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The Driver’s stomach throbbed; a deep, dull pain that turned stabbing every time he breathed to deep.
He was fairly certain he was in shock. Or maybe shutting down.
He was definitely dying.
The wheel was slick with his blood under his hands, slick and red, and smelling of iron and fear.
He was afraid.
Terrified.
Driving blindly, he found himself heading northward, but he didn’t care about that. He cared about very little at that moment. His mind skipped backward like a broken record over the years of his life, and he let it.
Years before, decades before, when everything was simpler and life could have been called good, he hadn’t been alone. He had a brother, once. A twin.
Courtland.
Their father had been a cold, cruel man, and the Driver had always been different.
Teachers and social workers called him slow, stubborn, quiet, dumb.
Retarded.
The man who had called him that had been his least favorite middle school teacher. He had been fired just a few days later, and a much kinder woman took his place.
She was the first person to put a name to what was wrong with him.
Autism.
Driver had always been different.
It had been enough to make his true father hate him. He still remembered how cold it had been, the night he was dragged out of bed and tossed into the backseat of the family car. He still remembered how quiet his father was, as he drove to the adoption agency and left his seven year old child behind.
Driver had always been different, and his mother was pregnant again.
There was no place for someone like him in the world of newborns.
There was no place in the world for someone like him.
Wrong. Broken. Inhuman.
Monster.
He had been put into more foster homes than he cared to remember, before being taken in by a man with even harsher fists than his birth father at the tender age of twelve. He didn’t understand until he was older that the man only did it for the money he was given to care for the disabled child.
(Driver thought they should have just called him broken. It sounded kinder to his own ears. He was broken.)
Driver learned very quickly that there was no way to please the man, and that there was nothing he could do to escape him. He grew up with belt marks on his back and the scent of alcohol and smoke and his own blood thick in his nose.
It was little wonder that he took to the road like a fish to water.
Behind the wheel, Driver was in charge. He could control where he went, how fast he drove, how far he decided to go before turning back.
One day, the day after he turned eighteen, he didn’t turn back at all.
He drove for hours, leaving behind the tiny home that had been his personal hell for the last six years, and he drove until he reached the sprawling behemoth of a city that was Los Angeles. It was a wonder he survived those first few weeks, he would think later.
Without a penny to his name—without a real name at all—he somehow found himself food and then a mechanic who was willing to hire him.
Driver’s stomach clenched painfully as he thought about Shannon, and that time the pain had nothing to do with the gaping wound in his gut.
Shannon had been a father to him more than his birth or foster fathers ever had been. He hadn’t been bothered by how quiet Driver was, he had just shown the young man how to fix the vehicles he loved so much. He treated Driver like he treated everyone else, and when the world was too loud or Driver found himself unable to do anything but sit quietly in a dark corner, Shannon merely gave him his space.
They had existed in a quiet equilibrium for almost two years before Driver accepted his first job as a freelance wheelman.
The adrenaline of that first car chase hit him like a punch to the gut, and the pay made the danger completely worthwhile, so he went back and did it again. And again. And again.
Over and over and over, Driver ferried criminals safely away from the scenes of their crimes, and he was never caught.
The adrenaline from the speed steadied something in his chaotic mind, and Driver adopted the symbol of the scorpion after a year of getaway driving. His jacket and leather gloves became his trademark, and he kept driving.
“You give me a time and a place, I give you a five minute window. Anything happens in that five minutes and I'm yours. No matter what. Anything happens a minute either side of that and you're on your own.”
Shannon got him into stunt driving after a few years of employment, completely unaware of the night-life his best employee led.
Driver took to it immediately, his heart racing with every wild turn.
He drove alongside more than one legend in the film industry, and made enough money to easily support himself, but his nights were still occupied by wild escapes from the law. There was no going back from that once he started, and he had no real wish to go back.
And then a mother and her boy moved into the apartment two doors down from his, the man of their house in prison for some felony, and he knew his life would never be the same.
Irene was a moment of sunshine in his cloudy life, and Benicio was a wild storm charging into his heart and making it into a safe haven.
For the first time, he felt like he could be normal. A real human being, not some shadowy facsimile of one.
The two made him feel happy in a way that he hadn’t felt since he was a little boy, wrapped up tight in his brother’s arms to shut out the world for a while, and so Driver made the biggest mistake of his life.
