Chapter 109.

A delivery of fluff for the beautiful WillowDragonCat and amazing lunalittlemiss.

-x-

"Hey, Spongebob! Come here!"

A rather startled Alan was nearly the proud inventor of face-skating as he spun to face the only person in the world who still called him by that name.

"Gordon?" the youngest queried, gliding across the ice and using the safety railings to curb his momentum, "What are you doing here? I thought John gave you his bank card and told you to get lost?"

The aquanaut shook his head and mimed for quiet, "Listen, we can't let them do whatever they've got planned to Scott. He's our brother, Alan, and we shouldn't automatically assume the worst of him. He's always done well by us and we have no concrete evidence to accuse him of anything."

Blue eyes narrowed somewhat, "What about the ring?"

"We don't know for sure that it's an engagement ring," Gordon countered, aware that he was clutching at straws, "It could be a birthstone ring. Or a purity ring. Or a mood ring, because damn that girl swings like a pendulum sometimes."

Alan's felt his freckles recede into the blush spreading across his face, "Or we could just ask Scott to show us?"

"A capital idea," Gordon announced, tethering Celery to a wooden stake and reaching for the ice skates he'd been forced to discard earlier, "But we won't be able to do that if he's six feet underground. What exactly are Virgil and John planning to do to him?"

A snort was offered that showcased the depth of Alan's confusion, "Haven't a clue. To be honest, I don't think they have either. They're just mad at him for leaving them in the dark."

"Then we need to be the torches of truth!" Gordon proclaimed, zipping his coat up to his throat and shuffling onto the ice, "Onward, my brother. Let us cast light onto the shitshow that has become our lives!"

It was with something akin to a battle cry that Gordon blasted off, leaving Alan to ponder whether he'd make an attractive adoption candidate.

-x-

"You denim-wearing bastard!"

Virgil shot John a look that promised bodily harm as he tried to pry the redhead's iron grip off the railings he'd fused himself to, "Hey, keep it down! Scott doesn't know we're here and I want to keep it that way."

A couple of nearby kids giggled quietly as John's legs continued to wildly zig-zag all over the place. Switching his grip from the railings to Virgil's shoulder did little to improve his situation, and it was without a shred of dignity that the redhead wrapped both his arms around the engineer's waist in an effort to stabilise himself.

"Seriously? Of course he knows we're here, Virg! He's just pretending as a way of goading us. You know what an arrogant piece of supersonic shit he can be," John's face was the picture of rage as he allowed Virgil to tow him to a less densely packed section of the rink, "Right, I need you to launch me at him the next time he passes. I'll tackle and restrain him long enough for you to search his pockets and retrieve the ring."

"What if Kayo interferes?" Virgil asked, self-preservation prevailing over the Scott-shaped bruise on his ego.

John waved a dismissive hand. Kayo knew how to kick where it hurt, but John knew how to hack where it hurt.

And Kayo did a lot of online shopping.

"Trust me, she won't. If she does, I'll reroute those expensive yoga pants she's got on order to Gordon. Now, are you gunna launch me or not?" John knelt down and stuck his butt out to stabilise himself, "They're almost here and, by my calculations, we'll have less than a second to get the trajectory and angle of impact right."

Virgil's eyebrows ascended to his hairline when he realised that John was essentially offering himself up as a human missile.

Being down from Five really wasn't doing him any favours.

Still, he was kind of curious to see how his brother's plan played out…

"On the count of three," Virgil forewarned, gripping John's wrist and swinging him out to gather momentum, "One…"

Scott and Kayo skated on, unaware.

"Two…"

Celery settled down to lick her foot, unaware.

"Three!"

"VIRG, WAIT!"

The engineer had barely a second to abort John's launch before Gordon and Alan boldly threw themselves into the redhead's flight path, their arms flailing like the inflatable tube men they'd seen outside a car dealership several weeks ago.

