Chapter 11.
Scott was not amused.
At all.
He'd had his evening planned down to the last minute.
1. Help Alan get ready for his date.
1.1 Make sure Alan doesn't freak out.
2. Recommend suitable date attire to Kayo without making direct eye contact.
2.1 Make sure Alan doesn't freak out.
3. Supervise Thunderbird Two's re-fuelling and adjust the pilot's seat to accommodate Alan's lack of height.
3.1 Make sure Alan doesn't freak out.
4. Ensure Thunderbird Two safely leaves Tracy Island without crashing.
4.1 Make sure Alan doesn't freak out.
5. Monitor Thunderbird Two's progress to Vanuatu.
5.1 Make sure Alan doesn't freak out.
6. Sit down on the sofa after Thunderbird Two touches down and observe Alan's progress with a bowl of popcorn.
Except, there was no popcorn.
More to the point, there was none of his popcorn.
Scott had learnt a long time ago that it was best to just buy his own snacks. Relying on the benevolence of his brothers (namely Gordon) where food was concerned was a big mistake, and one that Scott had made one too many times. Unmarked or unlabelled packets of popcorn, bars of candy, and tubs of ice cream had a habit of vanishing within days of being purchased, quickly followed by cries of, 'I thought it was for everyone!' when the brother(s) responsible were brought to justice.
Writing his name on packets, along with the occasional threat of what he'd do to anyone caught with their hand in said packet appeared to be the most effective method Scott had trialled so far. Even Gordon steered clear of anything that had Scott's name emblazoned across the front of it, which was a true testament to its effectiveness.
It went without saying that Alan's failure to abide by one of Tracy Island's Golden Rules sent Scott into a bit of a tizzy. After also realising that his youngest brother had taken the liberty of stripping the fridge of a week's supply of soda, said tizzy turned into a full on fit.
"Calm down, Scott!" John snapped, swatting his hands at the eldest like he was an overgrown housefly, "We have plenty of food in the cupboards. We'll just have to be a little bit more creative than usual."
Gordon was on his knees in front of the fridge, examining the contents with a tragic expression, "There's nothing in here that doesn't require cooking. What we are going to do for snacks? I can't mock Alan properly on an empty stomach."
John sighed and peered over the aquanaut's shoulder, cataloguing the contents of the ice box. Gordon was right, everything they had left did seem to require some degree of cooking and/or preparation. A task none of them particularly enjoyed and none of them (bar Scott) were particularly good at.
As if on cue, Gordon's stomach gave a loud groan. The aquanaut pouted miserably and twisted to face the still simmering Scott.
"Hey, Scotty," Gordon began, his face playing host to the fakest of fake smiles, "How do you feel about whipping up some dinner for your little bros? I'd do it myself, but I don't even know how to turn the stove on, and I don't think our current insurance policy covers an island-wide fire."
Consumed by grief at the loss of his popcorn, Scott turned a blind eye and ear to Gordon's proposal.
John sighed in irritation. Of all of them, he was the least skilled when it came to anything culinary-related. Considering he spent most of the year up in Thunderbird Five (which didn't exactly have state of the art kitchen facilities), his diet consisted mainly of whatever his brothers could be bothered to send him in their care packages.
Virgil however, had no such excuse. Between the grieving Scott, clumsy Gordon, and downright incompetent John, he was the safest bet.
"Looks like you're on dinner duty, Virg," the redhead commented, shutting the fridge and wandering out onto the patio, "It'll be nice to have something other than the junk we've been living on these last few days."
"Hey!" Gordon piped up defensively, "Ice cream contains calcium and hotdogs contain protein. Throw in an apple pie and that's practically a balanced diet!"
Virgil snickered and shook his head, heaving himself to his feet, "John's right, Gordo. With no rescues coming through, we've been binging way too much these last couple of days. We'll get out of shape if we don't smarten our palates up a bit."
