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Dan is not happy to be sent to look for Tom Ryder. He has bigger things to worry about than a spoiled star missing a few days of shooting — like, for instance, that fact that his stuntman has been missing for just as long. No warning, no note, completely out of character, just gone, leaving Dan to scramble to figure out how to fill the void on set.
The fact that this is the second time in eighteen months that one of Dan’s stuntmen has gone missing — that specifically Tom Ryder’s stuntman has gone missing — makes it all the more frustrating that he is the one that drew the short straw and has to go scare Ryder out from wherever he’s hiding. Dan needs to be on set, not poking around an apartment that looks like the guy from Memento got really into movie props and was given his own HGTV show. He needs to figure out a plan for what to do if Henry is gone forever, just like—
Dan cuts that thought off. The grief there is sharp, and this whole situation is just throwing it back in his face. He doesn’t want to think about it.
He looks away from a note that says Look into the carnivore diet hanging inexplicably from the frame of a mirror nowhere near the kitchen and makes eye contact with the cockatoo that is here for some reason. The bird cocks its head and shuffles a little on its perch.
“Yeah, I don’t know why I’m still here, either,” Dan says. Ryder obviously isn’t here. The apartment isn’t that big — even the money of one of the biggest action stars to date can’t get all that much real estate right on the Sydney harbour — and it’s pretty clear that aside from him and the bird, there’s nothing moving around in this place.
There’s just one closed door left to check, probably leading to a closet or guest room or something, and then Dan is out of here. Not like he could get much from the notes scattered around the place anyway. He can give the key to the place back to Jody, who can put it back wherever she took it from, and then he can go back to worrying about his own problems.
Dan opens the door slowly and peeks in, then slams the door shut again because THAT is a naked man. A naked man that Dan just saw entirely more of than he wanted to in a single glimpse, and if the naked man is Tom Ryder then he’s probably just going to start screaming. He rests his forehead against the door for a moment to psych himself into opening it again so he can get a good look at who is actually lying around naked in a movie star’s apartment, because apparently this is Dan’s life now. Why not.
He opens the door again and lets his eyes skip past all the parts of the man that are, yep, still naked, and freezes.
“Colt?” Dan croaks out, looking right into the face of his friend who has been missing for a year and a half.
No one was ever able to figure out why Colt vanished. It had been a perfectly ordinary day of shooting where the man flirted with Jody and bantered with Dan and pulled off every stunt flawlessly, and then he left the set and was never seen again. Dan has gone over every moment of that day endlessly, obsessively, but nothing about it ever stood out. Ryder was particularly harsh that day about Colt’s stunts, having him reshoot the fall at least three more times than necessary, but Ryder is always a diva about something, and Colt had laughed it off.
Colt hadn’t contacted Dan (or, as Dan found out later, anyone) after he left the shooting location, but that wasn’t exactly unusual either. Sometimes the man had gone days at a time without reaching out to anyone, just showing up to work and doing his job and going home. Nothing strange about that.
So no one knew anything was wrong until Colt just… didn’t show up the next day.
The LAPD were no help. They traced his car and said he made it home, then searched his apartment and said there were no signs of a struggle. They said there were no leads or… something, he doesn’t really know what conclusion they came to. Dan might have stopped trusting the investigation when one of the cops had the nerve to suggest that Colt ran away from the stress of Hollywood, like that man didn’t thrive on adrenaline and stress.
Plus, Dan likes to think that he and Colt were close enough that if the stress was getting to him, the man would have told him he was going to disappear himself before actually doing so.
So Dan isn’t at all prepared to find the man himself lying naked on a bed in Tom Ryder’s Sydney apartment eighteen months later. No, not just lying on the bed, Dan realizes with a sinking feeling as he watches Colt struggle to push himself into a sitting position. Tied to the bed. Colt’s right wrist is tied to the headboard, and despite the awkwardness of the position he manages to maneuver himself into a sitting position, scooting back against the headboard with his hand hanging there near his head like he’s done it hundreds of times before. Dan’s stomach ices over.
“Dan?” Colt says faintly. “Are you—” He cuts himself off, eyes flickering to the corner of the room. Dan follows his gaze but there’s nothing there. “Are you actually here?”
