Chapter Text
The waiting room is cold. Hospital waiting rooms are always so cold. And sterile. And suffused with misery. The despair of loved ones expecting all kinds of news clings to the walls, the stiff, uncomfortable chairs, the outdated magazines no one has touched in years. The air is impossibly heavy. The fluorescent overhead lighting buzzes with a grating edge that orchestrates the soundtrack of devastation and desperation.
But mostly—it’s just cold.
Ryland gave Jody his cardigan a little over an hour ago, because she looked colder than he felt. From his place standing by the sad little coffee station across the room, he can see her holding the front of the sweater closed against her chest, the soft, cream-colored fabric bunched up tightly in her fist. Her gaze is downcast, and her posture is sunken. Her leg bounces restlessly, but she’s otherwise motionless.
It’s a stark contrast to how she was when she and Ryland first arrived at the ER with Colt. She was hounding every doctor and nurse that dared to enter the room for answers and explanations, staying on top of everyone charged with Colt’s care to make sure he was being treated properly. Colt, of course, was awake the whole time and gently asking her to calm down, which didn’t go awfully well. Never in the history of human language have the words ‘calm’ and ‘down’ used in that order ever succeeded in calming someone down. Colt should count himself lucky that he was thoroughly stoned on a hefty dose of morphine and largely unaware of just how pissed off Jody was in that moment.
She began to lose steam after the results of the CT scans came back, though. Everyone and everything in that room had fallen eerily quiet following the doctor’s diagnosis.
Alongside the comparatively innocuous findings of whiplash, a couple busted ribs, and a bruised kidney—which isn’t actually innocuous at all but is ultimately of lesser concern—there came a much more damning discovery: Colt’s back is broken. And not just a little bit broken. It is well and truly, incredibly broken. Pedicle fractures to both T11 and T12, anterior avulsion fractures to T12 and L1, ruptured anterior longitudinal ligaments all the way down from T10 to L2, and one very herniated disc between L1 and L2.
In the doctor’s sobering words: “it’s miraculous that there’s no immediately apparent spinal cord damage or motor impairment.” According to him, it’s almost unheard of for a traumatic spinal injury of this caliber to not instantly result in some degree of irreversible paraplegia.
But the longer Colt went without surgical intervention, the more likely paraplegia and permanent nerve damage became. Every passing minute increased the risk. And at that point, Colt was so out of it on the painkillers that Ryland was forced to actually make use of the medical power of attorney Colt awarded him several years back to give consent for the procedure.
Even now, hours later, Ryland can’t quite identify what about that one small thing had made him so sick to his stomach. The second “do what you have to do” came out of his mouth, he’d been struck with a terrible rush of nausea—the kind he tends to get when he’s torn between feeling like he did the right thing and the uncertainty of not actually knowing if he did the right thing.
It seems stupid, in all honesty. What other option was there? Consent in this case was only a liability waiver so the doctors don’t get charged with assault. The obvious and only path was to get Colt in the operating room. Ryland saying ‘yes’ on his behalf was nothing more than a formality for the suits.
Maybe it just made things too real. When Colt had told Ryland five years ago that he’d officially made him his legal medical proxy in emergencies, Ryland hadn’t been overly thrilled. He considered it a temptation of fate. Someone who’s not expecting to get hurt typically doesn’t go out of their way to establish a legal medical proxy. In Ryland’s eyes, it was like Colt was telling him, “my job is, in fact, dangerous enough to warrant this, even though I’ve spent half my life trying to convince you otherwise.”
Their father used to say to Colt that he was destined to break in his line of work. Ryland’s not one to lend any credence to the old man’s cruelty, but he’d be lying if he were to say he isn’t guiltily simmering in the sentiment as he stands by this stupid fucking coffee station in the cold, dour hospital lobby, waiting for Colt to finish getting his spine plated and bolted and screwed back together. God willing—he might just make it off the operating table with his ability to walk still intact.
Ryland sighs, shoving his hands beneath his glasses to scrub at his eyes. There’s a dull ache setting in right below and behind his brow—just another manifestation of stress, he’s sure. Colt went in for surgery at around four-thirty. It’s almost eleven now. Radio silence from his care team. It’s either a great sign or a terrible one.
