A/N: I feel compelled to mention, the AO3 version of this story has artwork. Like, a fair bit of artwork. Like really nice and charming textural stuff that I feel adds quite a lot to the story. If ffnet remains your preference, then that's cool, but I just thought I'd make mention of the fact that the Ao3 version has those additions.

When he was eight years old, Virgil broke his brother's arm.

In the litany of injuries and illnesses suffered by five boys on their five respective journeys from childhood to adulthood (or near enough, at least), a broken arm actually rates fairly low. Nowhere near as frightening as the time Scott's appendix had burst in the middle of a camping trip out in Yellowstone—or even the time John's had nearly followed suit, only a year later. Not even remotely as gory as the time Gordon had managed to lop one of his fingers off, or even the time that Alan had broken his arm, badly enough that the bone had pierced the skin.

But none of those occasions had been Virgil's fault.

It had been summer, and he and John had both still been kids—eight and ten, respectively. There's always been a sort of social ebb and flow between the five of them—different duos and trios represented over the relative courses of their childhoods versus adolescences versus young adulthoods. There are three years between Scott and John, two between John and Virgil, two between Virgil and Gordon, and almost a full five between Gordon and Alan. Scott had been thirteen during this, his first summer home from boarding school, and he'd been moody and aloof, teenagerish and uninterested in the company of the nerdy little brother he'd left behind.

And so John, ten (but-almost-eleven!), had been left abandoned by Scott and his newfound independence, to say nothing of his burgeoning maturity. Three years his elder, Scott had looked at John and decided he was a child, and therefore childish and therefore intensely uninteresting to a teenager. Scott came home for summer break, newly endowed with the right to his own room, and so Gordon had been bumped down to sharing a room with the baby, and in his place, John had been partnered with Virgil.

It had turned out that a two-year gap was much, much more workable than a three-year gap. That all John wanted was someone who was still interested in model rockets and telescopes and the names of all of the stars in the clear Kansas sky. Someone who could still be enthused by questions of backyard science and engineering. For Virgil, at eight years old, this had been uncharted territory, a whole new world into which his brother could lead him, wide-eyed and wondering and rapt with attention.

Virgil appreciates it now, more than he had back then, the way his big brother had just blossomed beneath the sudden interest, the realization that he could be a main character, and not just a sidekick—that he was an older brother to three out of four his siblings, and that younger brothers had merits that outweighed any incidental nuisance they might present. That John could be to Virgil as Scott had been to John.

And it had been a good summer. A farmhouse summer, not a city-house summer, one of the summers of Dad's long absences, off and away and spaceward. These were the summers that landed the five of them in the supplemental care of Grandma and Grandpa Tracy, in the farmhouse where Dad had grown up, in between great, sweeping wheat fields and the incredible blue of an endless sky. Mom and Grandma and the kitchen garden, tackled while Gordon and Alan splashed around in a kiddie pool on the lawn. Virgil and John, old enough to be permitted to wander and ramble, so long as Grandpa Grant was kept apprised of their movements, and that they checked in with him in the barn or the workshop, as a matter of prudence. And Scott, distant and remote and holed up in his room as often as not, lost to the onset of puberty and not worth the attempt at engagement.

The inciting incident, the day Virgil broke John's arm, had been the fact that John didn't believe it when Virgil said that Scott told him that you could flip a bike over by jamming a stick through the spokes of its front wheel. They'd gone round and round the hypotheticals for a while, a lazy afternoon spent lying in the grass beneath the tree with the treehouse and the tire swing, before they'd eventually (inevitably) come to the conclusion that the only way to be sure was to actually test the theory.

So, after duly apprising Grandpa Grant of their intended destination, if not their intended experiment, it had been out to the long strip of rough dirt road that ran between the fallow field behind the barn, and the neighbouring wheat field, belonging to the neighouring farm. A dried out irrigation ditch ran the whole length of one side of it, and a rickety post and rail fence still existed along about a thirty yard stretch on the opposite side. It had been John's admission that, given that he'd been the one to insist upon the experiment, it was only fair that he be the one to ride the bike, even if he very easily could've compelled Virgil to be the guinea pig. But instead Virgil had dutifully selected a sturdy looking piece of wood from the trailed off end of the fence, and the necessary conditions for the experiment had been met.