“Yeah, I’m here, brother,” Dan says, forcing himself away from the door. It’s a king sized bed and the room is barely big enough for it, so there’s not a lot of room to maneuver, but Dan isn’t exactly keen on getting on the bed, or even touching it, so navigating the narrow, maybe foot-wide strip between the mattress and the wall it is.
Then he pauses because this is absolutely a crime scene, and as much as he wants to grab Colt and get the hell out of here, he should probably call the police. The biggest problem with that being, of course, that Dan is technically trespassing, and he’s not sure how much listening the cops are going to want to do to a black man who is absolutely not supposed to be in a celebrity’s apartment. The LAPD would probably just shoot him where he stood and not even bother to look further into the place and find Colt, and Dan’s absolutely not going to pin both their lives on Australian cops being less trigger happy.
Dan still pulls out his phone because even if he doesn’t call the cops, this is a crime scene and he should at least be gathering evidence before he breaks Colt loose and gets him out of here. “I’m going to take some pictures,” he says, pulling up the camera app and taking as wide a shot of the room as possible. “For evidence.”
Colt blinks at him. He’s clearly drugged, between his wide eyes and the way it takes him a while to process Dan’s words. “Ryder doesn’t like it when people take pictures of me,” he says.
Jesus, that’s a horrifying way to react to someone taking pictures of you naked and tied to a bed.
“I’m also going to record this,” Dan says, because if this is how the conversation with Colt is going to go then he does not want to have to actually process it right now. His audio memo app is already configured for long recordings, at least — God knows that producers like the sounds of their own voices — so it’ll automatically dump the recording on the cloud without him having to worry about it eating through the storage on his phone and preventing him from taking pictures.
“Did Ryder send you?” Colt asks as Dan fumbles the camera app back open.
“Why would Ryder send me?” Dan says without thinking, then immediately follows it up with, “Don’t answer that,” because he doesn’t actually want to know what Colt is thinking or why he’s asking. “Ryder hasn’t been on set the last few days, and I was the one who drew the short straw to come look for him.” Dan shuffles around the bed, and Colt tracks his movement. “I wouldn’t have had the chance to talk to him even if I wanted to.”
“You need to leave,” Colt says. He’s watching Dan intently as he inches closer to the head of the bed. “If Ryder catches you here… you can’t be here. He’ll hurt you. You need to go.”
“Yeah, we do,” Dan agrees. He’s close enough now that he can get a good look at how Colt’s wrist is tied to the headboard. There’s some sort of fancy rope looped around his wrist twice, with a complicated-looking knot securing his arm to a ring that was clearly added to the minimalist headboard for this purpose. Dan takes another picture rather than think too hard about it.
“Stop taking pictures and leave.” Colt’s voice sounds strained, and he shoots a glance at the open door. “They could be back any time. You have to get out of here before someone finds you.”
Dan slips his phone into his pocket. “Let me get you loose and we can get out of here,” he says. He’s going to need to cut the rope, because there is no way he’ll be able to undo that knot in any reasonable amount of time.
“What?” Colt says, seemingly derailed.
Dan fishes around in his pocket and pulls out his leatherman. He jams his thumbnail into the notch to pull out the serrated blade. With his other hand, he reaches out to steady Colt’s wrist. The last thing he needs is to cut him.
Colt jerks. “No!” he yelps, trying to scramble away, but the combination of whatever drugs are in his system and his tied up wrist don’t let him go far.
Dan stills. “Hey, man, you know I won’t hurt you,” he says, letting go of Colt's wrist and pulling away a little. “I just need to saw through that rope, I won’t hurt you, I promise.”
“No, he’ll kill you!” Colt sounds like he’s about to burst into tears. “Please, I can’t leave, he’ll destroy Jody, he’ll kill you! You have to leave me, I can’t go, please.”
“Hey, hey,” Dan says. “Take a deep breath, man. Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Please,” Colt says again. “You have to go, I can’t leave. I can’t, I can’t watch him kill you, please.”
“Brother, if you think I can leave you here, you aren’t remembering me right,” Dan says bluntly. “You’re my friend, okay? I’m not going to let some psycho keep you locked up. I’m with you to the end of the line.”
Colt goes quiet. Dan takes the opportunity to start sawing at the rope, because Colt is right about one thing — Ryder could be back any moment, and they need to be gone before then.
