Chapter Text
Colt honestly hadn’t expected the plan to work out so well.
After he’d caused the little panic in the conference room, he’d slipped out and snuck to the doors.
“Hey”, the guard said. “Hey!”, he repeated when Colt didn’t listen.
Colt was just running, running, running. And he heard the footsteps behind him as the guard jumped to his feet and tried to tackle him. He actually heard multiple footsteps behind him. They were close to getting him as he stuck the key in the lock.
“Colt!”, Michael all but yelled. "Don’t! You have no idea what you’re doing!”
But all Colt had in his mind then was Ryland, and the excitement over finally getting to see him again.
He wondered how his brother would react when he saw Colt. He’d probably cry waterfalls, the wuss, and Colt would love him for it.
He swore to himself, he’d make sure to be Earth’s long overdue apology to Ryland for all the terrible things that had been done to him. It broke his fucking heart that he had spent all these years alone thinking this was the reward the universe was handing him for enduring it all, and it broke his heart even more to know that there simply was no making up for it because the harm had already been done.
He’d make sure that every single soul in the Good Place knew what his brother had done for them, he’d make sure all the horrifying, terrible details of Ryland’s time in space that made Colt’s stomach churn at the mere thought would be replaced with nothing but kindness and comfort.
He teared up a bit little when he realized that he’d soon be able to give Ryland shit again for leaving those stupid crumbs everywhere, and for being a condescending dickhead, but he’d never actually mean any of it because Ry had saved the fucking planet and he could leave as many crumbs and be as condescending as he wanted for all Colt cared, as long as he was safe and happy.
With all of that in mind, he turned the key in the lock, slipped through the door and didn’t look back when he pulled it shut.
He experienced the eridian Good Place for about half a minute before he was caught and detained.
Gen seriously doesn’t have time for this.
Well, she does have eternity and all, but she still has shit to do.
Like managing Earth and the afterlife and listening to all the podcasts she has lined up.
Arguing on the phone with a jerk of an eridian to get that snackbag Colt Moreno back was not on her bingo card.
“Nah, I don’t think we’ll give the fugitive back”, the asshole on the other line says casually.
Gen takes a deep breath. “I know it’s our fault he managed to intrude and I will make sure he will face the consequences. Now hand him over.”
“Or what?”
“Or there will have to be another court case.”
The eridian chirps delightedly. “Yes, we can do that again! The last one you lost was fun.”
“Seriously, man? You’re about to warm this whole thing up again just to be an ash-hole? All that effort to be petty when we could easily resolve this within ten minutes if you just set him free? Colt is ours; we want him back!”
“Last time I checked, he was on our territory, so I think we’re gonna do whatever the fuck we want.”
Gen hasn’t had a headache since the whole debacle with Ryland Grace, but it’s coming back.
No matter how cute Colt is, she’s going to throttle him once he’s back.
(Maybe he’ll be into it, who knows).
It’s incredible how Eleanor Shellstrop can exist and yet these twins are still the two most annoying people in the universe.
They must have conspired together or something. While they were in the womb, they made plans to make specifically her life harder, she’s sure of it.
“You guys aren’t even equipped to take care of a human!", she tries, even though she knows there’s a good chance they’re just going to send Colt straight to the Bad Place anyway.
The eridian scoffs. “Says the only afterlife department leader in the universe who hasn’t lost one, but two of her people. How is Ryland Grace doing, by the way?”
Gen actually gasps at the audacity.
“You were the ones who refused to give us any information about him!”
“And who sent him to space against his will?”
“Well, not me, that’s for damn sure.”
“But it was humans, nonetheless. Colt Moreno violated the rules when he came here to take the human that belongs to us by judicial decision. That is attempted theft. If we give him back to you, he’s just going to try doing it again. We’re keeping him here, and that’s final. As we speak, his file is being reviewed by the Judge to determine which department in the Bad Place he belongs in.”
“I guess then we’ll see each other in court”, Gen warns.
“Promise?”, the eridian replies in a honeyed voice.
“I’m filling the paperwork out as we speak.”
“Oh, thank God, so it’ll only take a few million bearamies till we can get this over with.”
“You know what, go fork your-“
And the eridian hangs up.
Well, fucking fuck.
She groans and rubs her eyes before she looks at Michael, the four humans and Janet, who have despaired increasingly and visibly the longer the conversation lasted.
They all look pretty dejected right now.
Except Jason, who is giving her a big expectant smile. “So?? How did it go?!”
She doesn’t know why she still lets him in here.
Colt has no idea how much time has passed since the eridians all but threw him into a dark room and left him there. It’s probably redundant to mention it’s dark here, because it’s dark everywhere in this so called Good Place. Pitch-black, actually. If he had to spend eternity here, he wouldn’t hesitate to search for the suicide door.
But despite the fact that he can’t see anything around him, he still knows what his vicinity looks like. It makes him think of what Chidi said; that the Good Place automatically translates everything into a language everyone can understand. Maybe that’s what this place is doing too, but with its surroundings.
The room is small and there’s no furniture, only a few blankets in the corner.
The eridians who brought him here made no secret of the fact that they did not appreciate his presence.
When he yelled at them that he demanded to know where the fuck they had hidden his brother (and he still remembers how good it felt to finally curse again), their treatment became even rougher, which gave him the sinking feeling that these guys really did not like Ryland.
He’s watching the chances of seeing him whole and healthy wither in front of his eyes.
He failed in getting him back, and now he’s here, in a cell, alone, and not a single achievement has been made.
Except that Ryland might be even more targeted now by the eridians, Eleanor, Chidi and the rest probably hate him now, and he’ll never see Jody again.
If he’d had a little bit more patience, he might have eventually gotten his brother out of here the legal way.
But he knows he probably wouldn’t have done it differently if he could do it all over again; he’d just try to not get caught so quickly.
Doing things the legal way around here would have taken too long.
A loud sound startles him out of his thoughts. The door is opening and he presses his lips together. This is it. This is where they tell him they’re going to put him in their Bad Place or whatever, and maybe if they’re feeling extra sadistic today, they’re going to bring Ryland there too.
“Colt Moreno?”
A tall, purple eridian stands in the door. It’s not one Colt has seen before. The ones that detained him were smaller. While they reached up to his knee, this one reaches a little above his hips.
Their voice is too high to be masculine and too low to be feminine. Colt’s brain has been trying to decide which one it is and come to the conclusion that this voice simply has no gender.
He sighs and stands up. “All right. Let’s get this over with.”