Ryland can hardly stand not knowing which it is.
He’s been avoiding nagging the nurse sat behind the desk in the center of the room. She already has to coddle so many other patients’ worrywart family members; he’d rather not add to her caseload.
But when he slides a glance back over to Jody—inventories the slouch of her shoulders, the faint redness around the edges of her eyes, the slightest quiver in her lips—he decides that bothering the nurse would be a worthwhile investment if it means putting Jody (and him, frankly) more at ease.
He shuffles over to the desk, picking nervously at a loose thread in the hem of his shirt. “Excuse me,” he says, voice thin and hushed; the nurse looks up at him. “Sorry—um… I was wondering if you could tell me whether or not my brother’s out of surgery yet? The doctor said he’d come give us an update, but that was six hours ago. I-I know these things can take a long time. I just…” He draws a trembling, uneven breath. “Please? Can you help?”
The nurse smiles warmly. “Sure, darling. What’s your brother’s name?”
“Colton Gra—” Ryland stops, shakes his head. Right, he thinks, that’s not his name anymore. “Sorry—just Colt,” he corrects. “Colt Seavers.”
He doesn’t think he’ll ever become fully accustomed to that name. Colton Grace is the kid he grew up alongside. The man who was always there for Ryland when no one else was.
Colt Seavers is there for him too; that hasn’t changed. But the few years Colt Seavers has existed pale in comparison to the lifetime before when Colton Grace was standing in his place.
Perhaps it’s silly for Ryland to feel so sentimental over a name that’s not even his. Especially since he’s called Colt, Colt since the day he was old enough to form a complete sentence. And doubly especially since the surname Colt’s taken wasn’t randomly chosen out of a lottery hat, but off the etchings of their late mother’s headstone. There’s plenty of meaning in Colt’s new name that Ryland understands and sees a certain beauty in, and yet… He still finds it difficult to accept that Colton Grace is only a thing that exists in distant memory.
“Colt Seavers?” the nurse asks, looking unsure—probably because Ryland sounded so unsure in saying it.
He swallows roughly and nods. “Yes.”
“Okay. Colt Seavers…” She types away at her keyboard, clicks around on the computer screen, types some more. “Ah! Yep, looks like he’s just been transferred to post-anesthesia care. He’ll be there for an hour or two so we can make sure he wakes up alright and his pain is managed well, but after that, he’ll be moved to a room in the surgical ICU, and you’ll be able to see him then.”
Ryland physically deflates with relief. He still doesn’t know if any complications arose during surgery or if his brother is paralyzed, but at least he knows Colt made it off the table.
“Great. Thanks,” he says.
“Sure thing, hon.”
He turns to go break the news to Jody, but then he pauses in his tracks, considers again just how cold she looks—and he changes course to make another pitstop at the coffee station.
Yes, the coffee is very likely gross and as sad as the mildewed machine it originates from, but he thinks it’ll at least help keep Jody’s hands warm.
Once he has two cups filled and lidded, he makes his way over to Jody and offers one down to her.
She lifts her head, blinking blearily at him with a tiny, tortured pinch between her brows—and takes the cup gingerly into her freezing hands. “Thanks,” she mumbles.
“You’re welcome.” Ryland takes the seat next to hers. “The nurse said he’s out of surgery now. We can see him in a couple hours.”
Jody’s lips tick up into a sullen smile; there’s a hint of relief in the expression but it’s largely overshadowed by a great sadness. “Good. That’s good…”
Silence builds in the space between them.
Neither one of them moves to take a sip from their respective coffee cups. A mutual, intuitive understanding that it’s not worth drinking. It’s merely the thought that counts.
After a while, Ryland casts a subtle, sidelong glance at her. She’s no longer staring at her feet, but out in front of her, into the middle distance. Her leg hasn’t stopped bouncing.
With a minute shake of the head, she asks, “how are you handling this so well?”
Ryland falters, grip fumbling on his coffee. “Me?” He breathes a stilted chuckle. “I wouldn’t say I’m handling any of this very well. I don’t really handle, if you haven’t already noticed.”
