Work Text:
Entropy is life's tendency towards chaos.
Chaos is... Well, this was a good example.
His brother's face was upsidedown from the position he was seeing it, but he could still gather from his facial expression that he was angry. No, not angry, furious. His right hand was curled in a fist, his body shaking, legs ready to bolt. Prepared to attack.
Tom dropped him, losing the energy they needed to maintain the system in order. It was like a domino effect that started with a resounding scream.
"WHAT THE HELL?!" Colt yelled, and Ryland wasted no time, standing up in front of Tom. It was the same sound he used to make before hitting his bullies when they were little. But his brother must have seen something in his eyes because for a moment, he paused. "What the hell, Ry?" He asked, softer this time.
"I-it's... W-we... W-what are you doing here?" He refuted. Trying to get more information to control the damage. This was not how he thought this day would end, and he needed to know exactly how they got here.
"Yeah, why do you have my key?" Tom questioned, looking baffled. Ryland supposed it's not every day your boyfriend's twin breaks into your house. At least they weren't doing anything inappropriate, small mercies.
Colt scoffed. "Gail sent me. She wanted to know why you stood us up today" He said, stepping closer to them and directing his glare to Tom. "Your turn now. What is happening? Why is Ryland here?" He demanded, a sharp edge on his tone, waiting for a reason to strike the first blow.
"We're dating!" Ryland blurted, not wanting Tom to make things worse. While he was sweet when it came to him, the mean side of the actor hadn't banished for others.
Colt stayed still for a moment, then looked around the apartment. He saw the dirty kitchenette from their morning breakfast, the swimsuits drying in the rail of the balcony and Ryland's suitcase with all the stickers his children had gifted him. And for a short second, Ryland almost believed his brother would understand. But Colt just laughed.
"Hahaha! Really Ryland Grace? Really?!" He mocked. Full name, that was bad. "Of all the stupid shit you've pulled! Of all the idiotic things you've fallen for!" He extended his arms. "I thought you were the smart one!" He bellowed.
"Look! It's not like-" He tried to placate, but felt Tom tensing behind him. He grabbed his arm in a calming manner, silently begging him not to be the fuse on this mountain of powder. His boyfriend, apparently, didn't get the memo. Chaos was inevitable.
"You don't get to say it like that! You don't even know anything about our relationship!" Tom roared, getting face to face with Colt. Both baring their teeth at each other like rabid animals.
"I know the modus operandi! It's always the fucking same!".
"NO! Because this time I'm serious!".
"Like you were serious with Melissa and Alison and Valerie and Brenda and Jake! I could keep going all night!".
"Those were flings! Ryland is my boyfriend!".
"OH! What can be different? You planned to send him a kiss on national tv?!" Colt flouted, pushing Tom with enough force to make him trip on the couch. They were about to throw hits when Ryland intervened.
"ENOUGH!" He demanded, cutting off their words. The silence felt so heavy that he had to take a deep breath.
He took Tom's hand, helping him to get up. His boyfriend gave him an ashamed expression. For all his kindness, Tom could still act entitled and prepotent when feeling threatened, so he gave him a reassuring smile.
Then he turned to Colt, who looked regretful. Like someone about to break a fragile balance of energy. Like someone who is about to disturb order.
Ryland sighed, ready to explain. "Colt" He grabbed his hands. "I know you don't like Tom, and I know you won't believe this now, but we've been dating for a couple of months and he has changed" His brother was about to say something but Ryland kept talking "Colt... I love him. And I want you to give Tom an opportunity, for me" He pleaded.
Colt gritted his teeth, visibly trying to refrain from screaming. He pulled out his phone and locked eyes with him. "You want proof that he hasn't changed?" He asked, grabbing his shoulders.
Ryland took a slow glance at Tom, seeing guilt plastered on his face. Almost as if he knew he had done something wrong and could do nothing to deny it.
He turned to Colt and nodded, taking the phone from him.
In the screen there was a photo of his lover with a woman in his arms, the two of them wearing only underwear and the woman showing a condom between her fingers. Their smiles were suggestive, but there was a billboard behind them, full of information about the product.