The eridian tilts their carapace. “Very well. Come with me, please.”
Colt tries his best to keep his limbs from shaking as he follows the request. If he’s being led to his own demise, he at least wants to go there with a shred of dignity left.
The eridian doesn’t say anything as they lead him through a long tunnel.
Colt can’t help but watch them with fascination. They walk slower than the other eridians and hold themselves upright. It looks elegant, mesmerizing even.
At the same time the stupid pebble Janet put in his shoe digs into his foot with every step and reminds him that the others are probably in the Good Place cursing him with every name in the book right now.
The silence stretches while they fall into pace with each other and Colt doesn’t know why, but he feels very calm and very peaceful all of a sudden.
Eventually, the eridian speaks up again. Their voice sounds gentle. Colt takes that as a good sign.
“I have read your file, Colt Moreno.”
He doesn’t answer because he’s afraid to say anything that could ruin this fragile friendliness he’s being met with. However, he doesn’t expect the next words at all.
“On behalf of all eridians, I would like to apologize for the way you’ve been treated here.”
His head snaps up in surprise.
“Uuhhhhhh”, he says. “N-no problem? I’m not here to cause trouble, I promise. I just want to see my brother again.”
“I know”, the eridian says gently. “We thought you came here on behalf of the Good Place humans to steal savior Grace away. We apologize. After reading your file, I understand your motivation.”
Colt blinks dumbly. “W-what?”
“You are savior Grace’s brother. You are welcome here. You are Grace’s family, so you are our family.”
“Savior Grace? Family?”
The realization finally hits Colt like a train and he feels like someone has dumped water on his head.
The eridians don’t hate Ry.
They love him.
That’s why they didn’t give Gen and Michael any information about him.
He feels like an idiot. Of course! Ryland has died to save their planet. He could have gone home, lived the rest of his days as a hero and died a peaceful death surrounded by family and friends. Instead, he chose to starve, which is a horrible, horrible way to go, for the small chance of saving his best friend.
No, it’s not just like they love him. They are protective of him!
Colt doesn’t understand anything anymore, but he’s getting the feeling that there’s been a good chunk of miscommunication going on between the human department and the eridian department. Then, the confusion makes room for a sharp spike of anger. “How can you claim he’s family when you keep him hostage here instead of handing him over to the human Good Place, where he fucking belongs!”
“The humans hurt him”, the eridian says curtly, and for the first time, Colt detects barely contained rage in their voice. “They didn’t want him. They sent him to die. So they are not getting him back.”
“Of course we want him”, he protests. “The human Good Life department has tried so hard to get him back. So many people are grateful for what he has done. They want to see him again.” His voice breaks. “I want to see him again.”
“You are savior Grace’s brother. You love him”, the eridian says. “The others want him as a trophy. They don’t care about savior Grace. Not like we do. Not like you do.”
“They haven’t gotten the chance to get to know him personally yet”, Colt tries. “They will love him as soon as they do. I mean…it’s Ryland. It’s impossible not to.”
The eridian makes noises that sound like content little chirps.
“It’s impossible not to”, they agree.
“So please give us the chance to make it up to him!”
The eridian falls into silence again. Then, softly and gently, says, “No.”
Colt suppresses a helpless, desperate and very frustrated groan.
“Why not?”, he flares up. “He wants to see other humans again! I’m sure of it!”
“We do not trust humans with savior Grace as of now. Savior Grace is…in a bad state, mentally.”
Colt’s stomach drops and he stops walking.
“What do you mean by that?”
“He has severe trauma. He has nightmares. He is touch starved.”
The words break Colt’s heart all over again. Suddenly unable to hold himself upright anymore, he hugs his middle and bends over for a moment. He feels fucking sick.
Almost just as sick as back when he watched that video, that terrible footage that showed how they forced Ryland to go on the mission.
He still has everything engraved in his memory, still remembers exactly how his sweet, gentle brother who loved life so much and had never harmed a fly, had been tackled and manhandled. How he sobbed and, shrill and panicked, screamed, “You’re killing me! Please don’t kill me! Please! Don’t do it! Don’t do it!”
And then they did it anyway.
He’d already known Ry was probably suffering from the trauma of that and from being all by himself in the eridian afterlife. But having it confirmed is worse.
And they have the audacity to claim they love him.
He’s so disgusted with them.
His hands ball into fists and he clenches his teeth so hard, he’s sure they would have cracked if he was still alive.
“Then you’re clearly doing a piss-poor job at taking care of him”, he hisses and fully expects the eridian to lose their patience over his disrespect, but they stay calm.
Colt has no idea how eridian body language works, but if the hesitating movements and the tilted carapace are any clue, he’d even say they seem ashamed.
After a long silence, they say, “You are correct, Colt Moreno.”
He exhales. Inside his chest, indignance, anger and relief are fighting a fierce battle for dominance.
“So give him back. Please. Trust me, I’m fucking mad about what’s been done to him. And so are the others. Even those who understand why it had to be done are mad at how it was executed. We are going to make everything up to him, or at least try. Every single thing.”
“We can not give him back”, the eridian says.
“Why not?”, Colt all but screams. “And where are we even going?”
“We thought we owed it to savior Grace to let his brother see him.”
Colt feels like the air has been knocked out of his lungs. His heart stutters in his chest and his knees go weak when he breathlessly repeats: “You’re bringing me to him?”
“You deserve to see him. Nobody else.”
It's like his head is filled with cotton all of a sudden.
The words haven’t even fully registered yet in his head. They’re bringing him to Ryland. He gets to see Ryland again.
“T-thank you”, he stammers. “I…I don’t know what to say.”
The eridian doesn’t respond. They lead Colt further down the tunnel towards a door.
“But…there’s something I don’t understand”, he says then. “You said Ryland isn’t in your Good Place, or in your Bad Place. If he’s suffering so much, why didn’t you just take him in at least?”
The eridian opens the door a crack and white, blazing sunlight seeps in the the pitch-black darkness.
“You misunderstand, Colt Moreno. We can’t take savior Grace in.”
Colt frowns, confused. “Why not?”
The eridian makes a sound he can’t quite decipher. It sounds amused, but also sad.
Instead of answering, they open the door fully now.
“You’ll see”, they say.
“Wow, so that was an actual eridian, huh”, Eleanor says. She’s still not over the phone call. “Why are they so mean?”
“We don’t really know”, Michael replies. “We used to get along.”
“What changed?”, Chidi asks.