After a long moment, Colt settles back down. “Captain America?” he says. “Really? You’re quoting Marvel movies at me?”
“Hey, The Winter Soldier is a modern classic.” Dan resists the urge to point accusingly at Colt only by virtue of the fact that he’s still actively sawing through the rope. “Plus, it fits, doesn’t it? The dashing hero coming in to rescue his best friend from the dastardly villain keeping him locked up?”
Colt stares at him. “I’m not going to be the one trying to kill you in this situation.”
“We’ll figure it out.”
The rope finally gives under the assault, and Colt’s wrist drops. Dan flips the leatherman closed and slips it back into his pocket.
“Can you get up on your own?” Dan hovers as Colt looks at his wrist as if he’s never seen it before. He doesn’t want to actually touch Colt without his explicit permission unless he needs to.
Colt doesn’t answer, but he does shuffle awkwardly so that he’s sitting at the foot of the bed. He levers himself upright and promptly overbalances. Dan has to dive across the corner of the bed to prevent him from crashing face-first into the wall.
“Okay, careful,” Dan says, hauling them both upright. Colt sags, and Dan loops an arm around him to hold him up. So much for not touching him, but it’s clear Colt needs the support. “Let’s get some clothes for you, and then we can get out of here.”
Ryder’s closet is less of a closet and more of an entire room, a massive space open to the rest of the apartment where most of the clothing is on display. Dan helps Colt settle at a table under the window. The cockatoo hops closer to Colt and lets out a loud screech before leaning over to preen his hair. Dan smiles, then goes to dig out something that’ll be easy for Colt to put on.
“You’re going to warn Jody, right?” Colt says out of nowhere. Dan grabs the first shirt he sees that isn’t objectively offensive from the open closet area and turns back to look at him. Colt stares back with wide eyes. “Ryder’s going to destroy her when he sees I’m not here. He said he would. You have to warn her.”
Dan swallows. “I’ll call her as soon as we’re out of here,” he promises. “We’ll make sure she’s safe. Let’s start by making sure you’re safe too, okay?” He tosses the shirt at Colt gently so it lands in his lap. “Put that on.”
He goes back to the closet and starts opening the drawers beneath the hanging clothes. If he knows Ryder at all… Yep, one of the drawers is full of hideous track pants. They’re all remarkably neon, and Dan grabs the least offensive pair, which despite being bright magenta are at least one solid color. He doesn’t want to think about Ryder’s underwear, let alone touch any of it no matter how clean, so Colt will just have to go without.
Dan turns towards Colt, and he pauses at the sight of his friend slumped against the table. He’s never seen him as a small person and yet Colt undeniably looks small right now. The shirt — one of those tee shirts that costs a thousand bucks and only looks marginally better than something you could get at Walmart — hangs from his frame. He’s not thin, per se, he looks like he’s been getting enough to eat at the very least, but the well-toned, athletic muscles he used to proudly maintain are gone. The weird yellow hue of the shirt makes his paleness stark, like he hasn’t seen the sun in months — which, Dan realizes, might not be far from the truth.
“Here,” he says, stepping closer and holding out the track pants. “You think you can get them on yourself?”
Colt lags for a moment before reaching out and grabbing the bundle of cloth. “Probably,” he says slowly, which does not inspire confidence.
Dan goes to the wall behind Colt to look for a pair of shoes. Each pair is displayed in its own cubby, similar to the props in the main room, except probably even more pretentious. Dan settles on a hideous pair of slides that are probably disgustingly expensive, because everything Ryder owns is both, but at least they’ll be easy enough for Colt to wear.
As Dan grabs them from their cubby, there’s a loud thud behind him. He whirls around to find Colt sprawled on the floor.
“Colt!” he yelps. He drops the slides and dives to help his friend off the floor. Colt has already pushed himself up onto his hands and knees and scowls as Dan helps him back into the chair.
“The unicorn can’t support my weight because it isn’t real,” he says, sounding much like a petulant toddler.
“Okay…” Dan draws out the word, then chooses to ignore what is clearly a drug-induced statement. At least Colt got his pants on before he fell over. The cockatoo restarts its preening efforts as Dan reaches over and grabs the discarded shoes, then helps slide them onto Colt’s feet.
