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Ryland hasn’t left his bed in almost two weeks.
The Eridians have just readjusted the water temperature, Rocky tells him, and Grace should test it out to see if it’s good this time. They’ve altered the wave machines too, Rocky makes a point to say on his way out of Ryland’s little house in the enclosure they’ve built for him. Rocky visits every day, and every day he tries to get Grace to talk, to laugh, to breathe, to stop crying and get up, and every day, Rocky leaves with a warble in his tone that, if Ryland were more present, would make him feel awful. Rocky doesn’t get it. He’ll never get it.
That’s unfair to Rocky, really, because of course his alien best friend doesn’t get it. He has different customs, different ideas of pro-social behavior, and the glaringly obvious issue of the fact that Ryland can’t seem to open his mouth and just tell him what’s wrong. It’s not Rocky’s fault, but eventually he has to tell him to “just go away,” because Rocky’s behavior is reminding him too much of the way he acted while Colt was recovering from his back injury.
Colt. His brother. He has a brother. A twin, in fact.
Or, well, he had one. That’s the problem.
Memories are difficult for Ryland. Slippery—like the floors of their hallways when Mom would ask Colt to mop, because Colt never quite understood how much water you were supposed to use—but they didn’t used to be. Ryland actually used to have something of a photographic memory, before Stratt gave him a strange amnesia drug against his will and shot him into space. Colt used to love showing it off to adults when they were kids, bringing Ryland into conversations he was too shy to enter himself with a quick, “Y’know, Ryland is really good with numbers, actually! Ry, tell them how far away we are from Pluto!”
Ryland didn’t remember him until much after he was successfully moved to Erid’s surface. He was actively dying, and he figured his brain was working hard enough to keep him alive that it wasn't really worried about whether or not he had a brother he could never see again. It was overwhelming, being accepted into an alien society and being researched and cared for and loved, so Ryland let himself forget that he had been loved, before all of this, before he was the savior of the universe. Before he was anything.
Ryland remembered Colt while sitting on the shoreline, watching a mimicry of a sunset and waiting to perceive a sky of no stars. Eridians don’t see color or light, so his sunset contains no pinks or oranges, and his sky contains no glittering light, though Rocky assured him that they could fix that soon. He doesn’t even remember when exactly it happened—a hand cradling sand, a breeze in his hair, fading light and crashing waves like music to his ears. Home, almost. The water hit his feet—still too warm, not home, obviously not home—and in the next moment, he saw him. Ryland has seen him before, very briefly. Flashes, at most, of a voice and a face just a little bit out of Ryland’s reach. He’d never thought much of it. He’d been busy saving the world.
Platinum blond hair. A slightly crooked nose, because after the first few times it broke, Colt decided it wasn’t worth getting it fixed every time. Blue eyes, the same ones Ryland has. Ryland’s face reflected at him with no mirror in sight. Colt.
Ryland can hear him—all loud encouragement, “you have my face, actually, I got here first,” and “danger is my middle name,” but soft, so soft around the edges and oh-so-very kind. Colt.
Ryland hasn’t moved from under his blankets since.
First, his wasting away was brought on by guilt. Guilt over not remembering Colt. Colt! His own brother, split from the same cell, and he didn’t remember him once in 4 years? How could he? How dare he? That morphed into guilt about not calling Colt back when he was working on the project—always “too busy,” even with his brother’s worried voice filling his voicemail inbox—which then turned into guilt over not telling Colt about the project, which spiraled from there into Ryland feeling guilty for anything from not confessing that he was the one who destroyed Colt’s limited-edition Charizard (on accident!) to feeling guilty for never saying goodbye.
God, he didn’t even get to say goodbye.
From there, he spiraled pretty quickly. It didn’t take him long at all to become an inconsolable, weeping mess of a person, glued to his bed and facing the wall. The Eridians stopped visiting him pretty quickly after that. They had begun to swing by and collect samples, research—and sometimes just speak to the strange alien on their planet—but the leaky, fleshy blob in the dome on their planet wasn’t something anyone wanted to mess with, so they left him alone.
