Alan had learned, since the tiny clothes incident, that ambiguous nondescript boxes were nothing but trouble.

So when an ambiguous nondescript box appeared in the lounge one day after their latest supply run, Alan took great care to skirt around it with a large perimeter.

Yeah, he wasn't going to touch that box with a ten-foot pole.

Chances were it was going to have something to remind him of his stuck-in-a-younger-version-of-himself situation, and yeah. Just the ordeal of having to put on tiny clothes was enough of a reminder (seeing his round toddler-like face in the mirror each morning was almost enough to send him into a self-wallowing monologue… almost).

Alan was making do on his own very nicely, thank you very much. So whatever it was that was in that dreaded ambiguous nondescript box could very much stay in its dreaded ambiguous nondescript box.

Alan gathered up his shoes (that shouldn't fit but do, and, again, he's trying not to think too much about it) and made his way to the kitchen. He had much better plans than a plain box, anyway.

See, everyone was supposed to be training today. Which meant that everyone was going to be downstairs in the training section of the hanger, not unlike the one they have at the ranch. Which meant that the Villa was going to be empty. This meant that Alan had the rare opportunity to do whatever he pleased without someone's (his brothers') watchful eye.

Now, Alan could go down to the training gym and watch his brothers plus Kayo run a variety of difficult simulations, do cool team maneuvers, and test out Brains' latest gear. However, he wasn't going to actually participate in any training, since he wasn't on active duty (and far too small and squishy for most of the drills, but, again, trying not to think about that). So why waste this golden opportunity?

Alan was going to go outside.

He was going to run through the jungle. He was going to run and jump and shout and breathe in the fresh tropical air.

Alan could see the trees rustle through the window as a tropical breeze blew through them. Once he was outside he'd be able to hear them too, and the birds, and feel the warm sun on his skin.

He smiled and picked up his pace a little. He bunny-hoped down the stairs one step at a time, shoes firmly in hand. It was going to be such a fun time. Maybe he'd go look at the tide pools too, and see if he could find a starfish.

The moment his feet slapped down onto the cold kitchen concrete, arms wrapped around his midriff and lifted him up. For a moment his feet swung through the air before he was turned around and placed back on the ground.

A small whine escaped his throat. He'd nearly made it too.

"And where do you think you're going?" John said as he came to stand in front of his youngest brother.

Alan glared up at him. "Aren't you supposed to be training?"

Had he timed his departure wrong? He wasn't sloppy like Gordon. He thought everyone was already down in the hangers.

Clearly, he was wrong.

"Well, I was on my way to meet the others when EOS alerted me. She said you picked up your shoes."

Alan's eyes widened slightly and disappointment pressed on his stomach.

Of course. It was never going to be easy. He should have known! Now it made perfect sense why everyone seemed to be so ok leaving him alone for most of the day. EOS was babysitting him... and she had tattled on him too.

Alan crossed his arms and turned his glare to the ceiling, "Snitch."

"Alan." John crouched down to his level. "You know the rules."

Alan puffed out his cheeks.

"I know you're frustrated and acting out because you can't do training." John continued, "But that doesn't mean you can break rules set for your safety."

"I was being safe," Alan mumbled under his breath. He was! He'd practically grown up on the island! He knew what to expect. His brothers were just ridiculously overprotective.

Then they got to go have fun while leaving him all on his own.

"…What was that?" John leaned forward slightly.

"I was being safe!" Alan shouted back. "It's not fair you guys get to do cool training and I have to stay behind!"

John looked him in the eyes. Beat after beat of silence passed between them. Alan stiffened up. His shoulders hiking up ever so slightly. He hardly ever raised his voice at John. Scott, sure, but never John.

Alan broke eye contact first by snapping his gaze to the floor.

"I know," John said calmly. He brought a hand up to rest on Alan's head and ruffle his hair. "I have no doubt in my mind that you're capable of looking after yourself, but circumstances are different now. We're just playing it safe. You could always come to watch us with Dad and Grandma."

Bitterness churned with the disappointment in Alan's stomach. Stupid circumstances.

"Hey," John ducked his head to meet Alan's eyes, "Did you look in the box yet?"

"...No."

"You should look in it. It's for you."

"I don't want it."

John gave a soft sigh and let his head hang for a brief moment. Then he stood, his hand leaving Alan's head. He gestured dismissively toward the lounge, "Well, I think you'll find there are a lot of interesting things in that box. So instead of focusing on what you can't do, maybe you could try something new."

Alan hesitated. That box was no good. He just knew it.

"You don't have to look in it today. You can wait till you're ready-" John was cut off by a sharp beep. He quickly glanced at his watch. "Ah- I have to go. Ok, Sprout, don't do anything dangerous."