What followed was predictable by the standards of common wisdom, and also answered a question that would have been easily and immediately answered if it had been put to their Grandpa Grant. But instead their answer had been John, scraped and bruised and screaming, curled up around a fractured forearm, and Virgil, on his hands and knees at his brother's side, and almost as frightened and upset, if not even a little bit hurt.

He remembers having the presence of mind to grab John's bike instead of just running, and knowing for sure that he needed to go and get help, that it wouldn't do any good to stay with his brother, that he was too small to try and get him up off the ground and moving under his own power. Scott, sturdy and thirteen and apparently all grown up—or at least more grown up than any of the rest of them—would've known what do, wouldn't have panicked and cried like Virgil had. Scott would've been confident enough, to say nothing of big and strong enough, to haul John up and get him on his feet, instead of leaving him hurt and alone and frightened, sobbing into the dry, gravelly dirt of an unused stretch of road between two empty fields.

He remembers riding faster than he'd ever ridden his own bike, even when John's had acquired a newly warped front wheel. He remembers the way the tires had skidded in the dirt as he'd taken the corner up the drive to the workshop. He remembers being too out of breath and panicked to be able to explain what had happened, and that it had taken Grandpa's big, rough hands steadying themselves on his shoulders before he'd been able to make it clear that John was hurt.

It hadn't been further than about a quarter mile from the workshop to where he'd left John, but Grandpa Grant had been possessed of substantially more presence of mind than his eight-year-old grandson, and had immediately deposited him into the cab of the big green pickup truck, and gone rattling up the road.

Everything after that had gotten to be a bit of a blur. Virgil remembers how easily their grandfather had scooped John up, made him look small, even though he was nearly eleven and nearly half a foot taller than Virgil, if skinnier. He remembers getting back to the house with his brother sobbing the whole way, and being ushered out of the cab of the truck to make room for their mother. He remembers watching the truck pulling away up the long driveway, and then tearing out of his grandmother's grip, running away and hiding himself away in the hayloft, wracked with anxiety and guilt and anguish at the thought of what he'd done.

John hadn't come home again until late that night, long after Virgil had been retrieved, consoled, and put to bed. The light in the hallway and the sounds of soft voices had woken him, but he'd frozen beneath his blanket, stayed perfectly still on the opposite side of the room. He'd tried to hear what their mother was saying, as she turned down blankets and fluffed up pillows and just generally made a fuss, but her voice had been too soft for him to catch anything. He'd stayed just as still and quiet as he possibly could, practically holding his breath, until his mother had kissed John good night, and then gone, closing the door behind her.

Then the waterworks had started up again, and Virgil had curled up in the dark, freshly reminded of what he'd done and how badly his brother had been hurt because of it, and certain that John would just hate him. He'd buried his face in his pillow and tried to keep quiet, waiting for his brother to fall asleep so that he could sneak out of the room and then out of the house and then run away forever, rather than live with the shame of having broken his big brother's arm.

But that hadn't happened. Instead there'd been a shuffle beneath the blankets on the other side of the room, and then the soft sound of bare feet, padding across the bare hardwood floor. Virgil remembers the shift of his mattress as his brother had climbed up onto the end of the bed and poked at his toes. He'd sat up, then, without much choice in the matter, and sniffled a tearful apology at his brother.

And all John had had to say, after solemnly accepting Virgil's apology, was, "You were right about the stick."

They'd stayed up far later than either of them should have, after such an emotionally taxing day, going through the particulars of what had happened, and just what exactly it was like to break one's arm. The next morning had found the both of them asleep in Virgil's bed, with the bright blue cast on John's arm freshly decorated with a painstakingly drawn rocketship and a handful of stars, one or two planets—his little brother's attempt to make amends. And things had been just fine after that.

So this is hardly the first time Virgil's had to apologize to his brother.

But it's fourteen years later, and he's not eight years old anymore, even if he feels like it, standing awkwardly across the kitchen from his brothers, whose conversation has stuttered to a halt with his entrance, which was precisely what he'd been afraid of.

John and Gordon are sat at opposite corners of the kitchen table, two cleared plates still sitting atop it, as well as a square ceramic dish, still mostly full of Gordon's tuna casserole. This looks just exactly the same as what their grandmother used to make, as anything made out of a suite of prepackaged ingredients probably would.