Rocky was different. Though clearly upset by Grace in distress and thoroughly grossed-out by all the fluid coming out of his friend at all hours of the day, Rocky never stopped coming. He closed the curtains when Grace asked, he coaxed Grace to eat, even though he usually wasn’t successful, and he laid on Grace’s bed, waiting to watch a rest that never came. Eventually, Ryland had to tell Rocky to get lost, for his own good. He shouldn’t have to put up with Ryland, he shouldn’t have to see Grace like this—although Ryland can recognize that what he’s doing right now is alarmingly similar to what Colt tried to tell him, all those years ago. That only makes him feel worse.
Remembering Colt isn’t all that bad, at first, despite the onslaught of emotions it brings. Ryland cherishes them, because even though they render him useless and immobile, it’s nice to think of his brother. However, thinking about his brother leads Ryland to a terrible, paralyzing existence most days, like when he pushes himself out of bed one day and goes to put on his shoes, only to remember that the smiley face drawn on the inside of the tongue was done by Colt when they were 20 and collapse to the floor, sobbing all over again. Or, like when Ryland tried to sit on his porch with Rocky before he’d really closed off, only for his traitorous brain to supply the thought, Colt would love Rocky. Maybe I can introduce them one day?
It’s stupid. It’s a stupid, dumb thought and Ryland hates his stupid, dumb brain for thinking it, because now he has to think about how Colt will never meet Rocky, and how Colt can’t love anything anymore. For all Ryland knows, the beetles never made it back and Colt froze to death with the rest of the planet, and Ryland will never see him again. Ryland will never see him again. He’s not coping with that well, for someone who only remembered he had a twin brother three weeks ago.
Now that he’s remembered Colt, he can’t stop remembering Colt. His corny jokes, his inability to take any situation seriously, his utter worship of his girlfriend, Jody, and his undeserved but complete devotion to Ryland. Colt was endlessly proud of him. My baby brother with his PhD! My baby brother is so smart! Ryland, you’re the best of us, I hope you know that.
I’m not, Ryland thinks, I can’t be without you.
He knows Rocky is outside. He’ll knock—just once, now, just so Grace knows he’s there—and then sit outside his door and wait. For what, Ryland isn’t sure, but he’s been too scared to find out before. Lately, though, Ryland has been listening to him, usually too dehydrated to cry through the night anymore, and the sounds Rocky is making are distressing to him. Ryland doesn’t have the best grasp on Eridian sounds just yet, but it’s really starting to sound like Rocky is crying outside the door right along with him, broken whines and prolonged howls trying to be kept quiet. Rocky still isn’t sure of the human range of hearing, so Grace hears him anyway, and he doesn’t like what he hears.
Rocky doesn’t stay outside forever. He can’t, he needs a break from his suit and he has a mate to tend to, but Grace thinks that if he didn’t, Rocky probably would stay outside forever. That thought is enough to get Ryland to unstick himself from the Ryland-shaped dent he’s been melting into his mattress for sixteen days and open the door.
“Grace,” Rocky borderline shouts, thrown off. “Grace okay, question? Rocky not see Grace many days, scared something bad happen.”
“I’m okay, Rock,” Ryland’s voice is quiet, but it sounds rough to his own ears, and Rocky’s loudness is not helping the dehydration headache he’s got going on. “I wanted to check on you, actually. You sound upset.”
“Obviously Rocky upset,” Rocky says, exasperatedly stomping a claw on the ground, “Grace not okay. Grace lying, statement.”
Ryland considers lying, for a moment, digging himself deeper into this hole, but he owes Rocky the truth, after everything he’s done for him. He inhales deeply, fresh, manufactured ocean air filling his lungs for the first time in weeks, and says, “Yeah, you’re right. I’m not doing so great right now, I’m sorry that upset you. Do you wanna come in?”
