There's a proper office on the island. Their Dad's desk stands sentinel at the edge of the comm center, but he'd had a private office, too. No one goes in it much, because it's a melancholy place, more or less untouched since Dad's disappearance. If Dad's desk is a shrine, then his office is a temple. It's got the same minimal, elegant style as the rest of the island, but it feels different, somehow. The little roaming bots who take care of most of the cleaning on the island still include it in their circuit, so the place doesn't even gather dust. Nothing about it ever changes.

But it's quiet, and it's private, and it's been deliberately constructed to be the best isolated from the noise and the vibration of the high-powered jet craft that launch from the island at any given hour of the day, and so it seems like the best place for a pair of bearded dragons to live. At least on a temporary basis.

So it's where Scott, temporary guardian of two bearded dragons, has decided to base his custodianship of the aforementioned, until such time as John gets back to him concerning just what exactly they're supposed to do with a pair of bearded dragons. It's been a long day, and Scott's relaxing with a drink at the end of it, enjoying the quiet and the privacy and the company of the two newest members of the household, who he likes better than he'd actually expected to.

Gifts from rescues aren't uncommon. But this is a bit different than usual, and most closely analogous to the time a Chilean farmer had insistently gifted Virgil a pair of broody hens after TB2 had showed up in the local village to help with earthquake relief, and he had felt too guilty about declining to do anything but just bring them home to the island. The nickname "Chickenshit" had stuck to Virgil for over a month, and had nothing to do with his relative levels of bravery.

Gordon's relative levels of bravery are the reason Scott has taken custody of the gifted pair of lizards. Gordon's a staunch environmentalist, a friend to and fan of animals from all over the world. But his aversion to lizards is founded in an incident in a pet store, nearly two decades ago. In Scott's memory it's a non-event, he doesn't even remember what exactly had happened that resulted in all the screaming and the desperate flight from the pet store, but Gordon had only been four, and he's had a fear of lizards ever since. It had gone so far as to necessitate a switch out of his fifth grade classroom, owing to a terror of the class's pet iguana. So clearly their parents had taken it seriously.

"Seems a little bit egotistical," he comments to the lizards, who are the only entities present in the office, still in the case they'd been shipped in, because they don't yet have anything better. "Buddy and Ellie. If you were my lizards, I'd call you Grapple and Jetpack. But I have to be honest—kinda long odds on you being anybody's lizards, at least as far as this family's considered. It's nothing personal. It's just that we don't all have schedules that are exactly conducive to pet ownership, and depending on the intensity of care required by a pair of lizards, you might do better elsewhere. I'd go so far as to say you'd probably do better elsewhere."

Lizards are a weird gift. Even for a pair of people like the Pendergasts, lizards are a weird gift. And subsequent to a jungle adventure in which gigantic lizards had represented the principle threat, even as a gag, lizards are just a really weird gift. They represent a level of thoughtless presumption which seems a little bit rude, by Scott's sensibilities. The fact that their intended recipient has what could be a mild to moderate fear of lizards is just the icing on the cake.

"He doesn't mean anything by it," he assures Buddy and Ellie, who aren't privy to his own internal monologue concerning his younger brother, but who are also lizards besides that. "And considering your namesakes, I'm pretty sure he definitely appreciates the idea of the pair of you. It's just, y'know, the reality of it. Because you're lizards. Gordon isn't scared of much, but he's shit scared of lizards."

Before he can continue to wax poetic about his little brother and the tragedy of his herpetophobia, there's a soft knock on the office door, and the man of the hour puts in an unsolicited appearance. The door swings open and Gordon peeks inside the office, finds Scott sitting at the chair behind their father's other desk.

"Speak of the devil," Scott greets him. He doesn't stand, but lifts his glass in salute. "How's it going, Gordo? You did good work today."