“It started a couple of years ago when the relationship with them began to be…frosty. Right around the time we asked about Ryland Grace’s whereabouts.”
Eleanor’s eyes get wide. “So it has something to do with him. Are they mad because a human went into their space uninvitedly?”
“But then, why didn’t they just give him back? That would have made more sense than just keeping him there when they hate him so much”, Tahani notes.
Eleanor’s eyes lose focus as the wheels start turning in her head.
It’s true. The whole thing doesn’t make any damn sense.
If they hate Ryland Grace so much, they could have easily gotten rid of him by handing him over, and they would have spared themselves all of the legal hassle.
“Unless…they don’t actually hate him”, she eventually says.
The room falls silent.
“W-what are you saying?”, Chidi asks.
“Think about it. The way this eridian on the phone talked about Ryland Grace was almost possessive. They have Colt in custody because he wanted to steal him. They’ve been nursing a grudge against humans ever since you guys expressed your interest in his whereabouts. And they didn’t give out any information, maybe out of fear that we’ll try to bring him back once we know too much.”
“But he’s not with them”, Gen muses. “Neither in the Good nor in the Bad Place. They would have taken him in if they 'loved him'."
“Can a human even go in the eridian afterlife?”, Chidi asks.
“It’s possible, so I’m afraid that debunks your theory”, Michael says gently, but Eleanor has a feeling he’s wrong.
There’s something they’re missing. Something that pokes at her mind and demands attention, but she can’t quite grasp it.
Come on, brain.
If they don’t figure this out and find a way to make peace with the eridians, Ryland Grace and Colt are doomed, and as much of a nuisance he’s been, she likes Colt. She’d prefer if he didn’t get tortured by aliens for the rest of eternity.
Eleanor makes a mental reminder to slap him so hard up his stupid empty head once he’s back that he’s going to see stars for as long as he exists.
Something tugs at the corners of her mind again, just out of view, in her peripheral.
The eridians know where Ryland Grace is. They won’t tell anyone. They actually had a court hearing to be able to keep him, but he’s neither in the Good Place, nor in the Bad Place.
Something about what the eridian said bothers her.
“Colt violated the rules when he came to take the human that belongs to us.”
“And who sent him to space against his will?”
“But it was humans nonetheless.”
No matter what Michael says, she’s absolutely sure that the eridians, in a weird, twisted, possessive way, like Ryland Grace. To an unhealthy degree maybe, even.
But he’s right. If they love him so much…why didn’t they take him in?
And then, with mortifying speed, it hits her.
Holy motherfucking shit.
God, it was so obvious the whole time!
“Holy fork.” she says, trying to appear calm and collected and not like someone who just had a revelation that detonated in their mind like ten nuclear bombs and turned their entire worldview upside down.
Judging by the very worried expressions of her friends, she’s not doing a very good job.
She takes a deep breath, trying to collect herself.
“Guys, I think I know what’s going on.”
The sunlight is almost blinding to Colt after being in the dark for so long. The eridian sits next to the door, patiently waiting for him to make the next move.
Hesitantly, he takes a few steps forward and, after his eyes have gotten used to the light, peers through the door. What he sees is a foggy beach.
“Where are we?”
“This”, the eridian says, “is a part of Erid.”
Colt fully steps through and looks around in awe. Holy shit. He’s on a different planet! The planet his brother saved, no less. He’s probably the first person to see this!
The waves softly crash into the shore, making gurgling noises.
The air smells like salt.
A memory, long buried by now, resurfaces without the courtesy of warning him first.
“Ry! Come in, let’s go for a swim!”
His brother pushes his glasses up on the bridge of his nose and turns a page in his book.
“Just a moment! Let me finish this chapter.”
He’s sitting on the bath towel while Jody and his girlfriend Linda are eagerly exchanging health-and fitness advice.
“The fucking dog dies in the end”, Colt spoils the ending because he knows Ryland has read this book a million times already. “Come in!”
He himself is already standing hip-deep in the water.
“Ryyyyyyy!”, he whines when his brother doesn’t react, and smirks when he sees him roll his eyes.
“He’s not going to stop”, Jody grins. “You know that, right?”
Ry sighs dramatically. “How do you put up with him?”
“Hey! Stop! Don’t go forming alliances behind my back!”, Colt yells. “Come in, it’s nice! Or should I bring the water to you?”
“I don’t think you have a choice”, Linda laughs.
“You’re probably right”, he chuckles. “You’re lucky you don’t have any siblings.”
“Hey, I can hear you!”
Linda puts a hand on Ryland’s lower back and gives him a shove. “Don’t get eaten by sharks.”
Colt can tell she is expecting a kiss from him when he gets up and sees the flicker of disappointment flash across her face when she doesn’t get one, followed by a resigned expression like she’s used to it.
He doesn’t know whether to chuckle because Ryland is so oblivious or hit him over the head with a very heavy object.
Ry hisses when his feet touch the water. “Hoooly… you said it was nice!”
“Come in!” He starts splashing water at him and Ryland tenses up and raises his hands defensively.
“Colt! Colt, stop!”
“What’s wrong, McFly?”, Colt smirks and mimics Biff from Back To The Future, his and Ryland’s favorite movie from when they were younger. “You chicken?”
Ry immediately gets into it and raises a stern finger. “Nobody…calls me…”
In that moment, a very big wave comes, takes him off balance and knocks him over with a very undignified squeak, and when they go home two hours later, Colt still hasn’t stopped laughing.
At some point of reliving the memory in his head with a feeling so soft and fond in his chest that it’s fucking gross, he has moved towards the shore, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.
It’s almost like he can see Ry, in an attempt to save his dignity or perhaps get revenge, splash Colt with water and dunking his head while Linda and Jody are laughing their heads off on the shore.
He sees the water move, and in the next moment, a person swims to the surface.
Colt blinks.
That should have probably shocked him more, but his brain hasn’t caught up yet that there shouldn’t be people on Erid.
It sure catches up now, though. Holy shit?
“Who is that? Is this real?”, he stammers. “Or is this some sort of…green door illusion?”
“It’s real”, the eridian confirms.
Colt watches the figure swim towards the shore. The nearer they are, the clearer their face gets, and the sicker Colt feels.
The man that emerges from the water is a ghost.
Ryland Grace steps onto the sand, casually stretching out his limbs and grabbing for a towel like he didn’t just turn Colt’s entire life upside down.
Colt stares.
He stares.
His dead brother just stepped out of the water, very much alive.
