Chapter 83.

Gordon knew he failed miserably at acting his age.

He was a fully-fledged member of the world's most elite rescue organisation, an Olympic level swimmer and one of the most experienced (not to mention youngest) aquanauts on active global duty.

Yet he stole his brother's clean laundry, slept with a blanket that had been passed down to him by John when they were kids, and (for some bizarre reason), insisted on always having a stash of jellybeans inside Thunderbird Four's storage locker.

Of all the brothers, Gordon was the one who'd had the most scrapes with death. While this might have scared some people into refusing to leave their bedrooms, it had encouraged the aquanaut to not to take life too seriously and to indulge in whatever made him happy.

Besides, Scott did enough 'adulting' for all five of them.

The security guard (who'd introduced himself as Matias) stood idly to the side of Alan's trolley, a notepad and pen in his hand, "Any thoughts on team names?"

Gordon's initial declaration of war (of the Tracey Trolley variety) had ground to a rather undignified halt when Matias, in a state of obvious curiosity, had wandered over and announced that he couldn't referee properly without a list of names.

While Gordon normally would have been all for this suggestion, the competitive adrenalin bubbling through his veins was making creativity a challenge, "Oh…erm…just put down my name: team Gordon."

Matias frowned, pen poised above his pad, "How am I spelling that?"

The aquanaut looked fit to pop, "Uh, G for Gordon…"

Virgil snorted into his fist.

Teams Alan and Kayo added their names to the rather unimaginative list thereafter, before taking their places on the imaginary start line beside their rival trolleys.

"On your marks," Matias began, "Get set…"

Teeth were ground and jaws set as the all too familiar sensation of brotherly competitiveness began to sink it's claws into the brains of all five Tracys brothers. Kayo appeared casually indifferent.

"Go!"

Gordon emitted something akin to a battle cry and he and Virgil surged forward, swiftly overtaking John and Alan who, rather amazingly, had already managed to disagree over which direction to go in.

Scott meanwhile, had a slightly different battle strategy. One of the benefits of being the eldest was that he knew all of his brothers habits inside out, back to front and upside down.

Gordon and Virgil would be utterly directionless. They'd charge around like a pair of llamas on a sugar-high, grabbing items at random with no clear record of where they'd been or where they were going.

John and Alan would end up locked in a power struggle. Alan would complain that John never listened to him, and John would complain that Alan didn't deserve to be listened to. There was a lot of intellectual snobbery between the space brothers. Alan had the decency to keep his discreet, while John's was about as obvious as an ostrich wearing a tutu.

Being down from Five really wasn't doing the redhead's interpersonal skills any favours.

"We'll give them a one minute head start," Scott whispered to Kayo, "Just to see if they stay true to my predictions. How many items does Lady P need us to get?"

Kayo took Scott's phone and swiftly counted the list their London agent had sent them, "Twenty four items in total, most of which are fruit and veg based. I'm not sure why Virgil and Gordon have gone into the homeware section though..."

Almost on cue, the brown-eyed duo emerged. Gordon was yelling for Virgil to bank left into the bakery section, a long feather duster held high above his head.

"Probably to acquire weapons," Scott muttered, "How much alcohol do we need?"

"Umm," Kayo re-consulted the list, "Four bottles of champagne, two bottles of Pimms, two bottles of gin and a crate of white wine."

"Excellent, we'll grab those first," Scott announced, deploying some of the speed he was well known for, "From the sound of things, they've made poor use of their head start."

A frown engulfed Kayo's face as she heard Gordon whoop in delight several aisles down, "I wouldn't be so sure about that."

Scott sighed and inclined his head toward John and Alan, who appeared to be rowing over a pineapple.

"I would."

-x-

The Tracys were a respectable and well-mannered band of brothers. They'd been well brought up and possessed compassion and wisdom well beyond their young years.

Unfortunately, all that went sailing out the window as soon as any sort of competition was involved.

While eating competitions tended to be the brother's preferred battleground, they'd corrupted movie theatres, zoos, public libraries, beaches and pet stores with their rivalry over the years. Any large building with long aisles and/or corridors was fair game for a wealth of imaginary competitions.

"Out of my way you idiot!"

"Move, chonky!"

"Pick up the pace you piece of space trash!"

Kayo once recalled Grandma Tracy making an offhand comment about her grandson's mental ages. Something along the lines of, 'Boys never grow up, their toys just get bigger.'

Alan was living proof of that statement.

Alan, who was locked in a bitter feud with his redheaded brother over a pineapple.

Or rather, his inability to tell a pineapple from its fruity siblings.

"No Alan, a pineapple!" John growled, bracing his hands against their trolley's heavily sanitised handles, "A pineapple. No, that's a guava!"

Alan blinked innocently, "Alright, alright, chill! How about this one?"