An add. It was an add. Nothing incriminating, so why did Tom look so guilty?
"T-tom?" He hesitated, not letting the tears form in his eyes. Sure, his boyfriend was an actor, this was probably part of the job. But there was a reason why Tom looked like he wanted the earth to swallow him whole.
"R-Ry, baby. That's from my job! Just an advertisement! Gail got it for me!" He explained frantically. Still not telling him the important part.
"Oh yeah? And you had to fuck Iggy Starr to sell condoms?" Colt questioned while rubbing Ryland's shoulder in an act of pity comfort.
"We only posed for the camera! I didn't banged her! I didn't even touch her more that strictly necessary!" He swore in a desperate tone.
"Who's Iggy Starr?" Ryland sniffed, failing to keep his emotions at bay.
"His ex" Colt hissed, answering the question, but he was not the person who needed to answer.
"C'mon! Ry, sweetheart! If i told you about every time I work with an ex we would never talk about anything else!" He stated, and the reasoning sounded logical, but Ryland was not feeling logical. He had a knot on his throat and his eyes burned with unleashed tears.
This was the perfect allegory of entropy.
A melting ice, a broken vase, a withering flower, a decaying fantasy. A crumbling relationship with a star so out of his reach.
This was chaotic. And Colt didn't help.
"You know what Melissa told me?" His brother grabbed his face kindly. "She said they dated for a month before she finally gave him what he wanted" There was no need for clarification. "Ry... I know you. Two months and you're still struggling with intimacy, aren't you?" The tears fell. "This is what he does. Just takes, uses and throws away" Colt finished.
"That's not true Seavers!" Tom shouted with no more softness in his voice, only genuine resentment that seemed to drown Ryland like a wave.
"Oh, give up! This----!"
"No! You----!"
"Because----!"
"Just----!"
"My----!"
"We----!"
A sob induced by the impermanence of order.
—
Tom Ryder had dealt with chaos since the beginning of his acting career.
The set was usually pretty chaotic, the paparazzi were chaos bringers and the parties he threw were pure catastrophe.
Nonetheless, he didn't expect this.
His house was a wreck. Broken objects scattered around the floor, and most of the furniture was misplaced. But if he was honest, he hadn't even realized what he was doing until he fell to his knees crying regretfully.
There was no understanding what had happened. The photos had been merely a job, so insignificant he nearly forgot about it. And besides, Ryland wasn't the jealous type.
He supposed this was the part where he fixed things with his grace. The only problem was that he didn't know how to. The one who had always fixed everything is-
Oh, Gail. He could call her to fix this.
He grabbed his phone and dialed the number, crossing his fingers for her to pick up fast. The call went through immediately.
"What do you need, Tom?" She asked, forgetting the pleasantries. Good, Tom didn't have time for fucking manners.
"Ryland broke up with me, and I need you to fix it!" He demanded, letting her know that this was not up for discussion.
"What?! Really? Like officially broke up?" She questioned in an excited tone he hated, because she's supposed to help him.
"No, not officially. More like he took his things and left after a misunderstanding" He explained, to make her aware of the situation she had to fix.
"And what was the misunderstanding about?" Finally, she was working her magic, this had to be a good idea.
"About the photo shoot I had with Iggy on friday" He informed her, hoping she had a good plan and focused all his attention.
"Oh, don't worry then, I'll tell you what. I'm going to organize an outing tomorrow, nothing big, but still a party. It was gonna be only for stuntmen, since they've been complaining about working overtime and all that jazz. But I'll convince your boy toy to go and we'll explain everything together" She proposed.
Tom decided to ignore the 'boy toy' part, concentrating on the viability of her plan. It was not the best, but it was all he's got, and he planned to make it work.
For now, he would just have to live in this chaos a little longer while everything settled in its perfect order.
—
Tears did not fit on Ryland's face, not at all.
They made his eyes dampen, highlighting their color blue in the worst way possible. They caused his glasses to slide off his nose when he tried to dry them. His hands shook every time he cried, making Colt's heart clench.
When they were kids, it was his number one priority to prevent Ryland from crying.