From getting barfy at the slightest provocation of his anxiety to shutting down and isolating himself away from those willing and wanting to support him when things get rough—he doesn’t handle things well. He never has.
Jody gives a hum of firm disagreement. “No, you are. You’re handling it. This whole time, you’ve been calm and reasonable and patient; meanwhile, I feel like I’m a split second away from holding someone at gunpoint until they let me see Colt.”
Ryland snorts halfheartedly. Now he’s the one with a downcast gaze. He turns his coffee cup around in his hands, fidgets with the flimsy cardboard sleeve secured around it. “Maybe I’ve just done this enough times,” he says. “Colt’s never gotten hurt this badly before, but I’ve been the loved one in the waiting room for him more times than I can count. That burn scar on his right thigh—that was from his Miami Vice sendoff show. Figures he’d flub the boat-jump through a ring of fire the one time I was there to see it. He was in the ER for a while, then the doctors realized parts of the burn went deep enough to need surgical debridement, so I was in the waiting room—praying.”
He keeps his attention fixed on his cup, though he can feel Jody’s eyes on him, focused, immersed in his words.
Inhaling shakily, he continues, “those little pinhole scars on his left elbow are from when he broke his arm at nine years-old; little dummy fell out of the big maple tree in our backyard. Both our parents were at work, so I took him to the hospital myself. When our mom arrived, we were told he needed surgery, and again, I was in the waiting room—praying.”
Ryland remembers that day vividly; it was the first time he was truly faced with the concept of mortality. His mother’s fretful exclamation that Colt could’ve killed himself when she scurried up to his emergency room bedside had served as a frightening revelation for Ryland’s innocent little mind.
“He has a scar hidden on the inside of his eyelid from the time he hit the floor wrong on a crappy TV show set and fractured his orbital socket. The doctors needed to release the buildup of blood behind his eye and remove a couple bone fragments so he wouldn’t go blind. I was in the waiting room then, too. Yes—praying. And the scars on both his knees are from an alphabet soup of ligament and tendon tears that needed numerous surgical repairs. Every time, I was in the waiting room.” He meets Jody’s imploring eyes. “I guess the point is that I am, for better or worse, somewhat used to the agony of waiting.”
Jody nods slowly and turns her attention down to her lap. She appears to make a conscious effort to still her restless leg. “He gives his thumbs-up so enthusiastically and so often, it’s easy to forget how close he is to getting hurt with every stunt he does.”
“Yeah. It is,” Ryland agrees, even though he can’t say he’s ever forgotten how perilous Colt’s livelihood is. He’s never not been fully, distressingly aware of the dangers of his brother’s job.
But he agrees with Jody for her sake—to make her feel understood and less alone…
Jody sniffs—a pitiful little sound. She dashes away a fresh well-up of tears in her eyes. Then, out of the blue, she says, “do you believe in God?”
That puts a deep crease in Ryland’s brow. He tilts his head curiously. “Why do you ask?”
“You seem to pray a lot in waiting rooms.”
“Oh. Right.” Ryland huffs, and it’s not a laugh, nor a scoff, but something at least semi-adjacent to an expression of mirth. With a shrug, he answers, “many principles in science are built upon the assumption that the universe is innately constructed from chaos and randomness. Praying is just… My way of attempting to channel the inherent randomness in my favor.”
There’s a smile on Jody’s face. It’s weak, tired. “How very pragmatic of you.”
Ryland smiles back, and it feels just as weak and tired as hers.
Once upon a time, maybe, he might’ve believed in some god or another. His mother was a devout Catholic woman; she carted the whole family off to church every Sunday morning until Colt and Ryland had reached an age that made dodging the obligation easy. It wasn’t out of any vitriol on their part. They had nothing against their parish. They didn’t even have anything against the early wakeup call. They just found it difficult to pour faith into an all-knowing, all-seeing entity that somehow didn’t seem to know or see them. If such an omnipotent entity did exist, they figured their lives surely would’ve been better and much sooner freed of the weight imposed on their shoulders by the man sleeping ten feet down the hall from them every night.