And he can only watch with fascination and disbelief and so many other emotions that he’s going to need years of therapy to even be able to decipher as Ryland lets himself drop on the sand, elbows on his knees, towel over his neck, and gazes at the waves.
“B-but”, Colt stammers. “He…he…”
“Is supposed to be dead?”, the eridian finishes his sentence. “Yes, all things considered, it’s a miracle he isn't. But here we are.”
Colt needs to sit down.
Actually, he needs an alcoholic drink and he needs Jody who tells him he is in fact not going crazy and he needs a good night’s sleep immediately.
Because how can he even begin to unpack what is unfolding in front of him right now?
His brother is alive. He has been alive this entire fucking time.
While Colt has mourned him, imagined how terrifying his death must have been, heard his screams in his nightmares, Ryland was here. He was safe.
He was safe.
“Holy fuck”, he whispers and frustratedly wipes the tears in his eyes away. He’s still staring at his brother. Actually, he’s unsure how he will ever tear his eyes away from him again.
He looks a little different. His hair is greying here and there, and his ribs are protruding worryingly.
Other than that, he seems well kempt and just so…content that it rips Colt’s heart in two and immediately mends it back together again.
Without thinking, he approaches him. God, he wants to pull him into the most bone crushing hug. He wants to cry into his shoulder and tell him how sorry he is for everything that has happened to him.
But when he reaches out his hand to touch his shoulder, it goes right through.
“He can’t see you”, the eridian says.
Ryland’s head suddenly perks up and he looks around, the slightest frown on his face.
“Yeah”, Colt almost sobs. “I’m here, buddy. I’m here.”
Ryland relaxes again. He looks so…happy. Colt can also see the underlying sadness, but right in this moment, it’s like he doesn’t have a single worry in the world.
He sits down next to him, watching the waves crash into the shore, stealing sideway glances every now and again, and wonders if Ryland is thinking back to his time with Jody, Linda and him as well.
“I want to talk to him”, Colt says.
The eridian seems to consider this for a long moment.
“The dead cannot interact with the living”, they say eventually.
“Please”, he all but begs. “Please make an exception! I know you can! I need to talk to him!”
“He will not remember this interaction.”
“I don’t care! I just want to…god, I haven’t talked to him in such a long time, please! If you’re not going to give him back to the human Good Place, at least let me have this!”
The eridian doesn’t answer.
He is close to losing what little self control and dignity he has left and climb to his knees to beg them properly.
When he’s just about to do it, he notices a shift in Ryland’s face. His eyebrows furrow together, and he sucks his upper lip in.
Slowly, very slowly, he turns his head.
And then, when his eyes land on Colt, his breath catches.
They stare at each other for the longest minute of Colt’s life. Or maybe ten minutes. Hell, maybe they’ve been sitting here for a whole month just staring at each other like absolute idiots.
Then, out of nowhere, Ryland’s eyes almost bug out of his head and he scrambles back in the sand.
“It’s okay!”, Colt tries to soothe him. “It’s fine, you’re fine.”
Ryland stares at him. “I’m losing my mind, so no, I’m not.”
He says it so matter-of-factly that Colt can’t help the wet laugh that threatens to turn into another sob.
Ry grabs his glasses and puts them on while squinting his eyes.
Something complicated happens to his face, it’s putting a million thoughts on display in just one short moment. His brother has always been an open book.
He reaches out a shaking hand- Colt can see the burned skin on his arm and he feels a wave of sickness wash over him- and cups Colt’s face with it as if to convince himself that he’s real.
Then he pulls Colt into a hug with such ferocity that it almost hurts. He isn’t sure whether Ryland actually believes his twin brother is here in the flesh or if he still thinks he’s gone crazy and just chooses to ignore it.
Colt is inclined to believe it’s the latter. It has been a long time since Ryland has felt the touch of another human, so he probably takes whatever he can get, real or fake.
Colt throws his arms around him.
“How are you here?” Ryland’s whole body is shaking with sobs.
And Colt isn’t much better. “It’s a long story. God, Ry.” He wipes his eyes and tries to laugh, but out comes just another sob. “If only you knew what chaos you’ve caused.”
Ryland pulls away. “Huh?”
Colt grins at him shakily. “Too many fucking people love you, man. The whole afterlife is fighting over you.”
By the time Colt has finished explaining everything to him, Ryland has calmed down a bit, but that doesn’t mean much because he’s still sniffling and wiping his tears away and his voice is still unsteady.
“So…so you’re dead?”
"Accident at work. It’s fine, I didn’t even…”, he sighs. “I didn’t even feel it. I just miss Jody, but I’ve been told she will go to the Good Place in like fifty years, so…”
He gives Ryland a double-thumbs-up.
“What happened?”, Ryland asks, visibly distraught. “Your accident?”
“You’re asking me what happened? How about you, ‘savior Grace’, huh? Everyone thought you were fucking dead. How are you still alive?”
Ryland shrugs. “Sheer luck and a lot of gross ‘food’.”
His face contorts at the last word like it’s an insult to call it that.
“I ate the taumeoba,” he explains then.
Colt grimaces and gags for dramatic effect. “The thing that saved our sun?”
“Yep. It had enough calories to keep me sustained. The eridians also synthesized food for me and now I at least have something with a little taste. Mostly Me-burgers. Sorry, hamburgers”, he corrects himself, and Colt isn't sure if he even wants to know the implication of his slip of tongue.
“But enough about me”, he says then as if he'd just talked about work and taxes and not surviving in a completely different solar system. “I want to know about you! How is Jody? What was your life like? Have you ever had kids?”
Colt winces. “Jody’s fine. I mean, probably not right now because I’m dead and all, but I hope she will be soon. And no, we never had kids. We really wanted to be parents, but then it got colder and colder and we ended up deciding against it while the future was still so uncertain.”
Ryland gives him a sympathetic look. “It must have been tough on Earth.”
“It was, for a couple of years.” He puts a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Until my twin brother saved us all.”
“Oh, come on.”
“What, ‘come on’? You’re the coolest person I know, you know that?”
Ry waves it off because he can’t take a compliment to save his life.
“Seriously. I missed you so fucking much, Ry. Almost no day went by where I didn’t think about you at least once.”
Ryland starts fidgeting with his hands and pointedly stares at his feet. His voice is thick with unshed tears when he finally replies, and it sends off a spike of fear in Colt's chest. “I missed you too. I always…I always thought you must be so mad at me.”
Colt’s stomach drops. “What? Why would I possibly be mad at you?”
He hesitates.