“Can I help you walk?” Dan asks after the shoes are on. He’s probably going to have to anyway, but it feels better to ask.
Colt nods slowly. His head is on the table now, and the bird is fully hanging off its perch to continue to preen his hair.
“Come on,” Dan says, leaning over to get Colt’s arm over his shoulders. “Up you get.” He pulls Colt upright. The cockatoo squawks loudly in protest, flaring its wings and flapping them until it’s upright on the perch again. Colt coos at the bird as Dan leads him away.
Colt is little better than dead weight. His steps are stumbling, and Dan has to steer him firmly away from the furniture so he doesn’t fall over and drag them both down. It’s a relief to get him out the door and lean him against the wall. Dan digs in his pocket for the keys Jody gave him as Colt slides bonelessly down the wall and stares at the sky.
With the door locked and hopefully looking like no one was here who shouldn’t have been, Dan gathers Colt up to get him to the car. Unfortunately, the car that Dan was assigned is a tall truck, so it’s a pain to get Colt into the passenger seat. Colt tries to help, but Dan ultimately ends up needing to essentially lift the other man up and pour him into the seat, then buckle him in because he’s too busy studying the light reflected onto the dash from the water to help.
Dan slides into the driver’s seat and latches himself in. “I should take you to the hospital,” he says, even though he knows he’s not going to.
Sure enough, Colt shakes his head, and keeps shaking it for longer than he needs to. “He’ll find me.”
“Yeah, I was worried about that.” Dan starts the car and pulls away from the building. “I suppose with Ryder avoiding set, that’s probably the safest place to go.”
Dan pulls up his phone on the car’s touchscreen and hits Jody’s contact. He told Colt he’d call her, plus she’s expecting a call about Ryder anyway. Her phone doesn’t ring for long before the call connects.
“Dan?” Jody’s voice fills the car, and beside him Colt goes very still.
“Hey, Jody. Can you talk?” Dan asks, stealing glances at Colt.
Something shuffles on the other side of the line. “Gail just stepped out, so this is a good time. Did you find Ryder?”
Colt’s eyes go wet and glassy at the sound of Jody’s voice. Dan decides abruptly that this needs to be a quick conversation because a phone call is not the best time to explain this whole situation, and if Colt starts sobbing audibly then he’s going to have to think of something.
“No, he wasn’t there,” Dan says. “But I did find out something about our missing stuntman that it’d be better to tell you in person. How soon can you meet me at your trailer?”
There’s a pause. “This’ll probably take me another hour or so at least,” Jody says slowly.
“That’s fine,” Dan says, shooting another look at Colt. There’s definitely tears on his face. “Hey, be careful, okay? I don’t need my director disappearing on me too, even from overwork.” Although the way things are going, it’s not going to be overwork.
The pause is longer this time. “You too. Imagine the chaos if my stunt coordinator went missing along with my lead actor and his stunt double.”
Dan forces himself to chuckle, although his heart’s not really in it. Not when that’s a very real possibility.
“Gail’s back,” Jody says suddenly. “I need to go. See you soon?”
“See you soon,” Dan confirms.
The line goes dead. Dan takes a deep breath and focuses on the road. He can hear Colt sniffling, and he deserves what little privacy Dan can give him.
Abruptly, Colt says, “Ryder killed him.”
Dan blinks, thrown. “What?” he asks. “Killed who?”
“Your missing stuntman.”
Dan jerks the steering wheel in shock. “Ryder killed Henry?” he yelps.
From the corner of his eye, Dan sees Colt shrug. “I wasn’t in the room, but Ryder told me right after. He wants to pay off the cops again. Gail doesn’t think that’ll work this time because he’s an American in Australia. She wants to frame me since it’s not like I can testify, but Ryder doesn’t want other people to be able to look at me, even if it is a deep fake.”
Dan would probably stare at Colt if he wasn’t driving. As it is, he shoots him a longer look than he probably should. “Brother, how was that the most coherent explanation I’ve ever heard you give and you are drugged out of your mind?”
“I explain things just fine,” Colt grumbles.
The car goes quiet. Dan has the urge to check the memo app and make sure it recorded what Colt just said, but he knows from experience (and several very long and awkward audio files) that it won’t turn off until and unless he remembers to turn it off. Which is definitely a good thing in this case. The police are going to need that information once they get involved.