Jody leans into Ryland’s side, resting her head on his shoulder. She doesn’t say anything—just sits and breathes with deep, measured intention.
Ryland blinks at her, a bit unsure of what to do with himself. He’s not a super touchy person. Colt is, so he supposes he can understand where the confusion might lie in Jody’s mind. That said, he’s not necessarily not a touchy person either. It simply depends on the circumstance and who’s in his space.
Colt is someone he always allows and accepts within his ‘personal bubble.’ Even if he’s being positively obnoxious and poking at Ryland for his own entertainment. Colt is familiar and welcome at all times.
Their mother used to give the warmest hugs. Ryland never once rejected one of those growing up. Conversely, their father’s idea of physical affection was a few-and-far-between, stoic pat on the back; Ryland thinks he can count every time he received that gesture of approval on a singular hand, and he wasn’t ever especially grateful for the contact.
He had a girlfriend soon after the conclusion of his undergrad studies. She used to be all over him all the time, and he didn’t blame her for wanting that, but it took its toll on him as the months passed. There was a visceral discomfort about it that he didn’t get to fully understand within himself until only a handful of years ago—which was a remarkable seven years after the relationship ended.
He doesn’t really have any close friends. He has coworkers that he likes fine enough, and he thinks they find him agreeable too. Every now and again, he might go in for an awkward hug or stiff handshake at a school event, because he knows that’s part of the casual social contract, but that’s about the extent of his touchiness in that regard.
Jody is… An interesting case. Ryland’s barely known her for twenty-four hours. He’s heard her chime in a couple times during his semi-weekly phonecalls with Colt, but he didn’t meet her officially until just last night. They resonate well with each other—that much is true. She’s nice, and funny, and she’s either totally blind to Ryland’s punny t-shirts or she very well may be the first person who isn’t Colt that hasn’t felt the need to point out their objective ridiculousness or suggest in so many words that they’re an embarrassing wardrobe choice. She’s seemed to take a liking to Ryland without having to qualify it to herself, which is more than he can say for most of the people in his life that aren’t thirteen years-old.
There’s no ‘well, he may be a socially-inept dork, but he’s sweet, I guess’ air about her. She met him, and within seconds, it was like she decided he was going to be her new best friend.
And now she’s laying her head on his shoulder, wrapped up in his cardigan, cradling a cup of coffee in her hands that he put there himself—and they’re both praying in the waiting room for the safety and wellbeing of their favorite person.
Ryland ultimately finds that he doesn’t much mind Jody’s touch at all. He thinks this must be what it’s supposed to feel like—having a friend that’s just there. Natural, unconditional, and free of expectations. Just there…
It’s nice.
~
Ryland hovers in the doorway as he watches Jody rush into the hospital room and make a beeline for Colt’s bedside. Colt’s awake, but he’s clearly loaded on something good. He can’t really process things quick enough to react to them in any purposeful way; all he does while Jody plants a dozen kisses all over his cheeks and cuddles one of his hands to her heart is sit there with the biggest, dumbest grin on his face. His eyes aren’t even half-open. He’s completely blissed out, which Ryland figures beats the alternative of him being sober and horribly aware of just how debilitated he is.
From his view on the outside looking in, Ryland can see everything that a fully lucid Colt would probably unravel at the seams over. He can see the IVs stuck in the backs of both of Colt’s hands, the multitude of medication bags dangling from hooks overhead, the bulky compression wraps around his legs to prevent blood clots, the nest of strategically-placed pillows all around him to keep him as stable and steady as possible, the wires emerging from beneath his gown and connecting to the nearby heart monitor, the nasal oxygen cannula, the urine collection bag attached to a catheter…
Colt would hate everything about this if he were present enough in reality to notice it.
Ryland’s chest aches, and a frown begins to weigh on his lips in a way that also aches. Seeing Colt like this is so wrong. It feels like a sick joke.
“Rylee~”
Ryland blinks the cloudy haze out of his vision. Colt has his head turned a quarter to the right, just enough to look at Ryland out of the corner of his heavy-lidded eye.