"Gordon, Alan, watch out! High-speed John coming your way!" Virgil screeched, hands flying to his cheeks as his younger brothers careened towards each other in what felt like slow motion.

Several meters away, Scott nearly crashed into one of the rinkside advertising boards. If he hadn't witnessed the spectacle with his own eyes, he would have sworn the sound that followed the collision of brothers three, four and five was that of a bowling strike. A quick post-mortem assessment of the situation showed that Gordon and Alan's intervention had saved him from being the target of John's human torpedo experiment. Unfortunately, he lacked the context to assign gratitude to his blond saviours.

The collision itself was truly something to behold. John crashed into Gordon, the pair falling to the ground in a less than compromising position. Half a second later, Alan tripped over the tangled pile of limbs, his face absorbing ninety percent of the impact as he splattered across the ice.

In his haste to get to the scene of the crime as quickly as possible, Virgil momentarily forgot about the skates on his own feet. For the briefest of seconds it looked as if the engineer was running on the spot, but gravity soon took over and sentenced him to the same fate as his brothers before him.

Scott meanwhile was vacating premises before he could become infected with whatever stupidity had consumed his brothers. He'd have to get Brains to run some tests to see if it was transmissible by air. On that note, maybe a DNA test was in order as well. How could he possibly be associated with such weirdos?

It was with nimble fingers that Scott and Kayo removed their skates, pulled on their shoes and vanished into the crowd of amused onlookers.

"They're getting away!" John howled, whacking fruitlessly at the unidentified torso that was trapping him in place, "Virgil! Do something!"

Unfortunately, the engineer was too busy counting stars to action his redheaded brother's request. Thankfully, Gordon was thinking ahead.

"Celery, pursue!" the aquanaut yelled, stabbing a finger in the direction of his eldest brother's retreating backside before making a promise he could never keep, "Bring uncle Scotty back, and I'll let you roll around in the dirty laundry for a whole week!"

John felt a gag travel up his throat. It was a reluctantly accepted fact in the Tracy house that Celery had a bit of an obsession with hoarding dirty socks. Gordon called it her 'thing', but had been unable to produce a clear-cut answer when Grandma had quizzed him on the final destination of said socks. Alan was of the belief that the little mutt was building a den of sorts. Virgil claimed she ate them. Kayo theorised that she buried them. Scott proposed that she took them to a secret location and used them as a recreational drug of sorts.

Alas, no evidence yet existed that backed up any of aforementioned beliefs.

"Go on, girl!" Gordon cried, flapping the one arm that wasn't squashed underneath Alan's pathetic bulk, "Pursue! Track! Stalk! Fetch!"

Celery glanced up from where she'd been tending to her paw, her head cocked as she processed the myriad of different commands Gordon had issued. She was familiar with 'sit' and 'stay', but had yet to progress onto anything more complex. Confused, she blinked her large doe eyes and began to nibble at the rope restraining her.

"Forget it," Alan moaned, cradling his head as he tried to sit up, "They're long gone, and our tracking dog possesses all the predatory instincts of a lamb in a tutu. I vote we go home, order a pizza, play some video games, and regroup. All this cat and mouse playing is starting to wear thin. Also, do I need to remind you guys that it's two against four, yet we're somehow still managing to lose?"

"Two against five technically. You forgot Celery".

-x-

Back in the safety of the honeymoon cabin, John had discovered (much to his dismay) that he had a bigger problem than being the mouse to Scott's cat.

Ice burn. On his butt.

Apparently, at least according to Virgil, the layers he'd been wearing hadn't provided 'sufficient protection' against the ice he'd been forced to lie on after Gordon and Alan had pancaked on top of him. It had taken ten minutes for the youngest two to move, but thankfully the follow-up med scan Virgil had performed revealed no ill effects from his time spent on the freezing ground.

No ill effects bar a bit of ice burn. And on his butt of all places…

"John, don't be such a ninny," Virgil snapped, planting his hands on his hips in same way they all did when faced with Fischler or Lemaire, "Just let me have a quick look. It's all anatomical and I promise I won't laugh."