Dan glances back at Colt. His eyes are closed, and it looks like he’s dozed off. Good. Hopefully he can sleep off the drug before Jody meets them at her trailer.
The drive to set doesn’t take much longer. It’s late enough in the day that the parking area is fairly empty, and Dan parks near the trailers with no issue.
Colt jerks awake the moment the engine turns off. He holds very still, but his eyes dart around rapidly as he tries to figure out where he is.
“Colt,” Dan says, and Colt’s eyes snap to him. “Hey, I got you out of there, remember?”
“Dan?” Colt blinks at him, then sags into the seat. “This is real?”
“Yeah,” Dan says, swallowing. “Yeah, this is real.” He unbuckles himself and opens his door. “Come on, let’s get to Jody’s trailer. You can sleep more there.”
Getting Colt out of the car isn’t as hard as getting him in. He’s steadier on his feet now, too, and Dan doesn’t have to worry about them falling over as he guides Colt to the trailer. Dan unlocks the door and pulls Colt inside, then hesitates.
Jody’s trailer has a bed. It’s a nice bed, or at least as nice as one could expect, and large enough to be quite comfortable. God knows that Colt needs to sleep, too, to get whatever drug he’s been given out of his system.
Dan leads Colt over to Jody’s table instead. The top of the table is covered by a model of the Metalstorm set, but the benches are padded and Colt doesn’t seem to care as he sinks down onto the seat. Dan pulls his phone out of his pocket and turns off the recording, and by the time he looks back up, Colt has pillowed his head against the foam cliffs and drifted off again.
With a sigh, Dan leans against the cabinets to settle in and wait. It’s quiet at this time, without the bustle of the crew moving around set. Dan can just hear Colt’s breathing, and it settles something deep inside him to hear the proof of his friend’s continued life.
Dan doesn’t know how much time passes before he hears someone approach the trailer. He tenses up and listens as quick steps climb the few stairs, then watches the door knob turn.
“I’m sorry that took so long,” Jody says as she pushes the door open, and Dan relaxes. Colt startles awake at her voice and stares. “Gail was being a nightmare, she says there’s so much pressure from the studio for a happy ending. I’ve tried to explain multiple times that this isn’t a story that has a happy ending, that Space Cowboy is gone and he’s never coming back and Aliena just has to learn to live with that, but I don’t think she was actually listening.” She pulls the door closed and turns to face Dan. “You would think that with how much Gail says she believes in my vision as a director, she’d be willing to back me against the studio, but—”
Dan can tell the moment Jody notices Colt, because she cuts herself off and her purse crashes to the ground.
“Colt?” she says faintly.
“Jody,” Colt says, voice quiet and a little awed. He glances at Dan briefly before his eyes snap back to Jody, like he can’t bear to look away for more than a moment, then smiles. If Dan had to guess, he’s probably trying to look unconcerned, but he’s missing the mark by miles. “You’re sending cowboys to space now?”
Jody all but lunges across the small space. Colt doesn’t exactly flinch, but he goes very, very still and the smile falls from his face. Dan prepares to step in, but Jody stops short at the last moment, right next to Colt with her hands hovering in front of her but not quite touching him.
“Oh, Colt,” Jody says. She starts to drop her hands, but Colt reaches up and catches one of them in his.
“You’re real,” he says quietly, and there are tears in his eyes again.
Jody settles down onto the bench next to Colt. Colt sinks into her side and buries his face against her neck as she wraps her arms around him. Jody starts running her fingers through his hair, and Dan looks away when he realizes that Colt is shaking.
Dan walks over to the door. Jody pulled it closed, but Dan makes sure it’s locked. He’s feeling a little paranoid, honestly. Even if Ryder or his people have already discovered Colt’s escape, there’s no reason to believe that Jody’s trailer will be the first place they come looking for him, but Colt’s worry for Dan and Jody isn’t baseless. Ryder will try to retaliate even if he has no idea that Dan was involved.
“What the hell happened?” Jody asks after a long moment. Dan looks over to see that Colt has gone still and limp against Jody, probably asleep. Jody is looking directly at Dan, the question clearly aimed at him.
Dan sighs. “I found him tied up in Ryder’s apartment,” he says.
Jody’s eyes burn. “Tell me everything.”