“Get over here,” Colt whines, outstretching his arm weakly and making clumsy little grabby motions with his hand.
Ryland cringes as he finally registers the name he was just addressed with. Rylee. No one’s called him that since he was in elementary school, and he wasn’t particularly fond of it then either.
Nevertheless, he obliges Colt’s request, despite each successive step farther into the room making Ryland’s ribs tighten around his lungs with increasingly suffocating conviction.
“You know I can’t stand that nickname,” he mumbles once he reaches Colt’s bedside.
Colt is still making grabby motions at him, so Ryland takes his hand, wraps it up in gentle, cautious fingers. Colt’s skin is cold…
Everything in a hospital really is so damn cold.
“Aww, but it’s so cute—just like you!” Colt croons, lifting up his other hand to land an uncoordinated poke on the tip of Ryland’s nose. “Boop.”
“Christ on a cracker, how high are you?”
“Dude, you wouldn’t believe the drugs I’m on. I’m like—hearing colors n’ shit.”
Ryland looks at Jody, expecting her to be looking back at him with the same level of incredulity he feels. Instead, her focus stays undivided on Colt, amusement twinkling in her teary eyes.
Well. At least she doesn’t have that gut-wrenching sadness from the waiting room etched into her every bend, curve, and feature anymore.
Ryland turns his gaze onto the nurse, who’s been quietly alternating between fiddling with Colt’s IV pump and typing away at the computer in the corner since he and Jody were allowed in.
The nurse senses Ryland’s skeptical stare, glances up, and says, “he’s on a continuous morphine drip.”
Ryland’s brow scrunches. “Seems a bit excessive. Isn’t that what they give palliative care patients in hospice?”
He would know. He’s had to watch two parents pass to the tune of a morphine drip in a dead-silent, dour hospice facility. Forgive him for being suspicious about its effects.
“Hey—shhhhhh!” Colt hisses. “Don’t poop on my party, man. What’re you, a cop?”
Ryland rolls his eyes.
The nurse offers him a soft, reassuring smile. “This is just a temporary measure to keep him comfortable while we transition him to a more sustainable pain management regimen. He’ll be titrated off the drip over the next several hours.”
“Lame,” is Colt’s predictable complaint.
Tentatively satisfied with the nurse’s explanation, Ryland lets some of the tension bleed out of his neck and shoulders and returns his attention to Colt.
“Well, I can pretty much infer this on my own, but how are you feeling?” he asks.
“Oh, I feel great.” Colt’s voice is all sing-songy and warbly, and the grin on his face grows dopier and dumber. “Kinda wondering if they cut my legs off or something, though. I can’t feel ‘em.”
Ryland’s heart drops. “Wait, what?”
This time, when he looks at Jody, she is looking back at him, and she does look exactly how he feels. That is—horrified.
The surgeon had told them everything went well. There was no point at which any nerve function signal was lost. Colt left the operating table with his motor function intact. Did the doctor lie? Did he screw something up? Did somebody else screw something up during Colt’s post-anesthesia care?
Is Colt fucking paralyzed?
Ryland’s head starts to spin, and there’s a queasy sensation stirring in his stomach. He thinks he might pass out.
“Don’t get ahead of yourselves.”
The doctor strolls into the room then, just in time. His strides are confident, though somewhat aloof. Before Ryland gets the chance to hound him, he pauses at the foot of the bed, peels away Colt’s grippy socks, and unceremoniously pricks the soles of both his feet with a thin needle.
“Ow!” Colt’s legs flinch, his toes flexing away from the offending implement.
Ryland puffs out possibly the biggest sigh of relief he’s ever had the displeasure of having to breathe. Jody does the same.
“Gotcha!” Colt chuckles, sounding far too pleased with himself for Ryland’s liking.
“He’s made that joke twice already to scare the nurses in the PACU,” the doctor says flatly.
Just like that, Ryland’s relief is soured into exasperation. He shoots a sharp glare down at Colt. “I should smack you.”
“Ditto,” says Jody.
Colt has the audacity to pout like he’s done nothing wrong. “No, you can’t do that. It’s mean.”
