Chapter Text
“Aren't you worried he's going to hurt himself?”
Ryland shrugs.
“I mean, he’s my brother. I always worry about him.” He crosses his arms over his chest and takes a subtle step to the left. “But I've also been watching Colt throw himself out of trees since we were four.”
It was a whole phase.
Courtland was absolutely beside himself trying to corral Colt during that particular stint of his.
He was never entirely successful–if he had been, Ryland doubts he’d be standing in an abandoned warehouse on the edge of the city limits of Los Angeles watching his twin get prepped to be thrown off a rafter beam like a toy action figure–but he’d at least managed to prevent Colt from any catastrophic injury.
“This isn't a tree though,” Tom Ryder points out unhelpfully.
Ryland bites back a sigh.
“No. It's not.”
He thinks, for a moment, that's it.
He really should know better.
“It's a rafter–”
“I'm used to watching Colt fall off of things.” Ryland cuts him off. He tries to be polite about it, to keep that nice teacher voice of his he uses when he has to cut students off in class. He thinks he manages it. Hopefully. He doesn't want to be rude to his brother's co-workers. His co-workers too, technically, and if it was just his co-workers then Ryland wouldn't be biting his tongue nearly as often but, you know. He doesn't want to mess things up for Colt because of his snappish temper. Even if it’s horribly tempting. “That's what I was getting at.”
With the way Ryder is looking at him though, Ryland thinks he managed the nice teacher voice a little too well.
“Oh, yeah, totally.” Ryder is smiling. Not the patronizing smile he tends to use with pretty much everyone, but the one where he, according to Colt anyway, looks like at you like the sun is shining out of your ass.“I knew that.”
Ryland presses his tongue to the back of his teeth.
“Jody said you were heading home for the weekend.” Ryder starts talking again before Ryland can even debate whether to respond or not. “You don’t wanna hang out with us or something?”
“Oh, yeah. I’ve gotta do some classroom prep.” Ryder had moved closer during their conversation, and Ryland takes another step to the left. Ryder’s been doing that a lot lately. Getting into Ryland’s personal space. He hadn’t really minded at first, but now it’s darn near insufferable. “School’s starting up in a couple weeks–figure I should get a jump on it..”
Jody had managed to wrangle the crew a few sorely needed days off from filming.
Everyone else, Ryland was sure, would be staying in Los Angeles. Three days really isn’t enough to even bother going anywhere, but. Well. Ryland did need to get started on lesson plans and syllabuses and classroom set up and everything else he’d been neglecting. Working with Colt and consulting on Jody’s new movie–some horror sci-fi thing that she wanted the science part of to be reasonably accurate and plausible, and who better to teach her and the script writers than a science teacher, which were, again, Colt’s words–was fun and all, but this wasn’t Ryland’s job. This was just a nice little bonus paycheck that, honestly, would probably all go towards his actual job. He needed a lot of new things for the classroom, and he doubts the school would give him the money for it. He had to fight them tooth and nail last year just to get new textbooks.
And besides, he misses home.
Staying with Colt and Jody was nice, and it’s been great catching up with them and helping with wedding planning (they’re getting married at the end of the year. Ryland still can’t believe it), but it’s been a few weeks now and he kinda really wants to sleep in his own bed.
Even if it’s just for a few nights.
And, well.
He figures it’d be nice to give Simon a brief respite from house sitting.
“Right, right.” Ryder nods rather stoically. He steps closer again, and before Ryland can take another step Ryder lays a hand on his shoulder. “Do you need any help?” He asks, leaning somehow, impossibly, closer. “I could come with you.”
Ryland stiffens.
“I, uh–”
“Ryland! There you are!”
Ryland snaps his head up to look over Ryder, just barely catching the scowl that takes over his face.
Jody is jogging across the warehouse floor, making a beeline right towards him.
“I've been looking all over for you!” She loops her arm with his the moment she reaches him, effortlessly tugging him away from Ryder. He opens his mouth to say something, but Jody is already pulling Ryland away and back across the warehouse floor at near the same speed she’d first crossed it, leaving Ryder behind.
She’s…a lot stronger than she looks.
“We're going to call it a day after Colt does this stunt–” she continues talking, hardly even needing to pause to take a breath. It’s kind of impressive, actually. “--but I want to go over some stuff for the next scene with you two before you head out, if that's okay? It’s the one where the android and the werewolf are talking about all the biological mechanics in the android’s body–you remember, right? I just want to go over it with you again, make sure I’ve got the right wires crossed and all that.”
“Yeah, that’s–” Ryland does need to pause to take a breath. Jody, rather graciously, lets him. “--that’s cool.”
They come to a stop by Jody’s director chair.
He waits for any further explanation from her.
He doesn’t get it.
“...why do you need to talk to Colt about it?” Ryland hesitantly asks.
Sure, Colt is playing the stuntman for the android, but there’s not a stunt in that scene. Not that Ryland remembers, anyway. That’s not to say that Jody didn’t make any last minute changes to the script.
“Oh, I don’t. He’s just there for emotional support.” Jody sits in the chair, crossing her legs.
Ryland blinks. “Emotional support for who?”
“Himself.” She answers with a smile. “You know he gets separation anxiety.”
Ryland can’t help the laugh that spills from underneath his tongue.
Jody’s smile softens, and then it disappears almost entirely as she looks past Ryland. He follows her gaze, sees that she’s looking at Ryder, and he quickly looks away before he accidentally catches the other man’s attention. Not that it really mattered. Ryder was looking at him. Ryland already had his attention.
“...you can tell him to fuck off, you know.” She says quietly.
Ryland shrugs.
He lets his gaze drift around the room, then up to the ceiling.
Colt is up on the rafters, getting strapped into a harness.
“I don't want to be mean.” Ryland says.
Jody snorts, following Ryland’s line of sight. “No, you just don't want to say fuck.”
Colt notices the two of them watching him almost immediately. He waves, throws a thumbs up to Ryland, then blows a kiss to Jody.
Ryland gags.
Colt flips him off.
“If you hung out with twelve year olds all day you wouldn't want to say the F word either.” Ryland throws his middle finger up at Colt in return. Colt tosses his head back in a laugh, and one of the crew members grabs his harness and hauls him back onto the rafter before he can take a premature dive off.
“The F word?” Jody looks back at Ryland, eyebrows raised. A moment later, she’s smiling, bright and infectious. He gets it, really, why Colt is always saying that Jody has the prettiest smile he’d ever seen. It’s not the prettiest smile, Ryland privately thinks (no, that belongs to Simon, who’s own smiles are so rare that Ryland treasures each and every one like it’s the first), but it is very pretty. “Christ, Ryland, what are you, five?”
Ryland rolls his eyes, but he's smiling too.
It’s hard not to smile around Jody.
“Seriously though–” she grows somber again, uncrossing her legs to lean forward. Ryland meets her halfway, bracing his hand on the back of her chair to keep from falling over. “--if Ryder is bothering you…”
There’s an underlying threat there, anything ranging from kicking him off set to dumping his body in the ocean.
God, but Ryland can’t wait until she’s his sister-in-law.
“I can handle it, I promise.” He gives her another smile, one he hopes is reassuring.
It seems to be, because Jody backs away a moment later, looking not completely satisfied, but content enough to let it go for now. She looks at Ryland a heartbeat longer, then turns her attention up to the ceiling. She whistles sharply, makes some kind of hand gesture Ryland still doesn’t entirely understand the meaning of, and Ryland settles in to watch his brother get shoved off an exposed rafter.
Ryland’s heart stutters the moment Colt’s foot leaves the metal beam, but at least Colt looks like he’s having fun.