They didn't mean to land themselves in jail. It wasn't like they woke up that morning and thought to themselves, hey let's see what we can do to get arrested. No sir. They were only looking for a way to make their errands just a little bit more interesting.
And look where it got them. In matching jail cells.
They sat against the bars facing the wall and away from their older brother. They could feel his glare through the bars.
"This is all your fault," Virgil growled from the other cell.
Alan looked at Gordon and asked, "How dead do you think we'll be because of this?"
"That depends on how dead you are already after I'm through with you," said a voice behind them. It was a voice they recognized, although they had never heard it quite as low and deadly as it was then.
Slowly Alan and Gordon turned around to see John standing there with his arms folded firmly across his chest. His mouth was tight as he glared at Alan with his cool blue-green eyes. Any response that Alan could possibly come up with vanished at the sight of his space loving brother's face.
Gordon opened his mouth, possibly to explain what all happened out there, but found that he was as mute as Alan when John turned his gaze to him.
"Can you explain to me why I had to leave a very important meeting early because my little brothers were in jail?" Every word he spoke seemed to shoot ice through their veins.
Again, they found that as they opened their mouths to explain what they had done there was no sound that came out. John's frown seemed to grow deeper and the bridge of his nose crinkled as it did when he was severely upset about something.
"Perhaps I could explain what happened?" Virgil offered from the other cell behind John.
If he could have, Alan was sure that John would have exploded right there at that moment. Having a phone call telling you to collect your brother from jail was bad enough. Two of your brothers was pushing it, but a little expected because trouble came in twos. But all three of his brothers that were still living at home in jail. Alan was surprised John hadn't started screaming yet.
"Oh please do." John spun around to face the only dark-haired brother present, his face never changing.
"Well, what happened was…"
"Virgil, I'm hungry," Alan whined.
"You're twelve years old, Alan. You are perfectly capable of going into the kitchen and getting something to eat all by yourself," Virgil responded not taking his eyes off of the sheet music. There was a recital that he had to prepare for and he was still having some trouble with a few of the measures.
Alan groaned and flopped next to his big brother on the beanbag chair sitting in the corner of Virgil's room. It made that noise indicating that the beans were moving inside as well as the squeaking noise as Alan's skin rubbed against the synthetic leathery material. Virgil grimaced as the noise broke through his concentration, throwing off his counting.
The squeaking continued as Alan continued to move around the bean bag chair. Whether he was doing it because he was bored and couldn't find a comfortable position, or he was doing it on purpose to draw Virgil away from practicing, Virgil didn't really know. All he knew was that with each passing moment the noise was getting louder and more distracting and it was unlikely that he was really going to get his studying done before his recital later in the week.
After a particularly long and agonizing squeak, Virgil threw down his papers and pencil and glared at his little brother.
"What is your deal?" He exclaimed, having half a mind to just throw Alan out of his room by the scruff of his neck.
"You know we're not allowed to go in the kitchen while Grandma is making dinner. Do I have to remind you what happened last time Gordon tried to sneak some food out when she was in there?"
Virgil flinched at the memory. That wasn't a pretty day. Gordon couldn't really sit down properly for a few days after that. And all the boys learned to stay away from Grandma when she had her wooden spoon in hand.
"So what's your point?" He narrowed his eyes at his baby brother. He had a feeling that a favor was going to be asked within the next few sentences.
"Grandma's been in there all afternoon cooking supper, so I missed my afternoon snack. I need you to do me a favor and drive me to the grocery store so I can have my snack."
And there was the favor that Virgil was waiting for.
"You want me to drive you to the grocery store so you can get a two dollar candy bar? If that's all you want, then why don't you just walk to the gas station down the street? Get Gordon to go with you. I'm sure he could use the exercise." Virgil turned back to the papers that he had thrown down earlier, satisfied that Alan would leave him alone now.
He was wrong.
"But I don't want just any plain old candy bar," Alan whined.
"Then what do you want Alan," Virgil sighed. If this kid didn't get out of his room soon, there were going to be some consequences.
"I don't know." Alan flopped back down on the bean bag chair again, squishing the beans inside and causing that god-awful squeak sound again.
Virgil grit his teeth for a moment.
"Just get in the car. I'll be down in a moment."
The squeak was heard again as Alan sat up in the chair. Virgil restrained his urge to chuck both the chair and his brother out the window. Why did he even have that chair? It was such an annoyance.
"Really?" The excitement was palpable in Alan's voice.
"Just go."
Alan said nothing else but bounded up off of the chair and out the door. His thundering footsteps could be heard as he ran down the stairs.
For a moment, Virgil wondered what he was doing. He looked wistfully back at his music before giving a shrug. It was about time he took a break from practicing anyway, he'd been at it since that morning.
He made his way down to the garage to find that both Gordon and Alan were in the backseat of the car.
"Gordon? What are you doing here?" he asked settling into the driver's seat.
Gordon was wearing one of his numerous swim-team shirts that he accumulated over the years. This particular one was pink and the writing on it had faded to the point where it almost couldn't be made out. He was wearing the shark tooth necklace he had gotten on their last family vacation.
