Has anyone written anything about Colt learning about the Hail Mary launch and what happens to his twin, and just... shutting down? Mentally and physically shutting down. He just goes blank, like someone ripped his soul out of his body. All the emotions and the reality of everything are too big, so he physically and mentally can't deal with the situation.
Full-on, Jody considers sending him to a mental hospital because he won't eat, he won't move, and he barely reacts to anything. Maybe she does, maybe she feels like the love of her life is dying; and she doesn’t know what to do. He just sits and stares at the ceiling or sleeps. And I think it would be months of this— Colt coming out of it only a few times, maybe for a few hours at a time, just to have a psychological breakdown. Like his whole body is trying to rip itself apart, almost like a psychosomatic seizure, before he cycles back into being dissociated 24/7.
Everyone in his life realizes that the only reason he hasn't stepped off a roof is because he made that promise to Jody that he'd let the people who love him help him. So this is his middle ground: slowly self-destructing, but not running away.
And if it's a coltlandgentry au, I think the only thing that could snap him out of the cycle long enough to confront his brother leaving would be Court reappearing in his life. Maybe Stratt feels guilty. Maybe Court, upon hearing about his younger brother's fate, resurfaces long enough to check on his middle brother, only to find him basically catatonic or actively having a seizure.
Maybe Colt used to get like this when they were kids. He'd shut down, go somewhere else so completely and for so long that it could take days to get him back. Maybe that's why he loves physical work so much— it centers him in his body. It pulls him away from the fog that used to descend at any moment, where he could lose hours or days of time. And by the time the fog was no longer a constant problem, he was already in love with his craft.
Now, getting him to even go outside can send him into a screaming, seizure-induced fit. Something in his brain has cracked. Its foundation shattered, and he's frozen, unable to jump or move on, just staring at the wreckage of his mind and the long, long life ahead of him without Ryland.
Do you think it was Ryland he clawed himself out of the fog for? That it was his baby brother shivering in his arms, begging him to come back, begging him not to leave like Court did, after Colt lost time like always? Making him promise to do anything, try anything, for him? It was Ryland who kept him from falling off that edge. Ryland who was his lodestar. Ryland who he built the foundations of himself around until he found a way to stand on his own.
Because as much as Ryland was his little brother, as much as Colt took care of and protected him, deep down Colt knew he needed Ryland more than Ryland ever needed him.
So he made himself bigger and tougher than anyone else, so Ryland would always have someone there for him. So the fog would never take Colt away from him ever again. And in turn, he pushed away anyone and everyone whenever he was weak, because he couldn't need them. If he needed them, then he couldn't stand alone. But now Ryland's gone. And while Colt was getting better at reaching out for help, at being vulnerable, his entire reason for every act of self-actualization is as good as dead. He has no ability to conceptualize himself, much less a reality where, Ryland is gone.
So he doesn't, and Court is left with a younger brother he couldn't save and a middle brother he can at least try to.
So he finds Carl. It's not hard. Eva's in prison, but the next best person to pull emotional strings just happens to work for the CIA. Court comes to him and says: Free me. Let me see my brother. Save Claire, make sure she has a good life. It's the least you could do for my brother. Carl tells him to fuck off, then quietly makes things happen behind the scenes. And suddenly Six is Court again, with the world before him and Claire in his care as her legal guardian. Because Carl loved Grace too, in his own way. And Court is good at his job.
Court immediately goes to Colt. Who is a shell in more ways than one. But Court remembers this Colt. He remembers this Colt better than he remembers the version without the fog. The glassy-eyed brother who would come to in the middle of his cereal and ask what was happening, where he was, why his eye hurt. He knows this Colt. So he takes over his care.
It's as easy as explaining things to Jody and Dan, then moving everyone somewhere open and beautiful by the beach. It's day by day, helping Colt eat. Holding his hand. Leading him outside to stargaze or build sand castles by the beach. It's Claire chattering endlessly to Colt about trends, art, photography and how stupid some boy in class is being. It's Jody deciding to live her life and still come back every day— or video call whenever she can— it’s holding him at night and kissing his cheek before she leaves at breakfast; because she said she would stay, and she never backs down. It's watching movies with Dan. Movies they've both seen a hundred times, know word for word, and still pausing to wait for Colt to wake up and say his part.
It's Court's steady presence, who takes to caretaking like his hands were made for it. Like, in another life, this would have been his purpose. (Claire calls him Nurse Grace more than once, and somehow it feels right more than Six ever did. )
It's medication and doctor visits and physical therapy. Always physical therapy. It's agonizing in its slowness. In its quiet. It could take months, maybe even a year, before Colt can stay present in his body for more than a week without seizures, breakdowns, or falling back into the fog.
And maybe this is forever. Maybe he's broken forever. You can't shatter someone's sense of self and expect them to put it back together exactly the same way. Maybe Colt wakes up one day and finds himself an entirely different man. With different wants and loves and desires. Maybe the people in his life love him anyway. Maybe his twin, his other half, his soul outside his body, is eleven light-years away and took the pieces of Colt that made him whole.
But maybe the people who love him can help fill in some of those gaps. Enough that he can stand. And laugh, and stargaze, and love.
It's a tragedy, and nothing will ever be the same again. But everyone keeps living. And the love is still there. It changes a little bit— not enough for it to stop being a tragedy, but enough that everyone keeps living.
amandla
turnnoffyourmind
kianamaiart
theartofmadeline
gracieabrams
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