Gordon steps inside and closes the door behind him, though he lingers just over the threshold. He's off rotation, due a solid twenty-four hours of downtime. It's been a solid few hours since the conclusion of his latest jungle adventure, and he's since showered and changed into his preferred island attire, board shorts and a t-shirt, complete with whatever miscellaneous faded inanity on the front. This one proclaims that life is short and proposes eating tacos as a means to cope. And Gordon nods in answer to Scott's greeting, but his gaze has locked onto the crate of lizards atop the end table where Scott's keeping them. "Thanks."

As acknowledgments about his feats of derring-do go, this is understated, for Gordon. Generally congratulating or complimenting Gordon for anything results in finger-guns at a minimum, and can escalate as far as mugging for a non-existent camera, posing and preening and planting kisses on his biceps. A bob of his head and a shuffle of his feet and an absentminded "thanks" is worryingly subdued, for Gordon.

Maybe it's the lizards. Scott clears his throat to get his brother's attention, and queries, "Something you need, Gordon?"

"Uh, yeah. Yeah, actually. Um. Just, uh—uh, wanted a word. With you. Um. Privately."

This is getting downright spooky. Dad's office is about as private as things get on Tracy Island, but there are other options. Scott sits up in his chair, puts his drink aside. He stands, with a glance at the crate of lizards, and motions towards the door. "Well, considering your particular problem with our present company, we can—"

"No," Gordon interrupts, and takes a few hesitant steps into the room, though he still keeps his distance. He looks deliberately at the crate with the lizards, and shakes his head for emphasis. "No, this is fine."

Scott sits. "Is everything all right?" he asks, getting right to the point. He's in Dad's chair at Dad's desk in Dad's office, and it's possible that without meaning to, he's slipped into the Dad Voice, which is something he can only do on accident and never on purpose. It happens sometimes that he'll be listening back over an audio log in order to make a mission report, and his own voice will trick him, will seem to belong to the ghost of his father. He's never worked up the nerve to ask any of his brothers if they notice. He has to wonder what they must think, if they do. "What's up, Gordo?" he prompts, hoping that this sounds a little less like the way their father would ask.

"I have a question," Gordon starts, and then stops immediately, swallows. He's barefoot, and their father's office is carpet over hardwood. Gordon lingers at the edge of the area rug, rocking slightly on the balls of his feet, an action that seems to belie some serious anxiety. A long few seconds pass. Reticence isn't typical for Gordon, and Scott's starting to get a little bit concerned.

Still, he tries to play it cool as he nudges his little brother again, "—and were you planning on asking it?"

Gordon nods, but it still takes him a moment to summon up his voice. There's a false start, as he doesn't quite manage it, so he clears his throat and tries again. When he finally spits it out, he speaks too quickly for Scott to actually understand him. "…hvyvrhdathrsm?"

There are a few ice cubes in Scott's glass of rye, still sitting on the desk at his elbow. One of them melts in such a fashion that one of the others perched atop of it falls against the side of the glass, with a soft crystalline clink. It's the only sound in the room as Scott stares at his brother. At this point he's more bewildered than strictly concerned, because now Gordon's actually blushing. Gordon will, on occasion, go streaking out of the house for the purposes of throwing himself into the pool, naked as the day he was born. It's very difficult to embarrass Gordon.

Scott reaches for his drink, takes a sip. Dad was a patient man. Scott attempts to channel a little bit of his father's forbearance as he suggests, "…try it again, maybe with some vowels this time."

In the past twelve hours, Scott's watched his brother cheerfully jump out of the back of TB1 into a shrouded and deadly jungle. Hadn't even batted an eye. He'd been game as hell, then, the same bluff and breezy ease with which Gordon attempts all of life's adventures. Now, at the edge of the carpet in front of his father's desk, in silence and stillness and with nothing more dangerous in the room than a pair of bearded dragons and an unasked question, Gordon takes a deep breath, steels himself.

And then, clear and deliberate—

"Have you ever had a threesome?"

In Scott's life, in moments of crisis, it's become a personal mantra to ask himself "What would Dad do?" His father is the gold standard by which he evaluates his own decisions, and so far, even absent as he is, Jeff Tracy hasn't failed him.

