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It’s long past sunset when Ryland finally reaches the small trailer he’s been led to call home, brain buzzing with another too-long day of work. Whatever usefulness Stratt thought he’d bring to the project has clearly tripled ever since Ryland encountered his very first batch of Astrophage, and his hours spent between labs and meetings now way overtake whatever personal life he has left.
After a good minute of shuffling with his keys in the dim glow of the base’s lamp posts, Ryland finally makes it into his trailer and away from the biting cold of the kazakhstani November. He reaches for the light switch as he closes the door, but as his knuckles graze the button, a low voice rises from the left corner of the darkened room.
“Don’t turn the light on,” the voice says, somewhat familiar, but the unexpected company has Ryland jump out of his skin so hard that for a moment nothing else computes.
“Christ on a—” he nearly shouts as he drops his keys to the ground, whirling around to find the outline of a man sitting on the sole chair of the trailer. The dim light shining through the half-closed blinds is just enough to allow Ryland to distinguish the intruder’s features, and once the panic settles enough for his brain to be rational, he blows out a long, shaky sigh. “Court,” he mutters, leaning back against the closed door, his knees still shaking. “W-What are you—what—”
“You weren’t answering my calls,” his brother replies curtly, leaning away from the shadows of the trailer. His blue eyes, the same shade as Ryland’s, are stoic as ever as they catch the outside light.
Ryland lets out another long sigh, tries to shake off the adrenalin pumping through his tired body. “Yeah, they, ah,” he stops to clear his throat. “They took my phone. Replaced it with a new hardened one. I couldn’t figure out how to warn you without, you know. Compromising you,” he says, adding half-hearted air quotes around the verb.
Court just nods, his eyes leaving Ryland to gaze around the small trailer, messy enough for it to be noticeable even through the darkness.
Ryland scratches the back of his head, then nearly trips over his fallen keys as he takes a step forward. “It’s good to see you?”
“This place is even harder to infiltrate than NASA headquarters,” is Court’s reply, voice monotonous as ever.
Ryland squints as he struggles to take off his coat. “Because that’s something you’re familiar with?”
“I don’t like this, Ry.”
Ryland sighs. Leave it to his older brother to disappear for years and then come back just to criticize his life decisions. “It’s not like I’m imprisoned here, Court,” he replies, perhaps slightly snarkily, as he hangs his coat. “I’m a scientist doing his job. I’m an employee.”
“Employees get to go home at the end of the day.”
The words unexpectedly strike Ryland, unearth that small part of him that has been silently longing for his old worn couch and the peace of his own little appartment back in San Francisco. It’s off-putting that a brother he barely ever sees is still able to see right through him so easily. It’s also just invasive enough to wake the tiny part of Ryland’s brain that longs for the unavoidable strife of siblinghood. “Like you know anything about going home,” he retorts in a mutter, and immediately hates himself for it.
Ryland holds his breath, but Court doesn’t reply. Doesn’t even react. Just watches him from his sit, tired eyes lit by the light slashing through the slits of the blinds. Ryland’s fingers twitch at his sides, itching to turn the light on, to let him get a good look at the only family he’s got left. He wonders, not for the first time, what their relationship could have been like in another, much simpler universe. Wonders whether seeing his older brother for the first time in years would have warranted a hug.
He shoves his hands in his pockets instead and blows out a breath. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
It takes Court a few more beats to finally speak up. “Yeah, you did. You’re right. The only home I’ve ever had was in Jacksonville, which hasn’t meant anything to me in twenty years.” He pauses, just long enough that Ryland starts wondering whether he’s already done talking. “But you and I are not the same.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that I did what I had to do so you could lead a normal life,” Court replies, running a gloved hand down his face. “And you’ve done that brilliantly, Ry. You’ve built yourself a career, a home, a name.”
“Yes, which is how I’m standing here right now as the lead scientist of the Project Hail Ma—”
“You’re standing on a time-bomb, Ryland,” his brother interrupts with a shake of the head. “I did my research. These people, this Eva Stratt?” He shakes his head again. “There’s no way they’ll get away with this in the long term.”
“With what?” Ryland asks, resisting the urge to throw his hands in his air. “Saving humanity?”
“Did you know she’s currently immune from prosecution for any kind of crime anywhere on Earth?”
“Yeah,” Ryland shrugs. “The U.S. Senate did that.”
“That doesn’t ring any of those very sensitive alarm bells in your brain?”
Ryland does his best to resist the annoyance itching his brain. “Stratt is at the head of a project meant to try and save humanity from its assured demise, Court. If anyone deserves universal legal protection, it’s her.”
Court leans back against the wall and into the shadows. “Humans don’t have a good track record at playing God.”
“Yet you’ve been doing it for, what? Fifteen years and counting?”
Court’s answer doesn’t come immediately. If the lights were on, Ryland is sure he could see the muscles in his jaw tighten. “I’m not playing God,” he says eventually, the words clipped.
“No,” Ryland retorts. “Just his executioner.” He sighs, runs up his face a hand that nearly knocks his glasses right off. “Listen, I appreciate you worrying about me. But I’m not that kid from Jacksonville anymore. I can take care of myself.”
“I know you’re not a kid anymore,” Court replies, and then finally stands up. The shadows seem to follow him as he does, unfolding around his black-clad body as he steps closer to Ryland. There’s just enough light for them to stare at each other, for Ryland to watch the corners of his brother’s eyes soften as he says, “but my instinct will always be to protect you.” Court stares at him for a while, probably marvelling as well at the sight of a face so similar to his own yet so different. “I can get you out of here,” he says, the words barely above a whisper. “Just say the word.”
