back into the apartment without another word.
“Sorry, he’s–” Ryland chews his words as Colt crosses the threshold into the apartment, reaching around him to close the front door before leading Colt back into the kitchen. There is, sure enough, coffee finishing off a slow drip into a nearly full pot. There are dishes drying on the rack. The sugar container is on the counter, lid off, waiting to be used. “...It was a rough night.”
Colt wants to ask.
He doesn't.
“Angel?” He asks instead.
Ryland flushes a rather impressive shade of magenta.
“What are you doing here?” Ryland doesn’t give an answer. Rather, he busies himself with fishing around for mugs–Colt’s heart squeezes when one of the mugs produced is one that Colt sloopily painted for some art project back in elementary school–and filling them with coffee. He only grabs two mugs, Colt notes, and he drops an ungodly amount of sugar into one of them. Colt can feel a cavity just looking at it. The other he only scooped in a spoonful. The way Colt likes it. “Not that I'm not happy to see you–”
“Gale called.” Colt spits it out.
That’s not…how he’d been planning to say that.
Ryland blinks.
Then his eyes go wide. “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
Colt and Ryland stare at each other.
Then Ryland shakes himself loose and moves.
He hands a mug to Colt. The one that only has a spoonful of sugar. It’s got a frog on it, bright and cartoonish and smiling. Across the back, printed in bubble letters, it says Have A Hoppy Day!
It’s cute.
Very Ryland.
Colt cradles it in both hands and is suddenly afraid he’s going to drop it.
“Jody’s directing a movie.” Colt follows Ryland as he leads them to a tiny dining table. It could fit four, if you really squeezed together. “She, um. I guess she wants me to work on it.”
He notices Simon coming back into the kitchen as he and Ryland sit down.
He’s got Felicette cradled in his arms.
Ryland’s little tuxedo cat.
He's also, Colt can't help but notice, traded out his glasses for what he assumes to be contacts.
“Thats good, right?” Ryland asks.
Colt shrugs, taking a sip of his coffee before answering. It’s good. Really good. Ryland always knew how to make coffee better than Colt could.
“I don't know. Maybe.” He sets the mug down, but doesn’t let go of it. “They’re filming in Australia. Sydney. Gale could probably get me a ticket out there, but. I don’t know. It’s pretty short notice.”
Simon sits at the table quietly, settling across from Colt and next to Ryland. He doesn't even make a sound. It's a little unsettling, honestly. Ryland, however, seems entirely unphased. He only hands his mug of coffee over to Simon wordlessly, like this is as integral a part of his morning routine as taking a deep breath after waking up is. Simon thanks him quietly, murmuring words that Colt doesn’t hear so much as he sees, shifting Felicette to cradle her in one arm so he can hold the mug. She’s asleep. Doesn’t even stir as she’s jostled around.
It's…oddly domestic.
“Are you going to go?” Ryland asks.
Colt shrugs again. “I've been out of the game for so long, Ry. It's–it’d be stupid to jump right back into it.”
For a moment Ryland looks like he’s going to agree with him.
“Sure, it would be, but–” Ryland takes the mug back as Simon hands it to him, taking a sip before passing it back. “--you wouldn't be trying to get me to talk you out of it if you didn't want to go.”
Colt blinks.
Ryland hit the nail right on the fucking head.
Even after so long, he still knows Colt well enough to know exactly what he’s after. What he’s doing. Because Ryland’s always been the less reckless of the two of them. Ryland thinks things through that Colt normally wouldn’t. Ryland talks Colt out of things before cold can talk himself into them. That’s the way it’s always been. That’s the way it still is. Even after all these years apart. Even with the scant amount of time they’ve been together again. That hasn’t changed.
“I–” Colt flounders, then scowls. “Shut up.”
Simon huffs out a laugh.
Ryland looks over at him, and his entire face lights up like a Christmas tree.
“You were a stuntman, right?” Simon asks before Colt can think too hard on that particular response of Ryland’s to–seemingly–absolutely nothing.
Colt nods.
Something warm blooms in his chest.
Ryland talks about him.
Ryland talks about him to Simon.
Ryland talks about him to Simon enough that he knows at least a little bit about Colt’s life.
Colt is still important enough for Ryland to talk about him.
“I technically still am, it’s just…it's been a long time since I've done anything like that.” Colt says. “Most I’ve done in the last year and a half is donuts in a parking lot.” He pauses for a moment, running his thumb along the rim of the coffee mug. “Did that last night, actually.”
Ryland blinks. “I’m sorry?” Then, “You don’t have a car–”
Colt ignores him and takes another sip of coffee.
It’s just as good as the first sip had been.
There’s a lot of things about Ryland that Colt has missed. He hadn’t entirely realized the way his brother made coffee was one of them.
“So take it slow.” Simon says it like it’s the obvious answer. “It’s just muscle memory, right? Let it kick back in before you get to the hard stuff.”
Ryland gasps.
It’s very theatrical.
“Why are you encouraging my brother to go back to his incredibly dangerous job?” Ryland asks.
Simon shrugs, then sets the mug down so he can reach up and gently tug Ryland’s glasses off his ears. He folds them, then sets them neatly on the table. He does it so smoothly, the motion obviously well practiced and frequently executed. Felicette makes a little trilling noise, looking at the glasses with interest, but it fades just as quickly and she goes right back to sleep.
“Because I’d be a fucking hypocrite if I didn't?” He offers. “And it’s not like you’re jumping in and trying to talk him out of it either.”
Ryland narrows his eyes, reaches over and plucks the mug from Simon’s hands like it’s a reprimand, and completely ignores the second half of what Simon said. “Okay, but you don't set yourself on fire.”
Simon raises his eyebrows.
“On purpose!” Ryland corrects, which. The fact that he even has to correct himself is. Wild. But, Colt supposes, being a saturation diver and stuck in a diving bell for weeks at a time means that he probably has to fix a lot of mechanical issues on his own. A couple of sparks here and there isn’t entirely unexpected. “You don't set yourself on fire on purpose!”
“Hey–I don't set myself on fire.” Colt interjects. “Other people set me on fire.”
“But they do it on purpose.” Ryland counters. He’s using his teacher voice while he says it. He’s gotten very good at it over the last year and a half.
Colt can’t argue that, so he only shrugs. “Don't knock it till you try it.”
Simon snorts out another laugh.
Ryland looks back at him, and he looks so…
…in love.
He looks so in love.
Colt doesn’t think he’s ever seen Ryland look at anyone like that.
“If you want to go, then go,” Simon says, seemingly entirely oblivious to the way Ryland is looking at him like he hung the moon and the sun and every single star in the sky. “You know your body. You know your limits. Just don’t push it and you should be fine.”
“Yeah,” Colt says softly, and he’s…he feels…he doesn’t really know.
He’s missed something monumental in Ryland’s life. He can see that. Sitting here, now, across from his brother and this man who’s been let into Ryland’s life seemingly by magic, Colt can see that. It hurts. It aches. Colt has no one to blame for this hurt but himself. He walked away first. He let the distance between them grow. He could have been here for this. He should have been here for this.
He’s here now.
“I guess so.” Colt finishes.
It doesn’t feel like enough.