But here and now, for the first time, even in Dad's chair at Dad's desk in Dad's office, drinking Dad's liquor, Dad lets him down.

And it's hard to say whether it's his own voice or the memory of his father's that he hears in the back of his head, saying not "What would Dad do?" but "Sorry, kiddo, you're on your own for this one."

Maybe that's because it's a question for a brother, not a father.

Still, in lieu of an answer, Scott throws back the latter half of his drink, then deliberately holds his breath as he swallows, to help mitigate the burn. He does it partially to buy himself some time, not that he's at all sure what good it's going to do, because he doesn't know what to say. He realizes a moment too late that the gesture and the silence that fall after it probably aren't going to reassure his brother.

The answer to the question that's been asked—the actual honest answer, not something he'd need to make up for bragging rights—is, "Yeah, yes, a few times in college and then once last year, but never mind, because none of your business and anyway what's it to you?"

But this isn't what Scott goes with. Instead, clearing his throat, he answers back with a question of his own, "Why do you ask?"

And that sounds awful. That sounds awful and awkward and overly formal and just generally really terrible and Scott kicks himself, mentally. Then he wishes he could undo the swallow of whisky, because actually it's made his head swim a little bit, and he'd really rather be a little sharper than he is, given how obviously Gordon's distressed.

Not that sex is something Scott's ever known Gordon to get particularly distressed about, now that he thinks about it. Not that he often has cause to think about it. For as closely as he lives and works with his brothers, their personal lives and any conquests undertaken therein have always remained healthily, carefully private. They all have downtime, and occasionally it gets spent on jaunts to the mainland, and whatever gets done there isn't really anybody else's business.

Until now, apparently.

Gordon shrugs his shoulders, stuffs his hands in the pockets of his board shorts, and sighs. Somehow it's only ever when he's out of uniform that Scott really feels the breadth of the six year gap in their ages. He's thirty to Gordon's twenty-four, but in his IR blues, when it really counts, Gordon's like an entirely different person. In the field, they're equals. Scott sees a lot of himself in Gordon, when Gordon takes things seriously.

Currently, whether this is serious or not, the only thing Gordon's taking is a very long time to answer.

"I guess because it's become a relevant question," he says, finally, and exhales. "Okay. Uh. So…listen, Scotty, I get that this is kinda awkward, and maybe I was pretty blunt about just asking—but, I just…I mean, look, you're my big brother and I need some advice, and there's not exactly anyone else I can talk to, y'know? Obviously John's a non-option. I'd talk to Virgil, but he's kinda got some pretty strong opinions about monogamy that I don't really wanna have to sit through again. And Kayo's gone dark doing some recon in eastern Europe someplace, otherwise I'd call and get her opinion. She lives for this kinda interpersonal shit. You spent four years in college. You still think you've got people fooled when you say you spend your time off rotation on a golf course. C'mon, Scott. We're both adults. Don't make it weird."

It's a little late for that. Scott hedges, "Well, what do you want to know? I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, Gordon, but I guess I don't know what exactly there is to explain? Or—what you would have any excuse not to know, I guess. Because it's not like anyone believes that you spend that many of your weekends 'snorkeling in Bali'. I'm not trying to make it weird, this is just way out of left field, Gordie. What the hell could I possibly tell you about threesomes?"

"Well, whether or not you've ever had one, for a start."

Scott hesitates, but then tells himself he's being an idiot, and answers, "Well, all right. Yeah. Yes. A few times, actually. There were a couple girls I knew in college, I guess. It was only ever an occasional thing. A between-steady-girlfriends kinda thing. Virgil's not wrong about the whole monogamy deal, it's not something I'd say is super compatible with a real relationship. Stirs the pot a bit too much, if you know what I mean." Scott pauses. "Do you know what I mean?" he asks, angling after a quid pro quo sort of arrangement, though this isn't something he'd ever intended to need to know about his little brother.