Before he can say anything—and thankfully, before Gordon can say anything—John clears his throat and demonstrates the exact sort of insight that's been so glaringly absent over the past couple days, as he asks, arch and appropriately superior, "Been listening long, Virgil?"

Virgil immediately feels his face heat up, but in a way it's a relief to be called out for it—for something he's done since he was a child. Eavesdropping. As an adult, he'll sometimes even do it around strangers, with his headphones silent in his ears and his sketchbook open on his lap. Virgil's just always had a habit of stationing himself casually in the proximity of Grown-Up conversations, pretending to be absorbed in his own task—legos or cars or crayons—and then listening in on discussions about things that didn't concern him, protected from suspicion by the fact that no one had expected him to care about the subjects in question.

So he'd always thought, anyway. But John goes on, blithely and for Gordon's benefit, "When he was six, he got his head caught in the banister because he was eavesdropping on Mom and Dad. It took an hour and a hacksaw to get him out and Scott thought it was the funniest thing that had ever happened."

John's not smiling, or at least not in an obvious way, but Gordon busts into a big, shit-eating grin and his brown eyes light up. "Did he now? Are there pictures? I bet he looked like a nerdy little twerp."

"No, tragically neither of our parents were that type of parent."

"Damn, that's a shame."

"Isn't it?"

That the pair of them are presenting a united front is still something of a novelty, but the truth is that this is mercy dressed up as cruelty, childish teasing to soften Virgil's awkward entrance and to let him know that they're willing to talk to him. It's another thing they have in common that they both have every right to be annoyed with him, with his behaviour. Which still merits an apology, and it's better to get that over and done with as soon as he can, because it's clearly expected. Gordon even goes so far as to prompt, "Something you wanted, V-card?"

"Yeah," he says, skirting around the kitchen counter and making his approach. He still stands awkwardly nearby, with the little white pill bottle still in hand, as he clears his throat. "Uh. Just—wanted to say sorry. For being kind of an ass, I guess. To, um. To both of you guys, but mostly to you, John. I'm sorry. I shouldn't—I should appreciate the fact that you're trying. I probably can't even imagine how hard this actually is."

This is met with a few seconds of measured silence, as his brothers exchange a glance. But it doesn't last long, and John nods his acknowledgment. "It's been a rough weekend," he offers, conciliatory.

Virgil shakes his head. "Rougher for you than it has been for me," he points out, probably unnecessarily.

John shrugs. "I'm okay."

"Are you, though?" Virgil pulls out the chair at the foot of the table, next to John and across from Gordon, and as far away as possible from the remaining half of their Grandmother's tuna casserole. "Like, really?"

"Well, for now, I am." It's impossible to miss it, when John's eyes cut to the pill bottle in his hand. It's an incongruously small object, to represent the elephant in the room, and Virgil can't help it, when he curls his fingers around the bottle and he shifts, tucks it behind his arms as he folds them on the tabletop.

But before either of them can comment, Gordon interrupts, "Do I get an apology?"

Virgil's pretty sure he has less to apologize for, in Gordon's case. Gordon has a documented history of flying off the handle, and of picking and choosing what offends him on a case-by-case basis. "Yeah, I'm sorry about how you're a touchy little drama queen."

It's a good indicator that Gordon concedes the point when he reaches across the table and shoves the casserole dish in Virgil's direction. "Make it up to me," he instructs, and then tosses a fork to clatter into the empty space not packed by noodles, held together by gray, mushroomy goo, flecked with chunks of pink tuna.

The protest is immediate, automatic and visceral. Virgil recoils slightly in his seat and objects, "Dude." And remembers his most likely defense, and says "I'm a veg—"

Gordon cuts him off, even as John perks up beside him. "Last night you ate, like, two pounds of lasagna, containing the tastiest ground up bits of three separate animals. So clearly you're not strict about it. Also you've gotten jacked to fuck over the course of the past year, and that shit doesn't happen exclusively on soy and beans. So I'm not buying it, V. C'mon. It's Grandma's tuna casserole. Dig in, big guy."