“For leaving without saying goodbye. But it wasn’t because I didn’t want to. There’s something…I need to tell you something. I just want you to know…”
His face contorts and all the color drains from it. His tears are no longer happy tears, and he’s kneading his hand with his thumb so hard Colt is sure it will leave bruises.
“I…just….want you to know….”
He exhales shakily.
“Hey.” Colt puts a hand on his brother’s arm. “Hey, Ry, it’s okay, you don’t have to say it out loud. I know.”
His whole posture goes rigid and if it’s possible, he becomes even paler. His eyes lock on Colt. “What do you know?”
Shit. He’s shaking now.
“I know what has been done to you, Ry. And yeah, I was mad, I was fucking livid, but not at you.”
Ryland looks very alarmed now. His chest rises and falls like he’s a rabbit in a trap. Not good. “H-how do you know? Who else knows?”
For a moment, Colt considers lying to him. But then he decides it will be even more gruesome if he finds out later.
“E-everyone. Someone leaked the bodycam footage of one of the guards.”
Ryland’s hands slowly go to his mouth like he’s trying to hold back a scream. His eyes are impossibly wide and he’s shaking all over.
Colt has only seen him like this once, and it wasn’t nearly as bad as now.
It was right after he got fired for insulting his superior at the UNESCO-conference. Someone had filmed and posted the incident online, and it soon became a viral meme, turning him into a laughing stock. Ryland had been so down in that time that Colt had been genuinely worried he would do something stupid.
“Breathe”, Colt says, trying to stay calm even though he feels anything but. “Deep breaths, Ry. In and out. Just like that.”
Ryland tries and Colt keeps rubbing circles on his back, but his breathing sounds so strained and labored and streaked with sobs that it only seems to make it worse.
He tries to say something, but he’s crying so hard now that he can’t get anything out.
A thought comes to Colt, one that he should have had much earlier, that Ryland’s last memory of Earth was people pinning him to the ground, grabbing him roughly by his shoulders, a knee on his back…
Immediately, Colt takes his hand off his back and puts the other one on his chest, ignoring the way he can feel his bones so prominently directly under his palm.
“What do you see, Ry? Tell me five things, come on.”
Ryland hiccups pathetically, but he tries, he really does. He knows this exercise; he’s the one who taught it to Colt all these years ago. He’d learned it during in-service training at the school where he worked as a teacher. Colt hopes the technique will serve as a reminder of his time there, because Ry had lived for his job.
“Sand”, he manages to say. “Water. You. Fog. B-boulder.”
“Great. Now four things you can feel.”
Ryland’s breath hitches and he tries again to speak. “Your hand. Towel. Sand. Wind.”
They do this until Ryland has told him three things he hears, two things he smells, and one thing he tastes. When they’re done, his breathing is still uneven and he’s still crying, but at least he’s not on the verge of a pass-out anymore, and his heart doesn't hammer as violently anymore under Colt's palm.
Colt takes his hand off his chest and tentatively puts it on his arm. “There. Do you want to talk about it? What’s wrong?”
“I’m so sorry”, Ryland blurts out all of a sudden, and something in Colt goes very cold, very still.
“What?”
“I’m sorry!”, he repeats. “I’m so so sorry. I’m so sorry, god, I’m so sorry.”
“Ryland”, Colt says calmly, evenly, while his hands ball into fists. “What the fuck are you apologizing for?”
“I’m sorry for being such a coward. I’m sorry for not being who you thought I was. I’m sorry for putting my own life over eight billion people.”
Colt can only stare at him for a moment. Bile rises up in his throat.
That’s what he thinks? That’s what he thought the entire time? While Colt was horrified at the idea of Ryland alone and forgotten, his brother had thought he’d deserved it the entire time?
For god knows how long he opens and closes his mouth like a fish out of water because he's so baffled, he genuinely has no words.
When he finally finds his voice again, he surprises even himself with how sharp it sounds.
“What the fuck Ryland?!”
His brother flinches and opens his mouth, but Colt immediately interrupts him,
“No, shut up! Shut the fuck up and never say that again! Oh my god…?!”
“Huh…?”
“Ry! They gave you three hours to think about doing something so unspeakable that I’m honestly surprised you’re still functioning. And no, you didn’t choose yourself over eight billion people because let's face it, we all thought the whole thing wouldn't work in the first place! People called it Project Fail Mary, Ryland! For all you knew back then, you were asked to die for a fucking fluke, not for humanity to survive! Even Eva Stratt knew that! She asked you to die for a project that she didn’t even believe in herself! You…oh my god, Ryland, what has been done to you is so awful, I can’t even put it into words, and you still chose and managed to save us all! And now you’re here apologizing? I know you don’t have the best track record of being kind to yourself, but that is a new low, even for you!”
“But-“
“No! Shut up! Shut up! No one thinks that way about you, Ryland! No one! When the news broke that you’d been kidnapped into the suicide mission, there were mass protests against the government for you! People were so, so angry on your behalf! And when the beetles came back, you basically reached the status of a fucking Saint because not a single soul on Earth had believed this mission would work, and then you sent us a goddamn miracle! No one thinks you’re a coward! Now stop talking shit about my twin brother or I’m going to beat you with a stick!”
Ryland blinks at him. His face is red and puffy and there’s still tears in his eyes. His mouth corners twitch. “You know what, Rocky reacted more or less the same when we had this conversation.”
“Man, I like Rocky! Someone needs to talk some sense into you! My god, Ryland.”
The sickness still echoes in his stomach from what he’s just heard, only soothed by the way Ryland slowly and carefully smiles. “Maybe one day, I’ll believe you two.”
“You better!”
They fall into silence, one where Colt tries his best to forget everything Ryland just said about himself because he still can’t believe what he just heard.
He was, in a way, a victim of attempted murder and he thought he deserved it! Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Ryland hugging his knees. His entire posture is still rigid and his skin still paler than it is probably normal, but he slowly seems to calm down.
“So, this is your home now, huh?”, Colt says to have something, anything else to talk about and distract from this awful, awful conversation from before.
Ryland nods, grateful for the change of topic. “We’re inside a biodome right now. The eridians built this for me. I really can’t complain. House at the beach, my best friend comes by every day, and I don’t have to cook because they just give me food whenever I'm hungry.”
Colt snorts. “So you’re basically their pet lizard.”
“I am no-“ Ryland pauses, considers it and then concedes. “Okay, you’re right, I guess I kinda am.”
That draws a loud and hearty laugh out of Colt, and after seemingly debating whether he should be offended or laugh along, Ryland eventually decides on the latter option.