“Almost as mean as making people think you’re paralyzed?”
“I said I was sorry.”
“No, you didn’t!”
“Well, I meant to.”
Ryland wilts wearily, losing steam all at once. He can only keep up his annoyance for so long. There’s not much of a point in arguing with someone who’s too high to grasp right from wrong. And anyway, Ryland knows good and well that Colt wouldn’t have pulled that prank in the first place if he weren’t currently floating up in the stratosphere. Colt is actually quite reasonable by nature, but he never was all that adept at maintaining any semblance of inhibition or impulse control while under the influence.
That time in senior year of high school when he streaked through their whole neighborhood after slamming six straight shots of Malibu at a football tailgate and promptly ran face-first into a Deus ex Cop Car comes to mind…
For that reason, and an extensive laundry list of others, Colt doesn’t often partake in the consumption of alcohol anymore, besides the occasional light beer. And certainly not any kind of drug, for that matter.
Just this once, given the occasion, Ryland can forgive the substance-induced clownery. When it comes down to it, he’d much rather see Colt with an IQ reduced to that of a turnip for a few hours than have to suffer through watching him writhe around in intractable pain and distress.
He’ll take turnip-IQ Colt over that any day…
~
Colt is in a lot of pain. It’s so obvious.
Ryland feels like he’s going crazy, because it really seems like he’s the only one who notices it. Surely his eyes aren’t deceiving him. Surely, it’s not a plain trick of his mind that he’s seeing sweat beading at Colt’s hairline, a firm clench in his jaw, a faint tremor throughout his entire body—down to the tips of his fingers and toes—and a stiff tension in his chest stifling his breaths.
It’s early in the morning, around seven a.m. Ryland didn’t get much restful sleep, being confined to a laughably uncomfortable chair to curl up in with a paper-thin blanket that hardly did anything to shield him from that infuriatingly persistent hospital cold. Each time he managed to doze off, he was just as soon woken up by a lab tech coming in to draw some of Colt’s blood or a nurse entering to tinker with his meds and chart vital signs. Colt, on account of his residual morphine high and the eventual introduction of oral Vicodin, muscle relaxants, and gabapentin at some point in the night, was out like a light until about five-thirty, when he became suspiciously alert despite the metric ton of depressants in his system.
That was the first sign that he wasn’t nearly as pain-free as he was pretending to be. And yes, Ryland knows he’s pretending. Because Colt is a prideful idiot who has a girlfriend he’s trying not to scare more than he knows he already has. Ryland supposes that’s a key difference between how Colt perceives him and how he perceives Jody. Ryland’s been around long enough to see the worst and ugliest of him; his threshold of acceptance for Colt at less than his best is tried, tested, and true. Jody, on the other hand, is relatively new to Colt’s life. The love is real and vast, but it’s also fresh and precarious. And this is an especially challenging test.
Ryland understands that’s a tough position for Colt to be in.
He still thinks he’s a huge idiot.
In what world does it make sense to hide what is likely excruciating pain for the sake of seeming totally fine in front of a woman who, if she knew just how much pain he was in and the lengths he was going to to not get it dealt with, would kick his ass into next Sunday?
Colt is so stupid. Ryland has half a mind to bluntly call him out on the blatant and irrational fight to conceal his pain.
Alas, however, Ryland doesn’t say anything.
Because, even though he can see right through Colt’s façade, Jody seemingly can’t—and she’s smiling and laughing as she and Colt banter back and forth, and Ryland really doesn’t want to ruin her morning right off the bat. He’s also not a huge fan of the idea of doing something that’ll make Colt mad at him.
Call him a coward. He deserves it.
From across the room, leaning against the wall, Ryland slides his gaze over to Colt’s heart monitor. 113. The nurse shut off the alarm ten minutes ago, when his heart rate kept intermittently spiking above 120; she’d asked him if he was feeling okay, and he just brushed it off and said his ribs were bugging him a bit—no biggie. Apparently that answer was satisfactory enough for her to abandon all concern. Talking, laughing, and even just a mild dash of pain can all raise one’s heart rate, so Ryland can’t exactly fault her for not immediately recognizing that Colt was full of crap.