Ignoring Gordon's harrumph of disagreement, Virgil re-opened the fridge, bracing one hand against the door as he leant down to examine the contents, "Man, there's some weird stuff in here. Who on earth does this tofu belong to?"
John shrugged, 'Probably Grandma. You know what she's like when things are on sale."
Virgil wrinkled his nose in distaste and eyeballed a plate of leftover chicken, "How about I just reheat this chicken and throw together a salad? Everyone cool with that?"
Grunts of approval were offered by Scott and John, closely followed by Gordon asking how long the entire process would take.
Virgil tilted his head and grabbed a bag of lettuce, "Probably no longer than forty minutes tops. Don't worry Gordo, you'll soon have a happy tummy."
As the second Tracy set about slicing and dicing, over in Vanuatu, things were anything but happy.
-x-
Alan couldn't believe his luck.
He was sat on a romantic beach staring at a romantic sunset with a romantic bowl of popcorn while touching shoulders with a girl he was romantically attracted to.
It was so romantic.
Unfortunately, the cart that was rattling across the screen carrying the body of a dead horse wasn't quite so lovey-dovey.
Things had started to go downhill after the first half hour or so, when every movie predictably plunged its audience into the depths of despair, fear, or suspense. For Alan, it was definitely despair.
Kayo jolted when the youngest let out a particularly loud sniff, her eyes widening to the size of Gordon's very ego when she realised the state her 'date' was in.
Alan's face was soaked in tears, his blue eyes scrunched up in sadness as scenes of Victorian London played out across the screen, laying bare the appalling conditions its broken cab horses were forced to work in. When the accompanying music hit a particularly tragic note, a rather undignified sob escaped from his mouth.
"It's only a movie, Alan," Kayo began awkwardly, "We can switch to something else if this is upsetting you?"
Alan straightened and dragged a sleeve under his nose, "N-No, I'm fine. I wanna see what happens to B-Beauty."
An inward sigh was the only response Kayo could muster. Clearly, the movie was triggering emotional issues in Alan that he needed to address.
"Oh no!" the youngest gasped, more tears spilling down his cheeks as he realised that the dead horse being towed away was none other than the deuteragonist, "G-Ginger! Not G-Ginger!"
Kayo winced as Alan descended into something akin to a meltdown, his sobs and sniffs drowning out the movie's dialogue. She loved animals as much as the next person and was quite content to admit that horses were one of her few emotional weaknesses. The movie they were watching definitely had an aura of tragedy to it, and she'd found her own eyes misting up a couple of times, but hadn't expected Alan to react so…violently.
Hormones aside, had he not bothered to read up about the plot before he'd selected it?
A loud hiccup made itself known
Apparently not.
Alan himself was astounded at how well Kayo was managing to hold herself together. He was acutely aware that he'd worked his way through three packets of tissues since things had started to go south for their horsey hero. His ego may have been reduced to the point of redundancy, but the urge to bawl on behalf of the brave black horse on the screen was enough to override his fear of having his man card revoked.
Kayo could tell from the pace of the story that they were probably two thirds of the way through. Considering she was stuck on a deserted beach in a foreign country with only one way of getting home, she resigned herself to her fate and wrapped a comforting arm around Alan's shaking form.
"You can cry on my shoulder if you like," Kayo offered, cringing slightly when Alan immediately took her up on her offer.
Being bad at dating was obviously encoded in the Tracy DNA.
-x-
Meanwhile, two thousand miles away, the other bearers of the Tracy DNA had their own problem.
"It smells funny," Gordon critiqued, squinting in disapproval at the plate of food Virgil had handed him.
John, who was gingerly accepting his own plate, had to admit that his brother had a point. He couldn't put his finger on it, but something about the aroma Virgil's meal was emanating was definitely…off.
"Don't be so ungrateful," Scott snapped, throwing Virgil a smile of appreciation as his own plate materialised, "Thanks, Virg. It's nice having someone else cook for a change."
