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It starts at 7:45 a.m. on a Tuesday in mid-September.
Court is cradling a fresh mug of coffee held up close to his lips, the tip of his nose warming with the rising steam. He still carries the chill from the graveyard shift. Morning dew clings stubbornly to the shoulder pads of his security jacket, but he can't bring himself to shed a layer just yet. He has to leave soon to bring the twins to school, anyway.
Down the hall, he can hear dresser drawers creaking open and rumbling shut. He counts the thuds as he sips his coffee. It's too sweet for his taste, but his mother was kind enough to get it ready for him before she hurried out to drive to work, so he doesn't stop drinking it. It isn't too bad aside from the sickening aftertaste.
He counts four thuds of the drawers before the twins' bedroom door creaks open. He nods in silent approval. Underwear, socks, shirt, and pants. Colt's record for a successful outfit was typically hit or miss. Court is always inclined to give him the benefit of a doubt in the mornings that he can coordinate an outfit for himself.
Rubber-soled footsteps tromp noisily down the hall towards him, and Court raises his mug to his lips to stifle a sigh. There goes the benefit of the doubt. It happens just that fast when it comes down to his little brother.
As predicted, Colt appears in the kitchen doorway. His little face lights up when he realizes that it's Court leaning against the countertop instead of their mother. His sandy blond hair is still ruffled askew from sleep. There's even a red line pressed along the curve of his jaw where the nose of his favorite stuffed animal dug in all night to leave an impression.
The first thing Court notices is that Colt's still wearing the pajamas that he picked out last night, rather than the clothes he assumed his brother was picking out for school. What was all the noise of the dresser about, then? Court isn't too sure if he wants an answer to that when he can already see the result.
The second thing he notices is the pair of bright red rain boots on Colt's feet.
"Court!" Colt cheers. He stomps over in his boots to wrap his arms around Court's waist in a hug. Predictably, he draws back the instant his cheek presses to the damp fabric of the security jacket. He tilts his chin up to give Court an affronted gasp. "Ew! Why are you wet?"
"It rained this morning," Court chuckles. He gives the rain boots a pointed stare. "Why are you wearing those in the house?"
"It rained," Colt says, matter-of-fact.
"In the house?" Court keeps his tone dry. It's the best he can do to hide his amusement.
"Uh-huh!" Colt eyes the boxes of cereal on top of the refrigerator. He's clearly finished with that line of questioning. There's a gleam in his eyes, though, that Court doesn't trust. "Can I have some of your Froot Loops, Court?"
"I thought you liked the cinnamon one."
"Pleeeaaase?"
"Mom said you both picked out your own cereal this week, and you wanted Cinnamon Toast Crunch."
"Please, please, please?"
"It's going to cost you," Court says grimly. He swallows the last of his coffee and sets his mug down on the counter with a dull thud. Colt straightens up instantly.
In the back of his mind, Court is mourning in anticipation of the day his brothers are too old for this sort of teasing anymore. The twins are already eight. It feels like yesterday that he sat in a chair in the hospital and held both of them in the crook of one arm, their heads small enough to fit in the curve of his palm. It feels like just yesterday when he wrapped both of them up in a blanket and carried them out of their father's house with just a backpack full of their favorite things and the clothes on his back.
Five years away from that man has changed all of them. His mother smiles more. The twins can run through the house that he and his mother split rent on without terror. He can finally stand there and breathe without the weight of a noose tightening around his neck.
Yes, he will miss the days when he could tease them about cereal in the early mornings before they went to school. It gives him a strangely fond sense of peace to have it.
"I have a hundred dollars," Colt tries. He wiggles out just out of bounds of Court's arm's reach. At least, what he preconceives to be Court's full reach. He's just a bit too short of that goal. His boots squeak obnoxiously on the kitchen tiles. "A thousand hundred million dollars!"
"Not enough," Court deadpans. "Not even close, buddy."
"That's the biggest ever!" Colt argues.
"I need…" Court draws out. Colt eyes him warily. "You!"
He's still not quick enough to escape when Court snatches him up by the waist and hauls him over his shoulder, parading him out of the kitchen and down the hallway. Colt writhes and shrieks, but every movement is hiccuped with laughter. Court basks in that sort of easy joy.