Driver let himself get too close, too fast.
He crept into the life of the frog, and his traitorous scorpion’s sting struck without his consent.
Driver had been raised by violence.
It was only a matter of time before he finally gave in to the nature he had been molded to.
Irene’s husband, Standard, returned from jail. He was suspicious of Driver but ultimately accepting, and it became clear very quickly that the man had brought a mountain of debt and mafia trouble with him.
Driver, halfway across the river on the gentle back of his newfound peace, found himself entangled in the trouble within a week.
Everything happened so fast.
The amount of money that Standard owed was stolen easily enough, but the shooters were unexpected. The traitor in their midst was unforeseen.
Standard was shot dead not even three yards from Driver’s passenger door, and by the end of the day the others who had been working with him were dead as well.
Driver killed for the first time.
Blood that wasn’t his painted his face and the cream of his jacket, blinding him and coating his tongue and teeth as he panted, open-mouthed, heaving for air that wouldn’t come. The pain of vomiting was secondary to the horror of what he had just done.
He wondered, distantly, as he numbly scrubbed blood from his hands and arms and face, what Courtland would have thought of him.
He decided in the next instant, as he spat red that wasn’t his into the sink, that he really didn’t want to know.
The rest of that week was a living nightmare.
Shannon got involved in it all, because Driver was too out of it to tend his own injuries—wounds he hadn’t even realized he had before they were pointed out to him. Driver desperately tried to tell himself that he hadn’t just put another person he loved in the way of his venomous sting, even though he knew perfectly well that he had.
With Shannon’s help, he found a way to the man who Standard’s debt was owed to, and tried to warn Irene of the danger to her and her boy. Tried to tell her to leave, to take the money and go find somewhere safe.
The feeling of her hand whipping across his face, snapping his head to the side with the force of it, was something he had already relived a hundred thousand times.
He hadn’t pressed her. Had merely followed her when she stepped into the elevator, a man already waiting for them. The cold feeling in his chest at the sight of the gun the man had hidden in his jacket was echoed by the knowledge that there was no stopping what was in motion.
The scorpion’s tail was lifted, and he was helpless to stop it falling.
Driver had turned then, slow and quiet, his eyes seeking those of the woman behind him, and in that moment he knew words would never be enough to convey everything he felt.
The press of his lips against hers was indescribable.
A moment that was somehow both a blink and an eternity all at once.
It was a quiet declaration of love, a soul-deep whisper of grief, a murmured apology in the breath they shared, and a horrible promise of protection, all rolled into one. They shared the same air for a few precious moments, and Driver hated himself for putting her in the way of his stinger.
He killed for the second time then, softness turned to gore, and the fear in her eyes when he finally turned back to her was enough to freeze him in place. She stepped away from him, his venom on her lips, and he could only watch as she stepped out of the elevator and the door cut them apart like a blade.
For a long time, he couldn’t breathe.
He went back to the auto body shop, needing something familiar, and the familiarity was cut through by the scent of iron and pain.
Shannon was gone, the crimson of his lifeblood staining the floor around his slumped form, and Driver knew that it was his fault. The man had only become involved because of him, and he had died for it.
Driver worked on autopilot the next day, too numb to care about anything but finding the one who still needed to be paid. The one who had sent the gunman. The one who killed Shannon.
The one who put a switchblade into the Driver’s gut the moment the money was at his feet.
Driver killed for the third time in that moment, a burst of rage pushing through the pain and the numbness as a blade dug into his softest parts, and then there was blood running hot over his hand, both his and another’s.
And so he came full circle, from the beginning to where he was now, driving as he always did.
This time it was his blood staining the seats.
He wondered what would have been different, if he had never spoken to Irene. If he had never helped Standard.
They were useless thoughts.
He drove silently, not caring where he was going, and wondered if death would come for him swiftly when he finally stopped.
********************************
Courtland Gentry was having a good day for once in his life, watching his younger brothers goof around after Colt finished a day of work on the set of America’s latest low-budget action film. It had been fun, lighthearted jabs exchanged during break times and between takes, and now they were on their way back to their hotel in LA.
The twins couldn’t wait to collapse into their beds, and Court had to admit that he felt much the same.
Unfortunately, fate had other plans for their evening.