Out of the three of them, Gordon's the only one who can really cook. John, by his own admission, can't and doesn't. Virgil's not sure what his brother's diet has been like since he's been at Harvard, but he's willing to bet it's been about ninety-percent whatever's purchasable on a bee-line between the campus and his apartment. There's probably a whole string of places at which John's considered a regular, places that will have his order lined up on the counter before he even gets in the door, because it's a truth about his big brother that he will happily eat the same thing, day in and day out.

For his own part, Virgil can manage the basics, and despite Gordon's suspicions, is still mostly a vegetarian. Pescatarian. He likes salmon and tilapia and tuna salad on crackers, and can be tempted by pretty much anything that ends up in sushi. If friends want to go out for burgers, he won't necessarily kick up a fuss. Left to his own devices, he keeps to a fairly simple diet of pasta and rice, vegetable proteins and the aforementioned soy and beans. There's been some supplementation with protein shakes and meal bars, just because it's a necessary evil of the way he's decided to bulk up, deliberately building muscle over the course of his college career.

But Gordon can cook. No one knows exactly where he came by the skill, or why he has such a particular knack for it, but it's generally agreed that he'd started to learn at about the same time he'd started swimming competitively, and racking up a calorie deficit that occasionally equaled what one of his brothers might eat in an entire day. Just in terms of raw caloric efficiency, pasta has always been Gordon's specialty. There's a lot of variety in the pasta world, and Gordon's a master of everything from alphabet soup down to baked ziti.

But the distance between their Grandpa's lasagna and their Grandma's tuna casserole is a yawning gulf, and Virgil's not exactly enthused by the prospect of eating the latter. Gordon slides the casserole dish closer and Virgil cringes, and swallows past the gag reflex. "I'm…I'm good, actually."

That makes John laugh, as much as John laughs at anything. It takes Virgil a minute to remember why, and he winces when he does. Apologizes again. "Uh. Shit, sorry. I wasn't—"

"No, I know you weren't." There's a pause and John shifts his chair slightly, turns so he's facing Virgil rather than angled towards Gordon. "Eat it."

"Um?"

Across the table, Gordon looks like he's just been told it's Christmas. John sticks to his guns. "You heard me."

"I, uh, I really—" Virgil shakes his head. "No. No, thanks."

"Said you were hungry, earlier."

"Not that hungry."

"Our little brother made dinner. You're being very rude."

"You didn't want to eat it either. Gordon says you're actually malnourished, Johnny, you eat it."

There's a glint in John's bright green eyes. "Oh, so you were listening in?"

Elbows resting on the table, Virgil spreads his hands helplessly. "It's a bad habit. What do you want me to say?"

John shrugs. "That you'd like to make amends, maybe."

"How does that make amends? I don't see what you get out of me suffering through the consumption of that mess."

"Solidarity."

"Solidarity." Virgil doesn't bother to tone down the incredulity.

"For the record," Gordon pipes up, irrepressibly cheerful as he leans rests his chin on his hands at the end of the table, still grinning, "—for the record, I think it's pretty good. Just like Grandma used to make!"

"For the record, I don't think you checked the expiration dates on anything you put in there."

Virgil pushes the casserole dish away. "Oh, cool. Cool! Well, all right, so, that's great. If we have to take John to the hospital, at least now it'll just be for intestinal parasites. Awesome!"

"Oh, it's fine." Gordon rolls his eyes. "Jesus, and you call me a drama queen."

John scoffs lightly. "Well, he's not wrong about that. You parked a defibrillator in the middle of my coffee table, because you were being a drama queen."

"No, I parked a defibrillator in the middle of your coffee table because you were flirting with a goddamn drug overdose, and there was a legit chance that your heart could've started fucking up. Also, it's in the bottom of my backpack."

"Gordon!"

"What? Sorry for not wanting you to die, Johnny."

"You can't just steal things!"

"Well, we'll bring it back, obviously. But I thought, hey, you're in rough shape. You don't wanna go to a doctor. Withdrawal is risky, sometimes. Better safe than sorry."

Virgil's not sure how he feels about this latest development, but John's clearly exasperated. "I'm fine."