But Gordon just shrugs. "It's on the bucket list," he says, and then catches himself, frowns. "Uh. I mean, I think it is. Maybe. But no, nah. Not—never before. And, hell, I don't know, maybe never at all. It's just…well…I guess you could say I've got a window of opportunity. Uh, maybe. Kinda." The colour rises in his cheeks again, and while he's heretofore been dividing his attention between his feet and the floor, now Gordon looks up and gives Scott an appraising sort of look, as though he expects to be called out on something, and is waiting for Scott to figure out exactly what it should be.

And the gears are turning—slowly, with a good deal of protest and for want of a little bit of mental lubricant—as Scott mentally goes back over the past twenty-four hours, and tries to work out just when in their course his brother would've found the time for this to become a relevant question. The bulk of the past twenty-four hours has been devoted to the latest rescue, to airdropping into a remote African jungle, and rescuing a pair of—

Oh.

Scott feels his eyes widen, and his eyebrows have probably shot up comically past his hairline, as he stares at his brother, pieces of the puzzle snapping suddenly into place. Still, the actual thinking part of his brain hasn't quite caught up with the insistent tug of intuition from his gut, and he hears himself say, "Wait. Wait wait wait—what—what opportunity?"

Gordon's hands have vanished back into the depths of his pockets, his shoulders have hunched up and he's visibly self-conscious as he shrugs again, then jerks his chin in the direction of the box of bearded lizards. Buddy and Ellie.

"There was a card," he admits, sheepish. "Came with the lizards. Addressed to me, obviously. I figured it was just gonna be, like, y'know, your standard thank you, or whatever, maybe a couple autographs. Well, I mean, it's signed, I guess that technically counts. I hoped I'd maybe get another sneak peak at their next season, but instead, uh…" he trails off, and takes his hands out of his pockets, starts to fuss and twist the hem of his t-shirt instead. "Into the Unknown, with Buddy and Ellie Pendergast," he jokes, but a little weakly, like he doesn't quite think it's actually funny.

Scott definitely does not think it's funny. But he's not entirely sure how to read his little brother's opinion on the proposal, and so he decides it's probably important that he doesn't overreact. Probably he needs to make sure he cuts down on the long, awkward silences. Probably he needs to lighten the mood, just a little, to avoid scaring Gordon off, by going too serious too quickly. "Well, first of all, that's not a threesome."

Gordon blinks at him, and his hands come up, absently counting off three of his fingers, and he frowns and says, "Uh…well, I know math hasn't ever been my strong suit, but I'm pretty sure—"

"—that's a devil's threesome. When it's two men and one woman. Just, y'know, just saying." It's possibly a little hypocritical for Scott to take a worldly, knowing tone on the subject, considering it's something he's familiar with in name only, and it seems like he should hastily add that caveat, "I mean, not that I've ever done it. With another guy, I mean."

But this maybe wasn't quite the right tack to take, because it takes Gordon from sheepishness over to irritated disdain and sarcasm as he sighs and rolls his eyes. "Scott? I promise, I am never, ever, ever gonna forget that you're straight. Scotty? I swear." Gordon huffs and folds his arms across his chest, and maybe annoyance is a little bit better than embarrassment, but clearly not by much. He favours Scott with slight glare, as he mutters to himself, "I knew I should've waited for Kayo."

Scott coughs. "That wasn't what I meant. I just mean as far as direct experience goes—well, depending on what exactly your hangups are, Gordon, I don't know if I'll be able to help, is what I meant."

"Yeah, well, my hangups are not your hangups, pal, so let's just keep this shitshow moving."

This sort of attitude doesn't crop up often, but when it does, it's usually because Scott's said something that's offended John or offended Gordon—because the pair of them can sometimes be prickly about this particular sort of thing and their equal and opposite takes on sexuality—but Scott's mostly got a handle on dealing with it. Sometimes, he's genuinely said something stupid and needs to back up and apologize—but sometimes it's a case of one or the other of them, actively deciding that they want to be offended. Usually this is a symptom that something else is wrong.