A silver 2011 Chevy Impala driving a few cars ahead of them swerved abruptly, then ran completely off the road after a moment of wobbling. Court’s instincts, honed by years of gunfire and cold fear, immediately started screaming at him to keep driving, don’t look back, don’t stop, it could be dangerous—!
But Colt and Ryland were already clamoring for him to stop, pull over, someone could be hurt—!
Court had always been weak when it came to his little brothers, and it had been worse ever since reuniting with them a year before.
He pulled over.
Colt was out of the car and running almost before Court could put it into park, and Ryland followed immediately after him. Court killed the engine quickly, grabbed the keys, and scrambled after them.
“Colt! Ry! Be careful—!”
He stopped.
Both twins were staring at whoever was inside the car, their eyes wide. Ryland glanced up at him for a moment, then back at the car’s occupant, then back up again, and something inside Court’s chest cracked.
It had been decades since he last thought about Casey.
It had been decades since he last wondered if Casey was alive. If he was well. If he was safe. If he had escaped from their horrible father and found a better place somewhere.
Court took a stumbling step forward, and suddenly breathing was a challenge because he already knew what he would find when he looked into the car. He already knew that he would see a face that mirrored his, eyes that held the same shade of icy steel blue. He already knew who he would see.
It didn’t make it any easier.
A punched-out noise left his throat when he finally looked through the dark-smudged window, a sound like an animal caught in a trap, full of agony.
“Court—?” Colt stepped forward, his voice hesitant. “Court, what—?”
They didn’t know about Casey.
He had been taken away before the twins were born. Court could never bring himself to tell them about him when they were younger, and then he never got the chance to tell them at all because he went to prison and then disappeared. Telling them hadn’t even crossed his mind after reuniting with them.
But now…
Court let out another anguished noise, because that was blood smudging the window. That was Casey’s blood—!
Court lunged forward, stooping to scoop up a rock from the bed of the ditch they were in, before slamming it hard against the lower corner of the window. The glass shattered instantly, and he clawed it aside before reaching in and opening the door with shaking hands.
Behind him, he could hear Ryland talking on the phone, calling for help. Colt had raced back to the car to find anything that would help with such a catastrophic injury as the one Casey had suffered.
Casey—Casey was alive, he was alive, he was bleeding, he was here—slumped sideways as he lost the support of the door, and Court rushed to catch him. He was lighter than Court had expected him to be, but certainly not small. He was all long limbs and sharp angles, and Court dragged him out of the car and sank to the ground in a heap, pressing hard on the wound in Casey’s gut.
Casey’s head lolled sideways against Court’s shoulder, a tiny whine of pain leaving him as his eyes fluttered weakly, and then blue met blue as he finally managed to open them and look up at Court. For a few awful moments, there was no recognition in their depths. Only pain and fear and something like resignation.
Court quietly cursed his facial hair, and wondered if Casey would recognize him without it.
It didn’t matter in the end.
Sudden recognition flickered deep in Casey’s eyes, and a look of such awestruck wonder crossed his face that Court almost couldn’t breathe.
“…C’rtl’nd?” Casey’s voice was a husk of what it should have been, soft and rasping.
Court’s chest tightened, his eyes prickling, and a strangled sob forced its way out of his chest before he could stop it. He nodded shakily. Casey reached up clumsily with one shaking, bloodstained hand to cling to the front of Court’s shirt, his awed eyes turning glassy as tears filled them and began to spill over.
Court blinked, and realized he was crying too.
“I’m here,” Court rasped through his tears and the sobs threatening to break out of him. “I’m here, Casey, Casey, I missed you, I missed you so, so much, you have to hold on, okay? You have to hold on just a little longer, help is coming—just hold on, please, please hold on—”
Casey let out a truly awful noise then, a mix between a scream and a sob, and desperately clawed himself up to wrap an arm around Court’s neck. Court kept pressure on the abdominal wound, but wrapped his other arm just as tightly around his brother’s shoulders.
“I’m here, I’m here, I have you—Casey, you’re here—!”
Colt rushed to them, having found the first aid kit, and Court carefully tugged Casey’s bloodstained jacket and shirt away from the wound so that they could pack it. It was an ugly wound, gaping and deep, a few inches to the right of Casey’s navel.
Court grabbed a wad of clean gauze, careful not to get it too dirty, and wiped some of the blood away from it. Casey shuddered, pressing his face into Court’s shoulder at the pain, and Court shuffled to hold him tight as Colt pulled out antiseptic and wet more gauze with it.