“Rocky come in, we talk,” Rocky says, maneuvering around Ryland’s legs and over to his little table, knocking the chair out for Ryland to sit in, which he does. Ryland owes Rocky an explanation, as much as he absolutely does not want to talk. “Grace say why Grace not okay now, statement. I listen. Rocky want to know.”
“It’s not that simple, buddy. It’s hard for me to say.”
“Grace will try for Rocky, question?”
“Yeah, okay,” Ryland sighs. He’d do anything for Rocky, Ryland just really wishes Rocky wasn’t asking for this specifically, because he doesn’t know where to start. “Do you remember that I don’t remember stuff from my past? And that sometimes, it comes back to me in waves, and I don’t get to decide when?”
Rocky hums affirmatively, pushing closer against Grace’s leg, so cat-like Ryland would laugh if not for the situation. He instead rests a hand on top of his carapace and continues, “I just remembered that I had a brother.”
“What word mean,” Rocky asks. It’s easy for Ryland to forget that they aren’t speaking the same language, because so rarely now do they come across a word that Rocky didn’t learn on the 4 year trip to Erid. Ryland laughs bitterly to himself, Was he so unimportant to you that your best friend doesn’t even know how to refer to him?
“We’ve talked about how human and Eridian reproduction are really different, right,” at Rocky’s approval, he continues. “Humans take a long time to grow, so every human life is really special to the parents. Every time parents have a new baby, it stays with them, and they become a family. If two parents have another baby after the first, we call it a sibling. Brother is the world for male sibling.”
“Oh, okay! On Erid, we call this ♫♪♩♬♫.”
“Right. My brother and I were a special kind of sibling, though. Usually, humans just have one baby at a time, but sometimes, the cell splits in two, creating two identical babies at the same time, and we call that twins. My brother and I were twins, but he liked to say he was the big brother because, apparently, two minutes is a really big difference.”
“No word for this on Erid. I will call ♫♪♩♫♪♩. Means double sibling. Grace and Grace brother very similar, question?”
“Oh, no, absolutely not,” Ryland laughs, and absentmindedly realizes that it's the first time he’s smiled in days. “No, my brother—Colt was his name—he was really active. Rough and tumble, is the human phrase for it. He always had a ton of energy, he loved talking to people, and everyone always loved him. Nothing like me. He actually used to fend off my bullies for me. He was never scared of anything.”
“Colt sound fun. Like better than Grace,” Rocky teases, and Grace knows he would be smiling a sly grin if he had a face. He knows Rocky is just trying to make him feel better, but he can’t deny that it's working despite his kneejerk reaction to wallow in pity a little more, so he laughs again. Rocky makes a pleased noise.
“Yeah, everyone always did. He was just one of those people, y’know? He walked into a room and everyone looked. He started talking and everyone would just shut up and listen. I could never be like that. I used to get nervous speaking in front of my students, but, uh, he knew that too,” Ryland can feel himself tearing up, but he pushes past the lump in his throat because he owes Rocky this much. He owes Colt this much. “He always used to drag me around and try to socialize me, and if someone he met didn’t like me or was mean to me, we would just go somewhere else. He always just wanted to make sure I was okay, y'know? He was good like that.
“He was my hero, Rock. He stood up for me, and he waited for me, and he never complained about his stupid brother holding him back. He always looked and talked about me like I was this incredible person, and I’m not, but you wouldn’t know that talking to Colt. I’d visit him at work sometimes, and it was always, ‘Oh, you’ve got to come meet my baby brother! He’s a scientist,’ and I’d always say, ‘I’m just a teacher.’ He hated when I’d say that. He didn’t like it when I talked down to myself, kinda like you. He’d roll his eyes, call me stupid, and tell me that I was the greatest middle school science teacher in California,” Ryland is fully crying, now, and he can feel the vibrations of Rocky’s distress through his hand, which he begins to move back and forth across the top of Rocky’s carapace. He’s warm through the suit, in a way he never was in his ball. It’s nice.
“Grace still cry. Grace very sad about brother. Rocky fix. We find Grace brother and bring to Erid so Grace not sad anymore, statement.”