So Scott's careful and patient, keeps his tone even as he answers, "My sexuality isn't a hangup, Gordon. It's just the way I am, and you don't need to be an ass about it. I'm not trying to be patronizing, I'm just trying to be honest about the fact that maybe I won't know how to help you, if you're asking me for help. Are you?"

Thankfully this works, and Gordon backs right down, with a slight fall of his shoulders and a return of his hands to their pockets. He kicks his feet at the edge of the carpet and apologizes, "…yeah, I am. Sorry, Scott."

"Don't worry about it. But, uh. Back to the matter at hand. Because never mind about my hangups—there's gotta be something bugging you about this situation, if you'd come to me about it." He pauses, and adds, "And take a seat, Gordon, you're making me nervous."

There are chairs on the other side of the desk, but Gordon just drops to sit cross-legged on the floor, still about eight feet away. This doesn't serve to mitigate any of Scott's developing concerns, because it makes his brother look young, even younger than his actual age. The late afternoon light through the office's south facing window brings out the gold in his hair, makes him look brighter and blonder than usual. Gordon's always been a person who wears his heart on his sleeve, and emotionally he's a bit of an open book. But the wry twist of his expression as he looks up is harder to parse than usual, as he quotes, "So, we're going with 'this situation', you think? Is that what we're gonna say?"

"Scenario, then."

"This whole proposition."

"Sure." It's best just to roll with it, when Gordon starts escalating things. When he realizes no one else is following, generally he'll get back on track. "I guess my first question is, how do you feel about it?"

Gordon just shrugs. "Dunno yet. Trying to figure that out."

That's a reasonably wise answer. "Did you want my opinion?"

"I mean, I'm in here, aren't I?"

There's probably a way to be flattered by the fact that Gordon wants advice about this; that apparently this is still something he feels he can consult his eldest brother about. But there's an element of pressure to it, a sense of something greater being at stake. Gordon regularly trusts Scott with his life—not twelve hours ago, after all, he'd expected Scott to be able to snag him out of the open air and spare him falling a few hundred feet to his death—but this is a different sort of trust. It makes the usual life-or-death seem a little less complicated, by comparison.

Still, though.

"Okay. Well, first off, obviously you're a legal adult and you can do what you want, as long as you do it safely and with the appropriate consent. But I don't need to tell you that. As far as it goes, though—I mean, generally the policy is 'don't date the rescues'. I'm not saying it's official, or set in stone or anything, but—"

Gordon scoffs. "Better not be, considering you booty-called that one pilot chick at least a couple times."

There's another silence, and this time Scott lets it stretch out for a deliberate few seconds, long enough to make it significant. The arrangement he has with 'that one pilot chick' isn't exactly something that exists in the past tense. And so Scott adopts a cold, flat tone as he informs his brother, "Her name is Jane."

It's to Gordon's credit that, out of all his brothers, he's probably the best at subtext. And it's immediately apparent that he's taken the hint, because he winces slightly and drops his gaze, abashed. He coughs a little awkwardly and attempts to change his tone, mollifying, "Right. Her. Uh, Jane. Dunno if I ever knew her name. But you pulled her out of a burning plane, or whatever. Kind of not the way you wanna meet a girl, is all I'm saying. Probably one of the worst days of her life."

As far as the things Scott likes about Jane, her general resilience is probably in his top ten. Top five, even. As far as resistance to trauma, maybe he'd had something to do with just how well she'd come through the whole incident with the burning plane in the first place, but he doesn't like to take any of that credit. As far as he's concerned, that was all her. But for the purposes of this exercise— "Right. Well. Exceptions to every rule, sure, but the reason we have the rule is because we always—always—end up in a position of power, with respect to the people we rescue. 'I saved your life' is something that creates an imbalance in a relationship, no matter what that relationship is. Some people take it differently than others, but most everyone we deal with comes away with the feeling that they owe us something. And it's not right to take them up on that." Scott pauses, and it's impossible not to think of Jane, and exceptions to rules. "You know, mostly."