There's a telltale jut of Gordon's chin, and across the table he's folded his arms, leaned forward into the argument, as he disagrees, "You're okay. Ish. Right now, you're only okay because you re-upped on your damn drugs. You are gonna crash again. It's gonna be harder, because the half-life on what you took this second time is longer. You're gonna be right back in withdrawal. And withdrawal isn't something you dick around with, and we're already playing it real far from safe. So yeah, John, there's an AED in my backpack. If by some minuscule chance someone else in your building needs the one I took, there'll be another one on the next floor up or down. If you need one—which is marginally more likely, and don't you fucking forget it—then it's here. I've got no problem with that. And if you do—well, Johnny, what the fuck d'you think you're gonna do about it?"

The notion that Gordon still thinks they need a defibrillator around has spiked Virgil's anxiety, given him one of those sudden, startling jolts of realization, set him to anticipating the worst before anything's even happened. He has to take a moment to remind himself that nothing's true now that wasn't true before, that the only difference is how much information he has, and that more information is always a good thing, even if he doesn't like what he's learned. He glances at John and finds that his older brother's jaw has set, his eyes have narrowed slightly, and that he's pulled himself up short of openly glaring at their little brother. It doesn't feel like there's about to be a fight, but it's also starting to get difficult to tell.

They face off for a few more moments, before John breaks, looks away with a hard, heavy breath. "…Okay."

But there's steel in his voice as he says it, and something about his tone makes Virgil's spine crawl, just a little. Without meaning to, he's reclined away from the table, leaned back and away from the oncoming clash. He's not sure just what it is he's getting attuned to, that he's already bracing himself for something to drop, some sudden something to punch a hole through the conversation, as Gordon and John square up against each other, once again. Virgil's adjunct to this whole situation, adjacent, an afterthought. He's who John had wanted to talk to, but it's becoming incredibly clear that he's not who John had needed to talk to, because that's Gordon. It's clearly, unequivocally Gordon, John's equal and his opposite in so many ways.

Gordon seems equally aware of the fact that there's something in the offing, and there's a note of challenge in his tone as he echoes, "…Okay?"

It's probably Virgil's fault, when it happens, because he's let himself grow complacent. The little white bottle of not-aspirin still sits on the table, and with John sitting beside him, it's easily in his big brother's reach. It happens before Virgil can even react, that John reaches over and plucks the little bottle off the table, closes his fingers neatly around it for a moment. "Okay," he repeats, even as there's the sudden scrape of Gordon's chair across the floor, as he shoots to his feet, cursing. Virgil sits up straight, reflexively, but doesn't know what to do.

But there's no need for him nor Gordon to do anything, because all John does is set the bottle right back down, purposeful, in the center of the table, in reach and in clear view of all three of them. His hand doesn't leave the top of it, and on the opposite side of the table, Gordon's right on the edge of jumping him, and for a moment the three of them are just caught in an awful web of sudden, impenetrable tension.

And it breaks, abruptly, as John's fingertips leave the pill bottle, and he eases back in his chair. "Okay," John says—a third time, half to himself—and then looks up at Gordon, still standing at the end of the table. "We're talking," he says, and doesn't even so much as glance at Virgil, though there's a magnetism to him as he speaks that's almost hypnotic. "So let's talk. I want to talk about how this is has gone, and how it's going to go forward. I want to talk about what I've got, and what I can handle, and what I think needs to happen if this is going to work. We've been talking and that's been good. I needed that. I need a little bit more. So if you're going to let me talk—and if you're going listen—then you've gotta let me talk about the fact that I need one more hit. Just one, just one last time. If you'll let me talk, I think I can convince you why I need that to happen, and why this'll be the only time it'll ever really be worth it."

"You've gotta be fucking kidding me," Gordon answers, and there's something almost like awe in his tone again, like he can't quite believe what's just happened. "John! Just—Christ, Johnny, no! No, we—"

John cuts him off, "Will you please just let me talk? And will you listen? Whatever you think when I'm done, I'll go with it. I swear. But please, give me a chance. It's not fair that you two forced me into this. It's not fair that it wasn't my choice. God, it's been so long since I did anything that felt like it was my choice. Please, Gordon. Let me explain what I need. Please."

There's a heavy thud as Gordon drops back into his chair, shaking his head, disbelieving. He's taken the lead through all of this, faced up against their older brother and his demons, and this is the first time Virgil's seen a glimpse of Gordon, looking overwhelmed.

But then, echoing their brother, he just shakes his head again, and says, "…Okay."

Neither of them ask Virgil if he wants to hear what comes next.