"Don't mention it," Virgil smiled, ignoring the way Gordon and John were eyeballing their chicken, "Hardly any trouble at all."
Ignoring his own silent reservations over the very un-chicken like smell wafting up from his plate, Scott loyally shovelled a forkful into his mouth, resisting the urge to gag when an acrid taste assaulted his throat a few seconds later.
"It doesn't bite, you know," Virgil sniped as John started scrutinising the piece of chicken speared on his fork like a scientist examining a petri dish.
"Good, because I'm not planning on biting it either," the redhead retorted, wincing when Gordon took a tentative nibble of his own poultry slab.
"Don't be a brat," Scott choked, forcing himself to swallow, "It tastes fine. A little on the dry side, but it has already been cooked once."
Swayed by his three munching brothers, John capitulated and warily raised his fork to his mouth. He was prudish and very risk-averse, but not immune to peer pressure.
The redhead regretted his herd mentality almost immediately, bile rising in his throat as his jaws clamped down on whatever the hell it was Virgil had created. The years of autogenic feedback training he'd endured to help tackle the motion sickness that came with working in space were rapidly called to the forefront of his mind as he willed himself to chew.
Gordon possessed no such etiquette and promptly spat out the mouthful he was working through back onto his plate, dragging his tongue along a napkin in an effort to rid his mouth of the infernal taste.
"Holy halibut, Virg! What did you do to that poor bird? It tastes like a donkey's armpit!" the aquanaut hissed, chugging on his glass of water in a futile attempt to wash the aftertaste away.
Virgil frowned in confusion as his own taste buds were assaulted by the same flavour that seemed to be waging war on his brothers.
"Does anyone know how long it was sat in the fridge for?" Scott asked as he put his plate down and headed towards the kitchen.
"No clue," Gordon replied, poking the offending piece of meat with his fork, "I've been home nearly a whole week and I haven't seen Brains, Kayo, or Grandma cook anything involving chicken."
Scott frowned as he returned with a carton of orange juice, "That just leaves Alan, and he barely knows how to operate the microwave."
John motioned desperately for the orange juice Scott was using to clean out his mouth. Not bothering to even wipe the cap to remove his brother's germs, the redhead seized the carton the second Scott had finished and took several large gulps, the oily taste of the reheated chicken clinging to the back of his throat.
"I think I need to go and brush my teeth again," Virgil announced, disowning his culinary creation with a wrinkle of his nose, "I don't know what the hell we just ate, but I'm certainly not hungry anymore."
"Me neither!" Gordon added with a grimace, earning himself three wide eyed stares from his big brothers.
Food that failed to get even Gordon's stamp of approval was a whole other kind of bad.
-x-
Alan's own evening wasn't destined to get any better.
As if his sobbing fit and Kayo offering him her shoulder to cry on hadn't been bad enough (he was fairly certain it was supposed to be the other way around), he'd been hit by an entirely new breed of problem approximately ten minutes before the movie's ending.
Or rather, his butt had.
The youngest Tracy's overloaded senses had detected a light tickling sensation on the back of his thighs not long after Kayo had reversed the traditional ritual of the guy being the one to put his arm around the girl during a movie date. In his embarrassment, he'd denied himself the right to investigate said tickling sensation and remained firmly rooted in place.
His discomfort had grown to the point of being difficult to mask a short while later, and he'd shifted slightly closer to Kayo in the hope of getting some temporary relief. Unfortunately, Shadow's pilot had misinterpreted his signal and tightened her hold on him, thus preventing him from taking further evasive action.
"I didn't know you were a cuddler," Kayo cooed, "You really are just the cutest, aren't you?"
Alan didn't have the spare brain power to process Kayo's rather condescending compliment, the entirety of his being focussed on getting away from whatever the hell was continuing its treacherously ticklish journey northward from his thighs.
Kayo seemed to take his silence as a sign of self-consciousness, which served to only endear him to her further, "You're the most adorable munchkin, Alan. I know this date means a lot to you, and I know you're probably feeling a bit silly about crying, but I want you to know that I'm actually having a really lovely time."