"So you're saying this would be unethical, is what you're saying."

Scott pauses, because he can't be quite sure if he's hearing hope in his brother's tone, if what Gordon might've been after was someone to give him a reason not to follow through, an iron-clad excuse to opt out of the offer. The best he can do is be honest, and so he tries to be. "Well. This is a weird case, I think. Because if you're asking me to look at this scenario from an objective standpoint, I kinda feel like you're the one who's at the disadvantage, here."

"…how the hell do you figure that?"

"Well, there's two of them and one of you."

Gordon blinks at him, a little bit bewildered. "…I mean—maybe I haven't ever had a threesome, Scotty, but I think you're probably doing it wrong if you think it stacks up like a fight."

Scott picks up his glass, rotates it in his hand so that the ice cubes ride around the inside edge. "I think it kinda does, when you've got a married couple on one hand and a young, single guy on the other. And like—I mean, Buddy and Ellie seem like perfectly nice people. Even for people we've had to pull out of deep space and rescue from the depths of a biochemically mutated jungle, they seem like pretty nice people. But they're international celebrities. And any way you slice it, you're kind of a fanboy. It's that imbalance of power thing I was talking about. Only this time it's not in your favour. Besides that, how old is Buddy?"

Gordon shrugs, looks away. "Forties."

It's not something most people would guess about him, but statistics are Gordon's bread and butter. He claims not to be mathematical, but as far as memorization goes, if Gordon's committed a fact to memory, it's pretty much indelible from that point forward. So to hear him ballpark the birthday of one of his idols tells Scott that Buddy's probably nearer to fifty than he is to forty. "So twice your age."

"No," Gordon denies immediately, indignant, though he backs down when Scott fixes him with a skeptical stare. "Okay, so not quite twice my age. Ellie's twice my age."

"Oh, much better."

Gordon's shoulders hunch forward slightly, defensive. He's sitting cross-legged on the floor, but he starts fidgeting, attempting to put himself into the lotus position. This is not a conversation in which Scott wants to be reminded that his little brother does yoga. "We're all adults, is all that matters. There's nothing wrong with—"

"I'm not saying there is," Scott interrupts. "But I also think that if this were something you actually wanted to do, you wouldn't be asking me about it. If you want to know exactly what I think, it's that this is outta line. If they were two strangers who came up to you in a bar, how would you feel? If they were just any couple we'd happened to rescue, what then? If they were the Lemaires—"

"Oh, god, don't even."

The shudder of revulsion is entirely justified, and Scott's pretty sure it proves his point. "They're not people you've ever thought about that way, is what I mean."

Gordon hedges, "Well…no. But I like the both of them a hell of a lot. They're good people, Scott, really. I honestly think that, and like—I mean, we're kinda not the kinda people who can throw the world 'heroes' around lightly—but—if I was gonna point to people who are heroes of mine—Buddy and Ellie are probably on the list."

Scott's aware of this. It's part of what makes this so damn uncomfortable, and one of the key points he needs to get across in conveying his opinion to his little brother. It's probably a good thing that this advice has been solicited, because Scott's not sure if he could stand the shock of seeing this thing playing out across the front page of some sleazy tabloid. He doesn't keep tabs on Buddy and Ellie, but he knows their type of celebrity—the sort of reality TV personalities whose media presence extends on and off screen, and whose "private" lives are as much a spectacle as their public lives. "PENDERGAST COUPLE GROOMS FOURTH TRACY FOR SEXUAL SLAVERY" is not a headline Scott needs in his life. And despite how much he likes attention, it's not something Gordon needs either.

That's not what he says, though.

"Well. They say 'never meet your heroes', but obviously that ship has sailed. I think the natural extension of the phrase is probably 'and probably don't fuck them, either'."

Gordon sighs and gives up on the yoga, leans back on his hands instead. "Yeah, I guess not," he concedes, though he doesn't sound like he's finished. He directs his gaze upward, fixing on some miscellaneous point on the panelled ceiling. It's a few more moments before he gathers his thoughts, and tries again. "I just—I mean—you know how it is, when you're wondering if you're maybe gonna miss out on something by being too careful?"

