Chapter Text
The workout had been exactly what he needed to loosen a few knots, and Virgil was just balancing on that perfect edge of pleasant fatigue which had the endorphins thrumming through his blood stream like the notes of the assignment piece he’d been immersed in. Provisionally titled ‘Taking Flight’, it was a piano-based, acoustic re-working of an old electric-heavy song, for one of the supplementary classes he was taking – a class that had precisely nothing to do with his Engineering major, other than the shared importance of resonance. If the original happened to have been an entrant in the Eurovision Song Contest several years before Virgil was actually born…well…only the other musos would hear it. They’d be more likely to appreciate the source material than not; and the whole point was to craft ‘new from old’, as Prof Mede described it. So what if he hadn’t plundered the Beatles’ back catalogue like half of his classmates? Not all decent rock music came out of the western hemisphere. Sometimes a bit of Balkan or Slavic thump was the perfect challenge.
His ear buds were out now, though; nestled in the pocket of his shorts as he headed for his room, and, more pertinently, a shower. Wandering through the villa without due care and attention was inadvisable at the best of times: you never knew when the next headlong chase might plough you down. Comparatively, student life in Denver felt…maybe not calmer, but a distinctly different flavour of madness – or it had been when he was a freshman. Now deep into his Junior year and over halfway through the course, everyone who stood any vague chance of graduating had settled down, his roommates included. Finally. Back on the island though, with nine- and fourteen-year-old brothers running half-feral the moment Dad’s back was turned, you had to keep your wits about you.
He was barely out of sight of the gym before the familiar thunder rolled down the corridor, alerting Virgil to make himself as small as possible against the wall to avoid the stampede. The chaos that was Gordon scrambled past first, clad (if the term was even appropriate for a garment so miniscule) in neon green budgie-smugglers - ones a good two sizes too small, judging by the unsavoury sight he made from behind. They might tease the kid for his cheek; that didn’t mean anyone actually wanted to see either of them hanging out the bottom of his swimwear. So did it mean he’d finally hit his growth spurt? Either way, there was just time for a full-body shudder before the second tornado rounded the corner. In contrast, Alan’s too-long blue swim shorts flapped around his skinny knees; his towel tied cape-style around his neck, bare feet slapping hard against the smooth floor. Each of them yelled something breathless that might have been ‘Hi Virg!’ Or might not. At least he knew where they would be for a little while; specifically that they weren’t with John.
Which meant he could finally go welcome him back.
And didn’t that still feel odd to say?
It had been weird for all of them when Scott had first left for Yale; but it was expected – that’s what older siblings do. Virgil was sure the others had felt the same when he’d decamped two years later…and maybe Scooter had experienced then what he did now? Because seeing your little brother fly the nest was another emotion altogether. Add into that the timings of Johnny’s various achievements, and it all got a bit…intense.
They’d graduated high school together (and yes, Virgil's friends had gotten a fair amount of mileage from that): John’s teachers having him leap-frog grades in an attempt to keep boredom from becoming trouble-making...after he'd been caught trying to hack the Kremlin from a math department tablet in his first semester. Then the nerdy little tested-and-certified genius had managed to squish a full bachelor’s degree into two years; studying remotely from the island, since he was too young to live overseas by himself. Only now, at eighteen, had he been able to physically go to the States to start on his PhD...which all added up to mixed feelings for his immediately older brother. On the one hand, Virgil couldn’t be prouder of the kid; on the other, there was something discombobulating about being outstripped by someone you’d spent the best part of your life looking out for. They weren’t quite in changed-your-diapers territory; but there had been skinned knees soothed, hands held to cross the road, and later on, warned-off tormentors. The overtaking thing had happened once before, of course, on the day Scott had made them stand back-to-back and declared the redhead taller; but that didn’t make it an easy sensation to process. Still, in his quiet, geeky manner, John had always been as much of an exception to the rules as their mad Squid…albeit in a considerably calmer way.