And with that John jogged off to the hangers.

Just to see what would happen, Alan took a few cautious steps toward the outside.

"I wouldn't advise that course of action." EOS' voice rang through the room. Right. His babysitter.

Defeated, Alan headed to the lounge and sat in the seat furthest from the dreaded ambiguous nondescript box.

After two pre-recorded episodes of the Bear's Extreme Livestreams, Alan slumped down in his seat. He was bored. Being alone was boring, boring, boring! He needed to do something and the dreaded ambiguous nondescript box was like an elephant in the room. It just sat there.

What could possibly be inside?

So he got up and threw a blanket over it.

Three episodes later of Into the Unknown with Buddy and Ellie (not that Alan would ever admit to Gordon that some of the episodes weren't that bad) and the blanket was not enough to hide the box.

Maybe he should go to a different room. He could go down into the hangers and see how training was going on. Considering he hadn't heard any explosions yet, it was probably going fairly well.

Then again… it would be rude not to look, right? In the box, he means.

Alan slowly made his way over to the dreaded ambiguous nondescript box. He slipped the blanket off of it. His small fingers gently lifted the cardboard flap.

And…

Toys. Lots of toys.

Little gadgets meant for children to play with.

It was almost comical how obvious which toys came from who.

A teen coloring book, washable non-toxic markers, and colored pencils from Virgil. A series of model air-fighter planes from Scott. A bath-toy version of Thunderbird Four from Gordon. From John, a series of puzzles. Which included but was not limited to picture puzzles, puzzle blocks, and a very strange wooden box that had no clear opening but did have a series of buttons, switches, and flips on most sides.

"That one has a prize in it."

Alan yelped and fumbled the wooden box in his hands. John stood over his shoulder, slightly out of breath and with a light sheen of sweat on him. Training must be rough. "... A prize?"

"Yup. Do you like them?" John nodded his head in the direction of the box.

Alan's eyes widened slightly, "No!" He shoved the wooden box back into the box along with all the other toys and closed it up. He felt his face heating up. He couldn't be seen with toys. He wasn't a child.

"Oh?" John raised one eyebrow slightly, "You don't?"

Alan puffed his chest up. "No," he said slightly firmer before stalking out of the lounge to his room. Seriously, who did his brothers think they were, buying toys like that?

The next day, when Alan came down to the lounge, the box was still in the same place but now there was an incomplete puzzle spread over the coffee table.

He looked at it for all of five seconds before turning around. Alan knew what his brothers were up to. It was going to take more than an inviting puzzle to get him to play with some toys.

After lunch, the puzzle was still on the table, but John was now hovering over it with a very concentrated expression. Alan was slightly surprised. Usually, John put together puzzles like this in his sleep.

With great apprehension, Alan padded over to the coffee table. Almost immediately he could recognize where one of the pieces should be placed.

Well… he couldn't just leave it unplaced now that he noticed it. Though, he was sure that John had noticed it too. He must have… right?

Still, Alan picked up the piece and slowly clicked it into place.

Startled, John looked up in surprise. "Thanks," he said with a soft smile.

Alan nodded in acknowledgment. This puzzle wasn't too hard. He could see another piece already.

So he sat down and started placing pieces. John placed a couple of pieces too. Neither of them even looked at the picture guide. Alan thought it felt like more of a challenge without the guide. Before he knew it he was placing the last piece into a complete puzzle.

Alan blinked. They had solved it.

"Hey," John exclaimed, "we did it!"

Alan nodded.

John reached over and ruffled his hair with a soft chuckle. "Thanks for the help Sprout," he said. "I was really stumped there."

John had a contagious smile. Before Alan could even think he was smiling under his brother's praise.

"Let's do another one!" Alan found himself saying. He got up, went to the box, and pulled out the first puzzle he found. When he returned, John had already put away the previous one.

The carpet brushed softly against his knees as he sat down. Alan ripped the box open and spilled the puzzle pieces onto the coffee table. He could see John calculating gaze start to work immediately. Alan was reminded of when he had actually been younger and he and John would spend those cold winter evenings putting together 1000-piece puzzles.

Alan cautiously glanced back at the dreaded box. He'd just willingly gone up to it a moment ago. He didn't know how to feel about that.

Then a puzzle piece hit him square in the back of the head. Alan turned to glare at his brother.

"Come on, Sprout," John smirked, "get too distracted and I'll place more pieces than you."

Alan scoffed and threw the offending piece back. "Yeah, right," he said. "You've got an old person's brain. I could beat you in my sleep."

"Yeah? Bring it."

And so the competition began. John was good, though. He recognized patterns much faster than Alan could. So Alan had to get creative. Carefully, when he thought John wasn't looking, he took a piece off the table and hid it under the table.

