Chapter Text
In their early-twenties now, together the twins rent a shitty apartment from a greedy landlord. Ryland is plugging away at university while Colt is struggling to find his own footing; mostly, he spends his time working to put together what he calls the “ultimate stuntman show case reel,” because he realized a long time ago that he was really good at not getting hurt while doing stuff that definitely should have hurt him. He thought that being a stunt actor would be a good way to capitalize on this talent. It stressed out Ryland to no end.
It’s a warm, Monday afternoon. Colt is standing in the kitchen sorting the mail when a postcard slips out from between the envelopes and floats to the floor. Puzzled, he bends down to pick it up, asking his brother, “Who do we know in Monaco?”
“Nobody,” Ryland mumbles, barely audible. His glasses hang from his ear as he stares at his computer screen, eyes dull and distant. He thinks that he’s never read a paper so boring before, which is unfortunate, because it’s his own. He groans, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his eyes. “Why?”
“There’s a postcard in here, from Monaco.” Colt turns it around in his hands, looking for any identifying information.
“Maybe it’s the wrong address.” Ryland closes his laptop and sets it aside as Colt crosses the room to sit next to him. He looks at the card as Colt holds it.
“No,” Colt answers. “It’s our address. But it looks like it was typewritten. There’s no handwriting on it at all.” He’s right, the recipient address looks like it was typed out on a different piece of paper and then taped to the card. There is nothing on the postcard to suggest who sent it. There is no message either.
“Weird.” Ryland holds his hand out to examine the card. He gleans no more information from it than Colt had. “Who—”
“Do you think it was Court?”
Ryland flinches as if Colt had raised his hand to smack him. Courtland—why would their brother be sending them a postcard, after all these years of silence? He’d shown up to their high school graduation, given them a phone number “for emergencies,” and then took off again. Since then, nothing. Ryland had been close to accepting his brother was dead.
“It makes sense, Ry,” Colt says, taking the card back to examine it again. “Who—why—I mean, Monaco? Who the hell do we know who would go to Monaco?” He’s right, of course. There’s simply no other explanation, as much as Ryland is trying to search for one.
Ryland sighs. “Okay, but why?” he demands, his voice a little sharper than he intended. “Why would he send us a postcard? Why now? Why at all?”
Colt shrugs. “Maybe he just wants to let us know he’s still alive.” He holds the postcard like it’s a fragile thing, like it could break if breathed on too hard.
Ryland snorts. It’s not that he doesn’t want the postcard to be from Court; he just doesn’t want to get his hopes up that Court might come back. He thinks about his older brother almost every single day, wondering where he is, what he’s doing, if he’s safe, why he can’t be there with them. It’s a painful thing for Ryland to accept that his brother is there, just out of reach, and maybe he doesn’t want to be closer; maybe the postcard is just the right distance for Court, after all this time.
“Come on, Ry,” Colt says softly, his eyes pleading. “It’s him, I know it. It’s Court.”
Ryland shrugs again. “Okay.” He just isn’t sure what to do with this information. “Do you think he’ll send more, then?”
Colt’s eyes light up at the possibility. “Maybe!” He smiles as he stares at the postcard in his hands. “That would be neat. I’m going to put it on the fridge.” He stands up and walks over to the kitchen, spending way too long choosing the right fridge magnet to use for the postcard. Eventually he settles on an anthropomorphic strawberry with sunglasses and a cheesy grin. “It’s perfect.” He steps back to admire his work.
Ryland shakes his head as he grabs his laptop and opens it again. He wonders if this was a one-and-done thing for Court (if indeed it was Court who sent the card), and if not, how often he would send more.