Peeling away from the wall (and checking for sweat marks, lest Grandma drag him back down there by the ear…again), he turned back towards the living areas. Slogging in the gym, music in his ears, he’d had no chance of hearing the whisper of Tracy One’s landing; but he’d known their E.T.A., and Scott had helpfully sent him a quick message once they touched down. He’d held off from heading up there for a little while; not because completing the circuit was a higher priority, more that he didn’t need to see it happen to know that the younger ones – Allie especially – would be all over John like spilled paint, just as they had been for him two days before. It was wonderful, in a thousand and one ways, to feel so loved and missed; however, while he was a tactile person, always open contact and cuddles, their budding spaceman was not. To put it mildly. He didn’t doubt that John would understand the enthusiasm, see it for what it was, even be happy for the love it signified; but it would still be a lot for him. Maybe too much. So Virgil played a calculated game of Don’t Crowd The Introvert, biding his time.
With the Tinies outside, the house was quiet. Dad and Brains were off somewhere on the mainland, so all that Virgil heard on his chilled walk were the background sounds so often drowned out by the craziness: faint hums of kitchen appliances, the occasional vocal bird swooping past an open window, and that one aircon unit that had been getting steadily louder for the last couple of days. He promised himself he’d check that over in a while – it could wait until he’d had the hug he hoped his returning brother would be receptive to. He hadn’t even seen Jay since the summer: neither of them had been able to make it home for Thanksgiving (it was just too far, and too much jetlag for one long weekend), and all their calls since around the end of September had been audio-only, both of them multitasking as they chatted. And that turned out to have been a mistake…because…well, hindsight was always twenty-twenty, wasn’t it?
The yelling was incoherent at first, Virgil’s own room closer to the stairs and too far down the corridor from John’s to hear clearly. Dried sweat itchy against his torso, he spared a moment or two with his hand on the door, deliberating whether to just pretend he hadn’t heard anything and take that quick shower anyway; but then the second voice chimed in, which was when he knew it was bad. It took a lot – no, really, a lot – to rile John to the point of even faintly raising his voice, so for out-and-out shouting to be involved, Scott had to have been needling him hard, and blown through the silent warning stage. It must have escalated quickly, too: neither Gordon nor Alan had seemed to be at all upset, let alone the unique kind that sibling warfare usually triggered. So…yep, this one wasn’t going to wait, by the sounds of it. He would have to stay stinky for a while.
Crud.
Time to go play peacemaker yet again.
How many times had he done this? Granted, it wasn’t often John involved, for all the jokes about redheads’ tempers; but still, if Dad’s plans didn’t fully pan out, maybe Virgil could get a job as a hostage negotiator or something with the GDF? He sure felt like he’d had plenty of experience at sorting conflicts over the years. Pushing away from the tantalising promise of peace and warm water, he turned for the ajar door, sneakers feeling heavier and harder to move than even the most solid of work boots. The closer he got to the warzone, the clearer the fighting became…and the more evident that neither combatant was taking any prisoners.
“…opinions shouldn’t matter to you! If they told you to jump off a cliff, would you do that?”
“Oh, we’re abandoning reasoned argument and resorting to cliché now, are we?”
“And you think smacking this hard of desperation to be accepted isn’t clichéd?”
“’…despera…’?” John’s voice shattered on the word. “You’ve got a frickin’ nerve! How many times have random morons yelled stuff at you in the street because of how brown your hair is? Huh? Because I think I can make a pretty accurate guess: precisely none. Doesn’t happen, does it? Well try dealing with it three times just in the last week. Try getting a satsuma lobbed at you in the grocery store; or some massive, creepy, pervert backing you into a bathroom stall and demanding to know if the ‘cuffs match the collar’…”
“He WHAT?!”
“It was okay, nothing happened. I dodged him: he was big, but he wasn’t fast…”
“It was not okay, Jay,” Scott’s tone mellowed, concern bleeding into and colouring the indignation. “No-one should have to put up with that BS!”
