Chapter 114.
"Achoo!"
"Ah, ah, ah, AH, ah, ah, AH, ah, ah, A-A-A-ACHOO!"
Kayo grimaced as yet another explosive sneeze echoed around the lounge, closely followed by an uncontrollable coughing fit as the Tracy who'd just ejected half a kilo of snot from his face surrendered to a post-nasal-discharge bout of hacking.
"ACHOO!"
A green eye twitched slightly as Kayo flicked the kettle on for what felt like the hundredth time that day. It went without saying that living with five boys was a minefield. Between food vanishing, empty milk cartons being left in the fridge, and the toilet seat always being left up, there was never a shortage of things for her to bitch about.
Still, despite her many grievances, she knew deep down that the Tracy boys were in fact a well-trained herd, thanks in no small part to the iron fist of their grandmother.
Unfortunately, said training flew out the window whenever a case of man flu was afoot.
The sound of a bell ringing snapped Kayo out of her internal monologue, the shrill 'ding ding ding' grating on her ears as she refilled John's mug of lemon and ginger tea. Resisting the urge to spit in the amber liquid, she strained the teabag and made her way back up the stairs to the lounge.
"Kayo," Gordon croaked, coughing slightly as he cradled the same bell he'd assaulted Parker with (and then fished out of the pool) several months ago, "Could you get me some juice?"
"Oh sure," Shadow's pilot drawled sarcastically, depositing John's tea before snatching the empty glass Gordon had the nerve to wave at her, "I mean, it's not like this is your third refill in an hour, right?"
Gordon's response was to sniff pathetically and burrow back under his blanket. Almost immediately after assuming a horizontal position, the aquanaut was forced to sit upright again when a violent bout of coughing consumed him.
It had been four days since brothers one through five had been discharged from Barlett Regional Hospital in Juneau. Things had looked promising upon their return to Tracy Island, at least initially. Alan and Gordon had gotten over their separation anxiety with Scott and Celery respectively, while Virgil had revelled in no longer having to act as a human bookmark whenever Scott and Kayo were in the same room as each other. As for John, he'd just been happy to see the bread bin again. Bagels never tasted quite as good when you were away from home.
But alas, peace never lasted long on Tracy Island. It was impossible when responsibility for fielding the testosterone fuelled antics of four young men and one teenager was given to a measly chunk of rock in the middle of the Pacific.
Everyone had been quick to blame Gordon simply out of habit, but temperature scans had showed that it was in fact Virgil who'd brought the dreaded lurgy home. Given the engineer's failure to isolate himself in time, Gordon, Scott, and Alan had all fallen victim to the aforementioned lurgy in rapid succession, rendering four sixths of International Rescue's workforce bedbound in a little over twenty one hours.
Ever the germophobe, John had managed to hold out for an extra twelve hours before contracting the infernal bug. Like a lone man on a sinking ship, the redhead had barricaded himself in his room in a defiant act of self-quarantine, loudly proclaiming that he wasn't coming out until his brothers had either died or recovered.
Tragically, things were never as straightforward in reality as they were in John's head. An impromptu trip down to the kitchen in the middle of the night to get something to eat had resulted in him running into Gordon, who'd apparently also decided that one in the morning was an excellent time to go hunting for food. One locally sourced Gordon Tracy sneeze and a contaminated fridge door handle later, and the redhead had been forced to abandon his doomed vessel. Experience had taught him that no matter how fast he metaphorically bailed the water out, new leaks would just pop up to undo whatever progress he'd made.
In this particular instance, the leaks had come in the form of Scott sneezing into a tea towel that John had later dried his hands on, and Alan coughing all over Celery who'd then padded over to the redhead for a pat like some kind of germ taxi.
"ACHOOO!"