“I appreciate that Rocky, but Colt had a life on Earth when I left. He was gonna propose to Jody, ask her to be his mate for life. I hope he did it. She was perfect for him, he can’t do better. They probably have some little monsters of their own. I don’t think it would be fair,” Ryland says, and though it makes more tears fall down his face, he knows it’s the truth. Colt deserved the life he got, he worked hard enough for it, and Ryland doesn’t regret that part of leaving Earth.
“Then what wrong with Grace, if you not sad about brother being on Earth, question?”
“I am sad about that, just not how you think,” Ryland says, then takes a moment to just breathe, which he hasn’t done in a while, before he wipes his face with a free hand and tries to soldier on. “Remembering him made me realize that I’m not going back, at least not for a while, if ever. And knowing that much made me realize that I’m—Well, Rocky, I’m never—”
Ryland makes a noise in the back of his throat that he did not consent to letting out, which worries Rocky, who presses even closer and tries to soothe Grace as he breaks down, fully slumped into Rocky and trying to cry into his own arm and spare his friend. He didn’t think he had anything left in him, but the idea of saying it out loud, of speaking it into existence, is too much for him. If he says it, it’s real, and he can’t take it back.
“I’m never going to see him again, Rocky,” he finally forces out, and it’s not steady, but once he’s said it, he can’t stop. “I’m never going to hear his laugh again, I’m never going to stay on the phone until 3 A.M. with him because I couldn’t sleep. He’s never going to hold my hand at the doctor’s office while they take my bloodwork because he knows I’m terrified of needles. I am never going to talk to him again and oh my God, I am never going to see him again—I can’t—I’m so sorry—I really can’t—”
Rocky trills, something with no translation, just an empty word of comfort, and pushes impossibly closer to him. Grace is getting tears and snot all over Rocky’s suit, and he knows that’s got to be disgusting to him, a leaky alien blubbering all over him, but Rocky doesn’t move away—doesn’t move at all, actually. Two claws come to hold Grace back, rubbing his back the way Ryland had shown him felt nice, and it sounds like Rocky is singing.
Rocky always sounds like he’s singing, but this is different. This is an actual song of some kind, one that Ryland has heard before, he thinks. Rocky is singing an Earth song, or at least humming the melody to it, and Ryland shuts his eyes.
He’s on the roof of his childhood home, head in Colt’s lap. They’re probably 17, maybe 18—Ryland remembers being sad about Colt leaving for something, but he can’t remember what for. His brother has brought their boombox out, and against his own will, has put Ryland’s ABBA tape on.
“You sure you’re gonna be ok by yourself, Ry? I can still accept the offer and come to college with you,” Colt says softly, always so soft with Ryland, hand in his hair.
“If you don’t go to that training camp because you don’t think I can make it without you,” Ryland looks up, seeing Colt, ever-so-slightly blurry, Ryland’s glasses perched atop his head, “so help me god, Colt, I will kill you.”
“I get worried, sue me,” Colt defends, and Ryland laughs before he realizes that Colt isn’t smiling anymore. With an imploring look from Ryland, he gives in and says, “Did you know we’ve never spent more than three days apart in our entire lives? Do you remember when those three days were?”
“Yeah, I was a little too small at birth, so they held me in the NICU for like three days. Mom’s told that story a million times, Col.”
“I’m just saying, what if we’re not cut out for it,” Colt mumbles, and Ryland can see that for what it is—an admission. He sits up, taking his glasses off of Colt’s head to put them back on, looking immediately up at the sky. Ryland is not brave, not like his brother, and he’s about to say something that’s going to frighten them both, so he can’t look at Colt while he does it.
“Colt, I think if we spend our whole lives being afraid of leaving each other behind, we’ll never go anywhere. I think I’m just gonna have to trust that you’ll come back, that's all.”