He fought bullies that hit him because they were jealous of his smarts. He took the fury of their father whenever he got drunk at the bar. He covered his ears from the piercing sound of the weapon Court had fired to kill the same man.
Colt had never wanted Ryland to cry. It felt like looking at a broken mirror, if only a little different. Because Ryland was Grace, like their mom. He was kind, smart and empathetic. Colt was Seavers, like their dad. He was mean, dumb and insensitive.
He should have stopped when he heard the first sob, but he couldn't help it. There was fire in his blood. He kept the pieces of an angry man who died with a bullet in his head. All the violence, the screaming, the disaster, it was all part of him, and it had hurt his brother.
Ryland hadn't stopped crying until they got home. And even then, he hadn't stopped crying completely.
He was now locked in Colt's room, silently sobbing, while Colt was on the other side of the door, knowing he had caused this.
Not bullies, not his father, not even Tom fucking Ryder. This was on him.
"Ry, open the door... I'm sorry" He whispered to the door, completely aware he was not going to get an answer like the last four times he had said the same.
He was not sure why he was apologizing. For taking him to set where he met that bastard? For not warning him about the outcome? For not seeing the signs of this demise?
It didn't matter, because Ryland was a grown man that could make decisions on his own, so maybe he was apologizing for messing up his relationship without second thought.
Apologizing for being a detonator for disaster.
—
He hardly realized how much time had passed since he ran out of tears.
Perhaps it was between midnight and sunrise. The only indicative of the passage of time being Colt's repentant apologies, Jody's sweet words and Tom's constant calls. Apart from the light coming from the window, of course.
In the back of his mind he thought about getting up, but his body wouldn't move.
Every system's natural state is disorder, chaos is the default. Order, on the other side, is artificial; control takes energy to maintain. But he was drained, so he didn't even try. It was no use fixing something so prone to decay.
How could he be so naive to think this would work? They were set for failure from the beginning. Like a heterogeneous mixture, two worlds miles apart that could never coexist.
Tom was a Hollywood star with a wild interesting life. He could have anyone he wanted and he still chose to play Ryland? It didn't make sense in the slightest, at least not for him.
And sure, Tom was a great actor. He had seen the movies, geez, Tom showed him the movies. So why in this ever loving world did he fall for this?
He was a mess. He couldn't think, couldn't move, couldn't even cry anymore. He could only let himself slide into the inexorable disaster of the universe.
This was a joke, he was a joke. So laughable that it had happened twice already. Not being able to satisfy his lover was his own fault, but believing the promises of a playboy was a hilarious mistake.
"Ry?" Colt asked, sounding worried. Great, another tally to his never-ending list of fiascos, now he was worrying his brother. "Ry, are you laughing?" Ah, even better, showing his twin how pathetic he was, way to go. "Hey, listen... it's already dinner time and you hadn't eaten anything since yesterday, so I'm heading out to buy something. Jody had to go to the set, because Gail called her, so you're gonna be alone while----".
Most of the words held no meaning in his mind, but he kept the important bits in the front of his thoughts. Dinner, set, Gail, alone... Wait a minute, Gail?
The gears in his head started to move, like a machine trying to regain balance only to find there was no chaos. This was order, carefully curated order made to appear chaotic. And the puzzle completed.
"Gail calls me at six o'clock like a clock"
"Gail sent me. She wanted to know why you stood us up today"
"Gail got it for me!"
Gail didn't want Ryland on the set.
Gail knew why Tom didn't go to work.
Gail used his brother as leverage.
Gail
Gail
Gail
Gail
That manipulative witch.
Chaos in its apparent turmoil is merely a reflection of ignorance.
—
A producer needs to have control all the time.
It's part of the job. Moving the pawns was necessary to not lose money. So she was ready to sacrifice a few chickens if she got to keep the golden goose.
This would be good for everyone, really. Tom Ryder could be the star he was born to be, and Ryland Grace could be a teacher for a bunch of brats.
She just needed Tom to have an scandalous sex encounter with a slut at a party and this fairy tale would be over. But Tom didn't want to relax until Ryland was here, even though that was not happening.
For now, she slipped a pill on his drink and sat in the corner. Waiting for chaos to unleash until she had control again.