Chapter Text
After the ‘shower incident’, as Jody had recently mentally dubbed it, her and Colt’s twin— Ryland, as her boyfriend had helpfully shouted out, had waited in the kitchen with a silence so awkward it rivaled her middle school emo phase.
And then, finally, two muffled shower karaoke songs later, Colt emerged— clothed, this time— his hair still slightly damp.
“Alright,” he said, clapping his hands together, completely oblivious to the uncomfortable atmosphere hanging in the air, “Who’s ready to get this show on the road?”
Which led to… now. Jody drives them all to the film set, with Colt sitting shotgun, and Ryland cramped in the back seat with absolutely no leg room at all.
“So, uh,” Jody coughs, glancing in the rearview mirror of her car, “You’re… Colt’s twin?”
Ryland blinks, before: “Yeah. We’re twins.”
The awkward silence falls between them again. Great job, Jody.
“I’m guessing you’re not also a stunt-man?”
That draws a laugh out of Rylan, who shakes his head, "Definitely not. I can hardly handle elevators. Put me with what Colt does and that’s like… instant death. I teach middle school.”
“Science?” she guesses, mind flickering back to his t-shirt, which suddenly made far more sense in hindsight. He nods, smiling.
“I teach at a school in San Francisco, but, y’know. Spring break. Thought I’d pay my brother a visit.”
“That’s why he’s coming to set with us,” Colt adds, finally pulling his attention away from the window he’d been staring out of to join the conversation, “I told him about the uh— what is it? Y’know the scene we're running with the big explosion?”
“You brought your brother to watch you explode?”
Colt shrugs guiltlessly, “It’ll be cool. Right, Ry?”
“It’ll be cooler than last time you brought me on set,” Ryland huffs a laugh, “Hopefully. That was…”
“We swore we’d never talk about that again,” her boyfriend hisses, sounding betrayed, and Jody suddenly desperately wants to know the missing context for this conversation. Through the mirror, she can see Ryland reaching up, miming zipping his lips shut.
“So,” Jody begins, side-eying Colt, “Is there a reason you never told me you had a brother? Actually— we never talk about your family. Why is that?”
Her boyfriend does an impressive job on choking on air, before he attempts to sputter out a response: “It’s not— it’s never really come up. I don’t really… talk about that kind of stuff, you know. Relationships and other people.”
“Hey,” Ryland interjects, sounding offended, “That’s not true at all. You talk about Jody all the time.”
Jody glances over, lips twitching into a smirk at Colt’s horrified expression. “Is that so? What’s he saying about me?”
“He likes you a lot,” Ryland says simply, and. Well, that’s really sweet. She feels bad about poking fun at that. So she lets the car lapse into silence, one that is slightly less uncomfortable, but only slightly so.
“But seriously,” Ryland says after a moment, reaching forward to poke his brother’s shoulder, “You never mentioned me? Not once?”
“It never came up!” Colt protested, throwing his hands up into the air. He seemed to forget they were inside a car, and he slams his hand against the roof, wincing slightly. Behind Jody, Ryland fails at containing his laughter.
“Has he always been like this?” Jody asks. Ryland nods severely.
“He was worse when we were younger, believe it or not.”
“I was worse?” Colt asks, voice raising in pitch, “I’m sorry, which one of us got kicked out of our job for calling someone a— what was it?”
“A staggering waste of carbon,” Ryland finishes with the sort of tone of someone who has had this conversation many times before, and Jody, in this moment, can absolutely believe this man teaches middle schoolers. Explains how he managed to put up with Colt for so long. “And that was a long time ago.”
“Not that long,” Colt huffs under his breath.
“Didn’t you get kicked off set once?” Jody counters.
“You got kicked off of set?” Ryland gasps, sounding equally delighted and horrified.
“I never should’ve let you two meet.” her boyfriend does his best attempt at sinking into the leather seat of the car. He fails miserably. “What, is it shit on Colt day or something? You’re my girlfriend, you’re supposed to be on my side.”
Jody shrugs, “I’m on my side. And my side just happens to align with ‘Shit on Colt Day’, as you put it.”
“Ryland?” Colt asks, though she can hear he’s fighting off laughter.
“You heard her,” her boyfriend’s brother shrugs, “Crap on Colt Day.”
“Say shit,” Colt practically begs, “You’re not at work. There’s no sixth graders anywhere around here. You can swear. I’ve heard you swear before, I know you can do it. Please. For my sanity.”
“Sugar honey iced tea.” Yeah. Definitely a middle school teacher.
Beside her, Colt looks a second away from exploding. “Shit,” he says, as if it’s a holy word, “Shit, shit, shit. Say it.”
“Fudge,” Ryland repeats, with the face of someone who’s only really committing to the bit just to mess with someone, “Gosh, golly, cotton-headed ninny-muggins.”
“Cotton-headed ninny-muggins?” Colt echoes, bewildered.
“Yeah, like Elf.”
“I didn’t know you were such a fan.”
“I teach sixth grade. I watch Elf and Home Alone every December.”
“Not Die Hard?”
“I get enough parent emails as is,” he huffs, “I’m not showing them Die Hard.”
“Have you shown them any of my movies?” Colt asks, contouring around his car seat to look at his brother properly, “Have you shown them Metalstorm? Have you seen Metalstorm?”
Jody presses her lips into a thin line and tries her best not to appear at all flattered by how passionate Colt sounds about her movie— especially considering how the movie had originally started as a ‘fuck you’ to him after their break up.
“You made me watch it,” Ryland points out, which— Colt had?— and turns his attention to Jody, meeting her eyes through the rearview mirror, “It was a good movie. I liked it; the alien species were really interesting. I don’t think having ‘Aliena’ be a water-based lifeform was really accurate, but, you know. Sci-fi. Fiction, right? It’s in the name.”
She blinks. Colt gives her a look that seems to say ‘just go along with it’. She nods, pretending she has a clue what the man is talking about as she pulls the car into the staff parking lot. By the time she’s found an open spot, he’s finished his tangent.
“Well,” she says, pulling the keys from her car, “Are you ready to blow Colt up?”
Ryland grins behind her. She figures they’ll get along just fine.