Work Text:
"Please enter your password," the computerized voice intoned from his phone, and Colt hastily typed in the password—Their birthday, always their birthday—before pressing his ear to the speaker again, "You have one saved message. First saved message-"
This was a mistake, Colt knew it was, it always was, but even eight years later it's an addiction he can't kick. He'd saved the message on six seperate usb sticks and four spots on the interal drive of every laptop in the house, but it was always the phone he ended up pressing against his ear as he muffled sobs. Curled on the ground in the dark, huddled against the couch he could be sitting on. But Ry and him always ended up on the ground when they were up at three am, Ry usually curled with his head in his lap as he scratched at his scalp to help calm him down.
It was where he always heard Ryland the best, where Ryland heard him best. Where they talked about everything. And tonight, Colt wanted to talk to his little brother.
"Colt," Ryland's voice strains around a sob, "I wish you were there. It's me, Ryland."
As if Colt would ever forget his brother's voice, would ever not know the other half of him—they were identical twins. He remembered learned about how it meant they were split from the same egg. Colt had always thought that that made that one in the same.
"I know its been a long time since we talked- almost- almost a year and a half. I know I- I wasn't good at keeping in touch after your accident but well- well you weren't so good at it either. Pushing me away, pushing everyone away and I- I had important work to do. I couldn't just- no. No. Now isn't the time for that." He knew every second of this recording. Word for word. They echoed in his head at all points of the day. They invaded his mind as he slept, "I'm sorry about that. I- I should have tried harder. You were struggling and I- I should have tried harder."
It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.
"And now it's- its too late, and I cant help but feel that's my fault too." He sobs, harsh and grating through the speaker. More grating still that there was nothing Colt could do, "And I know. I know you can't talk to me, but maybe you can- can listen to me? Wherever your atoms are, maybe you can listen, please."
"Always, Ry Ry," Colt whispers into the unhearing microphone.
"Stratt—she's the like... defacto world leader right now, if you didn't already know that," Colt had. He knew her all too well, the whole world did, she was currently in jail, serving life without parole, "She told me that if I- if I go on this mission I can save the world. And that's- that's cool. I guess. If it weren't- weren't for the why."
Another harsh sob tumbled down the line.
"If I go, I can- I can study astrophage in a- in a whole other star system. I could- I could save your friends, Jodi, my kids. I- I wish I could save you."
Colt's failure on blatant display. The miscommunication he never got to clear with the person it mattered most too.
"But then, if I go. Would you- would you remember me? The me that no one else saw, the me that- that was your brother?" He cries, always crying. Ryland was always the more sensitive of the two and Colt always protected him as best her could. But he hadn't when this was sent. Too busy playing dead. "Will I still remember you. Remember you as anything beyond my dead brother? Remember beyond these last moment. Who will remember the you that I know? Who knows enough to remember the you that isn't a Hollywood big shot stuntman?"
There was a whole minute of harsh sobs that Colt matched, shuttered breath by shuttered breath. A pain he'd never be able to throw.
"You- you changed after your accident, but you were still the same. To me you were the same. I thought- I thought stupidly if I just gave you space and now I-" A cut off whine, like he was actively stopping a different sound from emerging, "you changed, your body changed, but not your soul. I think- I think mine changed. I think this job changed me in ways I don't know if you would like. And I- I don't even believe in souls. Not in the traditional sense."
A humorous, disbelieving laugh.
"I should- I should go. I was- I only have three hours to decide what to do and I- I wasted half that time having a panic attack because maybe some things stay the same you know? But I- I love you. So much. You're my brother and I- I wish I could tell you again. I don't know when, or how, or even how long but I- I will see you again. I swear. Sometime our- our atoms, or our souls, or- or something will bring us back together. Even if we are never- never twins again in this life."
There is another harsh sob, and some rustling and then-
"End of saved message. Main menu, to-"
He dropped the phone on the carpeted ground below him, curling inwards on himself as he cried. God, if Ry could see him now, getting his emotions out "healthily" he'd say.
Colt just thought it hurt.
"Colt, darling, are you- oh Colt." Jody's soft voice carried into the room, her soft steps padding on the carpet until they are next to him, and then she moves to sit, batting away the help Cold instinctively tried to give, "I am four and a half month pregnant, I'm not usless."
She settles next to him.
"I- I miss him." Colt says, getting pulled into a shoulder, fingers playing with the hair at the nape of his neck, "Jody I- I miss him so much it hurts."
"I know," she whispers, sounded wounded herself, "I should have expected this. Today would be harder than normal."
Harder than normal. Because Colt's brother being sent off to another solar system was never an easy thing to live with.
But it was worse tonight.
They'd had a checkup, a normal ultrasound when the OB had noticed something.
Twins.
It had somehow been missed by the doctors for four months despite the fact that they shared a placenta and an amniotic sac.
Sure signs they were identical. Which is one hell of a coincidence since that wasn't something that could be genetic.
"Do you need anything specific from me tonight?" She asks him softly, but Colt just shakes his head.
"Just stay," He whispers, "Please just don't leave me."