“Breathe, Ace,” Court murmured against his twin’s short hair.
Colt pressed the gauze down hard for several long seconds, and Casey jerked, writhing as he tried to squirm away from the molten agony in his gut, a wet gurgle escaping him before he swallowed it back down. He didn’t scream.
Court kept him a still a possible until Colt pulled back, and then he reached out and—as gently as possible—packed the wound. Casey let out another awful gurgling noised, but he still didn’t scream.
“There,” Court gasped once the wound was packed. “There, I’m done. It’s done.”
Casey slumped back with a sobbing gasp, and Court shuffled a bit to settle in a more comfortable position under him. Colt and Ryland sat down beside them, watching as Court rocked back and forth slightly, thumb rubbing against Casey’s shoulder.
“Court…” Ryland chewed his lip for a moment in thought, and Court looked up at him.
“His name is Casey,” he said softly, answering the unasked question. “He’s my twin.”
“What?!” Ryland and Colt chorused as they scrambled closer, eyes wide.
Court nodded, then lifted his head to listen as sirens finally began to sound in the distance.
“They’re almost here, Casey,” he whispered to his brother, who had gone very still in his arms, resting but not unconscious yet. “Help is almost here.”
*****************************
Driver didn’t hurt nearly as much anymore.
His head felt all light and fuzzy, kind of floating between awake and asleep.
He wondered if he was dead and this was some sort of strange heaven.
He didn’t think he deserved heaven, but if this was what death was like, maybe it wasn’t so bad.
Driver hummed low in his throat, a soft sound that grated pleasantly against his vocal cords and sat on his fuzzy tongue in a soothing sort of way. He did it again just because he could, and suddenly there was a hand in his and a familiar voice saying someone’s name.
“Casey. Casey? Ace, can you hear me?”
Slowly, sluggishly, Driver blinked his heavy eyes open.
Who was speaking? Who was the voice calling to?
A blurry face slowly swam into focus, and Driver’s breath caught in his chest as he recognized the person calling.
Courtland.
Courtland was here.
A strangled noise of pure elation left Driver’s throat, and his fingers tightened convulsively around his twin’s.
His twin! His twin was here, alive and breathing and smiling at him!
“Hey, Casey,” Courtland smiled wider, happy tears on his cheeks. “Welcome back to the land of the living.”
Driver’s breath caught for a different reason that time.
Casey.
He hadn’t heard that name spoken out loud in decades.
He had been called so many other things over the years, so many awful and cruel and cold things, that Driver had just become the name he gave everyone when they asked. The last name of his foster father. The last name on his paperwork.
The name that embodied everything he was.
“I drive.”
He hadn’t realized how much he missed being Casey.
“Woah, woah, what’s wrong?” Courtland was worried suddenly, his eyes wide as he leaned forward, reaching for the nurse’s call button. “Are you in pain?”
“N-No,” Driver—Casey—managed to croak out.
Courtland sat back in his chair, looking relieved.
“What’s wrong, then?”
Dri—Casey shook his head sluggishly, more tears tracking down his temples, gathering in his hair and against his ears uncomfortably. Courtland reached out and wiped them away with the edge of the blanket, recognizing his twin’s discomfort without having to ask.
“Happy tears?”
Casey let out a sob in response, his lips pulling up in a smile. A real smile, big and happy.
The last time he smiled similarly to this had been with Irene and Benicio, but that had been different. That had been a different kind of happiness, a different kind of smile.
This was pure joy, light and heavy and euphoric and so painful it stole his breath. Casey squeezed his eyes closed tightly, feeling so full of it that he couldn’t contain it all. His fingers twitched against Courtland’s, squeezing and tapping repeatedly, and he pressed his head back against the pillows to feel the pressure of it.
Courtland laughed, a bright, happy sound, and Casey opened his eyes in surprise. He had wondered what his brother’s laugh would sound like now that he was older, and he finally got to hear it.
“They’ve got you on the good stuff, huh?” Courtland mused, glancing up at the IV bag above the bed.
Probably.
But that wasn’t why he was so happy.
Casey shook his head, still grinning like an idiot and feeling full to bursting. He wanted to move, to squirm around and jump and run and squeeze Courtland so tightly that neither of them could breathe. He had to satisfy himself with squeezing his brother’s hand instead, since he was stuck in a hospital bed.