After a brief lull in their chatter, Colt asks Jody, “hey, when was the last time you had anything to eat?”
Jody dismisses the question with a flourish of the hand. “Doesn’t matter. I’m not hungry anyway.”
“See, I would believe that if I didn’t just hear an eldritch horror nightmare creature growling in the pit of your stomach a few minutes ago.”
Jody clicks her tongue and lays a light, reprimanding slap on his shoulder.
Colt laughs, the sound of it strained and ragged. It doesn’t escape Ryland’s notice when one of his hands slinks up to clutch onto his flank, right in the neighborhood of his broken ribs and bruised kidney, and where the laparoscopic entry points from his surgery are. Those aren’t even the worst of his incisions; the big, gnarly one is cut longways down the lower-middle of his back and has a bloody drain sticking out of it. Ryland can tell that one’s not remotely comfortable either, simply from the way he’s observed Colt periodically making attempts to lift his back just a millimeter or two off the bed in search of the slightest sliver of relief before thinking better of it and begrudgingly returning to his flat and stationary position.
“Really, you should go,” Colt says. His voice is soft, and his gaze even softer. He interlaces his fingers with Jody’s and kisses the back of her hand. “Eat. Get some fresh air. I’m not going anywhere—scout’s honor.”
“What about Ryland? Shouldn’t he be eating and getting fresh air as well?”
Ryland glances between them with round eyes, wondering why he’s suddenly been inserted into their conversation after successfully wallflowering himself for the past hour. Honestly, he thought they’d totally forgotten he was there.
“Oh, he’ll be getting his Colt-mandated wellness break, too,” Colt says. “I have some business with him first, though.”
Jody huffs a short breath out her nose, squinting at him dubiously.
Colt puts on a doting smile. “Pretty please?”
Jody caves. “Fine.” She leans in to press a chaste kiss to his lips and pushes up to her feet. “Ryland, do you want me to pick anything up for you at the cafeteria?”
Ryland straightens his posture, surprised to be addressed directly. He shakes his head with a small, close-lipped smile. “I’m alright. Thanks.”
“No Skittles for breakfast?”
“I’m trying to kick the habit.”
Jody snorts. As she passes by him on the way to the door, she takes one of his hands and gives it a little squeeze. The fleeting glance she throws his way is kind, though tinged with exhaustion. In a gesture of solidarity, he squeezes her hand back before it drops away from his and she leaves the room.
The second the door clicks closed behind her, Colt presses his head back hard into his pillow with a miserable groan, throwing his arms over his face to cover his eyes.
And—yep. There it is.
Colt truly is such an idiot.
Ryland tells him as such. “You idiot.”
“Really helpful feedback, Ry. I’ll get right on fixing that,” Colt bites back through gritted teeth. The rise and fall of his chest is barely a stutter of movement—shallow, fast, and erratic. Those broken ribs really aren’t treating him well.
“If only you would.” Ryland shoves off the wall to begin pacing the open space by the foot of Colt’s bed. “Do you seriously think it’s necessary to be putting on a brave face for her? She’s a big girl, Colt. I’m pretty sure she knows breaking your back hurts.”
“I can handle the pain, Ry. That’s not why I convinced her to leave.”
“You clearly can’t handle it. Look at you—” Ryland waves his arms frantically at Colt’s sorry form. “You’re a complete mess.”
“It’s not. Because. Of the pain.”
“Right,” Ryland scoffs. “I’m supposed to believe Mr. Thumbs-up isn’t hiding his pain because his girlfriend’s never seen him all thumbs-down befo—”
“Ryland, you big fat dipshit—it’s not the pain. I’m panicking!”
Ryland freezes.
…What?
He studies the scene before him. Colt’s arms are no longer hiding his face; instead, his hands are wadded into tight fists at the roots of his hair. His chest quivers with hitching breaths, his eyes are squeezed tightly shut, his lower lip is clamped between his teeth, his face is drained of color, and there’s this strange twitchiness about him where he’s not actually moving much at all, and yet he looks like he wants desperately to flee the bed.