“Yeah, well, I do. At least I’m a guy: women get harassed like that all the time. It’s only been a couple of times for me.”
“A…a couple?”
John’s growl diffused through the wall. “Oh come on, Scott: you…well, you know how it was in school – don’t act like it’s all a surprise that I get aggro. Oddly enough, I don’t need it from you too! All I’m asking is that you put yourself in my shoes for a minute before you start with the judging.”
Lurking by the door, Virgil was torn: he hated to eavesdrop - it always felt somehow dishonest, deceitful…and there was an ever-present risk that you might hear something you’d wished you hadn’t. Having said that, wading blind into a raging argument between family was even less of a stellar idea; and he soothed his conscience by treating hovering outside John’s room as tactical recon before the mission. Information gathering. He still felt a little uncomfortable about it, though in the pin-drop quiet following John’s snarled admonition, he was sure they’d hear him breathing. For those moments, neither of them seemed to be.
“I…” Scott’s tone had fallen further, softening into something understanding and empathetic – the way Virgil knew his big brother’s heart truly was under the reactive, protective bluster. “Yeah, I guess you have a point.”
“I know I do.” John was still on the defensive, but less spikily so; an undercurrent of weariness running through each word.
Things sounded like they were de-escalating – the raw fire of those two burning out. Hopefully. If that were the case, knowing they were being effectively spied on wouldn’t help; he could probably leave now, let them sort it out between themse…
“What the hell is that?”
The redhead’s silence lasted just a beat too long, and it was a beat that Virgil’s heart skipped.
“What?”
“That.” He could almost hear Scott pointing. “All up your arm.”
At which point his heart froze altogether, his immediate thoughts flashing back to the countless times their middle brother had come home from school covered in patches and blotches of purple and blue. John did bruise ridiculously easily with that pale skin; but there were only so many times that a claim of having ‘bumped into the lockers’, or 'tripped over someone's bag' was faintly credible. Surely he wasn’t being physically bullied at college?
“Self-expression. Maybe you should try it sometime, then you might not have such a massive stick up your ass…ow! I didn’t do it to hide track marks, or scars, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Then you won’t mind if I check.”
“For fu… I’m not a junkie, and I’m not self-harming!” The ‘again’ went unspoken, but still echoed off the corridor walls. “Get off!”
That was it: the sounds of scuffling on top of John’s yelp made Virgil’s decision for him. Discretion had gone from being the better part of valour to the worse: he needed to step in before one of them did or said something they couldn’t take back. Swinging around the heavy wooden door, he was greeted with the sight of…well, first up, what the heck had happened to the Space Case’s hair? But…no, he was getting distracted from the main issue - namely that Scott had their younger sibling in some sort of wrestling hold, which John was trying (and categorically failing) to wriggle free from.
“Ouch! Get off me, you pri…”
“Scott, that’s enough!”
The eldest jumped, releasing John’s arm as if it had burned him, and spun to face Virgil. Thrown off balance, their little brother stumbled back a pace or two before the edge of the bed caught his knees, forcing him to sit…where he remained, glaring daggers at his former assailant and cradling a wrist that looked alarmingly scarlet before he yanked his sleeve down to cover it.
“Crud, Vee – quit sneaking up on people!” Scott couldn’t have looked more guilty if he’d been rumbled in the middle of a bank heist.
Virgil’s body language took the moral high ground, crossing his arms to make a good show of the muscles peeking out from under his short sleeves: he might not quite have the vertical inches of the other two, but he sure did around the biceps. He’d never tried to intimidate one of his family that way before; but Scott had taken advantage of his superior strength over John’s slender frame. Not a tactic he’d seen their big brother use, either: not at home, and certainly not with someone who hadn’t initiated the physicality.
Which spoke volumes about how deep the eldest’s concern must be running…and that caused a spike in his own.