Courtland tilted his head, then a look of realization suddenly crossed his face.
“You’re stimming,” he laughed, grinning as he realized what was going on. “I forgot you do that.”
He didn’t do it anymore though, that was the thing. Casey had learned young how to mask his more ‘abnormal’ behavior.
This was the first time he had been able to freely express himself in decades.
“I’m sorry you can’t move around more,” Courtland apologized, and Casey hummed low in his throat.
It’s okay.
He squeezed Courtland’s hand again, humming long and low, and Courtland chuckled before humming with him, harmonizing. It didn’t feel mocking. It felt safe.
The joyful fullness in his chest slowly relaxed after a few minutes had passed, and Casey relaxed into the pillows with a sigh. Courtland had relaxed too, still holding Casey’s hand, but he leaned forward slightly as Casey settled.
“So…” he dragged the word out slowly, “do you want to meet Colt and Ryland? Officially, I mean?”
Casey blinked, and then suddenly remembered the other two people who had been with Court earlier, after the crash.
Wait.
Casey’s mind glitched for a second as he realized why Courtland was asking if he wanted to meet them.
Siblings.
He had other siblings!
In all the chaos of the crash, and then the joy of realizing Courtland hadn’t been a dream, he had forgotten that he was supposed to have other siblings!
Just like that, his chest was all tight and fuzzy again.
His face must have done something to show his excitement, because Courtland laughed and carefully pulled away.
“I’ll go get them,” he grinned, and Casey wriggled happily.
Siblings! He had other siblings!
Courtland came back quickly, two others following him cautiously, and Casey squirmed himself into a sitting position despite the pain in his abdomen. He wanted to greet them sitting up.
They were twins, just like him and Courtland, and he grinned even wider before trying to greet them.
It only took him a few seconds to realize he actually couldn’t. A tiny, frustrated huff left his throat. He hadn’t had a bout of situational mutism in a while, and he couldn’t remember the last time happiness was what brought it on.
“Nonverbal?” Courtland checked quietly, and Casey nodded, glad that his twin understood. Courtland laughed softly. “I remember that happening a few times when we were kids. You’d get super excited and just clam up.”
Casey nodded more emphatically; that was exactly what was happening.
“Wait, you’re autistic?” One of the twins stepped forward, looking curious in a kind sort of way. He had glasses hanging of one ear, dangling under his chin.
Casey nodded again, then furrowed his brow at them.
“Oh! I’m Ryland,” glasses twin laughed. “Sorry, I’m excited.”
“And I’m Colt,” the other twin piped up, and Casey got a good look at both of them.
Ryland was slightly less muscular than Colt—or maybe that was the cardigan he was wearing, Casey wasn’t sure—and Colt wasn’t quite as well groomed. Casey would have even called him scruffy.
They had the same shade of blue eyes, the same facial shape, the same smile, and the same nose, but then everything was slightly different. Colt looked built for action and movement, while Ryland looked softer around the edges, more…huggable? Somehow, he looked more huggable.
They both looked like Courtland too, almost uncannily so, and Casey decided that his family was a genetic freak show. He reached out, making little grabby hands at them since he still couldn’t speak, and the twins crept over cautiously.
Casey ignored their hesitancy and looped an arm around each of their necks to drag them into a hug. It hurt, but it was worth it.
He had siblings.
“Oof!” Colt made a startled noise, and Casey squeezed them tighter, happy tears on his cheeks once more.
Courtland was laughing.
“Haha, laugh it up, Court,” Ryland snarked, and Casey pulled back, blinking.
Court.
How had he ever thought of shortening Courtland’s name? It suited him.
Court, Ryland, and Colt.
Or maybe Court, Ry, and Colt.
That felt better.
He stretched a little, trying to get Court to join them, and his twin padded over to wrap his arms around all of them. The weight against his back felt nice, and Casey relaxed into the group hug with a sigh.
He felt happy.
Genuinely, truly happy.
For the first time in decades, he didn’t feel like a monster or a creature that could never be loved.
He decided in that moment that he would throw his scorpion jacket away, if he ever got it back at all.
He wouldn’t let it hurt anyone else.
Casey’s nature wasn’t something he could help.
But his actions?
His actions were his to control.