Ryland pulls away from his absent-minded cataloguing of the scars on his brother’s face to meet his eyes.
“I’m staying,” he says, voice so strong that he nearly impresses himself. Court just stares. “Will you please stop looking at me like I’m the one being sent to space?”
Court shrugs. “Can you assure me you’re not?”
“Can—” An unexpected laugh bursts past Ryland’s lips. “Court, I’m scared of needles and elevators. The last time I went on a rollercoaster, I was eleven and I threw up all over both our pants. I’m the last person who should ever be considered an astronaut if they want this project to actually succeed.”
It pulls a little smile out of Court, the left corner of his mouth bending upward ever-so-slightly. “Right,” he says with a curt nod. “You’re right.”
Neither of them says anything for a while after that, but the ice has been broken and the silence doesn’t feel so uncomfortable. Ryland looks down, starts taking off his watch. “You know,” he says, eyes on the task, “I tried really hard, but I don’t think either of us were ever meant to have a normal life after that.”
“After you vomiting on me?”
Ryland chuckles, but quickly sobers up. “You know what I mean,” he says, looking up at Court and then back down at the watch held tightly between his fingers.
The room is so quiet that Court’s inhale sounds almost too loud. “I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to do it sooner.”
Ryland tries to laugh, but it comes out weak and winded and it makes him wince. “You were a kid too, Court. You don’t have to apologize for any of it.”
Court is silent for a while. Ryland can’t bring himself to look up. “I never thought…” his brother starts, voice uncharacteristically unsure. “I never thought we’d be separated. I mean, I guess I knew what the consequences would be, but I just thought—” he stops, and his throat clicks as he swallows. “I didn’t think I would lose you the way I did, is all.”
“You didn’t lose me,” Ryland says, finally looking up to find his brother avoiding his gaze.
“But I did,” Court says with a nearly imperceptible nod. “I lost you for a long time.”
“And now you’re standing right here,” Ryland says, reaching out then aborting the movement. It’s enough to get Court to look at him. “And my life is exponentially better because of what you did. Court, without you, I don’t think I would even be…” his throat closes up, knotted by a sudden wave of emotions he’s usually able to suppress.
He never finishes his sentence. Court picks the small bean bag from Ryland’s cramped desk, squeezes it between his fingers as his brother struggles to pull himself together.
“You know,” Court says after a moment, eyes on the squishy planet, “with all this dying sun stuff, I’ve been thinking about the future.”
Ryland blinks, throat still tight. “Yeah?”
Court shrugs. “Yeah. I mean, I know no one’s ever bothered to think of a retirement plan for me, but nothing's keeping me from making one up myself. So maybe one day, when you go back to teaching or whatever the hell it is saviors of the universe do, we could, I don’t know, finally cash in on that brother thing.” He shrugs again, obviously trying to play it nonchalantly and failing. “I think i’d make an okay neighbor, you know?”
Ryland just stares at him, mouth gaped, eyes burning with unshed tears. “Are you serious?”
Court shrugs again, exhales. “I mean, it might take a while, and me retiring against everyone’s will might entail a few complications at times, but I think—if we’ve only got a few decades left, that I’d rather live them without any more regrets.”
It stuns Ryland for a while. “Neighbors,” he repeats, staring at his brother.
Court has the audacity to smile. “Could be fun, right?”
Ryland stares at him for a minute. When he finally nods, a few tears roll down his cheeks. “Yeah,” he says, the word sounding choked. “Yeah, I’d really like that.”
“Great,” Court says, clapping his hands together, the motion squishing the bean bag between his palms. “So you keep on saving the world, and I try not to die, and if neither of us winds up in prison before this project is over, we move in next to each other.”
“I’m not gonna go to prison, Court.”
“I know,” Court nods, looking weirdly jittery and energized, his face tight and his eyes a little wider than usual. Ryland wonders if this is just what his brother is supposed to look like when he’s happy. “Because I’ll be there to break you out.”
“Because I’m not gonna go to prison.”
“Sure,” Court says, then laughs, and it’s a sound so foreign yet so familiar to Ryland’s ears that it makes him feel like he’s floating a few inches off the ground.
It happens before he can really help it — but Court’s laugh is echoing all the way down to Ryland’s stomach, and it strikes him that his brother is standing right here, right in front of him, close enough to touch, close enough to hug.
Ryland hasn’t hugged many people in his life; he knows for a fact that Court has even less experience in the matter. Yet when he wraps his arms around his brother’s neck, he finds the embrace reciprocated after only a short beat.
Court’s arms have the strength of someone’s who only ever been taught to fight. It squeezes the air out of Ryland’s lungs, but he can’t bring himself to let go, because his ear is tucked against his brother’s and he can’t remember the last time they held each other.
Maybe before Court took a gun to their father’s head. Maybe after. It's always been nothing but a blur.
“I should go,” Court says after a while. He doesn’t move, though, doesn’t break the embrace.
Ryland nods, tightening his arms around his brother’s neck. “I know.”
They stay like this for a long time. He knows that, come morning, all traces of Court will be gone from the trailer, and that the familiar radio silence that has filled most of their relationship will be turned back on.
But for now, Ryland buries his face in his brother’s jacket, and basks in the warmth of the only family he’s ever known.