“I hardly ‘snuck up’.” Which wasn’t strictly true, but… “The caldera could've been erupting again, and you two would never have heard it over your yelling. What’s so awful that you’ve got to shriek at each other like…like gulls fighting over fries?” That last visit to the Creighton-Wards had been enlightening: eating ‘chips’ on Eastbourne pier, the resultant bird attack left poor Alan half-traumatised. Gordon had picked up some new cuss words from Parker, though, so it hadn’t been a total ‘loss’.
Scott caught on to the diffuse-with-humour tactic. “You mean apart from that bleach job?”
It landed badly.
“Fu…”
“Stop that before you even start,” Virgil rounded on John. “We do not swear at each other.”
The huff he got in return was more worthy of one of the true blonds than the still-just-about-redhead. “You sound like Grandma!”
“And you sound like Allie. You’re eighteen, Jay, not nine. Maybe try acting it.” And back to Scott again. The to-and-fro was giving him neck ache. “Care to explain why you were manhandling John?”
That earned him the Brows of Indignation. “I was trying to get a look at that mess he’s made of his arm – to make sure he hasn’t…hasn’t...done something he’ll regret.”
Well, that description covered a multitude of possibilities; but with John’s history, perhaps some of them were justified. They all knew that. It must have hurt the kid, though, having some of the less glorious aspects of his past dragged up so unceremoniously; and unless Virgil was mistaken, tears had begun to form above his lower lids. Nevertheless, he attempted to level Scott with a glower. It held all the effectiveness of a deer trying to stare down an approaching truck.
“You just had to ask – you didn’t need to flippin’ attack me!”
“I was worried about you! I still am.”
A niggle that had started to form at Virgil’s temples took exception to the rise in volume. The realisation was beginning to dawn that he could calm one or other of his brothers, but short of cloning himself, both simultaneously was going to be too tall an order. So…divide and conquer. He moved to perch beside John.
“You know what’s good for soothing worries?” Now they were both staring at him like he'd been out in the sun for too long. “Hot chocolate. How about you go make us some, Scott?”
Blue eyes boggled. “Huh?”
“Best comfort drink, right Jay?”
"Tastes like home." John’s eyes stayed glued to his tangled fingers, the half-mumbled words leaving plenty to unpack.
“Are you two nuts? Quite apart from the fact that I know you’re just trying to get rid of me; we’re on a tropical island - it’s stupid degrees out there!”
“And we’re inside. With aircon.”
For an unnerving number of seconds Virgil thought he was going to have to physically hustle the stubborn twit out through the door. Scott’s line in petulant glare was unmatched; although whether that was congenital, or learned and honed over years of watching four little brothers was debatable. What wasn’t up for discussion was separating the two beanpoles for long enough to quench the fire and melt at least some of the ice.
Biggest brother might occasionally be epically pig-headed, but he wasn’t stupid. “What you really mean is ‘Go calm down’.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Your eyebrows did.”
“The brows never lie.” He filed John’s muttered ‘That was part of my problem’ for later. “Now scoot, Scooter.”
The eldest’s jaw worked left-right-left - the grinding not quite audible, but certainly imaginable. “Fine.”
His stomping off was ungracious, but at least the door didn’t get slammed - that tended to be Gordon’s speciality. Virgil very pointedly didn’t think about the time he’d been made to re-paint the farmhouse wall. How was he supposed to know that the plaster would fall off when the doorknob hit it hard? Teenage hormones had been very much a thing at the time. Speaking of…
For all his height, John felt tiny beside him; shrunken down into the pilfered hoodie that Virgil recognised as one of his own from before he’d bulked up quite so much. Considering that he’d beefed out of it, the thing looked like it could wrap his brother several times. But for the protruding digits, both hands were pulled up inside the sleeves; one of which came up to rub over a pale cheek, the guilty tear leaving a deep forest freckle on the sage material. The movement shifted some of the two-tone strands that – unless Virgil very much missed his guess – had lit the touchpaper, not simply fuelled the flames. His brother’s natural bright, soft, red hair had been rather inexpertly and harshly dyed a crispy, yellow-blond...and some time ago, judging by the roots. An overdue trim left his ears hidden, his usual trademark cowlick now drooping down to do nothing to hide the purple under his eyes. Which was another issue. They’d been brought up not to judge, not to make assumptions about a person’s character based or physical appearances or circumstances; but had Virgil not known the thin figure beside him, he’d’ve thought Scott had found the guy living off handouts under a bridge, not studying for his doctorate at one of the world’s most prestigious universities.