After they’ve calmed down, Colt regards his brother for a moment.
“Are you happy?”
And Ryland gives him a smile that is still shaky, but so sincere that it almost makes Colt’s insides melt. “Very. Are you?”
“Yes.”
They grin at each other, and it feels like they’re two younger versions of themselves before all of this bullshit happened. Then, suddenly, their peace is interrupted.
“GRACE!!!!”, an angry voice shouts.
He and Ry both flinch.
When he turns, Colt sees an eridian that looks a lot like Rocky stomp towards them.
“Uh-oh”, Ryland mumbles. “Watch out, here comes the fun-police.”
An incredulous laugh bursts out of Colt.
“YOU AREN’T SUPPOSED TO SWIM ALONE!”, Rocky thunders.
“Relax, Rocky, Jesus Christ!”
“What if the tides carried you away, question? What if you got a leg cramp and drowned, question? No one would be here to help! It’s not safe for humans to swim in the ocean alone! Especially not for you!”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’re a fucking ditz!”
Colt doubles over with laughter.
“Well, I’m glad someone was here to bully you when I couldn’t”, he wheezes.
“Who is that, question?!”, Rocky demands. “Why is there two of you, question?!”
“Long story”, Ryland says.
“I have lots of time”, Rocky snaps.
“But we don’t.” The afterlife-eridian steps into view.
Colt has almost forgotten about them.
He can see that Ryland is about to open his mouth to ask about them- and then, just like that, he closes it again, his eyes lose focus and he looks back at Rocky, blinking confused.
“What were we talking about?”, he asks.
“Ry?”, Colt tries.
“About you being a pain in the ass”, Rocky answers. “How many times do I have to tell you to be more careful, question? Stupid!”
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. But come on, the weather was so nice today and there’s barely any waves.”
They both start to move away from him like he’s never been there, bickering the whole time, and Colt will always remember this as the moment he’s lost his brother a fourth time.
“Colt Moreno?”, the eridian says softly.
Colt can’t bring himself to turn around yet.
“Colt Moreno”, the eridian repeats. “We have to go back. Savior Grace will remember this conversation when he dies and enters the Good Place.”
That snaps Colt back into awareness. “Which one of the Good Places?”, he asks.
The eridian tilts their carapace.
“I will make my ruling shortly. Let’s go. We have to go talk to the humans now.”
The whole Good Place department is in an uproar after the bomb Eleanor Shellstrop just dropped and Gen is in the middle of it all.
A few of them are trying to call the Eridian committee and yelling into their phones, others are frantically researching how long a human can truly survive without food.
“So we really think this is true? We think he’s been alive this whole time?”, Chidi pants.
“But that can’t be!”, Tahani exclaims. “How would that possibly work? He didn’t even have enough food!”
“Judge?”, one of her many nameless subordinates says. “I have found a conducted study on taumoeba. It says it’s safe to eat and technically has enough calories to sustain a human for a long amount of time.”
“So he’s just been eating tauMOEBA this whole time??!” Chidi looks horrified, his voice goes an octave higher.
“That’s only if this is true”, Michael says placatingly. “But it does seem like it. If he really is alive, that changes everything.”
“Does it?”, Tahani asks skeptically. “Once he dies, they’re going to keep him anyway.”
“Yeah, but think about it”, Eleanor chimes in. “We thought they wanted to keep him, but not take him into their afterlife because they wanted to torture him. But the only plausible reason they don’t have him there is because he’s not dead yet. Which means they do actually care about him. And they loathe us for what’s been done to him. That changes the entire way we need to handle this conversation!”
“Eleanor is right”, Michael says. “The eridians think they can’t trust us with Ryland. That’s the only reason they haven’t told us anything.”
“That means it’s actually a good thing Colt went there”, Gen muses. “They’re not going to listen to us, but they might listen to his brother.”
Michael nods absent mindedly. Then, all of a sudden, he groans and buries his face in his hands.
“Oh, no!”
“What is it?!”, Eleanor asks, alarmed.
Michael looks up at her.
“On his first day here, Colt said that him being Ryland Grace’s brother had to count more than, and I quote, ‘whatever immortal bullshirt we have going on’ when it comes to finding him, and I laughed at him for it.” He buries his face again.
“He’s going to be so obnoxious about this.”
“Judge!”, another one of Gen’s employees exclaims, barging into the room. “The eridians want to talk to us!”
The moment Colt sets foot into the Judge’s Chambers again, Janet snaps her fingers and a third and fourth pebble join the other one in his shoe.
“I’m sorry”, he says, feeling abashed, but only a little, because his little stunt has worked and he will ride that high for as long as he wants.
He’s not really sorry about what he did.
But he is sorry for lying to all of them.
“It’s okay, man.” Chidi smiles, but it’s with a distanced undertone, like he’s not quite ready to fully forgive Colt yet. “I get it.”
“We’re just so happy you’re okay, darling”, Tahani says and dramatically pulls Colt into a hug. “We were about to have a court hearing about this to get you back. They wanted to send you to the Bad Place.”
Colt feels oddly flattered that they did this. He looks at each of their faces, touched by the concern he sees there and – oh, no.
All color drains from his face and he hides behind Chidi when his eyes land on Eleanor’s expression.
The small woman runs toward him with the determination of someone who is out to kill.
“You better hold me back before I kick this idiot's ass!”, she exclaims.
It takes Tahani, Jason and Janet to stop her from at charging Colt, who is still hiding behind Chidi.
“That is enough”, a gentle voice says.
The room falls silent.
Somehow, during all this commotion, they had completely overlooked the tall purple eridian standing behind Colt.
“Hello, Judge Gen”, they say. “The eridians are ready to bargain now in the matter of Colt Moreno and Ryland Grace.”
“Can you stop doing that?”, Eleanor hisses.
“Doing what?”, Colt asks.
“Bouncing your leg like that. It’s super annoying.”
“Like what? Like this?” He bounces his leg up and down more aggressively.
“Stop it, you ash-hole! I will kill you!”
She kicks his shin, which results in him trying to kick her back until both of their feet are fighting while they throw deeply unsatisfying censored insults at each other.
“Oh my god, will you two behave like adults already?”, Chidi groans. “It’s nerve wrecking enough that we have no idea what they’re talking about in that court room right now.”
They both sit back down and fold their hands in their labs, abashed.
“She started it”, Colt mumbles and earns himself a pinch in his arm for that.
Annoyed, she crosses her arms in front of her chest.