Scott thinks about this for a very deliberate few moments, before he answers, "…no?"

He's at least partially joking, and so it's a relief when Gordon cracks a grin. "Hah. Yeah, I guess maybe you wouldn't. Never change, Scooter. Except—seriously, though. I kinda feel like I've got a once in a lifetime opportunity here, and I just—these are two incredible, interesting, admirable people. I like them both. I could definitely bring myself around to being attracted to the pair of them. And…like, they asked. Right? Like, holy shit, right? I can at least be flattered by that, can't I?"

"If you're inclined to find this kind of thing flattering, Gordon, then nobody's stopping you. Personally, I think it's creepy as hell, and it changes my opinion about the pair of them. Not for the better."

Gordon sits up, immediately and obviously dismayed by that. "What? Hey, no. No no no, I didn't—I wouldn't have asked if I thought you were gonna—Scotty. Come on, this is all academic. Hypothetical. Nothing's actually happened. It's not like it has to be weird—"

Scott scoffs. "Internationally-recognized reality-TV power couple mutually propositioning my little brother? Shit, you've been watching the pair of them since you were in high school. Put it in context. It's weird, Gordon. You don't get to tell me how I feel about that."

This doesn't make Gordon any less uncomfortable. "Well, when you put it that way…"

"There's not a hell of a lot of nuance there, bud."

It's a truth about Gordon that he's always been sensitive to what other people think. More than he lets on. Scott's almost a little sorry to give his little brother an honest opinion, but he'd asked, and clearly he'd needed to hear it. Still, it brings out a defensive note in Gordon's voice when he protests, "They're not bad people."

"I didn't say they were."

It's another truth about Gordon that he's stubborn. "But they're really not, though—this doesn't make them bad."

Scott shrugs. "I don't think it's as simple as good and bad. I'm sure there's a point of view that would justify this kinda thing as progressive and liberated and whatever the hell else—but I just see a pair of adults versus my kid brother."

That was never going to be taken well. "I'm not a kid."

"You're young enough to be their kid, let's put it that way."

That's what does it, and Gordon blanches, visibly disturbed now that Scott's found the right angle from which to frame his problem with the whole scenario. "Oh."

Scott's aware that the point needs no further hammering to be driven home, but he gives it one last, judicious little tap anyway, "Almost as old as Dad was."

Jeff had died at sixty, and so this is maybe pushing it just a bit, but the decade between fifty and sixty years seems less salient than the quarter century between twenty-five and fifty.

"…Right."

"I mean, he was relatively young when Alan was born, so it's not like I'm saying—"

"Yeah, I got it, Scott." There's a momentary sharpness in the way Gordon cuts him off, but then he sighs and the edge of his tone softens to nothing. Instead he sounds wistful, and there's a quiet note of longing in his voice as he comments, apparently changing the subject, "They sure do love each other a lot."

"The Pendergasts?"

"Yeah." Gordon drops down onto his elbows, and then reclines completely, so he's lying flat on the carpeted floor with his hands behind his head, staring upward still. This time there's no mistaking the melancholy as he continues, "Watching the pair of them with their show, with all those big ridiculous adventures they go on—I always at least kinda thought it was a bit put on for the cameras—but no, it's not. They're really actually like that; they just straight up really, really love each other. I don't know if I've ever been that close to a couple like that before. Like, so that you can tell it's the real deal, y'know?"

Scott's still sat in his father's chair at his father's desk, and as untouched as this room's always been, there's still a picture of his parents on their wedding day, right where their father had left it. Scott knows exactly what his little brother means, but it makes him sad to know Gordon's too young to realize where he would've seen it before. "Mom and Dad had that."

That gets Gordon to sit up immediately, and his expression brightens. "Yeah?"

Scott nods. "Oh yeah. Hardcore."