To the right of him, the monitor displays a heart rate of 131.
“Oh…” Ryland murmurs. There’s a dreadful sinking sensation in his chest.
“Yeah, oh. Jesus—fuck—” Colt gasps for air, and a single tear spills down his cheek.
“O-okay, okay.” Ryland scuttles over to Colt’s side. He sits where Jody was sitting just moments ago, carefully on the very edge of the bed to avoid disturbing the nest of stabilizing pillows. He can’t think of what he should say—doesn’t know what’s right to say. He just tells Colt, “I’m here,” and, “it’s okay,” in several variations because he’s lost for anything else to do.
This has never happened before. Of course he’s seen Colt get worked up or angry or overwhelmed. Colt is a feeler, and he’s very open about it. But he’s not one to panic. That’s always been Ryland’s specialty. And it’s always been Colt’s specialty to drag him out of the spiral.
The roles are reversed now, and Ryland finds himself floundering for a solution. The right thing.
Ironically, he feels rather paralyzed with it.
“I-I don’t know what to do,” he stammers, which is most definitely not the right thing to do. He’s afraid to touch Colt, because he looks so shrunken and fragile and like he’d shatter with the slightest contact, and he’s afraid to say anything more, because—what if it just makes everything a million times worse? What is he supposed to do?
His eyes sting, vision blurring.
Between him and Jody, why in the world does Colt trust him more with this?
“Just—” Colt paws at him with a shaky hand until he gets a solid grip on the front of Ryland’s shirt and yanks him down.
Ryland sucks in a sharp breath, only narrowly managing to catch himself to avert the risk of toppling on top of Colt with his full bodyweight. Colt latches onto him, arms winding tight around him and refusing to give even a single inch. He tucks his face into the crook of Ryland’s neck. His tears and the warm condensation from his short, fitful hyperventilations dampen the skin there.
Ordinarily, Ryland would grimace at such a sensation, but he’s so stunned and confused and overall helpless that he scarcely even processes the objective grossness of it.
“Just be here,” Colt pleads. “Don’t go.”
Ryland’s heart gives an awful, smarting squeeze. His brows knit up into a troubled furrow, and an uneasy frown bows at the corners of his mouth. “Yeah, of course I’ll be here,” he murmurs. “I’m not going anywhere.” What could possibly make you think any different?
He knows better than to try to make sense of the inherent irrationality of a panic attack, but he also knows there’s always something grounded in reality that sets it off to begin with.
Does… Does Colt think he’ll be left all alone now that he’s—what?—injured? ‘Broken’? How could he ever arrive at that conclusion? It’s not like he’s damaged. His body is, but it’ll heal in due time.
Then again—Colt is hardly acting like himself. He’s virtually unrecognizable. He went from laughing and happily yapping along with Jody to this in no seconds flat. And if he really was pretending he felt fine that whole time he was talking to Jody like Ryland suspects, then that means…
He’s seriously not okay.
Somehow, the snapped spine, bruised kidney, and cracked ribs are the least of his problems. In fact, the least okay thing about him right now, seemingly, is his head.
Ryland knows better than anyone, from past experience, how much harder the head is to heal than any broken bone or scuffed organ. And he lucked out, because Colt was there to help him through it.
Colt doesn’t have another of himself. He only has Ryland. He would have Jody, but he’s clearly decided for whatever ungodly reason that Ryland is a better trusted adult for the job.
Ryland breathes out steadily and lets his eyes fall closed. He can ruminate on all of that later.
For now, he allows Colt to cling onto him and cry into his neck, and he says, “I’ve got you,” since it’s something that finally feels right to do.
Later, when Jody returns, Colt is fast asleep, and Ryland elects not to tell her it’s because Colt was so uncontrollably worked up that the doctor had to come in and sedate him with a dose of Valium.
He lets her think Colt was just tired and needed the sleep.
It hurts to lie, but he knows that when he said, “I’ve got you,” it was an irrevocable promise to honor Colt’s wishes.
Colt will let Jody in when he’s ready.
Ryland’s sure of it.