Alan's eyes began to water from the irritation, his teeth grinding together as his willpower began to crack.
"I know there's a bit of an age gap between us," Kayo continued, oblivious to Alan's predicament, "But maybe we could re-visit this kind of thing in two or three years-"
Kayo's suggestion was cut off by Alan letting out a squeal that defied the laws of physics. Elbowing his date in the face in his haste to stand up, the youngest started desperately swiping at the seat of his jeans and spinning on the spot, hopelessly trying to catch a glimpse of whatever was torturing him.
His first reaction was to blame Gordon, however the aquanaut had all the patience of a terrier and usually couldn't wait longer than a few minutes before activating a pre-laid prank. The movie had been over an hour and a half long, plus the credits. There was no way Gordon would have waited that long to strike.
Discomfort completely overtaking logical thinking, Alan began to run in circles around Thunderbird Two, continuing his fruitless swiping attempts as whatever was inside his jeans continued its ruthless assault.
Concerned by Alan's almost feral behaviour, Kayo scrambled to her feet to give chase. She was just about to launch into a sprint when a small movement caught her eye. Ignoring Alan's shrieks as he continued to hurtle around Thunderbird Two's telescopic legs, she leant down to inspect the patch of sand he'd previously been sat on.
There could be no mistaking the mound of fluffy dirt and visibly irked insects scurrying about its base.
"Fire ants," Kayo muttered, cringing in sympathy when Alan's screams escalated in volume. After stamping on the nest several times in revenge, Shadow's pilot took off after the bolting Tracy, quickly realising that he was much faster than he looked.
"Alan!" Kayo called, skidding around the pod module with as much grace as the sand underfoot would permit, "Take off your pants!"
Through the haze of discomfort that had now transitioned into sheer pain, Alan managed to throw a horrified glance over his shoulder, "What?!"
Kayo growled in irritation as she darted beneath Two's cockpit in an attempt to cut him off, "You've sat on a nest of fire ants. Most of them will be anchoring themselves to the inside of your jeans. You need to take them off."
Alan's pride was non-existent. His ego was in tatters, his confidence at death's door, and he was fairly certain his Man Card application had just been rejected…
…but he still had two ounces of dignity left, and taking his pants off in front of Kayo would rob him of even that.
No, he'd have to improvise.
Desperation quashing any preoccupation he had with looking cool, Alan threw caution to the wind with an imaginary salute and tore off in the direction of the sea, launching himself into an oncoming wave as it clawed its way towards the shore.
Kayo paused to catch her breath, shaking her head in disbelief when Alan dramatically surfaced a few seconds later. The lack of noise leaving his mouth indicated that the water had at least brought him some much-needed relief.
Of course, there was now the job of having to explain his blistered backside to Scott when they got home.
-x-
Despite the obvious agony Alan was in, he insisted on piloting Thunderbird Two back home. Kayo didn't resist, knowing full well that the ego of an injured man (even a teenage one) was a delicate entity that required appropriate respect.
All in all, Alan did a commendable job of guiding the great green behemoth home, even if he did have to stand to pilot.
Kayo was shocked to discover the lounge empty when she and Alan eventually made their way up from the hanger. Where she'd expected to find four bodies with grinning faces attached, there was nothing but empty sofas and some discarded glasses of water.
"Do you want me to take a look at the bites, or would you rather ask one of your brothers?" Kayo offered tactfully, aware that she was edging into 'guy' territory.
Alan winced in a mixture of pain and embarrassment, "Uh, it's fine. I'll maybe ask Scott or Grandma to have a look later. Thank you for the ice pack though, it's helping a lot."
"Glad to be of service," Kayo replied with a smile, "Thank you for a lovely evening, Alan. Everything you did was so thoughtful. I reckon you've got a very bright future ahead of you in the dating department."