He has never been grabbed up and hauled around in a way that could make him laugh as loudly as Colt can. Especially not when he was his brother's age. It's just another difference he's drawing in the sand between them and him, more distance from the waves of PTSD that crash and flow into his body every time there's a loud bang or a sharp yell. He's building a seawall and hoping he can scale the ladder to peek in and watch them flourish away from the erosion of the tides.
Court nudges open the twins' bedroom door with his socked foot. His eyes find Ryland's bed immediately, pushed up against the opposite wall, and his stomach hollows out at the sight of it, long-empty. There's only his comforter, pushed back in a hurry, and his pile of stuffed animals. Court looks to the window, next, but it's securely shut and locked.
No one slipped in through the night. His father didn't manage to climb in to find the twins here. Maybe it's just his mind conflating the terror of waiting for him to show up around every corner with the legends of boogeymen that snatch children up in the night, but he checks the window every morning all the same.
"Ry!" Colt gasps out. "Ry, get up!"
On Colt's bed, directly across from his own, Ryland's little face peeks out from under the comforter. He blinks tiredly at them and mumbles out: "Whmph?"
"He's gonna tickle me," Colt wails out. When Ryland retreats back into his blanket mound with a sleepy sniffle, Colt lets out a long-suffering sigh. He pounds his fists against Court's back determinedly. Through the padding of the security jacket and his own muscled physique, Court can hardly feel a thing. "Let me have Froot Loops!"
"You have to pay the older brother tax, you know this."
With little fanfare, Court hurls Colt up over his shoulder and tosses him solidly onto Ryland's empty bed. Colt lands on his back with a whoosh of laughter, cushioned by the mess of stuffed animals strewn across the covers, and tries to scramble away. He shrieks like a banshee when Court grabs him by the ankle and yanks him closer. His other foot lashes out to kick at him, but Court deflects the little rain boot easily.
Court can't help it. He's laughing in earnest as he descends on Colt, tickling him ruthlessly. Colt screams like he's being murdered, but when Court pauses to let him catch his breath, he gasps out for Court to do it again.
So Court does.
He gives up when Colt is flushed red up to the tips of his ears and struggling to catch his breath. With his brother's boundless energy temporarily stunted, Court takes the chance to strip off his rain boots and toss them over to the door. He needs to find a place to hide those damned boots. Their mother just bought them sneakers for school, so there's no reason to wear the boots every single day like Colt's been doing for the past five days.
"Boots," Colt whines out weakly.
"You can wear them when it rains, buddy. Get dressed for breakfast."
"I… am… dress… ed…" Colt wheezes.
"For school, not sleep." Court crosses the room to Colt's bed, where Ryland is still curled up, unmoving. He considers the mound for a moment, tracing out all its edges and corners, and takes a guess as to which part is hiding Ryland's face. The kid sleeps like a rock and curls himself up like a pretzel. "Ry, buddy, it's time for breakfast."
"Loops," Colt pants out behind him. Court can hear the bed creaking as Colt rolls over and shimmies off the edge. He's going to give him the benefit of the doubt that he's actually getting dressed, now.
"Your brother is having Froot Loops," Court tells the pile of blankets. There's no movement in response. Drastic measures for a dire situation, then. Court curls his fingers into the edge of the blanket and gives it a firm yank.
Ryland doesn't open his eyes or whine about the cold air. He doesn't even stop snoring, his mouth open in a soft breath. Like a rock.
"C'mon, buddy," Court says, reaching out to poke him awake.
Colt makes his move. With a shrill battle yell, he flings himself onto Court's back, his little arms wrapping around Court's neck the same moment his legs press around his waist. Colt can be clingy when he intends to.
"Kids," Court sighs out, long suffering. He stands abruptly, exaggerating the way he shifts his weight just to jostle Colt on his back and make him squeak with surprise. With his hands free, he reaches down and hauls Ryland up into his arms, one arm tucked under his head with the other under his knees.