Alan watched carefully for John's reaction but there was no change in facial expression. So he let a few more minutes pass, worked on his own section, then decided it was time to move again.

This time John's eyebrow raised when Alan lowered the piece to the floor, but he didn't say anything. On the third time, John's eyes locked with his.

"Are you," John said slowly, "hiding pieces?"

Alan cursed himself as he felt a smile creep onto his face. "No."

John stood, rounded the table, knelt, and looked for himself. "Did you lie to me?" he said in an incredulous voice.

A laugh escaped Alan's lips. He clapped his hands over his mouth and shook his head.

John mocked an exaggerated shocked expression. "Well, you know the punishment for lying little brothers don't you?" He reached behind him for something on the couch.

Alan shook his head again only to be met with a face full of pillow.

He extracted the pillow from his face and wound up with the intent to smack John with it. But John had scooted closer and left him completely unprepared for the arm that snaked around his chest and pinned his back to his brother.

He was even further unprepared for the feather-light fingers that danced across his stomach causing him to shriek before dissolving into laughter. He kicked and squirmed against his brother. The giggles kept coming, leaving him breathless.

The moment Alan could stutter out 'stop' John released his hold, letting Alan catch his breath.

"So m-mean," he said between pants.

John threw back his head and laughed. When John looked back at Alan, it seemed he had some retort on his lips but then his watch beeped and his smile disappeared faster than a shooting star.

"I have to go," he said as he stood. "We'll finish later, and no cheating next time!"

John jogged out of the room and Alan was, once again, left to his own devices. However, Alan knew now that being alone didn't mean he was truly alone. So he stretched out on the floor and waited, tracing patterns on the ceiling with his eyes.

"It was John's idea," EOS' child-like voice rang through the room and her hologram flickered above the center console.

"That much I figured out," Alan picked at a puzzle piece still on the floor. This whole toy thing seemed to come out of nowhere. "What I don't get is why."

"He said you were bored." She replied. "He noticed your reckless tendencies and brought them up to the others. They thought you needed more… enriching activities."

Well… they weren't wrong. Being essentially confined to the space of the Villa was difficult. Alan used to travel the world and rescue others! He could go anywhere, do anything, but now his options were limited to the confines of the island.

"I, however, do not understand." EOS continued. "You have done many reckless activities in the past, and they did not react this way. Is it because of your weakened state?"

Alan bolted upright. "Hey!" He turned to the hologram. "I'm not weak or reckless! Everything I do has calculated risk."

There was a long pause. "According to my calculations and past data searches…"

Alan internally groaned and dropped his head into his hands as EOS continued to pull a variety of numbers and data that corresponded to his unusual shrunken state. Apparently, the AI had been very interested in the phenomenon that was currently plaguing him and she had done a lot of research behind John's back. He walked right into that one.

Somewhere in the middle of EOS' monologue of numbers, Alan returned to the box, picked up the strange wooden puzzle box again, and examined it closer. It had a concoction of buttons, switches, and dials on all sides but he could also clearly see lines etched into it where it should open. But one firm tug confirmed his suspicions that it was locked shut.

So Alan did what he does best. He started to fiddle with it. A turn here, twist there, he even put the box up to his ear so he could hear its internal gears twist and click. All those times spent with Parker were starting to pay off.

There was a very distinct click when Alan pressed the button on the left side and turned the dial three times. Huh. Something must have unlocked. So he kept fidgeting with it. He turned it over and over, flipped it, and tried to get all sorts of new angles. This was a much more challenging puzzle.

Alan wasn't even sure if EOS was talking anymore by the time he heard the second click. All good things come in threes, so he assumed he was nearly there.

The wooden box felt smooth in his hands. It moved and gave soft clicks in a smooth satisfying manner. Alan furrowed his brow and stuck his tongue out.

"Come on," he muttered. There had to be a sweet spot to this thing. He turned it over and over in his hands. Maybe there was something he was missing.

He closely examined the wood on the rightmost face of the box. He studied it closely. It was the only side that didn't have any sort of buttons or inscriptions. It was completely smooth.

Then he saw it. The wood grains didn't line up. If he could nudge it to get them to line up… But there wasn't space to nudge the box unless he…

Then, there was a very satisfying click, one that Alan could feel deep within the box. Slowly and gently he pulled it apart at the seam. Components of the box came out and eventually a small chamber was revealed in the center.

It held a piece of chocolate.


I think out of all the brothers, for me, John is the hardest to write. But I really wanted to get an Alan and John chapter out. I hope it wasn't too bad and was enjoyable to read!

Stay tuned for the next chapter!