Alan flushed crimson as Kayo pecked him on the cheek before gliding off upstairs, a playful wink travelling over her shoulder as she strolled out of sight.
The youngest Tracy levitated in sheer joy for what felt like hours, only to return to earth with a bump when a pungent smell assaulted his nose.
"Ew! What have you guys been eating?" Alan muttered, grimacing as he set off in search of his missing brothers. Considering it was only just gone ten o'clock, he'd expected all of them to be up and waiting for him. The tracking software on his comm gauntlet showed that none of them had been deployed while he'd been out, meaning that they had to be on the island somewhere.
Alan's previous elation at being the only one who Kayo had actually kissed thus far (even if it had only been on the cheek) diminished slightly when a quick search of the kitchen and the gym revealed none of his brothers.
"Guess I'll have to brag over breakfast," Alan mumbled as he started towards the stairs, wincing when his butt screamed in protest. Thoughts of grabbing an extra packet of ice out of the freezer were halted when he detected a strange sound coming from the direction of the ground floor bathroom. Aware that he was very much alone, the youngest cautiously edged his way down the hall, his mind instinctively calculating the nearest escape route.
A crack of light from underneath the door showed that someone was inside, bringing Alan a smidgen of relief. The detective in him very much doubted that an intruder's first port of call would be the shampoo cabinet.
The strange sounds that had first alerted him gradually morphed into audible groans of discomfort, interspersed with the occasional retch. Putting the embarrassment over his own 'condition' on temporary hold, Alan pushed open the door and was treated to a sight that topped off his evening in the worst way possible.
Four heads, ranging from dark brown to blond, were hunched together over the toilet, their owners whining with nausea. Alan grimaced when Gordon abruptly headbutted Virgil out of the way to gain unrestricted access to the toilet bowl.
Scott's eyes managed to climb off his retching brother just long enough to catch sight of Alan standing in the doorway, "How did it go?"
Alan said nothing, opting instead to take a step back when John tried and failed to stifle a loud burp.
"You look happy," Gordon mumbled, leaning against Virgil's shoulder as his wiped a hand across his sweaty brow, "Must've gone well."
Alan's hand instinctively went to his butt when one of his many bites started to itch, but he was saved from having to explain by a timely hiccup on John's part, "Uh, yeah, it went okay I guess. Hey, are you guys alright? You look awful."
Virgil looked as if he was about to reply, but changed his mind and decided to shove his head into the toilet instead. Alan cringed in disgust, aghast at how the other three barely blinked.
"Dinner," Gordon hoarsely whispered, shuddering when the word left his mouth. On cue, Scott and John both gagged.
"Out of date," Virgil elaborated, surfacing to make room for a heaving Scott, "Think we've all got food poisoning."
Alan's heart dropped into his shoes at the thought of all four of his brothers being out of action. Sure, he had Grandma, Kayo, and Brains to help him, but the prospect of playing nanny to anyone who was violently ill didn't exactly fill him with excitement.
"I'll go and sign you all off for the next few days," Alan hastily offered, desperate for an excuse to leave, "There's no way any of you can deploy in this state. You look like a bunch of hungover chickens."
"Chicken!" Gordon wailed, slamming his hands over his ears, "Don't mention chicken!"
"Thanks, Alan," Scott slurred, resting his head on John's quaking shoulder, "Just a bit sick. We'll be better in the morning."
Alan didn't believe his brother for one second, exiting the bathroom with a muttered threat about moving to Mars.
"Think he got lucky?" John asked, pushing his sweaty fringe out of his eyes.
"Dunno, maybe," Virgil replied, bracing himself against the cistern.
Scott dragged a hand across his face and closed his eyes, "He's not in a mood, so it can't have gone badly."
"Guys," Gordon moaned, tensing as another wave of sickness began to travel up his diaphragm, "Do any of us really care?"
A burp breaking free from Virgil was enough to re-start both Scott and John's nausea, their heads bashing together as they fought for use of the toilet.
"I'm guessing that's a no."