"No!" the redhead bleated, tucking his derriere in as if he'd just been poked with a sharp stick, "It's fine, Virg! It just feels a bit numb, that's all."

Virgil sighed and dragged a hand across his face. His own backside was hurting and he wanted nothing more than to soak in a hot bath. As far as he was concerned, brotherly stubbornness was neither needed, nor appreciated, "John, I just want to check there aren't any blisters. Trust me, I speak from experience when I say that's the last place you want one to develop."

The redhead shook his head and adjusted the hot water bottle he was sat on, "I can check for blisters on my own, thank you very much. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to check in with EOS and- hey, wait! What do you think you're doing?! Get off me!"

John's attempts at verbal and physical resistance were met with silence as Virgil expertly tackled his younger brother to the floor and pinned his hands. In one fluid motion, the engineer swiftly and professionally, in his own words, 'exposed the relevant area'.

Scott and Kayo choosing that precise moment to walk through the door was an unnecessary complication.

"Uh, we were, uh…" Scott eyeballed the scene with about as much composure as if he'd just walked in on one of them sat on the toilet, "We were…uh…just popping round to see if you were all okay? Those looked like some pretty gnarly falls. I was hoping we could all sit down and have a chat, but you…uh…seem a bit busy. I'll call back later when you're…uh….less, busy. There's a ski ass- I mean class! Sorry, a ski class that Kayo wants to check out anyway. Catch you later!"

True to his word, Scott departed in a blur of blue, one hand slapped across his eyes as he stormed away from his brother's cabin as fast as was humanly possible without breaking into a sprint.

He may have changed Alan's diapers, but that didn't mean he relished seeing any of his brothers in less clothing than was socially appropriate

'I did NOT just see that. I did NOT just see that…'

Poor John meanwhile, was failing to find any humour or medical significance in the situation whatsoever.

Especially when Virgil raised his hand and brought it down hard on his exposed rump.

"What the-? VIRGIL!" the redhead screamed, writing frantically from his position on the floor, "WHAT THE FRESH HELL ARE YOU DOING?!"

"Did you feel that?" the engineer asked, his professional tone a stark contrast to the howls of laughter Gordon and Alan were emitting.

"Yes, I felt that!" John roared, his turquoise eyes glimmering with unbridled hatred, "And if you dare do it again, I'll beat you to death with a teaspoon!"

"Excellent," Virgil replied, the teaspoon threat flying clean over his head, "You've not lost sensation in the affected area, so the burn hasn't caused any nerve damage. A warm shower and another session on the hot water bottle and you should be good as new."

Over on the sofa, a violent bout of hiccups had consumed the still hysterical Gordon. Alan was frantically mopping at his eyes with his sleeve, an action that seemed futile given the side-splitting laughs that were continuing to wrack his frame.

John felt his adrenalin levels re-spike when he caught sight of Virgil raising his hand again, "Uh, what are you doing?"

"Whaddya say, guys?" the engineer asked, turning towards the frenzied forms of his youngest brothers, "One more for luck?"

Gordon and Alan shared a look of barely concealed disbelief at the good fortune that had befallen them. An opportunity like the one Virgil was offering probably wouldn't come around again this side of the twenty second century.

"Gords? Would you like to do the honours?"

John felt panic engulf him as he tried frantically to redirect his brother's focus, "Virgil, please, no, have some mercy! We need to follow Scott to that ski class thing he mentioned. EOS's most recent body scan showed that the ring is still inside his coat pocket, which means he's carrying incriminating evidence on his person as we speak. We have to act before he changes his outfit! Virgil? Wait, Gordon! Don't you dare! Gordon? I'm warning you! Not another step! Don't you even think about it! Is taking advantage of your vulnerable brother really worth getting your credit rating ruined and all your online passwords leaked?"

Smack.

Yes. Apparently, it was.