Then, she regards him with a look that is both curious and pissed about being curious. “How was it there? The eridian Good Place, I mean.”
He shrugs. “It was…dark, mostly.” Then he smiles. “I saw Erid, though.”
They all stare at him.
“You what?!”, Tahani asks.
“And I saw my brother.”
“WHAT?!”, they all yell in unison. Well, except Jason.
“You have a brother?!”, he exclaims.
They ignore him.
“Wait wait wait, you can’t just say that so casually!”, Chidi says. “How is he?! Is he really alive? How did he survive??! Tell us about it! If you want to, of course, I don’t want to pressure you, I’m aware the conversation was probably very private and intimate and-“
“Well, I want to pressure you. Spit it out, I want details”, Eleanor interrupts his ramblings.
“He’s doing okay”, Colt says. “Well, he’s happy.”
He feels all of their expectant eyes boring into him, waiting for him to say more. He wrings his hands. “He thinks it’s all his fault. He blames himself for saying No. Actually called himself a coward.”
It’s silent for a moment as they all digest his words, their expressions ranging from horrified to sad.
“Oh, my”, Tahani breathes.
“So the idiot-gene runs in the family, then, huh?”, Eleanor says softly.
Colt can’t help the grin and the snort. “Shut up.”
The next moment, he feels her hand on his back. “When he gets here to the Good Place, we’ll all make sure he stops believing that bullshirt.”
“If he gets here”, he corrects her.
“No, when. Come on, dude. We’re not going to give up on your brother now. We’ve come so far. Well, I mean…you have, I guess.”
Tahani, Chidi and Jason nod, even though Jason’s nod is careful as if he’s not quite sure what he’s agreeing with.
Colt feels something in his chest go to rest, like water after a storm, and in this moment, he realizes that she means it. A smile tugs at his lips.
“Thank you. I…thanks.”
“Anytime, bud”, Eleanor smiles fondly.
They all look up when the door to the hearing room opens and Michael steps out.
“Everyone”, he says, “the Judges have come to an agreement. You can come in.”
Colt can barely sit still.
Judge Gen and the eridian Judge stand at the front of the room, and Colt takes solace in the fact that there’s a gentle smile on Gen’s face. She has her hands calmly folded in front of herself and her shoulders seem relaxed.
Hope blooms in his chest.
“We have reached an agreement”, she says. “If you may?”
She gestures to the eridian Judge, who walks a few steps forward.
“We have discussed this issue long and thoroughly to finally come to an agreement in regards of Ryland Grace’s eventual passing that will be in his best interest”, they say. “We have come to the conclusion that savior Grace needs savior Rocky. That is non-negotiable.”
A cold fist closes around Colt’s heart.
His fingers dig into his knees.
All that for nothing. They’re just going to take him to their eridian Good Place after he dies, he’ll never see him again, he-
“But savior Grace also needs his brother and other humans. That is non-negotiable as well.”
The fist lets go, and he can breathe again. Carefully, very carefully, the hope sneaks back, and he looks at them expectantly, waiting for them to continue.
“For the longest time”, the eridian Judge talks on, “we eridians have conferred about savior Grace’s well-being and how we would ensure it once he passes away. We came up with nothing eridians could help him with. Even savior Rocky can’t always help. But when I watched Colt Moreno and savior Grace interact, it became clear that if anyone could help him, it’s his brother.”
Their voice sounds soft, gentle and calm now, and it takes a while until the meaning of the words catch up to Colt. He blinks dumbly.
“Colt Moreno,” they continue, “you have shown me that humans have a better understanding of savior Grace’s troubles and their solutions than we could ever have. We don’t want to take that away from savior Grace. We also don’t want to take savior Rocky away from him. So our agreement is the following.”
He sits more upright, his eyes glued to the eridian, hoping for good news, but prepared to be disappointed.
“Savior Grace will not have to spend eternity in only one afterlife department. Savior Grace can switch between the two. Savior Rocky is always welcome in the human afterlife department. Colt Moreno is always welcome in the eridian afterlife department.”
Colt barely registers the cheering that erupts upon these words. It’s like he’s hearing it all through cotton.
Eleanor, who sits next to him, grabs his shoulders and gives him a shake, and only then does he realize what this means.
He did it.
His brother is coming home.
Like in a trance, he climbs to his feet. Slowly, he walks to the two Judges.
And then he positively hauls the eridian Judge into a hug and, after it ends, kisses Judge Gen on the cheek.
A hundred bearamies later
“Okay, guys. I’m not mad. I just want to know.”
Across Michael at his desk sit Ryland and Colt, neither of them says a word.
Michael scrutinizes Ryland, the weaker link out of the two of them. “Ryland? Buddy? Is there something you’d like to tell me?”
Ryland manages to hold Michael’s gaze for five whole seconds before he blurts out: “Colt is older than me, he should have known better!”
Colt looks scandalized and throws his arms up. “Oh, now the ten minute age difference matters, you freaking traitor.”
“He talked me into it! I’m just as much of a victim in all this as you are, Michael!”
Michael takes a deep breath. He does this a lot when dealing with the twins.
“I think the victim in all of this would be Tom Ryder.”
“He’ll walk it off”, Colt snorts with a throwaway hand gesture.
Michael leans forward. “Colt. It has been 48 hours and he’s still in his therapy session with Janet! He hasn’t stopped crying!”
“Maybe the real victim in all of this is Janet”, Ryland muses.
Michael gives him a stern look while simultaneously clearly suppressing a grin.
“Look, all we did was manipulate his mirrors a little”, Colt says. “He’s being dramatic.”
Michael raises his voice. “He thought he had gone bald and lost all his teeth, Colt.”
“He tortured Colt and tried to frame him for murder”, Ryland reminds him.
Colt crosses his arms in front of his chest. “Also, did he think to actually check his teeth with his tongue before he woke up the whole neighborhood with all of that screaming? I think we’re the victims in all of this.”
“Enough with the whole victim-nonsense! You two did a very mean thing and if you do it again, I’m going to have to put a gyve on you guys!”
“He said that last time”, Ryland whispers.
“And the five times before”, Colt whispers back.
Michael massages his temples. “You know what? Get the fork out of my office, both of you. I will think of something.”
They both know he won’t. If anything is certain, it’s that grass is green, the sky is blue, and Michael has a soft spot for Colt and Ryland.
Still, they don’t need to be told twice to leave and gratefully get up.
Outside of the office, Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, Jason, Janet and Jody are waiting, all with their arms crossed.