"A papaya."

"This one?"

"A jackfruit."

"This one?"

"A mango."

"This one?"

"A cantaloupe."

"This one?"

"Holy hell on a Thunderbird!" John erupted, fisting a hand through his red mane, "You need to start eating healthier. That's a watermelon!"

Despite growing up in Arizona, the boy's early lives had been peppered with Texan and Kansan influences. Lucy had spent a couple of years at a ranch in Dallas during her late teens and had, in the process, unconsciously picked up a mild Texan drawl. Most of the boys had adopted the more neutral accent Jeff had brought to the table from his native Kansas…save for one.

John was the only brother who slipped into a southern twang when he was particularly excited or angry. It was a harmless by-product of hearing it from his mother when he was young and was completely subconscious. People often complimented him on what a nice voice he had (a trait he shared with Scott), but man oh man…was it funny when he started drawing out his as and dropping his gs.

It was just as well that John never got excited or angry while on duty. The unfortunate soul on the sending end of an SOS would think they were speaking to two completely different people.

Alan bit his lip to stop himself from laughing at his brother's sudden shift in pronunciation, "Grandma only ever buys us apples and bananas. You can blame my fruity illiteracy on her."

"No excuse," John thundered, in full-blown southern mode. Without giving Alan a chance to reply, he stabbed a finger menacingly at the assortment of fruit trays in front of them, "Grab three boxes of strawberries, a net of oranges, a bunch of grapes, a bag of cherries and that godforsaken pineapple."

"But none of those items are on the list," Alan argued, shifting in the basket so that he was sat on his knees, "Aside from the pineapple."

"Your diet needs some serious work," the now redneck redhead retaliated, "I'm disgusted at your lack of basic fruit knowledge. Didn't you learn any of this in kindergarten?"

Alan knew better than to argue when John was in 'big brother' mode. Plus, the opportunity to deliver a lecture on antioxidants was providing the third brother with yet another chance to flex the biceps of his inner intellectual snob.

The bonus sermon on colon health was just that: a bonus.

-x-

"Alcohol, check," Scott muttered, his sapphire eyes scanning his phone, "Going in aisle order will be more time efficient. Which one is next door?"

Kayo craned her neck to peer at the overhead signage, "Uhh…frozen goods, maybe? You do know I can't speak Spanish, right?"

That came as a shock for Scott, "Seriously? I thought you were part Spanish? Or Greek, at least?"

Two black eyebrows shot upwards, "I'm Malaysian, you dolt!"

"Ah, my bad," Scott didn't seem overly concerned with his error, "The only frozen thing I can see on here are three bags of ice cubes. Reckon you can grab 'em without me stopping?"

Kayo nodded and sat back on her haunches to make room for the crate of Sauvignon Blanc that was poking her in the thigh, "How am I supposed to stay sat in here with all this stuff? At this rate, we won't have room for the rest of the items."

"The biggest ones are out of the way," Scott replied, motioning to the boxes of booze with a cheeky smile, "I could put you in the child's seat if you fancy a bit more leg room?"

Kayo was about to retort (and a good one, at that), but was forced to swallow her counter-insult when Gordon and Virgil blasted past her and Scott at the main intersecting aisle. It was only Scott's upper body strength that prevented him and Kayo from T-boning their rivals.

"Weeee!" Gordon yelled, throwing his arms up in the air as Virgil put on a burst of speed and turned off into the dairy section.

"Morons!" Kayo bellowed, bracing one hand against the side of the basket and the other against her pounding heart, "This is an aisleway, not a freeway!"

"Suckers!" Gordon sang, his voice carrying over the two rows of shelves separating him and Virgil from their opponents.

Kayo's eyes darkened with suppressed anger. Swivelling round, she motioned for the still shell-shocked Scott to push her into the homeware section.

"Don't tell me you're thinking of arming yourself with a mop?" Scott groaned, cringing when he overheard Alan and John start another disagreement over bagels and waffles (neither of which were on Lady P's list).

"Of course not," Kayo spat, pointing at the rows of washing up liquid like a child requesting a piggyback, "We're going to even the pitch and fight dirty. Hold the cart still, I'm going to have to stand up to reach that shelf."

Scott did as instructed, content to silently appreciate how adorably attractive Kayo was when she was miffed.

"Okay, wheel me back to the booze section," Kayo directed, "From the brief glance I got of their trolley, it doesn't look as if they've gotten any alcohol yet. Most likely that'll be the section they finish off with…"

Nearby, a very southern sounding John was busy berating Alan for his use of non-organic deodorant. Little did the redhead know that it had taken poor Scott six weeks to convince a pre-teen Alan to wear any kind of deodorant, period.