"Heard you were on the way to the store. Thought that I could get some snacks for the midnight hour. 'Cause we all know that no one is going to be eating Grandma's food tonight."
Thinking that it wasn't such a bad idea, Virgil kept his mouth shut. He may just have to follow his little brother's lead and shove some food under his bed for when Grandma came over to cook dinner. But he wasn't going to let Gordon know that. He'd never hear the end of it.
They made their way to the store and the other two were out of the car and running into the building before Virgil had managed to turn the car completely off yet. Virgil locked the doors and made his way after them.
"We really ought to put some leashes on those two," Virgil grumbled to himself as he grabbed a basket to hold all the items he would get.
But as he walked around the various aisles, he couldn't find his brother's anywhere. They had to be somewhere in the store, he had the only key to the car and Gordon wouldn't be able to drive anyway with just his temps. And they were too old to go to the arcade at the front of the store.
So where could they possibly be?
He got his answer a few aisles later when they came careening around the corner, nearly bowling him over with their cart. They continued to breeze past him, like they hadn't even seen him at all, as Virgil leaned against the shelves for support.
For a moment Virgil stayed there going over what he had just seen with his own eyes. He couldn't believe it. They wouldn't do something as stupid as that. Some of the grocery store's employees ran past him shouting at the twin terrors.
"I'm going to kill them."
He set down his basket and stomped after where his brothers were headed. He could always return to the basket later. There wasn't much stuff in there, so no one would want to steal it.
"Gordon! Alan!" He called as he made his way through the various aisles. If they were doing what he thought they were doing, they would be so dead.
He found them as they were running through the produce section. Various employees were trying to get them to stop, but seemed unable to get anywhere near the two boys.
Alan was throwing produce at anyone who got too close.
Oh, they were breathing corpses at this point.
Somehow Alan made his way into the basket of the shopping cart and was standing up like it was some sort of land surfboard, produce gathered around his feet. Gordon was pushing the cart like a maniac in and out of the aisles and the displays holding other bits of food. Both were laughing their heads off, which was good because they weren't going to be laughing once he got his hands on them.
"ALAN AND GORDON TRACY!" He yelled, uncaring that he was in a public space and that other people may not appreciate his screams. Not that it really would have mattered anyway. Alan and Gordon had disturbed the peace already.
Alan and Gordon's laughter stopped almost instantaneously. They both looked with fear over to where their brother was standing glaring. Alan seemed to shrink a little in the basket.
Having taken their eyes off of the way ahead of them, they didn't see the display of watermelon ahead of them until they were a part of it. Alan was sent tumbling into the fruit and Gordon fell over into the basket, his butt sticking high into the air.
Forgetting for a moment at just how mad he was at his younger brothers, Virgil ran over to them and freed Alan from the fruit.
"Are you all right Alan? No broken bones?" He gripped his baby brother tight around the arms as he searched for any damage.
"Nah, he's fine Virge. He's got a hard head remember," Gordon said easily, before trying to free himself from the cart's grip.
Virgil rolled his eyes at Gordon's incompetence and pulled him free of the confines of the cart.
"What the hell do you think you two were doing?" Virgil demanded, crossing his arms.
"Yes, that is what I would like to know," said an unfamiliar voice behind them.
Virgil turned to see a police officer standing there. Nothing on the officer's face betrayed on how he may have been feeling about the situation laid out in front of him.
None of the Tracy's managed to get a word out of their mouths.
The officer sighed. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to take you to the station. Maybe it would be able to loosen your tongues if we gave your parents a call."
The brother's froze, but after a gentle prodding from the officer, they squeezed into the back of the squad car and were driven to the police station. Where they sat and waited for someone to come and pick them up.
"See? That's why we're in jail," Gordon said, a slight smile returning to his face as the story had progressed.
John turned from where he was watching Virgil back to Gordon and Alan. The look of disapproval on his face never left as he glared back at them. A portion of Gordon's smile diminished.
"I talked it over with the officer. He can keep this incident from appearing on your public records in exchange for community service. We'll have to pay for the produce that you were throwing around and was ruined when you crashed into the display, but other than that, there's really no damage that was done," John explained.
There was visible relief on behalf of the brothers behind the bars.
"So, um, are we going to get out of here any time soon?" Alan asked.
John smirked a little.
"Oh, you've been free to go since I walked in here. I just neglected to tell you or ask the officer to open the doors for you."
At that the officer that was standing at the doorway moved and opened each of their cells, beginning with Virgil's.
"You are devious John Tracy," He said.
Alan and Gordon hopped out of their holding cell and stood by their big brothers. They held cautious smiles on their faces. If John was here, then it was likely that Dad hadn't been informed yet.
"That I am Virgil. Which is why the three of you are going to explain why you ended up in a holding cell this afternoon."
As John walked out of the station, his other three brothers stared dumbfounded after him.
"He doesn't really mean that does he?" Alan whispered.
"Well look on the bright side. We could've had Scott bail our asses out of jail," Gordon offered, before taking off after his brother.
Alan looked at Virgil and they both shuddered together before following their other two brothers back to the car. Maybe admitting they did wrong wasn't as bad as they thought.
A/N: Just something that I came up with after seeing a prompt on tumblr. Eh, it's not a complete disaster.