It may have been rude to say that John looked a mess. It was also true.
Every muscle fibre, every neuron in Virgil wanted to just dive across and wrap the skinny dollop of dejected misery in a firm-but-gentle hug…and yet that kind of reaction was just as likely to make John skittish as reassured. He was going to have to tread carefully around the emotional Lego.
Here goes. “So… Welcome back – we missed you.”
“Yeah.” John’s left index finger snagged a loose thread and wound swiftly, the cotton pinching deep as he stared unblinking at it. “It really feels that way.”
“Want to tell me what that was all about?” Tone of voice was everything.
“Not really.” The thread unwound just as quickly to allow the hand to swipe at more salty tracks, accompanied by a wet sniff. “But you’re not going to leave me alone until I do, are you?”
He shrugged, though whether John saw it or not was questionable – aqua eyes still fixed on knees obviously bony even through thick, dark denim. “I’m not here to play Good Cop to Scott’s Bad, if that’s what you’re asking. I just hate seeing you upset, and quite frankly, that was some barney. This isn’t a big island: if there’s anything I can do to get you two speaking civilly to each other again…”
“I’m mad now.” One of John’s shoulders bobbed in an echo of Virgil’s own shrug. “It’ll pass. Probably more quickly for me than Mister Grudgy-Pants, but…y’know…”
The silence hung thick and awkward, yet Virgil knew not to shatter it. It wasn’t his to break.
That was the privilege of John’s chest-rattling sigh. “Okay, so I get it: it looks awful, and maybe I should’ve tried to change it back; but do you know how hard it is to find ginger dye? Auburn, sure, or copper, or whatever; but no-one wants to be this colour. I just… D’you know the first thing Scott said when he picked me up? Not ‘How are you?’, or ‘I’ve missed you’, not even a ‘Hello John’ – he just ploughed straight in with ‘What the fuck happened to your hair?’ I got interrogated for about twenty minutes about the roommates I don’t even have; was it some kind of prank? And then wanted to know if I’m ‘taking precautions’, as though changing my hair colour automatically means I’ve become some sort of rent boy. Like he isn't already perfectly well aware of where I identify on that spectrum.” John’s sharpened features wrinkled into momentary disgust.
“He’s only like that because he cares.”
"I know. I do know; but it's...a lot." Long, skinny fingers picked at a cuff, another thread unravelling. “Was he…what was he like with you?”
Virgil couldn’t stifle the laugh that bubbled up. “Do not tell him I said this, but he was a pain in the butt!”
“Really?” John finally made eye contact, fixing on him with curiosity.
“Oh, yeah, definitely!” He grinned at the memory. “My first few weeks at college? He called every day. Every. Single. Day. Sometimes twice. Grilled me about everything: was I getting in with my roommate? Had I joined a fraternity? What were my friends like? Was I dating; did I like my classes and my professors? Was my workload too much? Was I managing my time okay? Some days I half expected him to ask if my bowel movements were regular.” Which drew an amused snort from his brother. “It was done out of love; but in the end I had to very tactfully tell him that I’d have more time to manage if he wouldn’t keep calling so often. I hoped he might go a bit easier on you.”
Although, judging by the evidence, maybe they’d both backed off too far?