"I'm glad. Aw man, yeah. I never thought about that, I don't…I don't really remember Mom well enough to remember that kind of thing. I don't remember much about her and Dad and how they were with each other. But I'm glad."

"Me too." Scott pauses a few moments, and then leans forward in his chair, elbows resting on his knees as he hopes to get an important point across. "You deserve better than to be a footnote in somebody else's love story, Gordon. I'm not saying that Buddy and Ellie are bad people, or that they wouldn't treat you right, or that they would've asked you at all if they didn't think you could handle something like this—but I really don't think it's your kind of thing, kid." Scott's careful not to lay too much emphasis on the word kid, because Gordon isn't one. Not really. "I think whatever the pair of them have that sends them on big, ridiculous adventures out in the world together isn't the sort of thing a third party could ever really be included in. I think you'd always be separate, and that thing they have between them, whatever it is that makes other people take notice—you wouldn't be a part of it. They want something else from you. And I can't help but think that that might be the kinda thing that kinda hurts a guy like you."

For a moment Scott wonders if it's possible that he's overstepped a boundary, if this might be a more personal assessment than Gordon was looking for—but eventually his little brother heaves a sigh and nods to himself. "Yeah. Yeah, maybe."

Securely on solid ground, as far as the things he knows about his little brother, Scott adds for emphasis, "For sure, Gordon."

In the rare, contemplative silence that follows, there's an audible hiss from the box of lizards, still sitting on the sidetable, and privy to every detail of the conversation. It's hard to tell if it's a disappointed sort of hiss or not. On the floor, Gordon cringes.

"This is gonna add so many deeply bizarre dimensions to the whole lizard phobia," he laments, lying back down and sighing. He tilts his head back to look upside down at the box on the table. "I should've known it was a bad omen. Box of lizards. Nothing good ever comes out of a box of lizards. Especially not if it's got my name on it, apparently."

"I really doubt we're going to be able to keep them," Scott offers, consoling. "And you don't have to look after them at all, I'll take care of that."

"What're we gonna do with 'em? It's not their fault they're a terrible present."

Scott shrugs. "I think we'll probably just send them back."

Gordon sits up again, and this time there's a flash of a grin, and now the light of afternoon catches on a glint in his eyes. "With a note?"

Scott knows Gordon too well not to know that tone, and he hedges, "I don't know what I would put on that note."

"Not really your note to write, is it?" And with that he rocks nimbly up onto his feet, practically bounds up onto the desktop to lean over and rummage through a drawer for an old pad of paper and a pen. He finds these, and with the pad propped on his knee, bends over and scrawls a note. Gordon's handwriting is quick and angular, but unfailingly clear, though from where he sits and at the angle he watches, Scott can see his brother silently mouthing each word to himself as he writes, but not what he's actually put on the paper.

This is torn off with a flourish and then folded once, creased sharply along the middle, and the once again into quarters. Gordon hands it to Scott with appropriate solemnity as he declares, as though it isn't obvious, "For the returning lizard box."

"…Right."

"You can read it if you want," Gordon adds, magnanimously, and then, "I'm very funny, you know."

"I've heard the rumours." Scott tucks the note, unread, into his shirtpocket. "For your sake, I'll let them stay rumours."

"Aw."

Scott just chuckles and stands up, reaches out to ruffle his little brother's hair, still ungelled and fluffy from slowly air drying in the island's humidity. Gordon punches him in the arm, and then hops off the desk with a vague little salute, visibly cheered up and no longer burdened by a hypothetical future threesome. "See ya, Scooter."

It's not until after Gordon's been gone for a solid few minutes that Scott gives into temptation, and pulls the note out of his pocket. He reads it once, laughs softly, and then brings it over to the box.

"Probably for the best," he says aloud, tucking the paper back into the crate. "Buddy and Ellie were terrible names, anyway."

[Dear B&E,

Forgot which lizard was which. Have renamed them "Top" and "Bottom".

Vers is flattered, but respectfully declines the invitation.

All the best, G]