“It’s not that, Ry. I know I’ll come back, but I’m scared you’re going to go get your fourteen degrees in whatever biology—”
“Molecular, Col, how many times—”
“In molecular biology, sorry, and you’re gonna go off and do amazing things and I’m just gonna be your loser twin who’s some random guy’s stunt double, and you’re not going to want to come back. I’m gonna drag you down, or something,” Colt gets quieter and quieter with each word, barely speaking by the end, but the night is quiet and the boombox isn’t loud, and Ryland thinks he would be able to understand his brother even if he were deaf, blind, and dumb.
“That’s ridiculous, dude. Don’t be stupid. I’m not going anywhere.”
“You’re going to Stanford!”
“And? You’re going to LA! I’m saying that yeah, physically I’m going and so are you, but us? We’re not going anywhere,” Ryland moves closer to Colt, placing his head on his shoulder, and Colt’s arm wraps around him on instinct. “I’m always gonna be right here, Colt, you’ve gotta know that.”
Colt sighs, heavy and world-weary, before turning up the music just a bit.
As the memory fades, the last thing Ryland hears is his brother’s voice, saying, “Yeah. You and me, Ry. It’s always gonna be you and me.”
When Ryland finally pulls himself together, it’s well into the night, but Rocky still hasn’t even moved. Ryland has been mumbling about his brother the whole time, silly things he’s been thinking about all day, like the way Colt could never tie his shoes any way other than bunny ears, or the way he used to eat an entire pizza by himself because “lactose intolerance is for pussies, Ry,” and then always spent the next two hours discovering that lactose intolerancy comes for you whether you’re a pussy or not.
Rocky is still humming that melody, which Grace now recognizes as Slipping Through My Fingers by ABBA, something he must have played over the ship’s intercom hundreds of times with no memory of why he liked that song so much. He remembers, now. You and me, Ry. It doesn’t make him want to curl into a ball like everything else he remembers about Colt does, though. This time, he really just sees Rocky.
“Grace better now, question? Rocky give hug and sing weird human song and let Grace leak all over nice, new suit Adrian make,” Rocky pulls back gently, his jokes not hiding the genuine concern in his voice.
“Yeah, Rock,” Grace pulls himself back into his chair, wiping his face with the bottom of his shirt before trying to clean Rocky off the best he can, and he finds that, for the first time since he remembered Colt, he’s not lying, “I actually feel a lot better.”
“Grace not miss brother anymore, question?”
“I do miss him. I don’t think I’ll ever stop missing him, it’s not that simple. He’s the better half of me, he always was,” Ryland walks over to the curtains, opening them and looking at a starless sky out the window of his two room cabin. “It’s nice to talk about him, though. I haven’t done that in a long time.”
“Grace Rocky talk about Grace brother everyday! Fix Grace sadness,” Rocky says, scuttling around in a circle like he tends to when he gets excited. Ryland laughs, herding him out of the house like a sheep.
“Yeah, buddy, I’d like that,” Ryland is genuinely smiling now. His eyes are drooping from exhaustion in a way they haven’t in weeks, which is why he says, “Go home, Rock. I’m sure Adrian is worried.”
“Adrian more worried about Grace. Rocky leave, tell Adrian Grace okay then come back in morning,” Rocky says, clearly nervous to leave Ryland alone after their breakthrough. “Grace sure Grace okay, question? Rocky can stay.”
“I’m sure. I’m okay,” Ryland says, opening the front door for him, and for the first time since he remembered Colt, he really means it. He’s okay. Rocky chitters out a goodbye, and Ryland closes his front door.
He’s never going to see his brother again. He’s never going to hear his laugh, or laugh at him, or argue with him, or talk with him until 3 A.M. again, and that’s not okay. That will never be okay. He will mourn his brother, the other half of his soul, for the rest of his life, but when he digs the photo he thought was of himself out of his box of things from the Hail Mary and identifies it as Colt, he’s not afraid of it not being enough to just mourn him anymore.
Ryland is going to take a piece of tape, and he is going to hang the picture of his brother—wearing those stupid gold tinted sunglasses that make him look like an asshole, sticking his tongue out at the camera—on the wall, right next to his bed. That will be enough for now.