“Thanks. He did. Well...at least until he actually saw me, and then he would not let it lie.” The thread wound again. “I mean, I knew Gordon would give me stick – I think I’d have worried about him if he hadn’t - and Allie had a giggle, too…and that was okay. Expected. I could deal with it. But Scott? He just kept nagging and nagging, the whole flight home; followed me through the house still going on about it. He only took a break when the kids were in here, probably so he didn’t upset them; because the minute they left, he started again. Then I made the mistake of pushing my sleeve up, and he pounced like some kind of overprotective velociraptor.” He scratched a self-conscious hand through the guilty mop, shifting the strands, and leaving an interwoven contrast of shades and textures that Virgil had to hold himself back from touching. “And now you’re going to give me the third degree about it.”
That was a tricky tightrope to walk. “Completely honestly? I am a bit curious, yes; but I’m not going to beat it out of you if you’re sick of telling the story.”
A flicker caught the periphery of his vision: one of the island’s huge native butterflies beating itself against the full-height window, its shadow falling close to their feet. John poked a hole-toed blue sock into the grey shape.
“That’s one of Gordon’s, isn’t it?”
Virgil glanced up to spot the stained-glass reds and yellows. “Yep.”
It was, indeed, a member of the unique species that their fourth brother had discovered after finding one floating in the pool, and trying without success to identify it online. That was some science project: it turned out that they only existed on two islands: their own and the neighbouring Mateo. In the process, the whole family learnt about insular gigantism and Foster’s Law (whether they wanted to or not); and the kid earned his best grade ever…plus the vibrant things even got named for him: Pseudodelias gordoni.
“They’re beautiful.” The redhead’s voice snagged on the syllables. “Those bright colours. Just minding their own business, and no-one gives them a load of crap for it.”
Brushing at one more wet track, John slowly tipped sideways to nestle his head onto Virgil’s shoulder, just like he did when they were growing up…except that now he had to fold himself at what must have been an uncomfortable angle down onto his older brother’s shorter torso. If Virgil knew one thing about the stupid genius, it was that his seeking physical affection meant Jay was floundering. He shifted an arm up to wrap around those thin ribs, rubbing softly at his sibling’s elbow; in response, John melted closer.
“I was just so tired of the idiots and their comments. I wanted to blend in for a change; is that so bad? I thought after high school things would be different, but they aren’t: I’m still getting called ‘carrot-top’, or ‘tangerine’; and there’s one dipstick in my calculus class who starts singing ‘Clementine’ every time I walk past him. And I know it’s not like I’m really being discriminated against - not like sexism, or racism, or ableism, or something serious - but it’s not funny anymore.” John’s head dropped further along with his volume, his eyes falling to the hands lying limply in his lap, leaving him mumbling into the voluminous hoodie’s neck. “It never was.”
Virgil felt that somewhere behind his sternum: an issue that had dogged John for as many years as he’d been old enough to realise that there were disadvantages to his complexion beyond spectacular sunburn. It was an unfortunate quirk of genetics that had given the quietest Tracy the most noticeable colouring; made him easiest to pick out in a crowd…or pick on in the schoolyard. The poor guy had little chance of flying under the radar amongst kids who were actively seeking ways to single others out. Searching for victims. Perhaps it would have been easier all around if Gordon had been the redhead: that boy loved being centre of attention to almost the same extent as their astronomer loathed it. There was so much he wanted to say in answer to the revelation-that-wasn’t-any-surprise, but…an intangible mote in the quiet air gave him the impression that maybe that was where Scott had gone wrong. Ah, no, not wrong as such, perhaps; but crashing into the china shop with lowered horns and the best intentions. Jay had just proven nothing would truly fix his problem - and yet Virgil could imagine that was what the eldest had tried to do: fix it, sort it, mend it…when possibly all John really wanted was to be heard.
He gave John a small, encouraging squeeze. “Tell me?”