Kayo cringed as Gordon succumbed to yet another nasal explosion, the force of the motion causing him to nearly fall clean off the makeshift bed she'd made for him and the others in the lounge-come-sickbay. Of all the rooms in the house, the lounge made the perfect infirmary. It was equidistance between the kitchen and the ground floor bathroom, was well ventilated, and had the added benefit of being far enough away from Kayo's own room that she wouldn't be kept awake all night by raspy coughing and general noise.
The kazoo that was sitting on the floor next to Gordon's bed posed a slight threat to the last point, but it was slightly out of the aquanaut's reach, and Kayo was quite confident that her soggy yuck-bucket of a colleague wouldn't be voluntarily leaving the nest of Celery Crunch Bar wrappers and used tissues he'd accumulated for the sake of 'upgrading' his bell.
Speaking of tissues, it was with a certain amount of serene elegance that one flew into the air above Scott's bed, propelled upwards by the force of the sneeze that had ripped out of the eldest brother's nose.
"Ugggh," Scott moaned dramatically, his face frozen in a grimace brought about by the sinus pressure in his cheekbones and nose, "Kayo, 'du we have any ice in 'duh fridge? My head is killing me."
On the opposing side of the room by Virgil's launch chute, John was curled up like a croissant, inhaling deeply from the peppermint scented mist seeping out of his diffuser. On his right, Virgil was draped across his own folding bed like a corpse, his chest rising and falling spasmodically as he forced air down his throat.
"Ah, ah, ah, ah," Gordon elevated himself into a sitting position and began to flap his hands, panic consuming him as he desperately looked for a surface to sneeze into. After failing to find one in a timely manner, he settled for spraying everyone and everything in a five meter radius, the resultant force of the sneeze knocking him horizontal once again.
"Oh, Gordon!" Scott howled, fanning his arms in a futile attempt to disperse the snot particles his fish brother had released into the world, "Cover your mouth for god's sake!"
"Ah 'dorry," the aquanaut sniffed, blowing his nose on his last remining tissue and shaking the empty box at Kayo, "Can I have some more, please?"
Shadow's pilot snarled and snatched the offending box before lobbing it at the overflowing waste paper basket, silently cursing Sally for having the watertight excuse of yet another rendezvous with a certain Kip Harris to save her from the snot bath Tracy Island was rapidly devolving into.
"Here," Kayo grunted, reaching into the bag of emergency supplies she'd pillaged from Two's medical bay and tossing an unopened packet of tissues at Gordon, "Don't waste any. We're down to our last three."
The aquanaut screwed up his face in discontent as he read the label, "These are single ply. I like two ply."
"Glue them together then," Kayo snapped, stumbling over Celery as the little mutt padded from sick Tracy to sick Tracy, her eyes bright as she sniffed curiously at the ailing males strewn around the room in varying states of consciousness.
"Juice," Gordon reminded, motioning to his throat.
"Ice," Scott added, not even bothering to raise his head from where it was resting on his pillow.
"Tea," John rasped, folding in half as a coughing fit began to shake his lithe frame.
"Hungry," Alan whined, his complexion waxy.
"Painkillers," Virgil finished, his monosyllabic request acting as the cherry on the Tracy cake, "Sinus headache."
Kayo could feel a headache of her own climbing up her skull as she escaped to the sanctity of the kitchen, her blood pressure rising to the point where the brave mosquito that landed on her arm two minutes later nearly exploded.
Slamming cups and plates onto a tray, Shadow's pilot made a mental note to contact Penelope and arrange a cyber security review for the following day. It would give her an excuse to get off the island, plus there was the potential to turn it into a longer affair if she extended the invitation to Rigby. She knew the Captain was attending a seminar at the GDF's Stockholm branch until Friday, which would mean she'd have to stay with Penelope for the next two days until he was available (to save on fuel, of course). Add a day on for the review, plus another day to submit any necessary reports to the GDF, and she'd be away from Tracy Island for the best part of at least four whole days.
"ACHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Cough, cough, choke, cough, cough, choke.
How very tragic.