Fandoms: Project Hail Mary | Drive | The Fall Guy | The Gray Man
Warnings: Canon Typical Violent; Canon Compliant Outcome
Their family had never been whole. Not by a long shot.
Grace held his hand out, interrupting Stratt and stopping her mid-sentence. He spotted this knowing look in her eyes and felt something sour bubble up in his chest. "I have a brother. Brothers, plural, actually."
Shared looks of horror began to pull on both Yao's and Ilyukhina's expressions, and even Carl seemed to have a brief spike of…well, something, across his usually deadpan expression.
That's right, drink that in, Grace felt himself preen, if only for a moment. That small moment of hopefulness right before Stratt, in all of her clear-cut, tepid observance, shattered it.
"My understanding is that you and Colt G. Seavers are entirely estranged; and Courtland Grace is no longer with you." Stratt's voice was even and her eyes clear as day. She was not budging on this. "Would it really make a difference if you were here or aboard the Hail Mary?"
I am not immune to the Goslingverse Bros™️
Their family had never been whole. Not by a long shot. There were times where Driver could remember, faintly, the outline of Courtland standing up to their father, before being dragged away. Court was the oldest. He was the next after—and it was up to to him to protect the twins. No matter what the wrath of their father saw, no matter what happened to Court, Colt and Ryland's tiny hands in his were always meant to be led away somewhere safe.
As they got older and the system took them in, Driver told himself that it was for the best that they were split up. The twins went somewhere far from them, somewhere good enough for them to grow up with a loving family. A place like that was wasted on him and Court. They'd already been soiled by the world their father shoved them carelessly into. When Shannon took him in, Driver felt like maybe that was the universe looking out for him. A small quid pro quo for always protecting his younger brothers. He'd carved a small piece of his life for himself, knowing that he had a path. It was a path into crime, but one none-the-less that he knew how to navigate with a solid grip and leather racing gloves.
He hadn't seen Courtland since... well since the incident. And while their oldest brother seemed to be far from his reach, he'd seen both Colt and Ryland on TV.
In a funny twist of fate, Colt had also taken up the mantle of stuntman, and Driver thought perhaps there was an unhealthy dose of adrenaline-junkie in their blood that attracted them to the career. It tore him apart when Colt had announced his retirement due to a crippling injury. In that awful year, Driver always lurked around LA, waiting and watching, hoping his brother would call him or even Ryland. He wasn't sure if his brother knew how to find him, but he did hope.
And when he saw the initial case of Colt's murder charge, Driver feared that his younger brother really had followed in oldests' footsteps.
He was practically foaming at the mouth to get to Australia when it was announced that Colt had been framed. The charges dropped. An oddity for sure, but grateful Colt was still a better man than he supposed either himself or Court.
But then there was Ryland—their youngest brother. Driver's memory became more and more foggy as he became older, but the shy touch of Ryland's small fingers against his hand when he was scared always lingered like a phantom. He was such a little thing, Driver remembered, always afraid at a drop of the hat. Which, given their father, there was good reason.
It pleased Driver greatly to see how much of a stubborn ass their youngest had grown into, even calling a colleague a "staggering waste of carbon" on a publicly televised scientific forum.
He'd heard Ryland had been booted out of the science community shortly after that, and had taken up to teaching ever since. In his head, he could always picture it: Ryland in a classroom, with that easy going, boyish smile, helping children with ease through all their lessons. So far it seemed that their youngest brother was the most normal, and he was beyond thankful for that. Childhood had been hard on all of them, and someone as gentle as Ryland did not deserve the worlds that he, Court, and even Colt, had found themselves in.
Normalcy didn't last long, for any of them, it would seem.