“Do we want to know?”, Jody asks and raises an eyebrow.
Colt gives her a peck on the lips. It still astounds him sometimes that he can just…do that now. After such a long time apart, he might have become a little clingy, but she doesn’t seem to mind at all.
She had arrived here ten Earth-years ago, and the day she came to their now shared dreamhouse, there was none of the unfamiliarity or strangeness Colt had expected and dreaded. Instead, they fell into each others' arms, and they talked and talked without a stop, day and night and then some more.
Ryland had arrived seven Earth-years ago, and it was the moment Colt thought he might be the happiest person in the entire Good Place because his family was whole again.
“Don’t worry, I talked us out of a jail sentence”, he says in an attempt to be cool, which Ryland immediately destroys.
“Next time wait with the lie until no witnesses are around.”
“How about we just stop lying altogether now.” Chidi sounds exasperated.
“You should send Tom some apology flowers”, Jody says.
Colt laughs, but she doesn’t, and the laugh dies on his lips. “You’re serious.”
“Of course I am! The poor man thought he lost the one thing that made him worth a damn.” She loses her composure somewhere during that last sentence and starts chuckling. Then she gives him a very, very light slap on the cheek. “Quit grinning at me like that, you’re not off the hook.”
As they leave the building, Eleanor says, “For what it’s worth, I’m so glad you two are causing all this trouble. It was starting to get boring here before you two ding-dongs arrived”, ruffles both their hair and slaps the backs of their heads.
“Can we please walk a little faster?”, Tahani pushes. “We’re going to lose the reservation at the restaurant, and we already wasted so much time because of these two.”
“Chillax, Tahani, I don’t even know why you made a reservation to begin with! We’re in the Good Place, babe, we have all the time in the world.”
Tahani crosses her arms. “I made a reservation because it’s polite and I want to be on time because anything else would be untoward.”
While the others hurry to keep up with Tahani on her long legs, the two brothers let themselves fall behind. Colt’s twin-senses are tingling, and he has the feeling Ryland is walking slow on purpose. There’s something on his mind.
Sure enough, it doesn’t take long until he starts a conversation once their friends are out of earshot.
“What are you doing tomorrow?”
“I’ll be at the beach with Jody. I’d ask you to come along, but I’m still in the middle of making the whole dying-in-front-of-her-eyes-thing up to her, so…”
“It’s fine.” He hesitates. “I have plans, anyway.”
Colt glances at him curiously. “What? Nerding out with Chidi again?”
Ryland suddenly averts his gaze and hides his hands in the pockets of his fox-cardigan (that Colt can’t believe he still has. It’s been like a hundred years, for God’s sake).
“Actually”, he says. “Um. You remember how Eva Stratt has wanted to talk to me for a while now?”
Colt chest suddenly feels tight and his hands ball into fists.
“Yeees?”, he drawls out.
Ryland has gotten a lot better during his time here. Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani and Jason practically adopted him the minute he arrived.
It was just like Colt had said: it’s impossible not to love him.
Of course it was rough at first, especially in the beginning when Ryland learned that Rocky wouldn’t be here for another three hundred years. And it still isn’t perfect, but he hasn’t had flashbacks in a very long time.
So maybe him being willing to talk to Eva Stratt is a sign of progress.
But this is one of the topics he and Ryland will never agree on, and one of the topics Colt allows himself to be completely irrational about.
He doesn’t want this woman anywhere near his brother.
“Well…I think…I’m ready. I think I’m going to meet her.”
Colt presses his lips together and averts his eyes so Ryland doesn’t see the frustration in them that always wells up when he brings up Stratt.
“I know what you’re gonna say”, Ryland quickly adds. “But it has been such a long time and I’m feeling a lot better. I think I need this. She needs this. Janet told me Stratt is ready to go through the door, but not until she’s talked to me. And also…”
Colt holds a hand up. “Stop. I know what you’re going to say, and I don’t want to hear it. I am not going to listen to you defending this woman again.”
“Colt.” Ryland takes a deep breath and exhales. “I don’t know what to say anymore to make you understand, but…”
“You can’t. You will never make me understand. She hurt you, Ryland. She violated your fundamental human rights in the worst way imaginable. You have PTSD because of her, for fork's sake! There is nothing, absolutely nothing you could say that would make me forgive this woman.”
“If she hadn’t done it, every person on Earth would have died”, Ryland says quietly.
Now Colt is the one to take a deep breath. They’ve had this argument so many times and almost given Chidi cerebral hernia when they asked him for his opinion on the matter.
And what pisses Colt off the most about it is that Ryland is right. It had worked out in the end, hadn’t it? For the small price of Ryland’s sanity. And maybe that’s the biggest issue: that Ryland can’t fucking see how unfair it is that he has to live with all of this now, and that he’s allowed to admit that he’s suffering because of her decision.
The only positive development in all of this is that he’s finally stopped calling himself a coward.
When Colt feels calm enough to not snap at him, he finally says: “You know what, Ry? Maybe two things can be true at the same time.”
Ryland looks like he hasn’t ever considered this, like the words are an epiphany, and in a way, they are; for both of them. He considers them, rolls them around in his brain, and then, eventually, he grins.
“Well, fork me, when have you become wise?”
“ I am ten minutes older than you, after all. Also, language!”
Ryland laughs and shoves him by bumping Colt’s shoulder with his own. Colt shoves him back.
While he walks, the stupid pebbles still dig into his feet.
“So, you’re really doing it?”, he asks after a few minutes of comfortable silence.
The others are far ahead of them by now.
Ryland shrugs. “I think it would give me some closure.”
“I can’t stop you, it’s your decision, man. Just don’t let her get into your head, okay? And if she does…we’re here for you. And I am free tomorrow night if you need someone to talk.”
Now, Ryland scoffs. “I’m not that fragile, Colt. I think I can handle it.”
“You’ve had to handle so many things on your own for such a long time. Accept the help, you idiot. You’re loved, suck it up.”
Ryland rolls his eyes, but he smiles. “Fine. If it’s that important to you, I guess I could be persuaded to come over tomorrow and tell you how it went.”
“See? Was that so hard?”
“Hey, what’s up with the snail race?”, they hear Eleanor shout at them. “Tahani’s going to blow something up if we’re not on time!”
“Eleanor! Don’t say that, you’re embarrassing me!”, Tahani says, appalled.
Colt laughs and throws his arm around Ry’s shoulder.
Together, they make their way to their friends and Colt thinks that the Good Place has really earned its name.