Waving her hand when she was in position, Kayo popped the top off the washing liquid containers she'd nabbed and proceeded to squirt the contents all over the floor. She'd gone for the unfragranced variety, her intention being to limit the risk of her brown-eyed targets sniffing out her evil plan.

Unfortunately, the sudden appearance of a redhead and a blond meant that said plan was about to be put to the test. Prematurely.

"Please don't say I'm going to have to explain what a bottle of Pimms looks like?" John groaned, draping himself over his trolley handles in despair, "Not that it'll make any difference, since I'm certain we're going to lose."

"Hey!" Alan peeped, scowling at his fellow spaceman as he stretched an arm up towards the desired beverage, "You don't know that! We've got all the fruit and veg, all the confectionaries, all the dairy and all the dry goods. All we're missing are the drinks."

Scott and Kayo shared a look of poorly masked concern as they took cover behind a flower display. It sounded as if all that southern-accented arguing had worked in Team Alan's favour.

"Two bottles of gin as well," John instructed, turquoise eyes widening when Alan's grip faltered, "Don't drop them, please!"

Poor Alan was sweating with barely concealed exertion as he stood up and extended an arm towards the gin shelf. One downside of being the baby of the family was that he still relied on his brothers to open the top kitchen cupboards for him.

"Well done!" John enthused, waiting until both the gin and Alan were safely down in the basket, "Just the champagne left and then we're done!"

Alas, done Team Alan was not.

A space-themed expletive tore out of John's mouth as his balance fell victim to the slipperiness of the washing up liquid Kayo had drenched the floor with. Five seconds of comical slipping and sliding ensued before the redhead's feet were whipped out from underneath him, sending all six foot and three inches of John Tracy crashing onto his back with a loud 'squelch'.

Alan barely had time to bail out of the trolley before it too fell victim to Kayo's trap. Without John's weight to stabilise it, the cart veered into one of the shelves before wonkily careening off down the aisle.

"Are you okay?" Alan gasped, planting his palms against the floor in an attempt to push himself into a standing position. Unfortunately, the laws of physics made standing upright on a soapy floor near impossible. Four seconds of pinwheeling arms later, and the youngest Tracy found himself spread-eagled next to his fellow space brother.

"Kayo," John snarled through gritted teeth, levering himself into a sitting position, "This has her dirty fingerprints all over it."

Alan frowned and flipped onto his belly, "What about Gordon? He's the living definition of trouble."

A wet slap echoed around the aisle as John readied himself for a vertical take-off, "Nope, Gordon isn't this inventive. Plus, he's not as obsessed with winning as Kayo is."

Alan inclined his head in reluctant agreement, only to shield it with his hands when John's balance betrayed him once again. To anyone watching on the security cameras, it probably looked as if the redhead was trying his hand at stationary snowboarding.

Splat.

Swear words with Solar System origins began to flow freely from John as his back objected to being landed on for the second time in five minutes.

"Hold on to me," Alan suggested, worming his way over to his starfished brother like a sea-lion, "If we use each other for stability, we might be able to hold out long enough to regain our balance."

What followed was perhaps one of the most hilarious sights Scott had ever been blessed with witnessing. John and Alan, clinging to each other's arms for dear life as they tried desperately to re-assume the posture of ordinary Homo sapiens. Alan sticking his butt out for added stability was the icing on the comedy cake.

"Yahoooo!" came Gordon's delighted squeal as he and Virgil rounded the corner, their cart full to bursting point, "Victory here we -WHOA, steady big fella!"

The aquanaut's warning came as Virgil's own feet began to zig-zag upon coming into contact with the puddle that had already claimed two of his brothers. A particularly violent zig saw the engineer's feet fly out from under him. One half backflip later, and he was splattered on the floor next to the precariously unbalanced forms of Alan and John.

Naturally, Virgil was forced to relinquish his hold on the trolley when he too fell victim to the bitch that was gravity. Unfortunately, he'd been travelling at momentum and the collective mass of his trolley was large, thanks in no small part to the aquanaut riding inside of it.

Virgil was no physicist (despite what his former teachers would say), but even he knew that a heavy object travelling at speed over a slippery floor was a recipe for disaster.

A heavy object travelling at speed over a slippery floor with a living, breathing human inside was the finished disaster dish.

"VIRGIL!" Gordon screamed, his life flashing before his eyes as the trolley he was inside freewheeled down the aisle before smashing into one of the shelves.

Scott and Kayo could only watch in stupefied disbelief as the huge shelving units that accounted for most of the store's decor began to fall against each other, one by one, like domino tiles.

Matias looked close to cardiac arrest as the dairy aisle became one with the meat aisle. That was going to be a health and safety breach of galactic proportions…

Meanwhile, Scott's own concerns were more domestic in nature.

"I am not paying for this!"