The twins are getting far too old for this, but Court spends enough time working out his muscles for strength training to bear the weight for a little while. He's dreading the day they are too big for him to lift at all, never mind lifting both of them at once. He has never gone a day in their lives where he could not hold them both.
"Breakfast time," he announces. Ryland snores on without a single hitch. Colt giggles and presses his heels into Court's side like he's a horse instead of an older brother.
"Giddy up!" Colt cries out.
Huffing out a laugh, Court carries them both out to the kitchen for breakfast. The twins eat a full bowl of Froot Loops each, and Court resigns himself to having Cinnamon Toast Crunch for the rest of the week.
They have enough money to scrape by, but not enough to waste name-brand cereal, even if they go on sale. His mother bought that brand to make the twins happy, even if just for a moment, but Court knows they hardly thought about it the moment they left the store. They can survive by living with so much less, but it's worth it to work a little harder just to see the way the twins take life with so much less stress.
Ryland stacks the colorful pieces into a tower on his spoon and eats them with a bleary glaze to his eyes. He still has his head propped up on his palm, too tired to hold it up himself, and milk drips from the corner of his mouth when he yawns.
Colt takes every bite and adds sound effects to the splash of the spoon in the bowl, the crunch of the cereal, and the short path from the bowl back up to his mouth. He beams at Court when he notices his brother watching him eat the Froot Loops he begged for.
Court sips his tepid coffee and keeps an eye on the clock. They have to walk the seven minutes it takes to get to the twins' elementary school. His mother took their only car to work this morning as soon as Court pulled up in the driveway. They live in shifts, he and his mother, and only catch flashes of one another in the meantime. Most of the time, he feels as if the only family he has is the twins.
It's more than enough to have that time with them, even if he has to keep strange hours to watch them during the day and work the graveyard shift every night. Even when Ryland sits up, suddenly wide awake, and looks at Court with fervent intensity.
"Court," Ryland says, interrupting Colt's monologue about Froot Loops tasting nothing like fruit. His voice grows tight with urgency. Court puts down his mug, alarmed, but Ryland plows on straight ahead without waiting for an answer. "Can I be Louis Pasteur for Halloween?"
"Who?" Colt asks, sounding offended.
Court picks his mug back up and takes a long gulp. He's going to have to brew another pot before he takes them down the street to school at this rate. "Halloween isn't for another month, but sure, buddy. You can be Louis Whoever-He-Is."
Ryland shoves a spoonful of cereal in his mouth and mumbles out, "Louis Pasteur is a scientist."
"No talking with your mouth full," Court says idly.
"He's what?" Colt asks.
"He's…" Ryland trails off at the look Court gives him, swallows his mouthful, and turns to Colt with bright eyes. He's wide awake, now. "He's a miracle-biologist."
"Microbiologist," Court says. He remembers now. During one of the many times they went to the library, Court had to enlist the help of the librarian to find kid-friendly science books for Ryland. They found a few that even had experiments to try at home, which Ryland loved, but he still ended up wandering into the nonfiction adults section and choosing a biography about Pasteur's career.
There had been a dull two weeks where, every night before he left for work, Court would sit and read a chapter to the twins. The upside was that Colt usually drifted off immediately after some complaining. The downside was that Ryland could not fall asleep at all and would usually beg for an extra chapter. Court usually gave in for the vain hope that the sooner the book was finished, the sooner he could return it and be rid of Doctor Pasteur's science-dense history for a while.
No such luck, of course. Ryland made him renew their library book loan twice before they were forced to return it and find something new.
Now his eight-year-old brother wants to be a French microbiologist for Halloween.
Court stands up to start another pot of coffee, leaving the twins to talk over one another at the table. Colt is desperately trying to convince his twin to dress up as one of the Power Rangers with him, while Ryland methodically lists fact after fact about the long-dead scientist he's so fixated on lately. Court makes sure to brew the coffee strong and claps to get their attention.
He's so glad they can't read the analog clock well enough to know he's ten minutes early.
"Time for school! Get dressed!"
The twins bicker at one another all the way down the hall, jostling each other back and forth, and Court takes the time to clear the table and put away his near-empty box of Froot Loops back on top of the fridge. Maybe next week he'll get a bowl for himself.